New VoIP Implementation

[Bower]

I was hoping someone here could help an fellow IT person who has zero experience with VoIP. My boss approched me this morning and asked for a rough estimate of what hardware we would need to purchase to implement a VoIP system over our current Norstar system. Our office here has <40 users and 10 analog lines for our modem pool and fax machines. My problem is I can't find anywhere that explains what I need to look at in terms of hardware and software to buy. My current list is:

Cisco Call Manager 3.1
Cisco 7750 ICS
Cisco 7960G IP Phones

Am I missing anything else? I would have contacted my vendor but the time crunch on our budget and their habitual slowness means I have to do this myself. Thank you for your help.

Bower

 

[BuckWeet]

Well, I can tell you, that its not really worth your while to look at a Cisco VoIP system for under 40 users. The cost benefits aren't there. Whats wrong with the current Norstar? One thing, you'll lose a lot of features with going to the CCM over the norstar. You could also look at the AVAYA IP office systems. They have a better price point.

But missing your lise is CCM 3.3, 3.1 is OOOLLDD! Unity Voicemail, Powered Ethernet switches (3550-PWR) and then whatever analog support you need.. Modems don't work too well with VoIP yet.


BuckWeet

 

[Bower]

Thanks! Nothing is wrong with the old Norstar system besides a little age. The issue is the CIO wants to be progressive about technology and instead of upgrading the Norstars he would like to transition over to VoIP. While our inital implemintation will be just this one office, we will be rolling it out to our other 9 locations. Then we would start seeing the cost benifits. There is still no promise we will switch over but we're looking at it and what we would need to buy to do it. Thanks again.

Bower

 

[BuckWeet]

Okay, well that would be more beneficial to you.. I'm a Cisco fan, but I must say, their features still aren't up to par. The administration on CallManager is quite a pain as well. I personally wouldn't implement it. I'm just not that big of a fan of their solution anymore. I used to do primarily Callmanager VoIP, now lately I've been doing more and more AVAYA Multivantage based solutions, and I believe their product is far superior. Just because they know so much more about telecom than Cisco does..

Don't get me wrong, Callmanager is getting more and more features everyday (thank god) hopefully the ones that they should add instead of the ones that are wasteful. I've run into too many scenarios with Callmanager that you have to jerry rig the heck out of to do a simple app that all legacy PBX's have.


BuckWeet