Thanks Coral, Milestone. The two buildings are office buildings for Social Service and Health departments, not housing. I've not seen a lot of MACs in their billings lately; those two buildings are absolutely maxed out with staff. People might move around but they change their numbers, not connect disconnect! Even one wiring closet is cohabited with a staff person! No kidding. Not exactly one's idea of disaster prevention. I hesitate to ask for their "recovery plan." They do use outside help to maintain their Centigram VM; adding mailboxes etc, and there's some cost there.
This is far removed from the experience of corporate America, but these people are working hard with what they've got. That's why I'm looking more at hard dollar cost improvement more so than tweaking the soft dollar. I need to see hard dollar breakeven or savings from day 1 because that is the only way they'll persuade their County Board of Commissioners of the need to finance the project. With the savings, they might be persuaded to spend money on improved functionality.
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That's why I'm thinking a VoIP soution might work out long term, you buy a system which has all the licensing imbedded, the same applies to most of the hardware, you start of tight with features and distribute the additional features as they are needed, it sounds like your network wiring should be up to snuff, you more than likely woudl have to replace the data switches with a product that supports QOS but that will also improve the data traffic too. There is also the HIPAA issue which does need to be addressed and this would also be accomplished at the same time, imagine that improve productivity, streamline communications and use the savings you generate to pay for the new system and possibly even leave some funds for the pension plan even better you could run the systems side by side until you fully initialize the new switch zero down time. When do you need to get your proposal in?
I don't have a time line on the proposal per se. The county manager asked me to work on the cost/payback numbers so I have the initiative. The best way to present it would be apples to apples so he could see hard dollar savings (which I believe will be there in some modest terms at least). Then if he or the staff want to spend some savings (which I think they will) then they can bite off as much as they want. I'll probably be back to the board with more information towards the end of next week.
Milestone, Tadiran has auto set relocate..unlike the Nortel version it actually works. You don't even have to move the phone you just key it in or from a terminal and move it....and at a fraction of voip. Don't get me wrong I have a ton of voip deployed..with this feature and the reliability of the phone system and a redundant system not tied to the data...it only makes huge sense. Tell you what, ask a Cisco customer sometime how much they get gigged for required software upgrades, or licensing...the lack of a true analog port 56k capabilty. Loop limits on phones that are under 300 feet as opposed to 2500 feet. TDM phones not required to go from analog->IP->media gateway->tdm and vice versa. I would hazrad a guese that you will never realize a ROE on IP like they tout. No one I have ever dealt with, after ripping out many a cisco, say they realized a roe but actually a net loss because of all the "bach end" charges you get hit with. Do the research. Voip is a great technology for outside networking and home workers, internally...eh.
[This message has been edited by Coral Tech (edited December 13, 2004).]
I would recommend that you contact a local dealer to sit down and go through what your looking for. They may have some good suggestions and would definately be able to do a site survey with you. I know of a great dealer in Portsmouth,VA that has done some very large Networking/IP installations around Virginia Beach and the DC area.
Let me know if you want their information and how to contact you.
Coral you raise some good points I will have to take a look at the Tadiran but I disagree with you on ROE and particularly on a large implementation you will realize returns, how many runs do you actually pull in an office that exced 300' generally? Regarding Cisco that was a poor choice to use as a progressive and cost effective switch for many reasons. As I said it would be an interesting excercise. Ohio I will email you a white paper on the HIPAA regulations tomorrow
I have some phones that are over 2000' from the phone system Milestone. You would have to do some pretty interesting costing to show me that voip internally is cost effective esp when you have little or no MAC work going on per se. Tell me what you find! Good luck!
Coral long term maintenance will be less, in 99% of the cases if you are installing in a networked building any location that has a pc has a repeater or network switch for excessively long drops, also the system would not have to be purely VoIP you could include analog ports the Zultys 4x5 also has a 56k port specifically for redundancy and the 911 issues as does the switch and I guarantee your switch hardware and installation costs are going to be lower, less space needed. Again it will be a good exercise to run some numbers to see what the bottom line actually ends up to be. At the very least Jim would you mind sharing your final solution with us. Coral I would like to talk to you about the Tadiran
Thanks Samsung, Milestone, Coral. I'm still in the numbes/concept stage. I do have a state of NC engineer meeting with me to do a preliminary 'look see' behind what I've already done. Again, if its under $600 per port, the County will probably have a break even when you lump together lease payment, PRI cost, and maintenance and compare it to current Centrex. They'll be light years better off in functionality...and probably save a little money. Its gonna be a long term thing (Cnty Mgr/Commissioner approval, specs writing, RFP, final approval) but, yes, I'll be glad to let you guys know what we've spec'd. And thanks again.
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even better you could run the systems side by side until you fully initialize the new switch zero down time. When do you need to get your proposal in?