atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums VOIP Phones & IP PBX Cisco Telephones and Systems CISCO IP PHONES

DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY EXPERIENCE WITH CISCO IP PHONES AND SYSTEMS? WE HAVE A CUSTOMER WHO IS LEANING HEAVILY THAT DIRECTION FOR A NEW SYSTEM AND WE WOULD LIKE TO STILL BE INVOLVED IF THEY DECIDE TO GO THAT ROUTE. DOES IT PRETTY MUCH BECOME A IT TECH THING TO CONTROL. WE ARE BUT HUMBLE PHONE TECHS AND THEY ARE A LARGE AND GOOD CUSTOMRE WHO WE DON'T WANT TO LOSE. ANY FEEDBACK OR DOCS WOULD BE GREAT.
THANKS
EMMITT2727

https://img282.imageshack.us/my.php?image=realization1zq.jpg

I would stay away. Any phone system running windows is bound for failure. I have a friend who reboots his cisco CM every night for fear of failure.

We put cisco phones in about 2 years ago. We are running ver 3.3 on our call managers and 4.0 on Unity with unified msging.
We have upgraded our Unity once and are starting to think of upgrading our call managers to the latest version.
I can honestly say that over the two year span we have had to reboot our call managers MAYBE 3 or 4 times and our Unity probably around 6-8 times. It has actually been a very dependable system with very few problems.
I have worked on Mitel, Inter-tel and Telrad pbx and key systems that had more problems and were not as reliable as this system.

The one very important thing is you must have a strong enough infrastructure to run voip, if you don't, forget it.
BTW, we have redundant call managers with hot swappable IDE drives. Our unity is not redundant at the moment.

why would you need to be redundant?? let alone reboot

emmitt unless you plan on going to school for the product it may not be worth the stress. They may just end up back were they started and you will continue to service them.

as far as experience with cisco,, two of my customers went to them and came back to tdm, I am waiting on the third.

A friend of mine works for a huge banking chain that just tried to merge to cisco based on there sales pitch, its not going well and I believe they are going back to siemens soon. My friend is very cisco certified and cant stand the product

Why reboot or have redundancy? Well, I recall many times I've had to reboot different pbx's, key systems, lost databases, etc., and this was the "old reliable stuff".
I have heard from so many old timers, "Mitel is the best, blah blah blah." So why does Mitel have redundancy backplanes built in as well as other systems? Why do they need to be re-booted every now and then?
School for the Cisco system? If you have been in the phone business awhile cisco is pretty easy to figure out on your own or with about 30 minutes of training. Now if you have never programmed a phone system the class definitely would not hurt you.

Obviously your customers went back because one of two things.
1. Either they didn't have the infrastructure to support voip or
2. There vendors didn't know enough to correctly install and implement a successful voip system

I am not implying that Cisco is the best or whatever, I'm just stating my experience with them.
Personally I think the Inter-tel Axxess was a much more powerful feature rich system than the Cisco. I have not seen any of the newer Inter-tel stuff but I'm sure it is just as impressive.
As far as quality and up time though, I have been completely satisfied with Cisco.
So while you will hear all the horror stories like I heard when my company made this decision (believe me I was very worried about putting these phones in), there are also success stories like ours, thank goodness!
And in case your wondering, right now on our cisco system we are supporting around 600 end users spread out over 6 locations with in a 3 mile radius. Our main campus is all fiber between locations and 3 other locations are DSL's.
So nothing too big but decent for our area.

You forgot the 3rd thing. You CAN tell voice is on IP and not TDM. But, since we are all used to crappy cell phones no one really cares unless it affects business.

HMMM, I guess we are just lucky because all of our calls are just like regular old phone calls. I've never had a problem with echo, stutter, jitter and whatever else.
Actually that third thing your referring to is because of my first point. They don't have a good enough infrastructure to suppport Voip.
Like I said I'm not saying these are the best but for the quality of calls and the up time I can recommend them. I'm just giving my honest opinion with my experiences and Cisco phones.

Lucky or you have never compared then side by side or perhaps you are not using any compression.

Using G.711 codec (uncompressed audio) sounds as good or better than ISDN assuming that you have the bandwidth to support it. Still don't like Cisco becuse of the windows platform. Once I see a lynix based CM, I may change my mind..

IMHO.

Windows=BAD
UNIX=GOOD

We use 711 for incoming/outgoing and 729 for one of our locations, the rest 711. Like I said we have fiber to most locations so plenty of bandwidth.
Knock on wood, we have been lucky with the Windows platform, but I agree with you there. I just keep my fingers crossed that the stability stays up.

Agree with you Coral Tech on side by side comparison. Unfortunatly everyone accepts lower levels of quality/service etc. these days. The kids growing up now have nothing to compare to, all they know is crappy service so it is the norm.....

Have to disagree with you annacat,
Maybe with cell phones people will deal with some static, dropped calls etc.
But when on a large business system it is unacceptable, anytime, anywhere, at least in my eyes.
If your getting echo, static, etc., as a technician your going to hear about it. As I've said, I had one complaint of echo when this system was first installed, however I could not track it down nor reproduce the problem. Other than that I have had no other problems or complaints.
It all goes back to whether you have the bandwidth and if your QOS is properly configured.
If not, it won't work. Just like traditional PBX's you must have certain things to make it work, plain and simple. But it does work.
I also think Voip has made huge leaps just in the last 5 years as far as quality and dependability.
To each their own and personally I'd rather have something different, as the Cisco system is a little weak in features, but it was not my decision unfortunately.

dw, on the VOIP installs we have done there is not really problems with choppy/static/dropped calls/echo, etc. But I can still tell a difference between a TDM call and VOIP call in a side by side comparison. This is with IP phones and systems on their own network in a demo setup from manufacturers trying to get us to sell their stuff, It just may be me from doing this for a long time, but I notice a difference. I can notice if you voice call (IP phone to IP phone) and come over the speaker and are within earshot of it, you notice it sounds a little off as opposed to a TDM phone calling a TDM phone. I am not knocking IP phones or CISCO in any way, they have come a long way. (I think they are now number one comm system provider, ahead of avaya/nortel,etc.) They will get the features, they have the resources to get it right eventually. Also just an observation in saying that in the last 5-6 years everyone is used to rebooting pc's, cell phones cutting off, T-1's going down, virus, etc., so even if VOIP calls aren't perfect sounding, it's OK. It has been fun trying to pinpoint problems with customers IP systems when the parties they are calling and being called from have VOIP systems with issues... I will stop rambling on now..

So crappy voice quality should be chalked up as "that's just the way it is"? We are used to rebooting? Viruses, T-1's going down? I strongly disagree. Any failure in today's business environment is not acceptable. Any technology that relies upon this "understanding" isn't technology at all. The telephone industry has strived for almost a century and a half to perfect voice quality and efficient transmission costs. Now all of a sudden, some jokers come along with a new technology that "isn't quite as good, but it's the newest thing" and we are supposed to accept it?

IP telephony is now on it's third go-around, and thanks to the development of affordable high-speed connections to the Internet via cable or DSL, VoIP may be finally starting to work. It has been a long time and it has a VERY long way to go.

What if GM came out with a car that only had to be pulled over and restarted every once in a while?

What if McDonald's came out with a burger that wasn't quite so good, but the next time you bought it, it might be better?

What if Sears started selling products that looked the same, and promised to be the same, but they weren't?

Come on...IP telephony is helping to bridge a few gaps. I benefit from it myself and it saves me four hours of commuting by working from home one day a week. Still, there is no way in hell that it's nearly as reliable and efficient as the existing 35+ year-old (tried and true TDM) technology. The analog standard lasted from 1876 to 1976 and it worked just fine (it still does in about 80% of the general public's connection to the PSTN). TDM has fit the bill since then where appropriate.

Computers work fine over the Internet and that's perhaps one of our generation's greatest accomplishments, but let's face it. There is a right way and a wrong way to do just about anything. Trying to squeeze ten pounds into a five pound bag is, well, you know the rest......

I guess I could go for another shameless plug here...but I won't.

You are certainly welcome to come by my shop and listen to our voip phones (not Cisco) and TDM phones side by side.

I guess that was kind of half a plug... hmmm an ug maybe. :rofl:

Well said EV. Not quite ready for prime time IMHO. I'll start to sell it when it works right directly out of the box with no BS. And I hope that happens real soon, it will be a great product some day.
Mark

What "new technology" equipment works perfectly right of the box?
How many versions of software has comdial put on their DX80 or FX's DXP, etc. that aren't VOIP?
No equipment will be perfect unless it is put to the real world test. Cisco, GM, GE, Time Warner, etc. expect that, end users know this.
No different than when a new car style comes out, it always has issues the first year. Everything improves over time. how many years went by b4 TDM was ready for "prime time"? I realize it has been around forever and works, but accept that fact that things can be even better is hard for some to accept.

Crappy quality is something Americans have come to accept apparently. Everything from a T-shirt to Phones is made cheaply. Be hard pressed to find a desk that was made from real wood. The only metal on a car anymore is the frame, the rest is plastic.
Its not just VOIP, open your eyes, its everything.

As far as McDonalds burgers, they have never been good haha

Mark,
I gotta be the devil's advocate here. If everything worked right...first time out of the box...none of us would have a job!
Comdial has never had an out of the box failure?????

I've only worked with Toshiba's voip, and the first version sucked. A few versions later, and it worked OK. A few versions later, if you have a strong and well-configured network, it's about as good as TDM.

No matter which brand you use, the network and the configuration will make or break any voip setup. Go with the brand that has the features you need.

Tex & Ohio, you are right about all that, that's why I choose not to sell it yet. I also don't buy the first model year of just about anything including Comdial products (maybe especially Comdial). I don't need to be on the edge of technology to make a decent living. I'm glad you guys are out there doing it, that will help make it better for all of us in the future.
Mark

I don't need to be on the edge of technology to make a decent living

Me too!

Exactly what I was talking about Ohio..

Excerpt from an email I just received concerning the new IT mentality. Enjoy.


"I have been selling phone systems for almost (30) years and the most common phrase I have heard over the years is…”Glen, our phones are the lifeblood of our business and they can’t ever be down…..” Of course hearing this hundreds or maybe thousands of times, I think I got it, but last Friday while interviewing a new prospective customer it went a little different.



I was meeting with the Business guy and the IT guy but the IT guy was running late so in the meantime the Business guy and I chatted and I noticed his Cisco Call Manager flyer in his folder so I began to explain how “data companies” like Cisco had entered the market and simply didn’t understand the critical nature of voice and the fact that it had to work (100%) of the time and in fact that the Cisco’s of the world have really made voice just another LAN application. I explained how I came from the voice world and have never known anything other than (100%) “up time” as the minimum acceptable standard for a phone system. I further explained how the “data centric” world sort of expects the phone to be down sometimes and that a “reboot” is ordinary, after all, it is just another application on the LAN.



In walks the IT guy, not even apologizing for being almost an hour late, and says to me (his first words), “Glen, we are looking for a system with the most up time possible….” I immediately burst into almost uncontrollable laughter after which I explained how in all of my years in the business no one ever told they just wanted their phones to “work as much as possible”.



It appeared to me after the meeting that maybe the world is becoming more accustomed to the quality and reliability delivered by the cell phone and that we could be approaching a time when the demand for absolute (100%) “up time” on the phone system is not required or expected and if that happens I hope I am retired. Who knows, but I for one would like to see how long the “Business guys” put up with the “IT guys” who may think this way.



We are currently removing a ShoreTel system from the Checotah Public schools and replacing it after only (2) months in service, for this very reason.



I thought you might appreciate at least one “IT guy’s” perspective. Feel free to share this story although I am not sure there is any answer."

I thought it pretty much summed up the feel of this thread. Moral- if your network is crap better get a case of toilet paper if you implement VOIP.

Rather be Fishing:
Why is the ShoreTel being pulled out? How many locations do they have and if they have multiple locations do they have a managed WAN?

Don't have all the info yet ...I'm just relaying an email I received Friday.

Like Junkman said,
If you configure your network right and have the right infastructure it works great, whether it is Shore Tel, Cisco, Avaya, what ever.

As far as 'up time', we have had 99.999% up time. I have worked on older Inter-tel systems that went down more than this Cisco system.

I think we discovered, and agree with, Rather Be Fishing with regards to network capability being the center of VoIP happiness or VoIP disaster.

We have eight ShoreTel sites, somewhere around 150 users. No trouble with ShoreTel, occasional trouble with the network, which then affects the VoIP quality. (We STILL don't have that MPLS network on line). We'll have another seven or eight ShoreTel sites by March, and hope to have the MPLS on line January-ish. I'll let you know how it goes.

dw wrote:

"As far as 'up time', we have had 99.999% up time. I have worked on older Inter-tel systems that went down more than this Cisco system."

Then you better play the lotto because you won the lottery.

This is now 1 year old. But still a good read with a side by side comarsion between Alcatel, Avaya, Cisco, Shoretel, and Siemens.

https://www.bcr.com/bcrmag/2005/01/p24.php

I heard that the new versions of Cisco Callmanager will now run on Linux??! If so, that should boost reliability since linux hardly ever crashes or locks up (in my experience at least).

This is true, Cisco is going to try and get away from the Windows solution. I have also heard they are going to getting away from from full intagration with exchange too. They do have the new verison of Unity coming out in between express and full unity that will not connect to exchange.

For any of you guys have ever with Cisco as a small company they are hell to work with. Our company is switching over to Shoretel because of it. I think our Cisco sales teamed summed it up for us when they told us that our customers are not our customers, they are "a" customer and if they were better served with a "bigger" Cisco solution provider, it was Cisco's right to contact them outside of us and suggest they move to a bigger provider who could save them more money.

I'm curious and ignorant, if they are getting away from the integration with Exchange then how is the unified messaging going to work?
Also you can already get Unity without Unified Messaging if that is what you mean, they offered it to us 2 years ago but we wanted the unified msging.

Unity Express is voice mail only and is used on Call Manager Express (CME). CME is designed for single site customers.

Just went to a customer site to look at paging. LOL I have to send you a picture of a Cisco VOIP system. One picture is worth a thousand words. On the walls there are Cisco phones and right next to it on a wall mount is an old NEC electra phone that says back up phone. The guy literally went in the dumpster and fished out his old system because the new system is so unreliable.

Unity and call manager express don't need servers to run, you can add them to your router and have everything run off your router.

If the cisco system was unreliable, it was because it was put on a network that was not proporly configured for such use.

If the cisco system was unreliable, it was because it was put on a network that was not proporly configured for such use.

What would that costs the man to get corrected?

Well if it is up and running on the network now, then its just a the bandwidth issue and just make voice priority.

Yeah, Cisco is a POS, I guess that is why we have soooo many problems with ours. LMAO.
If it don't work then someone (either your vendor, technician or salesman) had no clue in configuring and installing the system OR you didn't have enough bandwidth. If you configure and install it correctly, it works.
Internally we have Cat 5E and to most of our other locations are fiber with a few being point to point T-1's and one DSL line.

Well, I think the city thought after spending a cool million on it's Cisco it was going to have to live with it. What you fail to understand is that in the real world T1's do not function with 100% reliability. I suppose if you are a small customer with a few remote sites, you might have rolled the dice and have no issues. In the REAL world with large systems and multiple carriers, you could tweak your routers till you were blue in the face and EVERY time a T1 had an issue it would cause your phones to reset. The issues with interfacing with existing legacy equipment that is analog. To each his own but I look forward when I go into a bid against Cisco or any totally IP system.

You know what I am tired of hearing? "ABC Manufacturer's IP phones work great with 99.9999999999% uptime as long as the network is configured properly". Yeah?, well my car can go 120 miles per hour as long as there's no traffic.

Yes, it's true if I run dedicated home run CAT5 or better to a dedicated switch and keep the VoIP running separately, then VoIP will likely work flawlessly, hands-down. It will work as well, in fact probably better than TDM systems. Bandwidth brings a lot more capabilities, that's simple to me. But at the same time, doesn't this contradict the whole concept of IP telephony?

OK, so how do I explain to Joe Insurance agent with ten phones how he will benefit by spending twice the price for his equipment AND even more to bring his network to the point where it is "managed and more robust". Oh and even though he paid me two years ago to wire his office with a nice network using quality hardware and cable, it's still not good enough.

Give me a break. Apartment complexes are managed and wine is robust. Fancy words only make food on a restaurant menu seem like it will taste better. Throwing fancy words in this environment is like gold plating a rock. IP phones are a remarkable accomplishment, but when their limitations (or should I say vulnerability) in a less-than-perfect world prohibit their "99.999999999999% uptime", then they DO have major limitations.

Give me a system that doesn't require 100% perfection in the wire, yes I said wire because that's the customer's perception of that jack in the wall. They have no clue that their switch that they paid $500.00 for two years ago isn't "robust" enough to be "managed".

Like many people around here keep saying, when it works without such restrictive limitations, then we'll all be jumping on the band wagon to sell it. Until then, none of us with any sense of sanity are going to risk our businesses and reputation on yet another "Johnny Come Lately", especially on it's third turn at bat.

Think about the sensationalism around aluminum wiring and PB plumbing for residential construction, leaded gasoline to reduce engine knocking, birth control implants, Krazy glue, asbestos insulation, you name it. All sounded like marvelous solutions that would benefit everyone. These products were the proverbial "latest and greatest" and if you weren't using them, you were missing the boat. It didn't take long to realize that the manufacturers were banking on hype, not longevity or reliability of their product. And look who is paying for their short sightedness now.............

IT guys and manufacturers seem to think that IT problems allow for bottomless bank accounts, three-times the the cost for the hardware purchase and a lifetime of patch and upgrade costs. Maybe that is the way the computer industry has always been. It hasn't been that way in the phone business.

The telephone industry was formed around companies that rented equipment to end-users years ago, so it HAD to work well in order for the phone companies to turn a profit. Every month of equipment rental without maintenance issues resulted in a profit. They worked hard to make sure that their labor practices and their manufacturers got it right the first time. It worked well for a very long time.

However, the IT business seems to expect the general public to understand that it is a "work in progress". If it doesn't do what we told you it will, just pay us for a patch or upgrade and we'll fulfill our commitment and it will even be better. We aren't dealing with AOL issues here, we are dealing with customers losing business.

Until the two technologies can compete and eventually converge (really converge, not just the IT buzz-word), then this subject is simply a comparison of lemons and limes.

As usual, I have taken a subject and written a novel, but with hopes that maybe we can start thinking about making this thing work. It has potential, but not right now.

ED,

I agree with you entirely. It seems that the world has grown used to the ever problemed world of the computer and the cell phone. To most users of a computer if it is slow, you live with it. If a cell phone drops a call you live with it and call back. Unfortunatly this is training the general public to accept problems in technical things, including the telephones. It is funny how the true general reliability of TDM telephones and the general un-reliability of IP phones have morphed into the literature or propoganda that all manufacturers put out. The so called "99.9999% reliability" that is found in TDM has been taken to IP, but not in the same meaning. TDM phones are their own network - something that many people have a problem understanding anyways, but to put an IP system in and then not have them on the same network well, that is even more confusing. Sure the IP sales person will tell you they can be on the same network, and they can, but that will open a whole other can of worms if your network is not "robust" enough, and it probobly is not.

Lets be real here; most companies under 100 phones say things like "this year we are upgrading the comuters, next year we are looking at the phones." They simply do not have the budget to do an entire overhaul of their network and their phones. Yes you will find one here and there, but not enough to run a good business on. That is why it is easy to poke holes in full IP systems, the customer cannot run a new network and do phones; but they can buy a real hybrid and do IP when they are ready - on their terms, not to mention when IP is relly ready for the main stage.

IP will be a great thing, and within maybe 5-10 years at most it will probobly be the #1 product in most of our portfolios, but not now. There realy are huge problems and downsides, to much so to run an entire business on. Until IP has the user reliability of TDM (which is not 100%) it will not be ready for joe insurrance salesman that WILL NOT tolerate any problem with his phones.

I have a problem even believing it will ever be 100% with some of the IT hacks that are running networks out there. There are so many things that can affect VOIP phones on a network that is not proprietary it's scary. That set aside I have had great success with remote offices and networking systems together. VOIP is an unforgiving beast whereas TDM is. That being said, I am now going out to sell a new VOIP system to a new customer that won't think of putting in a Hybrid. It's costing him 2x as much and since we aren't doing the networking I have some prtty papers for him to sign negating my responsibility on sound quality issues. What a weird world.

Exactly my point. How many times have you run into a regular voice CABLE job that was done poorly? I have run into this a lot. There are a million and one "IT" guys out there that can run a cable and put in a router, but they know nothing about a real network. Forget those guys for a minute and remmeber that a great portion of the 25 phones and under systems are going to have the computer networks managed by someone in house, perhaps a son/daughter of the owner, or just someone that kind of knows what they are doing. You can get by like that for a data network, but putting phones on it too will undoubtedly cause problems.

If a customer wants to have a full IP system that is fine, but they have to understand the limitations and the pitfalls that could and probobly will happen durring the install and for a month or so after. Great idea with the papers though.

Geez, I'm glad I don't tech where you guys are, sounds like you have a ton of issues with your carriers and cable contractors. Good luck with that.
Ed, I understand what you say about IT guys, I'm not an IT guy but I have witnessed it myself.
I started teching in Colorado and New Mexico installing and maintaining Fuji's, Telrads, Mitel and Inter-tel systems.
Now I'm pretty much stuck on Voip with just our smaller key systems here and there remaining.
While yes a voip must be properly configured and your network must have a good infrastructure. The same holds true to traditional systems as well. Your cable must be so good, your system must be installed and programmed correctly or else you'll have problems. It's no different, AND when comparing this cisco to the old technology systems our AMC issues have dramatically went down. AHA! That is why you guys hate it, no more AMC calls, oh-oh, there goes your profit. ;o)
coraltech
"There are so many things that can affect VOIP phones on a network that is not proprietary it's scary"
???????
this is why you have VLANS, one for voice and one for data.
I'm not trying to bust balls, in the end, voip works and just as good as any other system I've worked on. My opinion and my experiences. Anyways to each his own guys! Good luck with those T-1's constantly going down and bad cabling.

Hate what dw? My business is SOARING fixing IT hack VOIP jobs and ad-hoc networks. Yes VOIP works, I have been using VOIP since 1997. I simply cannot see why you would sink your teeth into a total IP solution when you could get a Hybrid cheaper and have a win/win scenario. MAC work? I think that's what you were refferring to with AMC. Hardly get that at all with set relocation features on digital pbx systems and voip phones nowadays. I make my money on application/service. I am working right now getting SIP trunking up and working with a provider to sell as a package...but I can still use digital sets as well. Yes, those obsolete phones that run on a single pair, have more features, can run 2500 feet from the system (powered). It's rough....

Met with a customer today about upgrading their system. When I mentioned the upgrade would allow VOIP features if needed, the lady got a frightened look on her face and said "an upgrade won't require us to replace our digital sets with VOIP sets will it?" The way I see it, it doesn't really matter how long we bat this back and forth, the customer's reality or perception of reality will be a major factor in the speed in which VOIP is adopted. If I had tried to convince this lady that VOIP was the way to go, she probably would have sent me packing.

The myth of hybrid IP-PBXs..Traditional phone companies talk about migration stories. As part of the migration story, these legacy PBX vendors proposed IP gateway cards to facilitate consolidation of the network and to have voice paths available over the IP network. Thus eliminating tielines between sites now you have an IP enabled phone system.
The next phase in the legacy PBX migration myth involves the mix of IP phones that are needed as incremental growth is incurred. The IP-phones will need a seperate IP-based server in order to accommodate the new devices. As growth continues (and the legacy PBX continues to age), the story will continue to unravel, only after the customer has made significant investments, with the end of software development on the legacy PBX. Customers will be forced to forklift the existing chassis, and once the forklift upgrade is complete, they will be left with the same infrastructure limitations they had with their previous legacy PBX model. An investment protection story with the manufacturers best interest in mind...not the customers.

Progolf- do you really understand what a hybrid is? Every system I sell that is a hybrid does not require a separate IP server for IP sets. A simple blade is inserted into the cabinet for IP set functionality. A blade for SIP or IP networking too. If there is a myth here it's that VoIP is right for everybody and every circumstance.

I'd like to evaluate Progolf's take on this but there is not enough info on his profile to do that. Whenever I see a response, I go to their profile and click on their website to see what they are in to. Many time, I give the post more consideration based on that. Just for an exmple, check out the web sites of all the the posters on this page alone. Man, I learned a lot and was impressed by all of them.

Progolf,

Hmm, interesting because my Tadiran switches installed in th3 80's are and can be upgraded to IP and now SIP. Where is your 8088 at today?

Besides, I think this guy doesn't understand that ALL IP systems have to use media gateways to talk to non-ip devices OR the telco unless they are using SIP trunking or such.

i know i am coming in this late but i have done some voip and had some good times and some bad times, just like anything. someday it will all be IP in what forum i do not know. it is hard for me to sell a system with ip for local phones it just does not make sense right now. once the price drops it could be different on NEW offices. to me the power in ip in remote worker and multi-site (trunking) but you can have that on a digital hybrid system and you could even do it with a 3rd party gateway. if it was not for the manufactures most of us would not even be talking so much about it. fact is a at&t, mitel, fujitsu, and many other older system lasted 10 years without fail now with ip you are ugrading every year to 2 years, look at cisco, avaya. all of us have had other channels come to us and say 'this is the best there is' so i ask big fan of ip show me what it can do that i can not get a smart pbx to do!

oh on topic i had a costomer replace a newer hybrid with a cisco. i went in after to ask him how it went, what they thought.... they hated it and wished the had the not so slick looking cheaper digital system they had back

Coral Tech:

We were a Tadiran dealer for about 10 years and have several Coral 3 cabinets that would make for some great boat anchors for your boat on Lake Michigan.

What is 8088? Do you think I sell Cisco?

8088 was a processor used in early PC's. I also have some cabinets roaming around the office that I use only for benchtesting. The cards can almost all still be used in the new systems. No thanks on the boat anchor, you'd sink my boat!

I love this thread. So many excellent posts. Too many to mention.

Winetech, I like what you said. "if it was not for the manufactures most of us would not even be talking so much about it." I posted that or something like it earlier. I expect there are higher profit margins on IP systems?

What CAN a VoIP system do that a TDM can not do?

Richard

Nothing except drag down your network VLAN or not.

Give you surprise license fees every year.

The VOIP Hybrid I sell does something that most systems don't. It provides the customer with an easy {no BS sales pitch} gui interface that allows them to easily, and with actual understanding, administer their system. It provides a soft phone that puts an office phone on the laptop for the traveling businessman. It provides TAPI integration with outlook. It even turned my cell phone into a system phone when I am traveling.
As far as licenses go we have been dealing with those issues for years via upgrades right? Nortel, Avaya etc... oh you want your system to do that? We no longer support Rel 1, you will have to upgrade your processor to Rel 3.
I watch these conversations and I wonder how many of the complaints are by folks that are actually experienced in installing VOIP and how many are heresay and "I want to be one of the guys" BS.
We are installing VOIP on a regular basis and are not having the problems or dealing with the horror stories that you guys claim.

:shrug:

If it is that bad let us know the system brands that you are installing so that we stay clear of them!

telecomtex,
Good response.
I'm still on the fence. I can see there are some places where VoIP will work, though I can't see how it can be cheaper. Certainly would not be cheaper for me to rip out an existing infrastructure, especially with over 250 analog ports in use.
I did think of one place where all the PBX's I've worked on (Avaya, Nortel, and Mitel) were lacking. Integration of databases. This may have gotten better on the Nortel and Mitel. I have not worked on them in a while. As for Avaya, I have to maintain an employees name in the switch, voice mail, and call accounting. I keep a separate excel spreadsheet to track everyone and make a directory to be passed out every 6 months or so.

Richard

Telcomtex- Cisco and Vertical Televantage are notorious for recurring licensing fees. Anytime I bid against these systems I have the customer make the vendor put in writing what it will cost at current rates to relicense every year. I do have Nortel PBXs under maintence that were installed in 1990 that have never been upgraded because the customer didn't require new features or were forced to. And guess what? No license fees after the initial purchase. Once people factor in the higher cost of ownership because of network upgrades and the recurring fees the playing field starts to get a little more abstract. I sell VoIP where it makes sense. Tying remote systems and teleworkers. No license fees after the initial purchase. Guess I'll have to check what the other VoIP manufacturers such as Shoretel and Altigen require for fees in case I ever run up against them in a competitive bid. I'd be curious if there are any VoIP manufacturers that don't charge.

You know I think all in all it is a balancing act. For instance in the voicemail arena with the big three you are going to pay a substantial amount just to add a 2 port voice mail and as you add ports the price goes up significantly but with the system we install there is no extra cost involved with voicemail and since it is built in there are basically as many ports as there are extensions. You can not outgrow it without outgrowing the system. There are other examples but as you can see its six of one and half a dozen of the other. If VOIP fits then use it...if not...well don't!
I had a huge sell recently because a customer wanted to bring a Nortel up to date. By the time they looked at the cost to upgrade the old equipment the decision was easy. The cost of the system upgrade and a year of MACs and troubleshooting paid for the new system that we just installed.
Don't get me wrong, I am OK with the status quo!

Telecomtex
I dont sell any other IP except Samsung. I dont care to be one of the Guys nor do I need to justify the need for voip. As far as experience, I believe we all have at least a network+ (its required to sell and install some systems) most have a ccna and an mcsd.

The Qos requires voice to take priority over data does it not ? and when you are using 2 or 3 channels for voice how many kbps are in use?

So what happens when there are 30 users or channels being used? and what happens to the bandwidth at that point.

All that said, this quote from ED says it all in a nut shell "Yes, it's true if I run dedicated home run CAT5 or better to a dedicated switch and keep the VoIP running separately, then VoIP will likely work flawlessly, hands-down. It will work as well, in fact probably better than TDM systems. Bandwidth brings a lot more capabilities, that's simple to me. But at the same time, doesn't this contradict the whole concept of IP telephony"


Or maybe I dont have a clue and should stay out of the subject. I think I will leave the voip to the IT guys and stick to my lowly tdm systems.

"Yes, it's true if I run dedicated home run CAT5 or better to a dedicated switch and keep the VoIP running separately, then VoIP will likely work flawlessly"

Sorry guys, we operate on ONE cat 5 drop for both our computer and our phone with powered switches (this way we have power for the phones), and you know what it works 'flawlessly'. Our data runs on one VLAN and our voice is seperate on another VLAN which is set up in the routers, this is about the only seperation we have as far as voice from data.
This is another one of the advantages of Voip, you don't need two drops at each location which I'm sure you guys already know.

I think you should experience Voip all you can, yes there are bad installs, there are bad systems and you'll encounter bad circumstances. But you'll also have good ones as well, you'll learn new things and be that much better in your field.
While some of us hate some of us like it, I still enjoy working on the old stuff still but the new stuff is a nice change once in a while.
Good luck!

You are fortunate to have a site with little issues. New Cisco installs are specing separate runs for voice and data. There are quite a few sites here locally that do the one run and they are the ones having the most problems.

If you use only one run, for both phone and pc, does that mean you are limited to 10/100 connection? I know gigabit uses all pairs, can POE work with that?

Yes, you can run POE devices over gigabit links. Power and data on the same pair is not a problem. I'm not sure there are any phones capable of acting as Gigabit switches, though, so that may be the limiting factor.

Personally, I don't like the idea of a single drop, from a support standpoint. Too many variables. It sure would save on switch rack space, though.

Thanks for the info, Steve.

--Larry

Yeah, Yeah. It works both ways. I dont know how many times a customer with a certain glea in their eyes has asked if what i am selling them will do VOIP. Everybodies knows all the buzz words; dont they.

That calculates roghly to about 2.4mb of your 100mb network. Not even at 30% saturation.

Rather Be Fishing,
Is it true that Cisco is specing 2 drops for each location ? I would like to see something on that, I thought that was one of Cisco's selling points, at least that is what they were telling us.
Nick

So so so true. I had a callmanager installed in my house for about 3 months. The phones worked fine (even though the feature set sucked). But, good old windows just went crazy and now I can't get past the login screen. Keep in mind this was a tiny system, only 8 phones, and the load on it was very light-- theres only about 4 people in my house. Now, all I have is a piece of junk computer with the cisco logo on it. If you ask me, Callmanager needs more time to turn into a true system. It needs more features and it needs to be more reliable. It kinda scares me that so many places are switching to CM so fast.

I have a school bus depot using 2 phone systems. The Cisco for outside calls and the old DBS for intercom and Overhead pages. They say the overhead paging is an upgrade that they can't afford at this time

Cisco ripping off your tax dollars.
Special SERVER to do Overhead paging.
Sure, we do that all the time, only need a P4 3meg
PC and plug it into the page port.
Would you like 1, 2 or 3 of those.
This is almost like the 80's when AT&T sold empty plastic boxes for Merlins to get MOH for $495.00.
Just more rip offs to feed a corp slug.

Haha, the empty plastic boxes for the 410 and 206 KSU right! Haha