Nortel vs Cisco - VoIP... 2

[dehlert]

Ok, I am treading on water on this one but since there are so many experts here, I thought I would ask the question.

We currently have approximately 12 switches (Option 11's, 61's, and 81's) that are running either Succession 3.0 (due to MerMail) or Succession 4.5 w/ Call Pilot.

On these switches, we have approximately 12,000 analog and digital ports.

Our Management has been courted by Cisco for a couple of years now and has made a decision to move towards a Cisco VoIP solution. According to one Manager, he believes that Nortel will only be around for about three more years and feels that Cisco has the better VoIP solution.

My colleague and I disagree and we are looking at additional information to try and pursuade our Management to reevaluate Nortel's solution. We attempted to do a VoIP demo between Nortel and Cisco and the support we received from both our Support Vendor and the Nortel reps at the time was very poor.

Since that time, our Support Vendor and Nortel Sales Rep have changed for the better..!!

Could I get some information from anyone that I could present to my Management showing Nortel is the better solution..?? I am also looking for Companies who had Nortel, tried Cisco VoIP, and then went back to Nortel or Companies who tried to implement Cisco and it failed.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

David

 

[bigindian65]

5.0 is geared toward voIP. hell, you can hang 22,500 IP sets off a CS1000E. However, cisco voIP is pretty good. Nortel voIP isn't going anywhere but forward though.

Mato' Was'aka

 

[johnpoole]

the only up side to nortel is you can have the same number on both the wireless and the deskset.. if does take a lic but it's worth looking at for that reason..

on the tech side, there both good, i;ve installed both. i perfer nortel but iv'e done nortel for 30+ years..

i do not have intergration problems with our ccm and the 81c or cp.. i do have problems with the cisco, after you dial a number it takes 15 seconds to get ringback, but that is due to the numbering plan and lack of understanding on the kid that programed it..

i would perfer to be on one platform.. period

john poole
bellsouth business
columbia,sc

 

[mattfx]

I highly doubt Nortel is going anywhere anytime soon. They have recently partnered up with Microsoft to provide unified communications with things like voicemail into exchange email. Also, last I looked, Cisco's voip phones are much more expensive than Nortel's with similar capabilities.

 

[allenmac]

Another difference is the promotion and use of open standards by Nortel (SIP, H.323, etc).

It has been my experience that Cisco tries to lock you into using all of their gear for everything.

 

[acewarlock]

If Data networks stayed up as well as Voice networks do and Cisco's prices weren't so much higher, then maybe and this is a big maybe, Cisco might be OK to use if and this is a BIG IF Nortel disappered.




This is a Signature and not part of the answer, it appears on every reply.

This is an Analogy so don't take it personally as some have.

Why change the engine if all you need is to change the spark plugs.

 

[allenmac]

1 more point to consider:

Nortel has been in the voice business for 100+ years. Cisco, less than 10.

 

[dehlert]

Thanks to everyone who has responded so far. I appreciate your candor on the topic.

One thing that is being pushed is Unified Communications which was demonstrated in a beta test of Cisco.

Unfortunately, at the time, Nortel and Microsoft were just starting their alliance and we tried to demo Nortel VoIP in a production environment which, while it worked fine from the voice side, did not work from the UC side.

Again, thanks for the information and anything additional would be greatly appreciated.

David

 

[hawks]

An article from March 07.

http://www.thevarguy.com/2007/03/12/nortel-vs-cisco-rematch-scheduled-for-may/

Nortels take from 1/2007

http://www.nortel.com/solutions/unified_communications/collateral/nn120881.pdf

 

[marc3lo]

My suggestion is to contact your vendor Engineer team, I’m sure they have documented all Nortel Benefits over Cisco.

 

[dehlert]

Has anyone out there installed Nortel products after a Company has bought Cisco because of Cisco problems..??

David

 

[ntcnctek]

You might want to mention that Nortel won over the Cisco solution for the SSA contract which will be the largest VoIP solution in the U.S.

 

[dehlert]

ntcnctek,

I did mention that to my management and according to them, the reason Cisco did not get it is because they walked away from the project because SSA didn't get their act together.

I can't find anything to counter that but I do know that AT&T had challenged the award but I don't know who AT& was partnering with if anyone.

Thanks

David

 

[911guru]

Ask Cisco what their E911 solution for 12,000 users is going to cost. $150,000 plus I'd bet, and a good 20 servers to run it. That is not an exageration. Nortel's will be well under $20,000 or even less for that size since the bulk of it is included in the core software

Nortel is in-skin and runs as a service on the call server, no extra BTUs on the cooling bill. Add that up and see what it REALLY costs to deploy Cisco GoIP.

That is not a typo, it's for GARBAGE over IP. ;-)

911Guru

http://pbx-e911.com

E911 FAQs are located at:

http://www.tek-tips.com/faq.cfm?pid=798&handle=911guru

 

[LeeMcCauslin]

We only have a thousand users. Last year we installed a Nortel VoIP solution for our southern (FL) branches but eventually, we'll have it at all our branches. We were courted VERY heavily by Cisco and were leaning that way in spite of the fact we run a 61C here at HQ - our data side were Cisco fans and we have a lot of Cisco routers already deployed but we found we'd have to replace all of them anyway no matter which way we went. In the end, Nortel won based on the experience and past service of our Nortel vendor and the prohibitive cost of the Cisco. Neither was cheap, but Cisco was more...

And I also don't believe Nortel is going anywhere anytime soon. I'd love to know where your execs got that idea.

 

[ntcnctek]

Cisco did not walk away. I was on the Nortel team that supported the pilot and by no means did they walk away. They lost the bid. AT&T and Verizon were offering Cisco as their solution while NGS was deploying Nortel.

 

[nrsman]

Cisco is a very good suitor, however once you marry them you become another proprietary notch on their belt.

There are too many Nortel sites, techs, engineers, and end-users out there for Nortel to vanish.

I like the way "allenmac" said it, 100 years compared to 10
hmmmm, not a hard decision.

I have recently removed Cisco systems and installed cske's
where I have left happy customers.

I don't want to take away from their data products, if you can stand the propriety they do fine, however I like the way an engineer stated to me once, " Nortel data is the same quality for half the price."




****

 

[bigindian65]

Northern Electric founded Northern Telecom in 1971 and began offering shares on the NYSE in 1975. Northern Electric also expanded its international operations with the creation of Northern Electric of Canada (U.K.) in London, England. Northern Electric Export Corp. was created that year as well. Northern Electric changed its name to Northern Telecom Ltd. in 1976. All of the firm's subsidiaries also changed their names. The name change to Nortel came in 1995. A lot of instructors in Richardson said it was because South American customers had trouble saying Northern Telecom, I don't buy it. A little Nortel history. AT&T Bell split around 1975 or so, they might possibly be the only true Telco that can say they are 100 or 100 + years old.

Mato' Was'aka

 

[acewarlock]

Here is the True history of Nortel.

Nortel Networks, commonly known as Nortel, is a telecommunications equipment manufacturer, headquartered in Canada.
History
The company was founded by Alexander Graham Bell in Brantford, Ontario as the Northern Electric and Manufacturing Company Limited, the name under which it was initially incorporated in 1895. The company made telephones, wind-up gramophones, and street call boxes for police and fire departments.
In 1976 it assumed the title Northern Telecom Limited. At that time it took the bold step of declaring it would lead the future by concentrating on digital technology. It was the first to produce a full line of digital communications equipment that set new standards for the industry.
As Nortel, the streamlined identity it adopted for its 100-year anniversary in 1995, the company set out to dominate the burgeoning global market for public and private networks. Its research arm was called Bell-Northern Research (BNR).
As Nortel Networks, the name that evolved after the 1998 acquisition of Bay Networks, the company re-engineered itself into an Internet communicatins business, offering complete solutions for multiprotocol, multiservice, global networking.
[edit]
Today's business structure
Once the darling of the Canadian business establishment, since September 2000 Nortel's market capitalization has fallen from $398 billion Canadian to less than $5 billion in August 2002. The decline has wiped out the investments of pension funds, corporate backers, and ordinary individuals.
While Nortel's stock price plunged from $124 to $1.50, and more than 60,000 Nortel employees have lost their jobs, CEO John Roth cashed in his stock options for a personal gain of more than $100 million and retired. Frank Dunn, at the time the CFO of the company, stepped up as new CEO.
In a desperate bid to stem the tide of red ink, Nortel eliminated entire departments, including areas that it had previously described as integral to its core operations. Some complained that the company spent too much money to acquire smaller companies and then close them down within months.
At its height, Nortel accounted for more than a third of the total valuation of all the companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX), Canada's largest. Today, it is a penny stock and the possibility of bankruptcy looms large.
Nortel was long the main equipment supplier to Bell Canada, a role similar to Western Electric in the USA. One major project was the DMS series of switches, used to replace the existing Bell crossbar systems in the same fashion that the DS-1 did for AT&T.
Nortel then leveraged this same technology into a smaller package known as the Meridian, aimed at creating PBXs for medium-sized businesses. The Meridian became a big seller, it was an all-digital solution competing against analog systems of limited capability. Things became even more skewed with the introduction of the even smaller Norstar system, which could be hung on a wall and yet offered all the same features as Centrex systems you would normally have to lease. The Norstar became a huge seller and garnered much of the PBX business world-wide during the 1980s. This started Nortel on its road to glory.
The Meridian, based on the Motorola 68000 had extra power that was unused, so BNR started to create a series of applications to run on the system. The "dream" was a large integrated telephone/computer terminal connected to the Norstar over its 56k link (the telephone wire). Applications would run on the Norstar and this way Nortel could enter the computer market.
However the dream system simply didn't work, largely due to performance issues. Instead BNR rolled out a series of "one off" applications. Most famous of these is Meridian Mail which is probably the second-most-used voice mail system. Other applications included automatic call distribution, various PC based interfaces (for call routing) and various attempts to interest people in using the 56k links as a computer network.
After trying the latter for years with limited (or no) success in the networking arena, they eventually gave up in the 1990s when they saw that switch-packet network growth was outpacing telephone systems. They had no experience here, so they simply went out and bought the #2 company, Bay Networks. Bay's suite of IP, layer 2, products were added in to Nortel's product line.
On May 26, 2004, former Canadian Minister of Finance John Manley was named to the board of directors.






This is a Signature and not part of the answer, it appears on every reply.

This is an Analogy so don't take it personally as some have.

Why change the engine if all you need is to change the spark plugs.

 

[I2007]

Nortel is not going anywhere, they will stay in this business untill till there is no iron left in the world. Nortel is a cheap solution compared to cisco if you compare functionality. The ICA collaboration with microsoft is a strong commitment between nortel and microsoft, and nortel is the only vendor to seek patented solutions together with microsoft no matter what other people say. The reason why this relationship hasn't been raised as much I think it should be, is that they won't cut of their legs to any other vendors out there. As for cisco and unified communication, since they are so proprietary in everything they do, they have lost their position in the gartner quadrant to only become a challenger opposed to leaders as they where a few months back ago. Cico is about to lose its cutting edge...