Should I go to VOIP

[IWIF]

Hello- here is my first time post... I have reviewed and extensively surfed about a decision to go voip at our shop. Did not exactly find a clear answer so here is my situation. Currently have Opt. 61c, older release- Mermail, Symposium and IVR system with 2008-2616 sets. We have about 400 employees (includes 25 seat call center) and only about 15 folks that call forward to cell phones. We have an unmanned emergency site that ONLY comes into play if our building is "gone" in a disaster- other than that we are all in one house. Currrently have advanced routing via PSTN for this. My powers of being are looking into VOIP and I am having trouble to justify advantages for my scenario. Oh- we do have cat6 infrastructure to all of our desks and closets and multiple T1's and analog trunks currently. I value your opinions on this...

Thanks,

Rob Drouin
Maryland State Gov.

 

[Johnthephoneguy]

You want to go VOIP for trunking/tie lines or VOIP for all the phonesets?

JohnThePhoneGuy

"If I can't fix it, it's not broke!

 

[NitaDrink]

I have the exact same setup, except my 61c has Succession 3.0 w/ CallPilot. No IVR, but have a 30 seat call center and about 450 users. We use the 2616's mostly, and I'm moving to 3904's as they die. I've never been able to cost justify VOip, because the cost of the equipment, let alone replacing all the phones. My system was paid for years ago. We now only pay for upgrades. Unless you can justify it by the savings on your long distance, or have a really big budget, it's hard to make a case. (I'm paying about .0018 for LD), so I've never been able to justify spending the $.

 

[acewarlock]

.0018 for LD? who is your provider?

were paying about 1.8

 

[Johnthephoneguy]

I think VOIP is best when you have a new building with no wiring, thats the time to decide to save money right away with cabling, only need 1 jack instead of 2. Existing systems you don't see a cost savings there since you already have existing wiring.

On the trunking, VOIP is great for saving money on LD but I would only use that for a few trunks not for a call center.

JohnThePhoneGuy

"If I can't fix it, it's not broke!

 

[LeeMcCauslin]

Ace, our LD is "virtually free" - USLEC gives us so many minutes of free LD per circuit (we currently have about 40 circuits with them) that we have never even come close to exceeding those free minutes. That's why we have never seriously considered VoIP for our north division. Our recently acquired southern branches had VoIP in place already and we are currently converting that to Nortel from Intertel. Which is great fun for me as I got a shiny new sig server and other upgrades here to help manage them down there.

 

[IWIF]

Thanks for the info everyone- as far as LD I pay only .02 with a State plan I have. Which may not justify changing... Our system is paid for except for a yearly maintenance contract.

Awesome group- thanks again...

RD

 

[acewarlock]

We use VOIP over our Data network and we have 4 Lic to each because we don't get the big discount at the site's that we get at the home office. Te only IP phones we use are the free softphones.

 

[NitaDrink]

Sorry gang, that was a typo, we're paying .018 w/ Global Crossing.

 

[hawks]

Remember when a deal on LD was .10 to .12?

 

[IWIF]

I actually had great rates with AT&T, but they dropped our state gov account and LD went to .18. Obviously they did not want us as a customer for local LD anymore... I am going to crunch numbers and take in account the cost to upgrade the switch to Succession and trunks to IP vs. upgrading to Succession and my analogs to PRI (keeping in mind my current .02 LD rates)

Thanks for the input again :>

 

[acewarlock]

I'm really dating myself but, I remember when $.26 was a real bargin.

 

[Patrick45]

I have found that the only two option that are cost efective with Voip when you already have TDMA in place is I2050 Softphones for the Travelers, work at home and the one that take work home. The other is when you need to connect ot another office, VoIP trunking sharing the data ckt with voice is a cost savings. You can have PRI service which alows you to only need one voice mail and a single dialing plan. both are cost savings.

 

[johnpoole]

my opinion on voip is to wait. not on all sites or all sets but voice comm is not something that 98 percent working rate is an option. if i could save money by turning half my trunks over to a voip provider i would.. we use some voip internal but it has cost way more then it will ever save and that one dept has been down at least 3 times in 6 months. the 81c did an ini 3 years ago and you would have thought it was the end of the world..

i've recogmended voip home service for people that wanted to save money.. but even need to know that they don't have service when power is down or the cable provider is down and 911 may not ever work right... they may need to reboot there router once a week or more, but it's cheaper..

ease into voip with your eyes open.. and wait until you find an up side... for now with 8000 stations tdm, the cost justification is not there and i still can't find a single reason to go down that road.. if i was consulting on a new install i would still recogemend 50 percent or less voip. and not that if the phones HAD to be up 24-7..

and yes a lot of us remember ld at 1.00 plus a minute. and banded watts and one provider.. and not changing for a new pbx because the ld bill would pay for the switch and install in about 3 months.. (we didn't have anyone bidding against free installs back then)

john poole
bellsouth business
columbia,sc