Nortel VOIP or Cisco?

[JeeMan]

I am need of some advise. We are currently a 25 location corporation with about 600 people total. Our average office size is 15 to 25 people with the exception of 3 that are over 50. Most of my sites have MICS systems (0x32) running CallPilot 150's and DR6.0. My large sites have Option 11's, none of which are on Sucession.

I have a growing "demand" for VOIP and I am considering my options. A convergence path is very interesting to me as I can continue to re-use some of my current digital phones while deploying some IP phones for those who are interested. So, from this perspective I am inclined to replace any systems that I would otherwise upgrade with BCM 50's or 400's. The 400 is attractive from the point of view of redundancy, disk mirroring, etc.

Alteratively, I am considering Cisco. Of course, in this scenario I will need to scrap everything on a per location basis and start over which is a considerable investment.

Also, I still feel that I have some years left on my Option 11's.

Aside from "evergreening" my equipment in a Nortel path, are there any advantages to being an all Nortel shop? E.g. can I integrate voicemail network wide if I stay with Nortel?

Realistically, the upgrade will be "as I go". So, if I convert one site to Cisco, the rest will be Nortel until they come up. Given what I expect to be the life of my Nortel Option 11's, this path may take years.

What are your thoughts?

 

[biv343]

If you're all Nortel, you gain the advantage of being able to integrate the voicemail systems if desired, VOIP trunking between the sites, etc. Less finger pointing as well, one vendor could handle all the service, not to mention you don't have to shift gears and try to remember which site has which system.

You could upgrade the Option 11 sites to CS1000 4.5, add IP trunking to the sites and bring those into the BCM mix. The cost of that will depend on what release those systems are currently running.

I haven't worked with Cisco stuff, but did some tinkering with a demo system a couple years back. I'll offer two opinions on Cisco (again, just opinions and perceptions). One, it seems to be a patchwork of products tied together to make a "phone system". Two, their voicemail system scares me. Way too many Microsoft products that rely on each other to function properly.

Again, I don't want to bash Cisco. They make great LAN/WAN products. It seems to be like they rushed into the voice world. But, things may have changed significantly in the past couple years.

 

[phones1]

try looking at putting ITG 3 in your option 11's & putting BCM50's on your smaller sites that way you can use existing hand sets & dont have to replace your opt 11's