VOIP for call centers 2

[obobob]

Hi all,
Is it a good idea to switch to VOIP? Our company is a call center we receive a $1,500 monthly phone bill. We are using norstar system with ACD and T1.
Can anyone advice if VOIP is for us.
What we can get and what we will need?
any input will be appreciated

 

[MarvO1]

If you are a call center, VOIP probably isn't quite ready for you if you are making calls all over the country. BUT If you are making most of your calls to your own branch offices and you already have a data back-bone in place, (with spare bandwith), then VOIP just may work for you. In fact, with the Nortel BCM, you can still use your existing telephones.

MarvO said it

 

[obobob]

Thanks for the reply MarvO.

 

[obobob]

Hi again,
We will soon have other locations and will be making a lot of calls to our own branch offices, we looked into VOIP solutions and even though we have a Norstar system , my boss is in favor of replacing it with a new system based on VOIP, because for the price of Nortel BCM we can buy the complete new system and we can always sell our existing system and phones.
Any comments?

 

[weav1]

I think VOIP is an excellent idea. try the mitel 3300 icp.
It supports acd.

 

[bythespy]

Questions:
Are your calls inbound or outbound?

How many agents?

You mentioned new offices will all of these office have data and or voce conectivity to a central site?

VOIP and IP Telephony are two completely different applications, which one are you actually considering?


I have an 12 agent call center for 24 branch offices, 100% of our network is Cisco IP Telephony. We run Cisco IPCC and once we got some application integration issues worked out we have been happy.


I will be more than happy to discuss this in detail offline or here.




Mspivey
CCNP

 

[obobob]

Thanks for the replies;

Mspivey,
We have 40 agents, and more will come in the future.
Our calls are inbound and outbound but more outbound.
The new offices will have data and or voice connectivity to a central site.
The difference between VOIP and IP Telephony is not very clear to me, and not sure what will be good for us.
Thanks for the offer; I will be thankful to discuss this offline.
My email: ob2004@hotmail.com

 

[jlshelton]

Please go ahead and post some general responses here, too. Many of us are still willing to learn a few things.

Are you differentiating between VoIP as just transport of voice via IP data networks, and IP Telephony as telephony applications that enhance the calling experience?

It would seem that the transport issues are primarily about cost, reliability, and quality. Application issues are about what you can do to make business people more productive. And the two are reasonably distinct, right?

=John=

 

[PeaveyPhones]

Seems to me the differance is: I could be wrong...
IP Telephony (IPT) is a term that describes your particular phone system. In my case we are adding an office and I'm considering making it an IPT node as opposed to adding another expansion cabinet with traditional analog and digital phones. And of course the T1 to connect it to our main PBX (Avaya G3r)
VoIP is more about the tranport of calls outside my offices.
To draw an anology, IPT is like the a LAN (local area network). VoIP is more like a WAN (wide area network).

Am I close?

Richard

 

[mdeeves]

ipt is like a LAN/WAN VOIP is like your internet connection.

VOIP connects you to the PSTN. that is where the "convergence" happens.

From your data network to the worlds Voice network and back to your data network if needed.

Am i right?

 

[mattKnight]

Personally, I draw little distinction between voip and ipt....

I think, each phrase means what you want it to.

any system that carries voice packets as data on a LAN or WAN is using VOIP technology. Or alternatively it is an IPT system.

jshelton is ,imho, talking about VOIP trunks i.e. using an IP network to carry voice packets from one site to another (to a PSTN breakout) which is often cited as a benfit of IP telephony.



Take Care

Matt
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

 

[obobob]

Any one knows any online VOIP and IPT resources that are easy to understand?

 

[bythespy]

matt I disagree there is a fundamental difference between VOIP and IPT. The industry is growing so fast and it is very easy to use the terms as synonyms but they are not.

VOIP is defined by most people in the industry as the transport of voice in an IP packet, the actuall network may or may not carry data packets. One example of VOIP is two traditional PBXes connected to each other over an IP backbone. Each PBX has an IP gateway card, but all of the end devices are traditional phones. Unless the call travels from one PBX user to the other the call is a traditional call.



IPT is most often defined as a solution where all the devices in the solution are IP enabled. The transport of voice is IP as long as the call is on the network, at the PSTN gateway it gets convereted.



Mspivey
CCNP

Have you been to

http://www.ciptug.org

?
The OFFICIAL Cisco IP Telephony User Group!

"convergence isn't coming...... it is here." mspivey 2003

 

[g6udx]

To me, I have found the best way to differenciate the two applications of VoIP is to sub-divide them into "IP Trunking" and "LAN telephony". IP trunking is fairly self explanatory. It refers to, what are effectively, trunks betwixt PBXs/Voice Servers providing the functionality of tie lines betwixt sites. LAN telephony effectively defines the connection betwixt the phone instrument and the voice server. It would include a connection to a remote user via the Internet or a corporate infrastructure even though there is a WAN in the middle.
A bit clumsy, but it works for me.

 

[senk1s]

BCM is a good option where u get to keep your phones / modules etc

3COM has a gateway product by CITEL, which uses the norstar phones behind their NBX

If there are very few interbranch calls 4 or 8 ...try the Norstar VoIP gateway at both locations ...works pretty good

Pls remember the VoIP/ IPT depends on how capable your network (end to end) is

 

[Telecoms]

We are also a call with 300 seats were using a traditional telecommunication wherein we used a an International Private leased line E1 and compressed it to 4XE1 and the quality is good. we tried using a VOIP running over the IP cloud the first few calls were good because of lesser bandwidth usage, but when bulk of calls either inbound or outbound comes it affects the quality of calls. Using a VOIP is a good idea it's cost effective.

 

[geraldshort]

Good planning and network design are obvious requirements. if you need to understand some generic considerations for a few of the codecs used look at

http://www.robotics.net/clec/tools/index.html

and download the voip efficiency tool, it will give you some ideas to work with. I have worked with IP links over satellite, wireless networks, internet, VPN's, separately and together, all work well, IF engineered correctly! bandwidth available, allocation, prioritization, capabilities of equipment all play a part. But the failure is typically the human who didn't plan it or configure it correctly.

For an answer to the original question:
Why not utilize service from Vonage and other varied players emerging for the unlimited long distance?

General rules:
How do you contact another party? you need a phone number.

1. You always need a telco to connect you when you call someone outside your company, landline or voip calling. There ALWAYS has to be a gateway between transmission types. This is provided by your ITSP(internet telephony service providor)who has been allocated phone numbers which he provides to you. Calls to and from your phone number are always switched via the landline( generic term OK?) network between all the telco's and the ITSP's for termination to their customers.

2. There are free VOIP services that act as a telco between members, therein is the issue, caller and callee must be members. this only would work with an earlier exchange of contact information, better used for long term communications. but as the for-profit services give a great deal now this is not such an interesting option.

3. When you install voip in your office and/or between offices, you essentially do the same thing as the telco's. You have must have a gateway to connect your voip network to the telco lines. This can be an add on part in the case of a voip network between offices with a gateway that connects the voip calls to your PBX for transmission to the telcos if it is an outside call or to an internal extension.

4. If you have a IP-PBX the gateway is built in to your PBX. A good system will be able to route the call by the best medium automatically no matter what number you dial even if ther is an outage on one of the pathways.

Gerald