Pure IP Solutions

[IPOUK]

What is everyones view on a pure IP Solution? Got a client who want a pure IP solution - 130 users. They're getting Cisco switches installed. Now, they are only going to have an ISDN30 installed (with 30 channels), and possibly 15 channels with another ISDN provider.

Who has the largest pure IP solution out there, and what is the feedback? With a VCM30 installed, I wouldn't think there would be too many problems (if the 30 channels only are open), but anymore I can see there being problems.

A bit of feedbak would be great!

Cheers.

 

[NuggiFirst]

I think chrashtest1000 sums it up pretty good here!

Yes, I have had trouble sites! Yes, i have shouted at Avaya from time to time. And yes, this system has taken up alot of my sparetime

But now we have gone past the early 2.1 versions, and things have eased of quite much.

This is one of the best witnesses of the IPO's qualitys:
The customers doesn't switch to other platforms (not ours at least..). They are anoid when things go wrong, but these things have ussualy been fixed in hours. But they simply can't live without the massive possibilities the IPO offers. And these features comes at a price where there is no competition!

In other words: Learn the system, it's not that difficult, and it will do tricks you can't find anywhere else!

 

[Morrack]

Hopefully this is now a suffiecent appology for my poor choice of words made in responce to a post that clearly insulted all of us here"

Nah I wanna hear you grovel some more IPGuru...

*grin*

Peter

PS And yes, well said crashtest!

 

[nohuhu]

IPGuru,

1. may i remind you that ethernet is not only one data transmitting technology? and although i agree that no ethernet swich can guarantee delivery, in practical world the quality they give is more than enough, assuming that the network is correctly planned and set up. and that's the question of whether you need something practically reliable and working or you're trying to chase rainbows to achieve that 100%. my customers, a lot of them, are practical people.
2. i also agree that every single case needs its own solution, but i disagree on your statement about tdm. it can be used for data transmitting, too. imagine that and then think about how much it would cost. nice, it is not? so i say again: there are no ideal solutions for voice, neither for data, because there are no ideal solutions at all. in real world, voip is mature enough, stable enough and considerably cheaper than tdm, being an order of magniture more rich in features. and customers appreciate that.
3. my comment about ipo clearly shows only that i had had some very unpleasant experience with ipo, and not with only one installation, i'd say. 2.1 is not completely bad but still has some very bad flaws that one of my customers is experiencing right now. what would you say about a pbx of about 200 users with 35 of them are call center agents that can crash and reboot in the middle of a work day? or lock up after config merge request so you can't do anything with it until manual reboot? i can go on and on, the list of bugs is big enough. and please don't say it's a result of incorrect installation. the incompleteness of documentation for ipo is known fact. and if you have some supreme experience with ipo and can guarantee 100% that your install would work, it says only about that you know more tips and tricks than other engineers. note that it does not say anything good about a system that requires some black voodoo knowledge to ensure that it will work correctly. that's why i'm saying what i'm saying: ipo is a bit of brain-damaged product and suits only small business installations without too much requirement for the system. it does not suit a call center environment and definitely is not for a customer who wants reliable pbx, no matter is it pure ip or not.

p.s. nothing personal and forgive me for my poor english.

 

[IPGuru]

actualy dwalin we seem to be in general agreement.

VoIP can be implemented in a reliable manner, just I like most people here would say use VoIP in the areas that is is most suited, not just because it is available.

Likewise I would only try to use TDM in suitable locations

AS to "Brain Damaged" I again agree about certain points

as has been said many times here V2.1(15) & V2.1(24) should not be used as they are by far the worst ever releases of IPO - V2.0(18) was acceptable & also V1.4(27) was a good release.

I would personaly not recommend IP Office for a true call center environment, although even that has improved now telephony functions can be fully merged.

& again I suspect your problems are due to V2.1, a new maintanence release is being trialed by Avaya.

 

[IPOUK]

I'm with IPGuru and his comments on "incompetent installations" - the number of sites I have had to go to because the client's current maintainer isn't providing the support they had hoped for is amazing. I see the same basic faults at all sites and this is because accredited engineers haven't installed the kit.

Avaya know about this and at a recent management meeting with a number of resellers, we have been assured that the process of purchasing kit is being looked at and an accreditation scheme is going to be forced soon - we all know there is currently an IP Office accreditation, but it is not being forced, so anyone can buy the kit. Watch this space, but it should be changing soon!

 

[nohuhu]

IPGuru,

aah there is just one nice trick: voip is considered "the future of telephony" and it seems that all industry agreed to that, so eventually all new pbxes sold will be ip-based and that's inevitable. so for me, the current situation looks like "consider ip solution first, and if and only if you find some condition that makes using ip potentially dangerous or unstable, then consider tdm solution". me myself, i'm trying hard to be as unbiased as i can but still i'm tend to favor ip solutions. voip gives me power i can't imagine in tdm-based environment. and i like that.
as for ipo, the system i'm talking about was upgraded to 2.1(27) just recently from 2.0(18). it solved some nasty problems but added even more. i'm fighting hard with this bug hydra but it seems to grow new heads before i can rip off old ones. well, i can't say i'm completely inexperienced with ipo, but i'm beginning to grow tired of this. unfortunately for me, the customer doesn't want to throw ipo off and buy some good call center solution, he decided he want to stick with ipo and all advanced features it gives. well, on paper maybe. and note that i didn't yet mention ccc, which deserves its own set of lashes. just this saturday i had an experience of migrating ccc4 to ccc5. well, it took 9 hours and i'm not yet sure it will work as expected...
so forgive me for all this whining, but now i know one thing about ipo: if you want it to perform basic tdm-pbx work, it's good enough. if you think about call/contact center with ivr functionality or something like this, then try to set it up, then cross your fingers and don't breathe on it. maybe it would work as good as avaya salesmen said. maybe it wouldn't. nobody knows ahead.

 

[IPGuru]

I dont know of any system that works as well as the manufacturer claims

IPO is verry good at standard PBX work. There are definatly still bugs is V2.1(27) but do not seem to be of the "Show Stopper" variaty & work arounds do exist for most.

Now that you have the system in you need to keep the preasuer on Avaya to confirm these bugs & get them corrected
this can be a herculean task some times.

I too got verry tired of the earlier V2.1 fisco & heaved a huge sigh of releaf when Avaya posponed the release of V3.0
Hopefully this means that when it is releeased it will not suffer the same types of problems.
(current tests on V3.0 look prommising but I will not tempt fate yet)

 

[nohuhu]

IPGuru,

i know such a system! it's zippo lighter. works perfectly for about ten years now, never found any bugs, never needed any upgrades, just a scheduled maintenance.

it seems to me that one of the biggest problems with avaya is lack of techsupport outside the u.s. here in russia i can't say that is's nonexistent, but definitely very limited. i really envy you american guys for having the ability to call avaya and lift the load off your shoulders. here we have just one competent ipo engineer in avaya techsupport and as you can imagine he physically can't know every trick in the system. so we have to escalate almost all serious problems to u.k. office and that's not a very fast process. *sigh* well, let's hope 3.0 will be good. meantime, don't breathe on it.

 

[IPGuru]

I am actualy In UK, We probably have sightly better access to Avaya support however this forum seems to be one of the quickest wasy to learn of new bugs & programming tricks.

I suspect that when Avaya here from any of the top posters here they go into a flat spin, knowing thet there realy is a problem.

You are correct about the Zippo lighter, but it is not verry good at making telephone calls (unless you have the KGB/MI6/CIA model)

 

[Spanning]

IPGURU , APOLOGY accepted as to ref to TDM or pure IP solution, i would stick quality , stick to TDM in the office specialy for CFD.(Customer Facing Deapartments)
Use VOIP to branch the systems.