atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Other TDM Phone Systems ESI Telephones & Systems All IP ESI 600?

Hello - we're looking into installing an all-ip ESI 600 in a new building. Since we're doing everything from scratch we figured IP is the way to go. All the phones themselves will be on a completely seperate network from our typical data network, however there will be some interconnection for management, remote access, etc. Wiring will be cat-6.

Just curious to know if anyone's done an all-ip installation with over 85 phones? If so, was there any sound quality issues? What switches did you use?

Secondly, in regards to sip support (not overly important), have people had success using SIP adapters and/or softphones like Xten with ESI? How about Linksys routers that have the phone ports built in?

Just to clarify, I'm not the installer, but the customer. Our installer is a member of this board and has answered all my questions well, I'm just doing background research now and getting opinions ;-)

I'm a computer guy who's decently versed in VOIP and phone technologies, so feel free to speak geek.

our office system (we are an ESI dealer) is an ESI CS-600 with about 12 phones, all IP on a new and separate network from our data, so it sounds like our configuration is similar to yours. Obviously we don't have the # of phones that you are looking at, but with the networks being separate there is no real reason you would have any quality issues. We have never had a customer or other caller question the sound quality of any call.

We run Netgear switches, and all of the phones are POE.

We have not used the SIP adapters you mentioned or the Linksys routers.

Orion

Since your installer is a board member here it would be a benefit if he/she joined us in this thread.

It appears that you are putting the 600 in place at a new location and from your previous posts it also appears you are leaving a Comdial behind from the previous location. If this is correct when is the projected move in date of the new location?

Just out of curiosity...why are you looking to do all IP Phones?

By separate network I hope you don't mean separate cable runs and switches. All ESI IP phones are VLAN compliant.

ESI's architecture also allows you to physically segment the phones in groups of 24 if desired for traffic management at the hardware layer (e.g one 24 port switch for each IP 24 station port card).

Yes seperate network meaning seperate wiring and switches. Its all new so why not just do a few extra runs now to future proof the building. It eliminates a lot of administrative stuff when it comes to setting vlans on ports, etc.

Bdunne, thats a question I was waiting to get an answer on in regards to the 24 phone thing. I know each card does 24 phones so I asked if it had to be segmented, and if not, do we just connect one jack and the daisy chain/star the switches?

We're looking at all IP since we feel that'll provide the best migration path down the road if we ever upgrade controllers. It also simplifies the wiring end so we can use all cat-6 lines for everything. The vendor did suggest digital in-house but most other systems nowadays are all IP, so if the ESI is advertising it can be done equally as well as digital, why not? We asked for an all-ip proposal to have something to compare with the other vendors' proposals. Another reason is that we may add onto our new building a year after we move in, and if that happens, we'll prob have a second wiring cabinet in the addition. If so, we can just sling extra switching gear to expand rather than a second controller cabinet and/or phone runs back to the main room. (main room is going to be very small!)

To answer the other question, yes we're retiring our 15 yr old Comdial DXP with the move. The system has been great to us save for some bugs here and there but overall I've been pleased with it. To me its got a lot of modern options for as old as it is. If we go with the ESI system our vendor (who still does Comdial) has given us a trade-in value for it.

Jeff

Thank You Jeff for returning to fill in a few blanks. I might suggest you consider the ESI-1000 instead of the ESI-600 since you mentioned the future additional construction. The price difference between the 2 units will be minimal especially when compared to the licensing cost associated with 85 IP phones compared to 85 Digital phones. I'm still a bit fuzzy on that reasoning but I'll chalk it up to your softphone desires.

Until you correct me on this I'm assuming you have done research and pleased with the ESI product and you plan to retain your previous Comdial vendor to handle the physical install. It also appears you have not selected an ESI dealer to purchase the needed equipment from.

I'm not implying that there is anything wrong with that, I am just trying to get the details in order.

The Comdial vendor is also/now an ESI dealer so they would be providing the equipment as well as installing it. To clarify, this is not the only system I'm looking at, just one of them.

We are really not looking at too much more over 100 phones even with the expansion - the expanded building if we do build it could only house about 40 more people I believe, so I think the 600 is within our needs.

I'm noticing the lean towards digital despite being told that the 600 is an IP based and designed system? The way we're looking at it is that IP is the modern way to go, why spend close to six figures on a system thats not using the most modern technology? (Yes I know modern doesn't always mean better either. ;-))

One way I look at it is that with digital, we have to have a chassis to support all the digital cards, then amphenol trunks to patch panels, then patch cables to other patch panels, which connect to the runs. The runs have to be terminated with RJ-11 style connectors and patch panels otherwise we'd need custom phone cables. That means if down the road we want to switch to IP, all those jacks would have to be re-terminated with RJ-45.

If you're going to do all that, why not put the connection end on switches where if need be, especially in our expansion, the switches can be located in seperate places, possibly closer to the endpoints?

If there's good reason to go digital instead of IP (other than price), please let me know, maybe I'm missing something? I'd love for someone to counter what I put here. Again this is a seperate voip network, so no vlaning, daisy-chaining comps to phones, etc.

If you are going to only have ~100 extensions max even after the upgrade why not look at the CS-200 it supports 192 extensions.
As far as the cabling it could be terminated onto Cat 6 jacks with no problems with standard line cords at the jack & patch cords at the patch panel, so the cabling would not be an issue down the road.
Also I just cannot think of a good reason to go IP locally to be honest.

Justin M is correct. RJ11 ends will work in RJ 45 inputs. Cabling is not an issue. Ip phones are easier to move if needed, but a patch panel solution for digital is just as easy. If you are set on IP then we have done fairly big installs with ESI phones and there is no big difference in the functionality of the phones. As far as seperate networks, I do not no if this is possible if you will be using VIP. If so then the local computer has to be able to contanct the ESI server.

It should be fine being separate networks because the IVC card would be on a phone network and the NSP would be on the data network, so he could use VIP. However if your running 2 networks a move of an extension is most likely going to involve moving a patch cord, so why not do digital phones on a patch panel?

I know that I am going to take some heat from people on this board about my next paragraphs, but from what I believe we are seeing, it is the truth.

I do not know the ESI product at all, but from what I have read it seems to be a good system. It is my opinion that our industry is moving quickly to being IP dominated with digital going the way of the analog system. Sure the digital systems work great and will be around for a long time to come, but ALL of the major manufacturers are moving very quickly to being all IP systems with a very limited digital system line, if at all. I know that there are many people that would agree with me.

It is my opinion that if one is upgrading at this point one should at least look at an all IP system from a good manufacturer, at a good system that is proven to work well. We are at the tipping point where the customer is seeing the same thing, they are seeing that technology is moving towards IP, even if there is no clear reason over digital to use it to the desktop. 5 years maximum and we will have very few digital systems being marketed by major manufacturers. If I were a customer I would be looking at an all IP system, I frankly would not be thinking about a digital system.

Steve

with all due respect to tampasteve, I'd have to disagree. The statement that ALL of the major manufacturers are moving very quickly to being all IP systems is inaccurate. Look across almost any product line of Avaya, Toshiba, NEC, Samsung, ESI, Nortel, Vertical, etc, etc, and you will find that they ARE in fact offering IP products, but most offer systems that are "converged" or "hybrids" as they are called where the stations and trunking can be traditional or of the VoIP variety. The only companies that are putting all of their eggs in the IP basket are the startups that are counting on customer recognition of the VoIP acronym without really knowing what it will do for them.

It's similar to the automobile market, each manufacturer is offering a hybrid because of the hype behind "green" vehicles and obviously the fuel issues, but are they offering ONLY hybrids? Not in our lifetime!

Few digital systems will be on the market in 5 years? I doubt that, although it may happen, but the digital system will live on due to the legacy equipment saturating the market, and that there still isn't a good argument that is reasonable as to why IP is any better than digital.

I definitely would be looking for a system and a manufacturer that has a strong digital and VoIP presence, but to limit my purchase to IP? Like Hertz says, not exactly!

Taking your stance, if you or your company is selling your customers anything else beside pure IP based phone systems, you are doing them a disservice and scamming them out of their money, right?

The reference to "The Future" comes up regularly in the IP vs. Digital conversation. Since I know very little about Orions business I am certainly open to be corrected but I am going to speculate on what the future is in Orion's business.

20 years from now one of those 85 minions working a 9-5 shift in a cubicle is going to need the old reliable business tool, the telephone, to take calls and make calls just like minions always have. Right there, on the spot, in the workplace. The difference between an IP phone and a Digital phone in that application is ZERO.

There is definitely a good business application for IP phones such as a business outgrowing its current location. You can establish a second location and seamlessly connect back to the original location using IP. That is a financially feasible thing to implement IP into that takes on the scrutiny of logic.

Previously there was a mention of space limitations incurred with digital that would be eliminated with the use of IP. Again I can only speculate due to limited amount of knowledge regarding the actual location but I think you could free up a lot of space by doing away with all the unnecessary patch panels and associated wire management and let the phone guy put in a few 66 blocks. Spend a hundred bucks on a punch tool and a 1000' roll of jumper wire instead of around 10K on licensing fees for the IP phones. Take the $9,900 in savings and invest it in headsets or something useful.

Now as far as manufacturers not producing Digital equipment 5 years from now. I heard that 10 years ago. Manufacturers will manufacture anything there is a demand for. Mary Jane in cubicle 37 is going to need a phone and there will be management that scrutinize their budgets to trim waste and get her a phone so she can sell whatever it is there are selling. People like me will still be out there making it possible with cost efficient equipment that has a proven history.

I must also respectivly disagree. While it is very true that some manufacturers are coming out with digital systems that can do IP (ex, the Vertical SBX 120) nearly all of them have made a very important shift in the market over the last 2 years. 2 years ago the market was mostly pure IP, pure digital, or hybrid digital/IP. Recently with most new product offerings it has changed to pure IP, hybrid digital/IP, or hybrid IP/digital. The last one is the most important. Most manufacturers have switched to making IP system that can do digital, not the other way around like it was in the past. Examples include the Vertical Wave, the Nortel BCM series to an extent, Siemens HiPath systems, Avaya IP office, Tadiran Coral Sea and IPx Office, or more to the point, the takeover of a large and growing percentage of the market by pure IP systems such as Cisco, Shoretel, Allworx, Avaya 1X Quick edition.

No, I said "few digital systems will be marketed," there is a big difference. Of course there will be digital systems installed around for years, I would not doubt that some of the ones we are putting in today will still be in 15 years from now, heck we just replaced one of our last 1A2 systems, and he has it installed in 1974. But I do firmly believe that few of the major manufacturers will activly be marketing, or activly trying to sell digital systems. There will still be IP/digital hybrid systems that allow people to keep their lagacy phones, but that is not the same as activly marketing a hybrid digital system that can do IP too.

Absolutley not. We are still at the point where price can make a large difference to the smaller customer, and to the larger customer too. I can tell you with 100% honesty that every job that is quoted receives a hybrid quote and a pure IP system quote. Different people choose diferent systems depending on their desires and a lot of times the price, currently the IP system is a bit more, but the prices are dropping where it is going to be very close soon. Different situations require different quotes. Our customers also see the value of working with a business that has been around for over 20 years.

Steve

Look guys, I am not trying to get into an arguement, all I am saying really is that the market is moving quickly to being IP dominated, or so it would appear. Maybe IP will go away, and maybe it will not. 15 years ago there was still a lot of analog equipment out there, and one could make the same arguement about it compared to digital. Now it is the IP systems that are taking over, be they pure IP or hybrid IP/digital; if one does not adapt to this market one will loose market share to the people that have adapted. That is all I really mean to point out.

Steve

You made some good points steve, I'm not trying to bust chops either :toast:

I'm still not sure that "the market is moving quickly to being IP dominated" and no, I don't think that IP will go away, it may very well be the platform of the future but I'm not dropping everything we've done over the last 10 years (sorry we've only been in business for 10 not 20!?!) to shovel IP solutions down everyone's gullet!

Like you said we all must adapt or loose market share, we've lost potential clients because they were in the market for hosted VoIP solutions that we do not care to sell, and again we sell alot of systems month after month where I offer or ask about potential VoIP features and the customer looks at you like your speaking some unknown language.

So until the VoIP price is right and better yet, there is an overwhelming reason to offer only IP solutions, we'll stay successful doing what we've always done; quality systems at a fair price by a provider that you can trust.

Hey, that is all people really do need! :thumb:

Steve

Just my not really worth two cents.

I have done analog systems, electronic, key, PBX, hybrid key/pbx, IP, hybrid IP/digital, etc., etc., etc.

Change is the only constant!

The market is currently not dominated by IP, or even digital.

When you look at the most implemented, and in use system you are looking the Avay/ATT/???Partner system last time I did research. If you look at the second most, it is probably another manufacturers system of the same type as the partner system. I see 15 year old partners in janitor wash rooms next to the mop sink, and the water heater with a musty dusty smell as soon as you open the door. They have been there for 15 years, and will probably be there another 5, which is true for proably most of the type(Partner system type including their competitors) they have about a 15 year life span. Until half of these systems are replaced there is no IP domination of the market, and will not be.
Even with the marketing focus on IP it will take a decade before half the phone systems in the field will even begin to approach being hybrid, let alone full IP. Even consdiering that most PBX's installed in the last 5 years are hybrids as they allow some, or full IP functionality.

Now is marketing dominated by hybrids, yes it is, but that is not the same as the market sector being hybrid.

For the end user who posted.

If you are not going to converge your data, and voice (Share cable runs, swithches, and do VLANS). Then you are missing the biggest savings available to you in regard to a converged telephony platform. That savings is that you no longer need to have any internal voice cabling infrastructure of any kind.

With a hybrid system which is what almost all systems are since they almost all offer an analog station port they are a hybrid, not full IP you can use the same network cable for station ports of any kind. That goes for analog station(fax), digital (re-use your exisitng phones in most cases saving money), IP hard phones, IP soft phones, Convergerged IP hard phones(use same network cable/switch/switch port as the PC per station), Converged IP soft phones(uses same same cable/switch/switch port as the PC per station). While the hybrids(since there are no full IP systems, correct me please) can share the same cable in a converged network (saving wiring infrastructure costs), non-converged networks can not share the same cable thus not saving any wiring infrastructure costs, and increasing the number of data switches required to service the voice, and data. Digital phones reduce the number of data switch ports require by the number of digital phones used, and can translate to less data switches. Digital phones also do not then require VLANS, or VLAN security, VLAN foirewalling, etc. to maintain security on your data network due to the vulnerability inherant in VLANS, and IP phones accessing your network. You do have to make sure that you have security for your VOIP whether it is converged or not, and if nto encrypted can be very insecure within the network.

Look up voip hopper, or cane, and able, of other applications that can capture VOIP packets, and record them in WAV format. If you do not have acounted for VOIP security then go digital on a hybrid system, as it does not require these things. You can always do VOIP trunking for site to site P2P, and VOIP exts off site(VPN security).

tampa,
I respect your opinion, but I also have my own. Please do not consider mine being different from yours as being confrontational, as this is a marketplace of ideas, not a battleground. I would however like to see your take on the items I raised, and discussion.

I do want to let you know. I have over the last 4 years made most of my living off of the Avaya IP Office platform which is a very flexible one. It is full analog, full digital, and full IP. It has analog stations, and trunks. It has digital stations, and trunks. It has IP stations, and trunks. It has IP hardphones with built in VPN software. So I am in no way a NO IP koolaid drinker, as IPOffice is my area of expertise. I just know that IP is a long way from being half the implemented handsets, and will be a decade before it is.

Most hybrids are doing digital for the most part when it comes to staions right at this moment.

For those of you following this thread the content of the original posting has shifted considerably. It hasn't exactly been hijacked but taken on a different course.

You might want to continue with this discussion in the following location. All the usual suspects are there.

https://www.sundance-communications.../get_topic/f/30/t/000296/p/1.html#000010

Wow I totally wasn't expecting this much discussion, but I'm pleasantly surprised that this is a hot topic and I'm definitely taking everyone's comments in!

I'm also pleased its been civil...I belong to many other forums where things go from 0 to "out of hand" very quickly ;-)

Anyhow, I guess where it came up is that one of the systems we're comparing to is a Mitel 3300, which has been proposed to us as an all-IP system. We asked the ESI dealer to propose an all IP system so we're comparing Apples-to-Apples (as much as we can knowing there's huge differences in systems).

I think I'm mainly coming from the fact that in this new place, since we're starting fresh, why not get the latest and greatest? Will it be a little more expensive? Maybe, but honestly comparing some of the proposals I'm not seeing a huge difference that I expected to see. I thought price alone was going to drive me back to a hybrid system.

I can definitely say I agree with everybody on the "why ip when digital works" front, and yes I've messed with Cain-n-Able and successfully recorded a (test) conversation. I still think though, that if you're spending big bucks on a new system, why get digital phones when IP may be prevalent like someone else mentioned in a few years? We are an insurance agency, and in the past whenever I bought mediocre equipment, even when I thought we'd never need more, we've outgrown it quickly.

Also - on the ESI 200 vs 600 front, our vendor thought the 600 was a better fit I think based on the total # of ports, not just the number of phones. IE - We already use 2 PRIs and the 200 would limit us to only one more I believe. His reasons made sense to me.

Again, thanks for all the feedback!

I'm also pleased its been civil...I belong to many other forums where things go from 0 to "out of hand" very quickly

Thank You for noticing, we try hard. We have had our share of "out of controls" as well.

One thing you might keep in mind as the members here attempt to satisfy your questions is how most of us are programmed to trim every last nickel of of a proposal. We put together the final needs end users like yourself describe and propose the most cost effective solution. When we propose a package every item in that package is necessary to satisfy the objective. We don't propose something that might be considered as waste. Now having said that if you feel like All IP is what you want then by all means ye shall have it, after all you are the customer. He who writes the check gets to place the order.

Good Luck and keep us informed!

BTW, Have you gone into Mitel area and got their opinions also?

Not yet but thats my next step. Thanks!

Just remember that your customers will always need a quality installer to put the system in. Also how bout the dial tone? Who is going to hook that up?

Just some thoughts

I talked to a painter the other day and said what happens when a ball is invented that you throw against the wall and it paints the building, His response was: I will be throwing the ball!!!

Same for our industry, we have diversified and will continue to do so to survive.

Cosmo

We are also talking to our School District about IP phone systems for all the schools (17). I have Paul from ESI coming tomorrow to talk with the district about an all IP system.

They have already talked to Cisco and Black Box (Toshiba) about what they have to offer.

Wish us luck

Thanks

Cosmo