atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums VOIP Phones & IP PBX Cisco Telephones and Systems Cisco and Voice Intercom??

Can Cisco do voice announce intercom when calling 1 phone? 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. Is voice announce an option also??? :bang: :bang: :bang:

No Cisco does not have intercome features through the phone.

You mean you can't call from phone to phone at all, or just no voice announce intercom?

No, they CAN call from phone to phone, but it's not hands-free. The recipient of the internal call receives a ringing call that they must answer using the handset or speakerphone.

I believe that the Cisco system can integrate with an external paging system by purchasing a separate server. It will probably be pretty expensive though. Adding-on to VoIP systems isn't as simple as adding-on to traditional systems. It can easily cost many thousands of dollars for hardware and software upgrades for an oversight that was made when purchasing the "system".

So, to answer your original question in a nut shell: No voice announce intercom, one of the most basic requests of phone systems can be accommodated. Unfortunately, you will need to hold onto the old system for the paging function.

That is DUMB!!!!
The only reason they are using Cisco is remote admin. The city of Dallas threw them out a while back and now the school district is buying the junk again. Your government in action.

The thing is Cisco comes in themselves on big deals and likes to promise the world. As good as us phone sales guys are, the Cisco guys are really good. And since they do not do the installs they are long gone when things go wrong! No one ever got fired for installing Cisco..........Right?????

You can connect to any exsisting paging system, as long as you have FXO (analog) ports on your call manager server. Just set one of your FXO ports up as a trunk and tie it into your paging system.

mgere,
I believe that the question refered to intercom paging to the desk telephone, not to a seperate paging system. As I am sure you are aware, intercom paging is a common feature among even the most basic Key/PBX systems on the market for the last 15 years - this is a rather large deficiency in the Cisco (and other IP systems) at the current time, something that I am sure will be resolved though.

Steve

just out of curiousity can someone list any more specific examples of ciscos problems?

There is a lot of talk about how, for example, you can't take multiple calls on a phone.

Well I have never seen a problem with taking multiple calls on a phone. Other then the paging it is a really good phone system. The probems with the system come down to pricing, the amount of gear needed, the huge learning curve, and all the different places it has to be managed. However the main install is expensive, but the distributed sites are inexpensive to install.