atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information The Shift to Data has already occurred.....

Right there is your problem.

-Hal

The only business' that I can think of that dont even have 1 computer to do accounting or ordering or shipping are places that aren't really business'.

Like a residence.

Now the number of places that dont have a LAN of any kind i'll bite on being pretty small.

All of the retail stores I worked in had at least one computer, but no LAN in any case. The drugstore had a prescription computer, a UPS computer, and an ordering computer, all using dialup modems. The hardware store had two Point of sale computers using dial up lines, and a PC with DSL. The current hardware store I work at has just one PC in the office.

There are plenty of fairly large businesses in my area, but % wise, not that many.

That being said, all of my work is for small to medium size, with the vast majority being small business.

Sure, most of them have computers for one thing or another, and plenty have lans as well. Them changing over to IP is not going to be an option in the near future. I will no doubt be looking into a Nortel BCM in the future just to see what it can do and if I can do it. Maybe hook up with another tech while he's installing one to "watch & learn".

We may have to look into the future, but I have no intention of forgetting my past.

Dave

Yeah, living in the big city has its advantages and disadvantages. Lots of business, but the competition level is pretty fierce. Have to keep up with the latest and greatest to survive.

I like the old days of knowing everyone and people appreciating service.

It can often just turn into a price war now, and that's not so much fun.

hey Guru, living in Ft Worth, ya'll got Tandy. The helped during the first attack on phone guy income.

My issue is not whether or not we eventually migrate to VoIP, but the method it is being accomplished.

Computer Geeks are making telecom recommendations based on what they know about data comm. OK, so, a resent packet is acceptable (for data). Too bad the resent voice packet was out of place and all you got was garbled mumbling.

QoS, SECURITY, down-time, and a few other issues are going to need to improve before I would even begin recommending VoIP.

Point-To-Point between enterprise switches, cool!
Home use for folks that use their cell phone more than the home phone, cool!
Business class communications like the past 6 generations of Americans have been accustomed to, not so cool!
Upgrading software everytime a bug is uncovered, not cool at all!


Bring up the quality, stabilize the product offerings, yeah, I will jump on the IP is great bandwagon.

Until it is great, keep outta my backyard!

I see Asterisk as the best thing to hit telephony since the rotary dial! Instead of buying extremely overpriced proprietary hardware, you can get more standardized phones and equipment, and customize to your heart's content. Our office uses T1 comming in as Hdsl2 to our smart jack, then to Asterisk through the TDM card, then out to the Grandstream phones in the office, then IAX to my home and the old 1A2 key system. For us VOIP is a blessing, and has saved me so much money because some employees can work from home when getting sick or stuck at home for other reasons. The T1 service saves us money versus the 6 analog lines we had. Yes we have had some problems but I appreciate being able to learn more about our phone system and being able to make changes myself.

On the other hand one of our suppliers switched to a "hosted" pbx system. This was a disaster as call quality was low, and when the network goes down so does the phones. With us we have two analog backup lines and an analog fax line just in case, they has no redundancy. VOIP is the best thing to hit telephony in my opinion, but when its limits are not considered things end up badly. Our supplier switched from hosted PBX to TDM and have not looked back.

I still enjoy hearing my phones RING with real bells, and being able to do business in my 50's style home office, thanks to VOIP. Now if I can replace my ATA boxes with a channel bank so I can dial with the rotary phones....

My issue is not whether or not we eventually migrate to VoIP, but the method it is being accomplished.

Towards that point, a few days ago we had someone ask the Avaya forum how to have their IPO AA pick up on the 6th ring rather than what it was doing. The answer was to write about a half page of code. Of course that requires loading it and rebooting.

With the Partner system that same change is only about 6 steps using the buttons on a phone and the change is immediate with no down time.

The only reason for this that I can see is that the VoIP designers don't know any better- "Computer Geeks are making telecom recommendations based on what they know about data comm."

There is no reason an IP phone system has to look like a router and can't be programmed as easily as TDM systems.

-Hal

The mostly rural area where I live has a lot of small "mom & pop" places which have been slow to computerize.

One of my regular customers runs a service business, and up to five years ago was still doing everything when pen and paper, from scribbling bookings on a notepad, to writing up completed jobs in a daybook, to weekly totaling of amounts for apportioning payments to staff. The latter was, as I understand it, taking several hours one evening each week.

Gradually, I've extended the custom software I wrote for them to the point that it now handles everything from the basic bookings right through to weekly reports and monthly invoicing for account customers. (All running under DOS4.01, by the way!)

I set up a remote system so that the owner can operate from home some evenings, tranferring data over a simple dialup connection and then having calls forwarded.

Since then, both locations have been equipped with DSL, and the boss has become a little more computer-savvy (I think she's been reading too much about Skype), so I'm hearing suggestions about providing a VoIP voice link to provide call-forwarding and a no-charge method of dealing with office-to-home queries during the day (local calls, including call-forwarding are all chargeable here).

I could certainly set it up, and arrange for the data transfer to go over the DSL as well, but I would have reservations about switching from a solid, dependable system to this, especially given that the cost of those forwarded calls is probably only a couple of pounds a night at most.

As it stands, the only thing the system is dependent upon is having power at both ends and POTS service. Even during a recent outage when our remote unit was completely cut-off from its parent C.O. we discovered that the office and owner's home happened to be on the same line concentrator, so could still call each other. DSL was out for over 10 hours until the link was restored, of course.

Just finished up training for voip and it is the future. Not like what the IT people want it to be but a solution that will combine digital with IP. To have nothing but IP phones through out the office would be cost foolish. The best place for VOIP is to network locations together that once had point to point. Programing always depend on equipment you purchase most don't need a page of code and then a reboot. We also are in a small market and have already install VOIP solutions.