atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums VOIP Phones & IP PBX Cisco Telephones and Systems The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

We are looking at Cisco solution for our Health System

We have 5000+ handsets, 40+ physical locations, Business offices, call centers, etc...

This would be a full enterprise system, single dial plan, mail, call center, redundancy....

Looking for input, whats good, whats not so good.

Thanks

You won't find much love for Cisco on here ..... if you do consider it make sure to get a good handle on the overall cost including network updates prior to cutover and ongoing support agreements.

Try looking into the NEC SV-8500, or UC3. The UC3 can have multiple servers in different locations as back up at no additional license cost. Both systems would require that your network be up to date WRT IP voice.

we went with ShoreTel, support costs being the decisive factor. not as large as you -- we have 76 sites, 1800+ IP phones, coupla hundred analog devices. no call center. process 600k+ phone calls per month. MPLS with QoS. works good. reliable.

royb, that's good to know.

With 76 locations, how did you handle the dial plan? It is not very flexible.

upstateny, outside of price, what don't you like about Cisco?

Been there, done that. I work for a company that owns 19 hospitals in 4 states. After looking at several manufacturers, and previously being a Nortel shop, we settled on Cisco. My 4 hospitals were the first in the organization to deploy, and I helped develop a single dial plan for our area. Feel free to contact me for more feedback, if you'd like.

Justin

hey mj, shoretel dial plan more flexible than you might think. we use 4-digit numbers througout, using the last four digits of a DID number as the extension. we are close to needing to move to 5-digits because telcos are starting to have difficulty matching openings in our coordinated dial plan (former nortel house here, too). cross that bridge when we must, in no hurry.

instead of 40 or 50 (or now 76) separate PBXs tied together, we get to manage one big system. let's us get more done with just us two guys. we self-install the WAN, LANs, routers/switches/and ShoreTel system, only buy the hardware. good luck on your decision, let us know how it goes (or how it went).

I also inherited a Shoretel system, and from what I've seen just from the exercise of connecting Shoretel and Cisco, Shoretel isn't nearly as flexible for dial plan as I am used to with Cisco.

Justin

Did you go with Cisco?