Remote sites attaching to a centralised CM solution

[Misadventure]

Hi All,

My client is looking to install a centralised CUCM solution and is hoping that their various other offices (approx 12, with users up to 2000) will be able to conect over the corporate LAN and WAN without any other hardware investment in terms of additional Voice Gateways, etc.

I understand that the details are sketchy, but based on the above outline, is this scenario possible? Or will they need to invest in (at a minimum) voice gateways at each site?

Cheers in advance!

 

[ADB100]

Yes it is, however there are several assumptions:

1. There is enough bandwidth available on the WAN circuits to carry the extra VoIP traffic
2. You have PoE switches to support powering IP Phones
3. If remote sites only have single WAN links then a WAN failure will result in all IP Phones being offline (without a local CUCME or SRST gateway)

You would need some VoIP gateways in addition to the CUCM servers at the central site to interface with the PSTN though. You probably already have the circuits, however you need to convert them to IP and this is done using routers with voice modules (E1/T1, BRI etc) and DSP resources.

You would also need to look at queueing mechanisms and traffic prioritisation (QoS) on the WAN links (and LAN depending on what it is?) to ensure the audio quality is acceptable.

Andy

 

[whykap]

Yes you can do without local voice gateways. However in addition to adb100 suggestions without a local gateway you will not have:

Local 911 services (liability)
Local dialtone
Voice services during a WAN failure.