atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Why NOT to buy an IP system

We have become the IT guy for 70% of our customers. This was not by choice, it just happened. Most of the guys that hang out a IT shingle wouldn't know how to forward a port to save their life. They own no network testing equipment, and think running a blue wire down the wall in a new office building is ok. Regarding Voip, It has it's place, but most small business with a single location have no reason for it.

Agreed! :thumb:

I see VOIP as perfect for the proverbial 'teleworker'. Esp the 'distributed' order taking system.

When you ask a question like that, you sound like I me a few years back

You and all those that are "anti ip" need to get with the program or you will be be out of business in a few years.

I will explain in the "private section"

Walter

Most of the IP systems I've installed have not gone down in quite some time. However, the customers do have massive ups's and failover generators. But these are the few large customers I've dealt with. Most small and midsize customers do have some ups hooked up ahead of the switch, so phones stay up for at least 15 minutes. Most power outages here don't last but a few minutes...accept during hurricanes, and that case, no one is around, lol.

Been working with IP since 1996 when Tadiran used Cisco switches to use QSIG over IP. Still have not been sold as IP being superior for internal dial tone. For outside networking and teleworkers it's great. Personally I like the hybrid...best of both worlds.

If we had a * Like * button I would use it here....LOL.

Let me tell you about the "cutting edge" VOIP phone system where I work (a community college). They had an old analog switched, connect to POTS lines phone system. The phone room was very tidy, but jammed with literally hundreds of pairs coming into the plant. The desk phones cost about $80.00 to replace, but never needed replacing unless the user threw them against the wall (it happened several times). The individual lines went from the switch to the distant closets over old 1A2 25 pair cable, and the remaining 'dead' 25 pair cable had been removed.

On the other hand, the IP system was (and is) a disaster. The IP closets are a rats nest. There are boxes sitting on boxes on the floor, and everything over heats and shuts down. E-mail and internet access is horrible.

Then, along comes a VOIP salesman. Oh, this will save you MILLIONS! Yes, and cost us millions. The desk units cost hunedreds of dollars and routinely break. The service is horrible. Reliability stinks. Calls drop, and often are garbled.

This is exactly what happened when they went from a centrally managed, analog security system and went to an IP system. Doors open at 2 AM and let homeless folk in from the park. Several times, I have arrived at 6:30AM to teach a class, and found several snoozing in the lobby. The campus police tell me that they cannot seem to get through to the decision makers what is happening.

Back to the phones. It has become so terrible, that other decision makers realized that the VOIP system was causing a potentially dangerous situation. So... those of us who are in high traffic areas, low traffic areas, the business office, the police department, and us faculty that request them... guess what? Next to our shiny new VOIP phones, we have a red Cortellco analog phone connected to a POTS line that we actually use! It was supposed to be used for 'emergency only', but now the Cisco VOIP phone set is under the desk, and all is well with the world.

Joe

you can't expect a voip phone system to work on a creaky old network. It is like painting over rust. i advocate the phone system should run on a separate network.

@Butch. I couldn't have stated it any better.
IMHO VoIP systems themselves are inherently no less reliable than non-VoIP systems but often the (data) environment in which they are inserted is terrible. Creating a separate IP phone network is not a good solution ether because you lose out on one of the big advantages, having a single infrastructure. Logical networks aka VLANs within physical networks is really the way to segment, protect and prioritize voice data.

@TeletypeJoe
Every one of the network guys at your community college should be fired.
There is no excuse for the shoddy workmanship at your site. Any network tech that accepts data outages as a normal event does not put any pride in there job. Our average systems availability over the past year is >99.99% and I am working on getting that to 5 nines. I would be fearing for my job if that were <99.9% with out a dam good explanation of why.
There are good network and server techs who understand that uptime, reliability and end-user experience is of paramount importance. Unfortunately good techs seem to be outnumbered by the bad ones who are distracted by the latest greatest shiny object that comes along.

TekMason