One BCM with Multiple Sites

[jneiberger]

Someone on another forum asked a question that seems a little off the wall to me. They have three locations, one of which has a BCM. They want to install IP phones at all three locations and they were told by the reseller that if they wanted to avoid putting a BCM at all three sites then all of the phones in their network had to be in the same IP subnet. This seems like a load of hooey and I can't think of any technical reason why this would be the case.

Any thoughts? Is this a load of horse hockey or is there some truth behind it?

Thanks!
John

 

[3Sixty]

News to me I would have thought they would have needed some sort of VPN setup or leased circuits.The subnet could be to save the individual or reseller the hassle of setting up the ip routing for the multiple sites.

Marshall

 

[nbowles]

I was also told this by support. It is a load of hooey. VPN should be set up for better quality, but is not required.

 

[jneiberger]

Well, apparently this guy has three sites connected via point-to-point T1 links. Because of what the reseller told him, he turned off his routing protocol while he pondered how to route data traffic and bridge voice traffic on the same link. What a mess...

Could this have something to do with DHCP? Does the BCM act as a DHCP server for the IP phones? If so, I wonder if there is some restriction in that regard. I can't imagine why, though. I think either the reseller doesn't have the necessary expertise or the customer isn't understanding what the reseller is saying.

 

[3Sixty]

But you do not need to use the BCM to allocate the IP phones IP addresses.

Have a look at this

http://www.marshallshouse.co.uk/faq.php?cat_id=6

Marshall

 

[hyperrad]

First option. The reseller has no networking specialist in their pool. Also, the technicians do not know the product well at all. I'm actually more knowledgeable on the system... however I am not an expert.

So...
The rundown. Solutions welcome.
* 3 locations
* Connected via megalink T1 Point-to-Points
* Using Cisco 1800 series routers
* Single BCM at main facility

 

[jneiberger]

Do you have the option of getting input from a different reseller? What about directly from Nortel? I know Nortel is difficult to work with directly but if you have some contacts there it might be worth talking to them to try to get some help.

This _should_ be a relatively simple configuration and I would imagine that someone with BCM experience could get it working in no time at all...without having to bridge your voice traffic.

 

[3Sixty]

I do not see where the problem is if there are point to point links facilitated by Cisco routers with the BCM being an add on to faciltate VOIP.This is just a matter of setting up the BCM and pointing the phones to the BCM public ip address within the Network. Yes you will need some sort of QOS. But apart from that certainly no rocket science.

Marshall

 

[nsantin]

Simple solution:

Configure the phones to use partial dhcp, manually set them to point to the internal IP of the BCM (assuming you can ping/access the BCM across you wan links).

That will get you connectivity, next you will need to look at QOS and your routers to get you stability and performance.

 

[NARSBARS]

nsantin is right.
I use this method exclusively as our IT guys don't want to see a bunch of DHCP servers on the WAN.
If there is any fault with this I hope people will chime in.

NARSBARS