Are IT People trying to take your clients away form you? 12

[lvNortel]

I have been noticing this more and more. It happened to me two more times last week. I have two major clients one with a good old trusty BCM-400 and one with a MICS. Bot systems are in excellent health. One is now using all T series sets and the other is starting to migrate them to please their M series sets.

These two IT guys tried to convince the customer that these system are very old and could go at any minute and that they should both install IP and VOIP based CISCO ( yest I said the C word ).

I was moving one of them into new offices and right in front of the customer the IT guys who is about 27 I am 54 insisted that I install my connection on a patch panel instead of 66 blocks. Of course this guy never returned a single email, voice mail or text weeks ago when I was planning the project. He told me that I am using 1972 style wiring and that I must look to the future with CISCO phones.

I stood my ground because I knew that if I install the wiring on a patch panel he would swoop in one day convince the customer behind mt back to replace the system with CISCO and me and the BCM-400 would be kicked to the curb.

I reported the other IT guy to the office manager as trying to waste 40k to 50k of the companies money just to get rid of me. He hates me because I reported him for doing wiring work ( sloppy and unsafe )when he is not a licensed low voltage contractor and did not carry insurance or bonding to protect the company ( they are very big ) and require their vendors to carry insurance.

Anyway is this happening to you? I think this is only going to get worse.

By the way I got a emergency call today from a customer who has a CISCO and they got hacked and the system is placing and patching fake telemarketing calls long distance over and over and over.

GO CISCO!

"A phone is a phone and not a computer workstation".

 

[bithead9]

Quite a lively discussion here. Well I thought I'd chime in. I too am an IT guy. I am not trying to steal away any clients from the old timers. But if one of my clients asks the right solution from a future and cost perspective, I will recommend SIP and Voip solutions. Its just a matter of time before the POTS and centrex providers will go away. It might be 20 years like lvNortel said, and for him I hope it is! AS for cabling, I too have seen crap on both sides. I agree to that the 110 cabling can be much neater and easier to maintain. I've also seen some really NICE looking cat5/6 installs that are a work of art. It really depends on the integrity and pride of the installer. As phoneguy610 said the ROI is great. One example I have if the savings on going to SIP trunks compared to telco allows my clients to recover the cost in like 18-24 months. It really does PAY for itself quickly.

 

[phoneguy610]

We have even done some instslls that have paid for themselves in under a year. We just installed one that he actually pays less a month with sip trunks combined with financed equipment then he was paying on his old phone bills. It was litterslly i am going to give you a brand new system for less then you are paying right now.

I have had many a client call it a "no-brainer"

ddcommllc.com
Avaya/Toshiba/SyntelSolutions

ACIS

"Will work for stars

 

[kwbMitel]

As for reliabilty, our next phone system, the ones we are looking at we could take kill the power to the "PBX" and have ALL agents, up and running again in less than 5 seconds, almost as if nothing had happend. Show me ANY legacy TDM system than can do that.

.

The Mitel SX-2000 was TDM and FULLY redundant right down to mirrored crosspoints. What this meant is that the Main CPU, Power supply, Resource Cards, could fail simultaneously and the system WOULD NOT DROP THE CALL. Those were the days.

Also, many of you seem focused on voice sound quality when comparing VOIP quality vs. TDM. this is not the primary issue. The primary issue is downtime. TDM phone systems prior to VOIP, enjoyed 99.999% uptime. (Less then 4 hours downtime on average/year).

The Acceptance has been that people are willing to live without their phone systems more these days. Phones just aren't as essential anymore.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a VOIP advocate, I just don't like seeing spurious arguments

**********************************************
What's most important is that you realise ... There is no spoon.

 

[jrgood0852]

Hello, fellow telecom techs. All good points, but the coolest thing is........we are all in the same business! Thank God for telecom!

 

[Mark568B]

IVnortel, Great post. Anyone who can stir up that many replys from this crowd deserves a star no matter what they think!