atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums VOIP Phones & IP PBX VoIP & Cloud Phones, Hosted PBX, General IP Phones Beware of VOIP?

DTMF I am with you about the Avaya but for 11 years now my only telephone system line has been Comdial. I made this decision when first starting on my own because I as a tech was tired of having to deal with the multitude of other manufacturers plus working on each individual system and having manuals for each. Then comes the part about inventory, just have one label on the shelves helps tremendously. Then comes the tech's, don't ever see a large percentage of them who can be cross experienced in multiple manufacturers, let alone the expense of certification that the tech takes with him when he leaves. I rode the storm out with Comdial last year and the storm before that, and thought the big tsunami was it in 2005. I was told my selection for Direct Channel Partnership was due to cert's, inventory, loyalty (can ya believe they even recognized it) demo systems and annual sales figures. So idealistically my focus on one product has streamlined the effectiveness of what I do here in Dallas. Sure, I have other buddies who tell me they give two or three different manufacturers system proposals and let the customer pick according to his taste, whether it be about money, features, appearance or whatever. But damn there is alot of work involved in the preparation of just one proposal in itself, especially large switches and various other items.

punchdown, good post.
I'm not sure if the gentleman who wrote the article is dealing with www or a private managed network. I have never dealt with the internet voip and don't plan to,as far as managed networks across WAN's, our voip system has been just as reliable and just as good of quality as any of the old technology.
It is funny to hear techs talk so bad about Voip, either they haven't dealt with it, they don't want to learn it or they don't understand it or they just don't know how to do it. Either way, voip does work very well in a managed private network, as far as the WWW I could care less as how many companies use the WWW for connecting to other locations? Maybe some but not many, AND one of the main reasons being they don't use the WWW is because you can not rely on the WWW, bad quality, disconnects, security, etc.

Well two different choices and it looks like they both work. I guess I'm lucky in that I have done most all systems so it really isn't a problem to keep up and work on them.

Very well said.
I recall 6 or 7 years ago getting a call from a data guy who I had worked with in Ft Worth. He went to work for Cisco as they were developing their IPT product. He had all kinds of questions about how phone systems work. I remember thinking, they're gonna shove a square peg into a round hole at all cost. Then Avaya, and everyone else, started moving all their resources to IP. It seemed like they were doing it simply out of fear, fear of being left behind or being perceived as irrelevant.

I see now it is inevitable. There are some advantages to VoIP (or would it be better to say IPT / IPTelephony?). My concern is that it will go the way of the internet where we discovered a really cool idea but took it too far. Like discovering the wheel and trying to use it to fly, eat off of, take the kids to school, just everything. It's a great wheel so why not? If we can sort out the proper uses for IPT then that will be fine. However, a vendor trying to convince me to throw out a paid for, working TDM switch in favor of a new IP solution is ... well, that won't fly.

Richard

I think this just goes to show how desparate they are. They invested the farm and now they will do anything for the payback. Convince customers that they need it then discontinue their own competing product so that the customer will have no choice.

I would love to see the sales figures for the Magix and the IP Office for the last 24 months. I'll bet anything the Magix wasn't doing bad and the IP Office wasn't doing good.

-Hal

AS I understand it, my local competitor who sells the IP Office almost never sells IP phones on the thing.

I really don't understand why this becomes such a hot button issue. Why do some people think you're old & stupid if you don't see how great VoIP is?

I'm 36 years old and and started my own interconnect when I turned 21. I have a degree in General Electronics and a degree in Computer Engineering Technology. Telecommunications is my business but I can hang fairly well with the computer guys.

I have tried VoIP, experimented with it and implemented it. It is good for some things such as connecting remote offices through a private network.

But, I think what me and the rest of the old farts have a problem with are:

1) More than likely you have to upgrade your network infrastructure to begin with. Cabling, Routers, POE Switches $$$

2) Reliability. All of your eggs are in one basket. If the network dies, so do your phones.

3) Quality. After years of working on TDM, you develop a ear for call quailty. All of the VoIP products I have seen have a slight echo and sometimes a really bad sound due to compression or limited bandwidth. It can be lived with but, when you're use to better quailty sound, it is hard to go backward.

4) Lack of Certain Features. A different server for MOH? Paging?

5) Most of all, no one has ever told me of the advantage of VoIP. Several have tried, but I don't see the real value to spending 2-3 times more on a VoIP system.

I understand the economics of sending calls over an IP pipe between offices. But, I do not understand why it would be better to spend the money to upgrade your cabling, then your routers, then your switches just to get READY for a VoIP system. Especially, when I have TDM switches that have been running for 15 years.

Please don't tell Ed I borrowed his soapbox without asking.

Gimme back my soap box! I agree with you about this issue from your perspective. I am a big fan of VoIP for the reasons you mentioned. I am also not a big fan of it for same reasons. Now sit back, get yourself a cold beer and a box of tissues. I have a long one to tell. So here's my story:

I took my car to a neighborhood service place to get my car inspected on a Saturday. They were the only place in town that would do it, and as usual, I waited until the last minute. I don't normally use this place, but hey, they were willing to do it so a trip across town was worth it to me.

As I sat in the "Internet-friendly" waiting room, I continued to hear staff complaining about the "new phones" not working. Without being too obvious, I strolled over to the office area and saw that they had, you guessed it, Avaya IP phones. I took another look around the facility and saw that they had three phones in the service bays, three in the office and two at the front desk. I then noticed that there was another building behind them with three more service bays. Same thing there, three more IP phones.

It didn't take long to figure out who was in charge of the place. He was running around all over the place making sure everyone was happy. All the while, people were complaining about how they couldn't get the phones to work.

When he came over to me to see how I was doing, I couldn't help but to ask him what was going on with the new phones and why. In that five seconds, it was as if I lit a pool of gasoline. His face turned red. He immediately began ranting and raving about what a poor decision he made in purchasing this system.

My response was "why do you feel this way"? After he unloaded about how nothing works (typical customer unloading about new phones that they don't understand), I tried to explain that maybe they just need training since they were just installed the day before. He replied that they had been fully trained twice, once two days before the cutover, and again the afternoon when the system was being installed. Training was straight-forward, and in reality, an auto repair place only needed a key system with decent intercom capabilities. That's what they had with their Partner system that was there just a few days earlier.

The problem was, the building in the rear of the property was not a part of their original facility. They had just bought it a few months earlier and didn't think about phones. They were expanding rapidly and the service bay space was the major issue; phones weren't even thought of. They managed to limp along using single-line cordless phones on separate CO lines they had brought in by Verizon. It was cumbersome, but it got them by until they could get some proposals together from local vendors. A semi-logical approach.

See, they bought their Partner directly from AT&T years ago and somehow, the local AT&T, then Lucent, then Avaya shop took care of it for them. They were paying through the nose for this maintenance, so they figured they must stay with them. They didn't even call anyone else. When they were told that Avaya really couldn't sell to them directly anymore, they put them in touch with a "local" dealer sixty miles away.

Because it was a separate building, the "vendor" couldn't offer them a single system. They could have run an aerial cable across the 80 feet of parking lot, but they weren't capable. For this reason, they told the customer that they would have to network two systems together via Telco T1's at significant cost, or (here comes the rabbit out of the hat), buy an Office IP system and use cable modem at each end! Brilliant idea.

$Five figures in hardware later, plus the monthly cost of three figures per month for two cable modem service accounts, they were "all set". Oh boy was that an understatement.

I explained to the guy that maybe he should have explored running a tie cable between the buildings and spending half on the phone system. His response was "but they told me it couldn't be done". OF COURSE THEY DID! They didn't know how to do it, plus they had an agenda; to sell them an IP "solution". It didn't provide a "solution" for this customer. When I explained that we very frequently run aerial or underground tie cables for situations such as this, he was almost in tears. He couldn't believe that if he had just pulled out a phone book and made a few calls, he wouldn't have the mutiny with his employees that was occurring AND would have had saved a bunch of money. He didn't need Internet access in the remote building, he only had it because he needed it for the phones to "work". Sure, they were able to put the cable Internet access to work at the main building by allowing their customers to use it while they wait, but they certainly didn't need it in the other building. Now, at the rate of $nearly four figures per year, per building to support the three phones in the remote building, this thing will probably be one for our "book of biggest customer blunders".

The customer was wrong by not shopping, but the vendor, or should I say "partner" is truly the party at fault. They capitalized on an industry buzz word and scared a customer into buying something they truly didn't need or can justify.

The long and short of it is that people are very frequently strong-armed into believing that VoIP is the only way to bridge gaps and provide cutting-edge technology. Technology for a car repair joint? Four lines, a hold button and paging is all the "cutting-edge" these people were interested in!

He's pretty much stuck with it now, so there's really no turning back. I tried to console him by letting him know that once the lease is up, he can give me a call and we can do it right.

Perhaps the sad part of this story is that they had two (that's right, TWO) 2" conduits installed between the buildings for future use. The "vendor" told them that it was too great of a distance to use them for phones, plus at 80 feet, doing this might end up providing them with "less than acceptable performance". 80 feet?

I think I have said all that needs to be said on this topic. VoIP has it's place, just not everywhere.

Larry, I think you summed it up pretty well.

-Hal

I really don't understand why this becomes such a hot button issue. Why do some people think you're old & stupid if you don't see how great VoIP is?

I'm 36 years old and and started my own interconnect when I turned 21. I have a degree in General Electronics and a degree in Computer Engineering Technology. Telecommunications is my business but I can hang fairly well with the computer guys.

I have tried VoIP, experimented with it and implemented it. It is good for some things such as connecting remote offices through a private network.

But, I think what me and the rest of the old farts have a problem with are:

1) More than likely you have to upgrade your network infrastructure to begin with. Cabling, Routers, POE Switches $$$

2) Reliability. All of your eggs are in one basket. If the network dies, so do your phones.

3) Quality. After years of working on TDM, you develop a ear for call quailty. All of the VoIP products I have seen have a slight echo and sometimes a really bad sound due to compression or limited bandwidth. It can be lived with but, when you're use to better quailty sound, it is hard to go backward.

4) Lack of Certain Features. A different server for MOH? Paging?

5) Most of all, no one has ever told me of the advantage of VoIP. Several have tried, but I don't see the real value to spending 2-3 times more on a VoIP system.

I understand the economics of sending calls over an IP pipe between offices. But, I do not understand why it would be better to spend the money to upgrade your cabling, then your routers, then your switches just to get READY for a VoIP system. Especially, when I have TDM switches that have been running for 15 years.

Please don't tell Ed I borrowed his soapbox without asking. [/QB][/QUOTE]


I guess I will jump in here a bit. I think that FIRST and FOREMOST what we have to realize is that most IT/network guys out there are the equivalent of trunk slammers!

How many posts are there on this forum about
"sparky" FUBARing the telco wiring?! Well multiply that by a dozen and you start to get the feel for the IT/Network industry.
Secondly you seem to use the term VOIP as a generic term for multiple things - service providers like Vonage, VPNs where multiple sites are connected and LANs so it's kind of hard to follow where your complaints lie.

So REALLY - Your objections are somewhat moot.
By the numbers -
1) well what's the difference if "sparky" FUBARs the wiring or if "wanna be Bill Gates" FUBARs the network. How does this represent the quality of your favorite legacy PBX or VOIP ?

2) I'm not sure what YOU mean by "if the network dies" Do you mean your
1) internet service provider?
2) do you mean your switch, router or hub?
3) do you mean data servers?

3)Maybe this is an inherent issue with ms based system like Avaya IP and Cisco, but I certainly have never experienced this. Please list an example.

4) Again, this seems to be an issue you have with a specific brand or version.

5) Well VOIP is NOT for every application, just like any specific legacy system is not a correct fit for every user. That's why there are dozens of major players in the legacy PBX world. If you don't want to see the opportunities VOIP offers you, I certainly won't teach you. It makes for less competitions and more profit for me :rofl: