Nortel 1001/1002 vs Cisco 2801/2811

[firecodex]

Our company is wanting to implement a new 10 site MPLS-based WAN and we're still deciding which equipment to buy. Each site will have a single T1 circuit into the MPLS network with the exception of one site that will have two T1's. Eventually we plan to implement VOIP and will most likely add additional circuits or replace with faster circuits to support that. So the routers will need to handle QOS for the VOIP traffic. Additionally, two of the sites will be connected to an outside vendor to which we will need to provide NAT translations for roughly 100 pc's. The ip's for only those 100 pc's will be translated to the ip's that the outside vendor provides.

I hope this is making sense so far...

So Nortel is telling us that their 1001/1002 routers will be capable of handling all that we want to do. I'm not so confident. My experience has always been with Cisco routers; I'm a CCNA and I've always been happy with the performance and security that Cisco equipment provide.

What I'd like to know is if anyone here has had any experience with the Nortel 1001/1002 routers and what you thought of them. If someone could compare them to the Cisco 2801/2811 that would be great. If we choose Cisco, we would implement 2811-HSEC/K9 routers between us and our partner and standard 2801's at the other sites.

Thanks in advance for your comments.


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Firecodex
CCNA/MCSA/MCP/A+/Net+