atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums VOIP Phones & IP PBX Cisco Telephones and Systems The install finally begins - UC560

What really surprises me is that being where you are located you did not have a Mitel dealer bid on this. Their systems would have gone in super easy too given the scenerio you have described.

In all fairness a properly trained vendor of any brand would have been able to do this without all of these issues .... including many Cisco dealers i am sure.

The really surprising part is how poor of an install the vendor is doing .... if i were the customer i would be creating a big stink and getting a qualified, trained technician on site (if they have one?) ... or kicking this vendor off the job.

I admittedly don't know Cisco but the feedback i got when we replaced the UC 560 for my customer is that most of their emphasis is on the call manager platform so not very many people are trained on the UC 560 thus the need to remove it from service and ship it to someone else to program. In this case the vendor does well in excess of $10,000,000 per year in business..... hard to imagine they would hang a customer out to dry like that.

Again I completely agrre with upstate, the IS Cisco's fault for allowing a vendor to treat you loke this. You should be on the phone with Cisco management about this vendor and get relief and help from them. And you are you doing the remote locations.
I hope you were not involved in the decision to go with this vendor because there is a complete lack of researching this vendor.

Have to say that if he made the decision to go with these guys, as the expert that took 9 months making the decision, I would think he would be worried about his job at this point. I suppose it would matter how important the phones really are though. I have seen MANY IT managers fired over these things for far less downtime. Just another example of how Cisco can talk to IT peeps and tell them what they want to hear or understand.

To quote the old AT&T sales guys ... "no one gets fired for buying AT&T" ... they used that line all the time and bottom line is there is some truth behind it.

It would be interesting to see the total man hours to install the 70 phones when this project is all done and working.

I never claimed I was an expert in phone system. I am an IT Manager, NOT a phone guy, I mentioned that at the very beginning!

CISCO DID NOT SELL ME THE SYSTEM! I do not know how many times I can repeat that. Its a Cisco system but they are not the vendor.

We have had no downtime as our current phone systems will continue running until I have this all sorted out. I will have this whole setup, up running and tested for at least a week before I consider cutting over, everyone in my agency understands and completely agrees with this approach. I am in no way worried about my job.

As for the final decision on the vendor, no I did not say "I want this vendor". Did I recommend them, yes I did. They did a great snow job on me. As I said before, the tech the sent out during the quote phase knew his stuff, answered all the questions, offered up suggestions etc.

I researched all the vendors that I got quotes from, both good and bad, as every single company out there has. The good out weighed the bad. I just ended up on the bad side so far.

Now back to the install:

Better day today, two more remote sites up and running. 4 more to go, should have the rest up by Thurs.

I am closing in on 100 hours. I will pass that in the next couple of days.

Keep, I was not making a slight on you. I am AMAZED that an install of this small size and simplicity is talking this long. Please, this is NOT meant to insult you better rather I feel your pain.

Ditto ...... hope you aren't taking any of this as a slight on you.

It is just really interesting to see an install from the IT side after doing them from our side ..... and we obviously have different standards.

I go back to my original statement about calling the vendor out for not delivering what they promise.