Hosted ("Cloud-based") vs Onsite Phone Systems - your opinions Please! 6

[x11dude]

Hi all,

I've been doing some searches and finding surprisingly few recent discussions on this.

I've always heard Hosted phone systems are less reliable and more expensive (in the long run) than onsite systems.

But the salespeople have been working upper management aggressively! Of course they have a comeback for everything (as long as they get their commission.)

We have about 50 sets (currently on Nortel Meridian and Meridian Mail). Fewer than 6 analog lines. 12 trunks on 3 T1's. We have pretty good infrastructure; QoS switches with PoE; All phones are on traditional copper - although cat5e is available to all offices.

I'd think an onsite solution would be preferable; your opinions please!

Thanks!

 

[x11dude]

Hi Hawks, thanks for your feedback.

One thing I'm constantly dealing with is management perceptions and trends. Such as the perception that "Cloud-based" is the wave of the future - and a mindset that thinks that all we should have to do is talk into a laptop (think Skype).

Reality in a business environment is a far cry from that! - I think call quality, MCR (multi-ring) phones, call park, etc., but how does one get the point across?

Thanks again,
x11dude

 

[Westi]

I would not buying anything from a person that calls me over a wabbly bubbly phone line because that tells me they are not economical they are cheap. So Skype is what it is, free and therefore the quality is also what you expect from free stuff cheap.
Many phone systems can handle digital, IP and also analog phones and paging interfaces (I happen to work on Avaya IP office but more of them are out there) and if people want to have an IP phone at home then you can have a hardware VPN built using an IP phone or a VPN phone can register to your gateway and you are good to go. With only one or two phones it won't put a dent into your bandwidth and you can implement QoS to ensure that voice is prioritized at least in your incoming and outgoing capacity, what the Internet is doing in between you are helpless. So if a CEO wants a new phone, good give it to them but keep most of the other phones the same, people are used to them and you will save on sets and can still have a state of the art new phone system with click to dial and outside of the building extensions if you need to.

Joe W.

FHandw, ACSS

Google it you damn kids

 

[nessman]

I'm guessing you have a Meridian Option 11c, owned free and clear. If you're paying maintenance for it through a Nortel/Avaya vendor - your annual costs are likely minimal (~$4USD/phone/month).

Options... oh there's many.

First - do a needs analysis, justify your business reasons for doing so. Replacing a phone system just because "it's old" makes for a poor business case.

1.) If it ain't broke, don't fix it. The Meridian phone systems, yes - they're getting up there in years, are generally super reliable as you probably know. This is your least expensive option.

1a.) However they won't last forever either. You can always upgrade the phonesets to M3900 series for a fresh look - refurb M390x's are cheap. Just keep spare line and trunk cards around just in case and you're probably good to go for another 10 years.

2.) My recommendation is you upgrade your PBX equipment from 25.x or wherever you're at to CS1000 with media gateway cards, etc... and get the ball rolling on upgrading to IP sets. Also, upgrade MerMail to CallPilot as MerMail has been end of life for some time now and 4.3GB SCSI hard drives are getting harder to find. Once the upgrade is done, you upgrade phonesets at your leisure - and you're not learning an entire new phone system... the programming is pretty much the same - the transition is seamless. Just gotta make sure you got PoE switches and other network prep done first (VLAN's, etc...).

3.) New vendor/phone system... rip and replace to VoIP. I see this quite a bit, especially with migrations from Meridian to Cisco. You'll have the luxury of staging phones before the cutover, but now you're learning new phone system programming, etc... and you end users now have some new-fangled phone on their desk. This will be more most expensive option.

I wouldn't go with an off-site hosted "cloud" phone system. Too many risks involved. You lose the internet, you lose your phones. If the company goes bankrupt (and they will go bankrupt as they fail to the competition), you're scrambling for a new provider. The monthly costs are higher and you lose local control.

 

[x11dude]

Hi Nessman - thanks for your post!

Do you see many Option11 to IP Office replacements? (Probably how I'm leaning.) (Is there much learning curve for that?)

Yeah - cloud - I agree...Rather not go there.

Also, yes, the old Option11/MMail is pretty much free and clear. Best arguments to replace it are its old-school AA and VM.

Thanks again,
x11dude

 

[nessman]

IP Office is a good system but it's a different beast - different programming, etc. Not too difficult.

But why not leverage your existing investment and upgrade your Option 11c to a CS1000? You continue to use the same cabinet, line and trunk cards, as well as your wiring (66-blocks, etc...). You're just changing out the SSC for a call processor and adding a media gateway card for your IP phones, as well as pulling out MerMail and replacing it with CallPilot (you can migrate mailboxes from one to the other).

It's much less labor intensive and you don't need to learn an entirely new phone system (nor will your end users need to learn a new phone system either).

From a vendor perspective, going from an 11c to IP Office - we don't lose out since Nortel=Avaya - and new installs means more $$$ for us... but I also like to look out for the customer's best interest too.

 

[x11dude]

We already have an IP Office installed at another site so I could theoretically manage both centrally. I'd also rather get away from Nortel; I just don't see the same future in it since Nortel got bought out.

 

[nessman]

Well, it makes sense to get all your phone systems on the same platform. So in your case IP Office would be the better choice (should have just said that in the beginning!).

 

[x11dude]

Sorry - I just found out 2 weeks ago!

 

[nessman]

I guess I'm late to the party then!

 

[x11dude]

No, it's not you! (Nobody tells me anything...lol) It's just that this thread started a while back; most of the stuff is still valid and I really appreciate everyone's input.

And the IP Office finding is a little wrinkle I just learned. I guess if a gotcha's gonna hit, we could do worse than IP office!

It's not a 100% certainty - but it's a big factor in the decision.

As for the programming, I'm sure I can learn it; I guess if I can learn Option11, the others are cake (?)

thanks again!

 

[IPGuru]

+1 recommendation for IP office
provided you get the right hardware configuration & licences you can network the 2 together almost seamlessly.

distributed groups with users from each site
hot-desk between sites
shared directory
fallback options in-case of a system failure on 1 site (although hardware failures on an IPO are rare, just ask in the IPO forum)



Mundus vult decipi decipiatur ergo.

 

[x11dude]

Thanks IPGuru!

Needless to say I get the other vendors telling why I don't need IPO...but those are great features! They're even better than I'd thought!

One thing that concerns me about the "strictly IP" offerings is that they seem to go obsolete more quickly. Ideally I'd like for something to last 5 or 10 years; is that unrealistic?

Thanks again!
-x11dude

 

[IPGuru]

I have been working on the IP office & its ancestors for at least 12 years.

some components have been superseded & become obsolete during that period ( most notably support for the INDeX DT series handsets) but we are still supporting many of those original customers without any difficulties (they don't need the newer features so an upgrade is not necessary).

it is a hybrid solution supporting both TDM & IP technologies & Avaya support a platform for at least 5 years after declaring it end of life & the IP office is still under active development so I do not see you having any problems with life expectancy.


Mundus vult decipi decipiatur ergo.

 

[cknipe]

Coming from a technician that used to install voip PBX systems. If I were you I would go with owning your own system. Shoretel, Mitel, or even Avaya should be able to get you in pretty cheap. You are going to use a lot of bandwidth with call control and voice calls that are going out over the internet that are going to require that you dont skip a beat with bandwidth. With 10-12 extensions this is doable. But it gets pretty tough with 50+ Exts. Under g.711 each call path is going to consume about 70k of bandwidth, so a 2 way conversation uses twice as much. After all of this, you are still dependent on the pipe on their end being clean and uncongested. You can get a pri for pretty cheap these days and once you learn the system, your monthly cost will eventually go down. Your hosted provider is probably going to nickel and dime your for moves, adds and changes anyway.