Anyone switch to IP phones and wish they didn't?

[ltw500]

We are considering switching.
We are already using IP trunking on our Definity PBX
with MedPro and Clan interfaces. to me the real value
in IPT comes from the IP trunking which we are using, and
can now 5 digit dial all of our locations at no charge.
The building is already cabled.
What would be the reason to take a step further and do
IP telephony?.
It seems like it's just a big headache with firmwares, and
resets etc....
any feedback is appreciated...

Thanks...

 

[eltorodeoro]

personally, i agree. you don't get much added functionality, if any, but way more problems. they come in handy as a switch/phone when all you have is one CatV drop to a desk, or for remote offices where you don't want to install a gateway. other than that, the real sweet spot of IP telephony is WAN trunking. you can keep the new phones. give me a 7406D, baby!

 

[G3rtech]

We debate this almost on a weekly basis where I work. I come up with more bad than good. I’m a straight up telephone man and I’m no expert on this, just a few thoughts.

1. What happens when the power goes out? You’ll have UPSs coming out your ears. If we did power over ethernet our communications closets aren’t large enough to accommodate the extra hubs, switches.
2. 911 - I don’t know of any resolution to that as of yet????
3. Network maintenance. We do it every Friday here so there would be a phone outage for an hour or so every week. Will you spend the money for a separate voice network? If we went to VOIP we would have to. We did a cost analysis on how much it would cost to replace all of our 8400 series sets with VOIP sets and it was around 3 million dollars. OUCH…
4. I’m in a campus environment. Bandwidth is slim here with data alone. There’s allot of application running, students downloading music and movies. Not to mention the occasional virus attacks.

With the evolution of cell phones I think everyone has accepted the fact that their telephone conversation will not be perfect. I believe this is the main factor that keeps VOIP breathing. I’m very pleased with my S8700. As long as I reboot my servers one at a time and do an interchange everything is smooth. As far as VOIP is concerned I can’t see it happening where I work for at least 10 or more years. I’m not totally against VOIP. When it becomes very reliable, I’ll be more than willing to migrate toward it one phone at a time.


Gary L. Smith
Telephone Systems Engineer
The University of Mississippi
Telecommunications Department

 

[HmmG3]

Going through this now, all I can say is DON'T DO IT!!! The old saying "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" applies here. Unless you have people constantly moving around, IP phones don't bring any real benefits to the table over TDM. They should be considered for any new installations as you can save in cabling and design the network from the ground up to support them, but I wouldn't bother for existing locations.

In our case, we have to migrate all the phones to IP as we are switching to Cisco, which doesn't have a TDM solution (IP only). But for the basic end user, there's no benefits and it's just a lot of work to switch them over and support.

Just be glad you are still using Avaya and can run in a hybrid environment! Things like Softphone and IP trunking are really useful to have along with TDM stability!

 

[bigart28]

I have been working various VOIP environments for about 4 four years now and the best thing about it use to be VOIP trunknig. But it is only holds true for companies with multiple sites. VOIP to the desktop is best suited for Call Centers were you can utilize the whole pacakge of features. (IVR, Screen pops, and intelligent call routing)
This is also the best place to utilize VOIP trunking for routing of calls to remote locations based on various reasons (Skill set, Availability, load balancing). If this is not the set up you have then VOIP to the desktop is not really necessary.

 

[Redder]

Seems all the HYPE comes from our IT management group. Technology is the way to go per our CIO. It seems when CIO's have their meetings they talk a lot about their toys and one-up each other. So when they return why have we not done this?
I have had the pleasure of turning up 2 corporations IP trunking, it is not bad but justifying the savings was difficult. ROI calculators say what ever you want them to say. Our teleco contracts had major savings on them and justifying spending the money was difficult. Today I work for a world wide corporation and we use IP trunking for international use, justified no problem, but within the states the only justification is 4 digit dialing.
Our CIO says when we install an office we will use the latest technology. So I install the latest digital technology 24xx phones, so far I still have a job and no problems. As for the IP phones we have turned on for our IT group to test on their network, each have been set aside they wanted their regular phones back, the new toy has worn off. Additionally they turned up a Call Manager it is now collecting dust in our network manager’s office.

Basically IP trunking yes do it. IP phones as HmmG3 said before “if it ain't broke don't fix it.” The day is coming soon enough we will be forced to put money into AVAYA’s IP pockets until then sit back and keep your network running.


D
"When in doubt Mikee did it, when it goes right I did it