Question about multiple Customer segments in CS1K - Dial Plan 3

[chippowell9]

In the CS1K (7.5), I’ve never had more than one customer: “Customer 0,” the default. I don’t really know how separate customer segments work. If I were to absorb an entirely new customer base into my system, e.g. “Customer 1,” could they have the same dial plan (extension numbers) as Customer 0? This assumes I have capacity, etc. I know there’s a lot to this, but the dial plan could be a deal breaker.

 

[StanleySteamer]

The dialplan would be completely separate between customers so you could have the same DN's appearing on both.
Of course each customer would also require its own trunks, voice mail etc. - anything that has a Customer #.

 

[chippowell9]

Thank you Steamer. Separate voice mail too...I didn't think of that. We have CallPilot 5, maybe upgrading to AAM this year. I guess that can't segement customers like the CS1K?

 

[KCFLHRC]

Like Stanley Steamer said, almost everything is separate. Everything except things not defined by a customer. So conference circuits,TDS, VGW channels, and a few other things are shared resources. But dial plan, trunks and all that is separate. You cant even call between customers. You may want to look at Tenant service. Keep in mind AAM is SIP based, not sure how that would work with a multi customer. In all my years, 35, I have only installed 1 multi customer switch, it was a Hotel and a Convention Center. After we cut it over they wanted to be able to 4 digit dial between sites. I had to burn 2 PRI's and all the hardware and make CDP entries for them to call back and forth to each other. Tenant service may work better for you

 

[chippowell9]

Thank you, I'm not familiar with Tenant service. The scenario is this: Main CS1K in Building 1. Geo-redundant CS1K in Building 2 with several hundred extensions, a bunch of line cards, a couple PRI's. That all works great.

A friendly company at the Building 2 site only has about 60 phones, no call center, on a small PBX. They don't have onsite telecom staff, but rely on a local service provider. They may do their own MACs, I'm not sure. Anyway, A fairly simple setup. I thought we could offer to take over their phone support, since we have a big CS1K and plenty of capacity. We'd let the two companies work out the money.

We wouldn't need to do four digit dialing between the two companies. How does Tenant service work? Do you think it's a better option than multi-customer?

 

[KCFLHRC]

The main differences between Multi Tenant and Multi Customer is the The Tenant service can utilize the same trunking and utilizes the same dial plan. For a more detailed explanation I would consult the Feature guide.

 

[hawks]

Either should work Tenant gives you more opportunity to share resources like voicemail and trunks. If you totally wanted them seperate I would go with customer.

Big question is do you have the multi-cust or multi-tenant package on your system not all came with it.

 

[chippowell9]

Thanks all. The shared dial plan would be the big problem, so probably multi-customer is the way to go. Not sure if I have the package, would have to purchase if need be.

 

[hawks]

Multiple-Tenant Service 86
Multiple-Customer Operation 2
You don't have to share trunks with Multi Tenant it just allows you to if you want to.

Administrators can configure access to other tenants, attendant consoles, and
trunk routes so that tenants have private access to some services and shared
access to others.

Look in the Features and Services book for a complete description.

 

[chippowell9]

Turns out I do have the feature packages for both multi-customer and multi-tenant. This project is just at a theoretical stage, so I'm just gathering information. Thank you all so much as always!