VoIP justification

[Rookcr]

Good morning,

I have gone thru an extensive research of a new telephone system for 7 branches including the main location with rougly 100 users. I had decided to go full VoIP at all locations including our main site which has roughly 50 users or half of the phones. I now have a vendor completly pushing voip at my remote sites and a "digital system" at my main location. Part of the reason for this is this vendor has not done a full Voip roll out over multiple locations and that was one reason for not choosing that solution.

Now while I was out he managed a meeting with the descion makers and is really pushing his product with a combo. Other then conformity and easy moves of the phones, what are some other reasons to present a full IP solution across the board.

Any help is needed and appreciated.

 

[skip555]

if you want to use this vendor and if he isnt comfortable with full voip I would follow his suggestions

there was a good discusion here on voip in this thread it might help you

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=918383

 

[Rookcr]

No,

I do not want to use this vendor and I need justification for full IP.

Thanks

 

[donporter]

Productivity Increase and Maintance are the two biggest thing.

Productivity is what you thing it is worth.

The three biggest reason is that you are going with a tech. that will be there with the lastest and greatest thing that comes out on the market.

I have a PP from Bellsouth that would show it in a nice graph if you want it.

 

[jlshelton]

Commonality of parts and common training are arguments for a full VoIP solution. Do you have employees who visit other offices, or move from one to the other? Will you be stocking replacement parts to make instant repairs when someone spills coffee on a phone?

 

[Rookcr]

Don,

I would appreciate a PP to view.

JL,

I am looking for any firepower I can get to further my cause of a full VoIp solution. I do have roaming users and hoteling/hotdesking would be great. I will have one or two replacement phones on hand.

 

[computerhighguy]

Extensability:
I would go with extensability as a major feature. We can bring up a VPN from any location in the world, as long as the round trip packet time is less than 150 ms, and put a phone there and I am done. The phone registers with my Call Manager system and makes calls. If the round trip time is greater than 150ms, then I have to do some work. We will be at Saphire shortly and will have a phone in our trade show booth. You are no longer limited by distance to the PBX, but rather bandwidth and round trip packet time.

Soft Phone:
We recently had a documentation writer severly break her leg. I hooked her up with a soft phone on her PC and a headset. You would never know she wasn't in the office.

Training:
I am a network guy by trade. It was very easy for me to learn VoIP since it is all, relatively speaking, data. We no longer need a consulting company and a dedicated vendor to support our phone system. We treat it as just another computer on the network (for the most part) when it comes to support.

Life of equipment/Cost of equipment:
Once you have the system up and running, you can buy usedhardware (i.e. phones, etc) and it really is not big deal to set up. You can still use the original phones that Cisco offered with thier current version of the phone system.

Upgrade:
Upgrades are easy. It is typically patch or install program that you run. My old phone system had to get a baord replaced with every major phone system and chips replaced with every minor phone system.


I could go on, but I have to work.





It is what it is!!
__________________________________
A+, Net+, I-Net+, Certified Web Master, MCP, MCSA, MCSE, CCNA, CCDA, and few others (I got bored one day)

 

[Rookcr]

Computerhighguy,

Thanks and keep them coming. In a Hybrid solution can I still use a remote softphone?

 

[computerhighguy]

I would imagine by definition you could. Since it should be VoIP capable. My biggest issue is supporting 2 very different technologies on 1 platform.

If you already have a cisco infrastrucutre with 3500 series switches or better, you might as well go with a full VoIP solution. The infrastructure is there and just needs to be tuned. Your 2500 series routers COULD be an issue, but not necessarily. If you use somethine like a PIX firewall at each site for VPN, and the bandwidth usage is low on your WAN links, it shouldn't be a big deal to implement. In fact, if you have a 3600 series router lying around, you can play with VoIP by upgrading to the latest code, add the Call Manager Express web pages and get a Cisco phone. It provides an amazing amount of functionality for a small price.

I would suggest the full version of Call Manager for 120 people. You will probably need the greater functionality. You a Cisco guy by chance? If not, this is a GREAT way to learn a cool technology. You would need the phone system (i.e. servers) at your central site and the remote sites would just connect in through thier VPN.

QoS:
People hype about how you must use QoS or else..... Yes and no. I run phones in our Germany office. They have an E1 to the Internet. I use a PIX 501 firewall to connect them to a the local ISP. They hope 8 different carriers and I have done NOTHING in the way of QoS and it sounds great. I just shipped them some phones, they plugged them in and my day was done. So don't get nervous about QoS. You may not need it. But keep this in mind. Networks always change, so you may need QoS later if you don't implement it now. But you will have a lot of control when it comes to bandwidth and such by switching which codecs you use.

I installed my phone system by myself. I ordered the Cisco demo kit (about 250 dollars) and installed it on an HP box. It worked, I bought some licenses and started the migration.


It is what it is!!
__________________________________
A+, Net+, I-Net+, Certified Web Master, MCP, MCSA, MCSE, CCNA, CCDA, and few others (I got bored one day)

 

[Rookcr]

Thank you,

I am a cisco guy but we actually landed on a Mitel solution.

I am upgrading all of my core network to Cisco 2800's and managed switches for QOS.

 

[paul144]

I am going to post something that I am not sure you want to hear. I have heard horror story after horror story from people that went with a full VOIP solution. In the vast majority of cases and applications, a traditional system that has VOIP capability makes a lot more sense.
Perhaps you should get opinions from other competent and qualified telecom professionals instead of deciding that "I want it this way so I will find a way to rationalize it."
There are many qualified consultants out there.
It may turn out that VOIP might be a good solution, but I think that you are allowing your bias as an IT person influence your thinking on this.

 

[Rookcr]

Paul,

I appreciate your candor on this. I am gathering as many opinions as I can. In reading 918383 I just took to the comment about revisting costs and barriers/we can't do that situation. We are running a legacy system over 15 years old. This is not a common purchase for us.

 

[jdblack]

Rookcr,
I am in the exact same boat as you at this time. Have been visiting with several vendors and seem to be leaning to the true VOIP as I am looking at 12 locations with 350 users, all connected over frame or ptp circuits. Our systems are all 10+ years and mission critical with little to no vendor support.
Not sold on the Cisco solution at this time and seem to be leaning more towards ShoreTel. Any info you can provide would be appreciated as well.
Thanks

 

[computerhighguy]

jdblack,
I can't say enough about Cisco's solutions. Granted I came from a Telrad solution that absolutely did not meet by business's needs and the support was a joke. So having a Cisco phone system is like going from a Yugo to a Ferrari. The Cisco system works. We trust them to run our business's core network, VPN and Firewalls. Why not the phone system. Other than a few phones that went a little freaky, I am wasting my money on the support. I NEVER call a vendor to do anything cause I can do it myself. OK, I did need a vendor to help with a latching relay system so a strobe would go off when a voice mail was left in the tech support mailbox, but come on!!! Unless you have been a phone guy for a long time, you wouldn't know how to do that.

I implemented the entire phone sytem myself by reading.
I implemented the voice mail system by myself by reading.
(OK I did a little lab work also)
I implemented 802.11b phones.

I am currently working on IPCC Express by myself.

There is so much out there on Cisco phone systems (and avaya also). How much is out there on Shoretel? Cisco will do with phones, what they did with wireless. Yes, they do not have all the features of Avaya systems (yet), but they are getting there. We run all our sites from our central office Call Manager Clusters.

For POE, we bought used 3524xl power switches off of ebay.

For the servers, I bought reconditioned HP DL380s.

You can put a Cisco phone system in rather cheaply, if you are willing to work at it and look at the different, sometimes older products, that can do the job for you.

If prices isn't a factor, then get a top of the line avaya and outsource it all.

If price is the only factor, go with Asteriks.

But if reliablity, support and a reasonable price is what you are looking for, you cannot go wrong with Cisco.

No matter witch VoIP solution you go with, you will need the network infrastructure to support it. DLink switches are probably not a good idea. Linksys routers and firewalls are probably not a good idea either. Why support two technologies with a hybrid system when you can support just one? K.I.S.S.

A lot of people are intimidated by VoIP. Although it is possible to screw it up, it is, in my opinion, VERY hard to do. Make sure you have that bandwidth calculator for the codec you want to use and your current WAN stats. You'll be fine. Let use know who you go with and how the migration worked.



It is what it is!!
__________________________________
A+, Net+, I-Net+, Certified Web Master, MCP, MCSA, MCSE, CCNA, CCDA, and few others (I got bored one day)

 

[Rookcr]

JD,

I am going full VoIP. I am not confortable sharing the solution we have chosen but it is not the Cisco. They priced themselves out of the market with their call center suite. I did purchase all ne cisco gear for my network though. (It all arrived today.) It came down to me that for an investment we don't make every day I felt that in a Hybrid solution I was buying a "generation" behind. If you want more details let me know. When the contract is signed
I will post what we purchased.

 

[jneiberger]

Rookcr,

It's interesting that you selected Mitel. My company is also a Cisco shop for data, and Nortel for TDM voice. However, we plan on moving to VoIP and after looking at Nortel, Mitel, Cisco, and Avaya, I would say that it's highly likely that we'll be selecting Mitel, as well.

The size of our network dictates that it will be a hybrid for quite some time, but brand new locations will be full VoIP from the start. The remaining locations will (likely) have Mitel 3300s as gateways for our Nortel Option 11s. It should be fun.

Good luck!
John

 

[jdblack]

computerhighguy,
Funny you mention Telrad as that is the same fiasco I am dealing with now. Three major locations all with the Telrad 400. Old hardware and crappy software. My biggest hurdle right now is convincing the money guys that we have a real weakness in our phone systems and getting them to commit to a change. As a customer service oriented company, my biggest fear is losing a cabinet and not being able to adequately handle calls. I can guarantee you that when that happens (not if) it will become my fault. And as you know with Telrad, you have no support.

 

[Rookcr]

I placed that type of issue in my last review. I did a the sky is not falling yet, when it happens and it is going to happen. This is my "get out of jail free card" It seems to have worked.

 

[computerhighguy]

Telrad blows. Pretty hard.

Here is how we started getting rid of the Telrad.
We had a T1 coming into the Telrad box. We first tried E&M tie lines to a Cisco router to got to VoIP and it worked for a pilot, but was expensive. I tried hooking a PRI up between the telrad and the Cisco router to get more calls, but still route through the telrad. The Telrad PRI cards suck, you can't debug them. My rep and the manufacturer basically promised the sky and never called me back. I even spoke with the vice president in charge of service. He assured me that they would take care of it. It has been over 4 years and I haven't heard from them.

I formulated my attack plan and decided I needed to have all the connections to the PSTN come into a Cisco router and then we could send it to the either call manager or the Telrad. I did it one the weekends. It took some time becuase the Telrad sucks and no support. Once I got that working, it was easy to start the migration. I used the Cisco router in H323 mode so I could redirect incoming DIDs as I moved people from the old phone system to the new one. I could take my time and work out issues along the way. I would suggest you do the same thing, or at least bring your new system up in parallel to the old one.

Make a paper trail. If the phone system goes down and you have been warning them, then have the proof (emails, voice mails, etc). Management isn't going to want to take the fall for this, so they will be looking for someone to blame. Don't let it be you. I am going through a similar situation with a Storage Area Network here that runs our core business. I give it a year before it completely fails. It won't be my fault. I bring it up at every meeting with my boss.


It is what it is!!
__________________________________
A+, Net+, I-Net+, Certified Web Master, MCP, MCSA, MCSE, CCNA, CCDA, and few others (I got bored one day)

 

[jlshelton]

Paper trails only work if you have POSITIVE SUGGESTIONS in addition to dire warnings. Management doesn't like people who only complain. Make sure your trail has active recommendations what to do, particularly if you can cite examples from comparable companies.