Recommendation of internal VOIP?

[JamesMcguinness]

I've been asked to see if we can do some kinds of VOIP or chat system on our WAN here at work. We have 60ish small locations across north america and 2 large offices. We have a MPLS network that connects all these locations. We aren't looking to replace the phone systems across the board so any ideas what we could do with the PC's and WAN? I'm thinking some kind of voice chat via the PC's etc. More or less an IM system but for VOIP, something we can host in house. any help would be appreciated!

 

[VoIPGuyNSC]

Shoot. It sounds like you could get away with nothing more than Skype.

John Lever
Telecommunications
Richland School District Two
Columbia, SC

 

[JamesMcguinness]

Then I can't administer it! As well all sites route to the internet through the head office. Skype would be going from say Vancouver to Montreal to iNet, then back to Montreal etc.

 

[Sympology]

Take a look at a simple instant messenger,
MS messenger can be used internally (for life of me can't think of the app server name)
Also I think Jabber can do this.

Sorry to be vague, looks like Surfcontrol is playing up and I've lost my access (again!) to IM sites....

Only the truly stupid believe they know everything.
Stu.. 2004

 

[VoIPGuyNSC]

I was actually referring to the new Skype for business which to my understanding can be used entirely within ones organization, with a distributed design, just like the normal Skype, but without requiring any Internet access.

John Lever
Telecommunications
Richland School District Two
Columbia, SC

 

[JamesMcguinness]

Interesting, I'll try to find something on it. Thanks.

 

[aaron99]

i've stood up a sip proxy/registrar box in a lab for testing before using Sip Express Router (SER) from iptel.org.....it comes prebundled with Solaris 10. but i beleive you can run it on several other unix variants. i used XTEN XLite and sjlabs.com SIP soft phones. all freely downloadable. this made for a nice SIP VoIP enviornment. I think I even used MS Windows Messenger 5.1 which is SIP capable. Also you might want to look at MS LCS 2005 SE (microsoft's live communications server 2005 standard edition) and the Office Communicator 2005 Client.....I used a 120 day eval copy....you'll need MS 2003 Server with a AD (Active Directory) enviornment if you go the MS route. so the SER is easier.

oh, but i've heard great things about Asterisk as a alternative to SER

aaron

 

[Sympology]

Also Ondo SIP server. Had that as a test (we now have an all bells and whistles system, but was great as a trial.

I'd personally avoid Skype (unless Bus veriosn is different) as it's propriety so once you've got it, your stuck with it.

try these links:

http://www.sipforum.org/

http://www.voip-info.org/tiki-index.php

http://www.brekeke-sip.com/wiki/

Only the truly stupid believe they know everything.
Stu.. 2004

 

[JamesMcguinness]

Thanks for all the great info guys. Can I ask a VERY n00b question? If I setup a SIP server (say Ondo) how do I connect software VoIP clients, or IP phones? Is it as simple as configuring the IP phone with a typical network setup and point it to the SIP server? I'd guess the software would be config'ed to the SIP server?

I've literally never looked at VoIP before!

 

[aaron99]

everyone here was asking questions like this at some point in their life. it's all good.

some sip-capable IM clients and/or soft or hard phones support a DNS function that actually causes the phone to discover the IP address of the SIP server.

http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-DNS+SRV

....then they will proceed to send a REGISTRATION message to that dns-resolved sip registrar server.

if you want to do it manually, simply put in the ip address of the server (registrar) within the configuration settings of the sip client

also, some people don't know that SIP VoIP in it's simpliest form DOES NOT require any intermediary servers at all. the smarts for sending and receiving the calls (INVITES, 100 TRYING, 180 RINGING, 200 OK, ACK, etc) resides in the SIP client itself. Every SIP Client has both a Server and a Client function built-in. It's known as the UAC/UAS....user agent server and user agent client. you can actually download a sip phone (xten xlite or sjlabs are two cute ones....sjlabs is also a h323 soft terminal) and use them to call DIRECTLY between one another WITHOUT any sip services (locator, registrar, proxy)....BUT keep in mind that this won't scale to large number ofcourse.