atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums VOIP Phones & IP PBX VoIP & Cloud Phones, Hosted PBX, General IP Phones What's all this VoIP stuff anyway?

As a long time interconnect owner and someone who has been there and done that, I can’t for the life of me understand what this latest iteration is good for. I have yet to sell an IP system and probably never will. Why? Because my customers are better served with a traditional TDM solution. Now that may seem profound when all the manufacturers and press talk about is VoIP. But the dirty little secret is most of those same manufacturers make brand spanking new TDM systems that you never hear about. Why don’t they promote them alongside their VoIP systems? Because they have to recoup the costs of VoIP system development so they would MUCH prefer that you bought VoIP.

Believe it or not it can be a hard to convince a customer they will save money with TDM when the VoIP hype is all about saving money. So who is telling the truth? Let’s look at some facts.

If you are a frequent reader of these forums and you pay attention to the questions from people who maintain VoIP systems, somebody like me who is grounded in TDM is immediately struck by the complexity of the problems and solutions. Something that is simple with TDM like setting up a messaging system requires lines of code to be written with some VoIP systems. Then there is the hardware- separate PCs running the voice mail, rebooting, constant software upgrades. Is it a problem with the network or the system? If you think once you switch to VoIP you can forget about the infrequent visits from the guys with the white truck, you only traded us for the resident guys with the pocket protectors.

-Hal

Ding, Ding, Ding, The Winna! Give that man a stuffed monkey! One question about the software upgrades. Do they usually require patches or further upgrades to correct problems caused by upgrading? There is/was a phone system (that will remain unamed) that had a nasty habit that if you upgraded to get some new bell or whistle, you lost something you were already using. So, in reality, you had to upgrade at least three steps to get the new feature AND keep all the features you already hade, and have them all work compatibly. Is that where most brands of VOIP sit? Just curious, with any luck, I'll never have to know more about it than what the acronym means. John C.

I agree with a lot of what you have said for some smaller business's. Alot of so called Voip set ups are not even true voip, unbeknown to the customer, for example a lot of Avaya IP office set up's may be voip from the phone to the system, but their trunks are on a traditional PRI, so really they are not voip/voip.

with the pure voip setups we do ie with SIP IP talkpath's we explain to the customer that they really aren't going to see much if any cost savings.

But the positives for us & or the customer are,

Nice Corp looking Polycom or Cisco handsets that don't require any DESI's

The ability to move Ext's without having to get your punch tool out

The ability for the Tech & or Customer to admin the system via a web brouser.

The ability to port different area codes into your system, ie have a Florida Number call in to your NJ office.

Reporting and Stats without the need for a 3rd party software.

We make residual income from the customers IP trunks for the life of the customer.

The ability to "Burst" ie if the customer only pays for 10 trunks the 12th,13th and so on callers get connected not a busy.

As well as Voip being a great oportunity to take over the customers server & PC network, Now we are a true one stop shop for Cabling, Computing & Telecom.

Hal,
Well stated! :toast:

I've never heard of having to put a desi in a handset. That must be something new.

Seriously, I haven't seen one item on that list that can't be accommodated by current TDM/IP (the new version of hybrid) systems.

VOIP is mostly hype. Very few situations actually warrant the expense & headaches of a full blown VOIP system.

If the business has multiple personnel "on the go" away from the office, maybe, but really, how many businesses fit into that category.

As far as the ability to move extensions around "without a punch down tool" it's already available on Nortel's equipment & I imagine other brands as well. Even if the brand they are presently using does not have that capability, there's already the dreaded patch panel option, although not recommended.

If the business owners would only have a serious discussion with a TDM vendor prior to making their decission, they'd soon realize the hype is going to cost them big bucks for something of inferior quality.

Best word of advice that I could give is talk to the pros in the field of interest. Do you ask your plumber to do a tuneup on your car? I doubt it. Same thing applies to your phone system.

None of you have said anything I disagree with.

Often, when a customer realizes what a VOIP system will require of the network, they elect to go with a TDM system.

However, as much as I hate to say it, VOIP is not going to go away. Too many IT and managers are swallowing the hype. Recently, a school in the UP put out a bid invitation, and guess what kind of phones were specified...VOIP (kind of odd considering that schools in this state aren't exactly in a position to throw money around...)

At this point, we are trying out the ISBPX as a possible all-IP VOIP system to sell.

Alot of so called Voip set ups are not even true voip, unbeknown to the customer, for example a lot of Avaya IP office set up's may be voip from the phone to the system, but their trunks are on a traditional PRI, so really they are not voip/voip.

Most people are totally ignorant as to what VoIP really is. Because of media hype the only thing they equate it with is lower costs which is not usually true. They will spend twice the cost of a TDM system for a VoIP system thinking that a cost savings will offset the difference and then not see those savings materialize unless they are a large customer with multiple sites.

-Hal

Lot's of discussion here about VOIP vs this and that, but what about purely HOSTED iPBX? Where the only CPE are digital telephones, all admin is by the customer through a GUI "point-click-fill in da blanks", and the "installation" is more of a service resell to the customer. When are you guys going to get tired of rolling trucks, for crying out loud?

Right now the Voip industry reminds me of the Pharma companies pushing to hook millions of Americans onto a drug they don't really need & will eventually only have minimal positive affects if they decide to take it.

It seems to me the Voip industry is more about ideaology than technology.........

That said, in the future when say Verizon Business perfects sending a sales guy to a typical 30 seat small business that already has a VZ T1 or Fios and then signs them up for 30 Hosted extensions.

I.e; Verizon ships that office 30 polycom IP phones, the customer plug's them into his cat5 network, the phones come up automatically & if they need help they call an Indian who log's into their network and fault find's for them.

When this sceniaro becomes mainstream, I think us interconnect blokes may have to diversify?

Most people are totally ignorant as to what VoIP really is. Because of media hype the only thing they equate it with is lower costs which is not usually true. They will spend twice the cost of a TDM system for a VoIP system thinking that a cost savings will offset the difference and then not see those savings materialize unless they are a large customer with multiple sites.

Blame people like vonage for this one, it makes me laugh when they say cost savings v a normal pots line, for the little old lady if she wanted to switch to vonage, she now has to pay for a broadband service, ontop of the vonage bill, this has effectivly doubled her phone service bill, not to mention when she has a heart attack the E911 implications & risks...........

Ed, I think the fact that most IP guys that came from the computer field is illustrated by the expression "Handset" to describe that 'thingy' on the desk with a curly cord attached to a "Handset". After all, the 'thingy' doesn't do much. It's all in the network. Right? John C.

...Verizon Business perfects sending a sales guy to a typical 30 seat small business that already has a VZ T1 or Fios and then signs them up for 30 Hosted extensions... Verizon ships that office 30 polycom IP phones, the customer plug's them into his cat5 network, the phones come up automatically & if they need help they call an Indian who log's into their network and fault find's for them.

Isn't that kinda the way it used to be pre 1984? After 1984 people got smart and realized that they were shelling out alot of money each month for something that they could own for much less.

Of course that was back in the days of TDM when reliability was a matter of course.

-Hal

Except for very few systems I install, I can remote program them from the office (even swap extensions if need be...)

We just replaced a hosted solution with a TDM system, and the customer loves it...their hosted phones gave them no end of headaches.

Just to clear things up, Im not an IT type, I refer to the Phone as a Handset because I am British, In the world outside the US we refer to the Whole telephone as just the "handset"

Now we have that sorted Govenor...........

That was good. Thank you very much for a bit of humor. It amazes me how much that end-users can completely screw things up with simple "GUI" interfaces. "Hey, I know Windows, I can fix it myself".

"The service provider says that they are receiving excessive blue alarms on one of our PRI circuits. Where do I point and click to fix that?"

"The service provider indicates that there is a tip-to-ground fault on line 3 causing our line noise problem. Where do I point and click to correct this?"

Yeah, OK. We'll have a truck out there tomorrow........

Hell, even Vonage has realized that not everyone is a computer geek and they have started offering installation services. It's not as "GUI" easy for normal people as the CG's think it is.

Hosted IP? Come on. Do we need to bring out our case studies with our own customers who "took a walk on the wild side"? Hosted IP guys need to come to the realization that not everyone walks around with pocket protectors and three pagers.

Well Ed, don't forget that we can swap extensions without a punchdown tool

@ Ed....the truth in advertising should be fully enforced. Peterbu, just because you sell it doesn't make it the best for all customers.

The pocket protector crowd needs more "ED-ucation". Even at your company website, it shows you furnish VoIP boot camps. You should show both sides so the customer can make an informed (not emotional) decision.


:thumb:

I'm not sure that I understand the rocket science behind that supposedly "new technology" statement made by the original poster.

I've had customers doing that on digital (TDM) systems since the late 1980's. Comdial's Digitech (long-since discontinued) offered that with no customer intervention whatsoever. Simply pick up the phone and move it to another live jack and retain that phone extension's attributes. Vodavi's systems have also offered similar flexibility for nearly two decades as well. I can even do that on my dinky Panasonic system at my home, circa 1992.

Am I missing something here or does VoIP make this same thing happen even better? :rolleyes:

Ed, I was just kidding. The Inter-Tel Axxess has had this feature for several years also through database programming.

Hosted IP PBX's? I love them! Hell, I've sold several systems to clients who got burned going down that road. Easiest sales EVER! :banana:

I've never heard that use of the term before, at least not in telephone circles. It's certainly never been "official" GPO/BT terminology.

haha... not going to get any supporters around here for a hosted solution from either camp....

have you figured out how to do a page through those "phones" yet?

Global and individual phone paging is included, using the speakerphone speakers on the phones. Overhead paging requires an interface box (between existing speaker system and iPBX).

"@ Ed....the truth in advertising should be fully enforced. Peterbu, just because you sell it doesn't make it the best for all customers.

The pocket protector crowd needs more "ED-ucation". Even at your company website, it shows you furnish VoIP boot camps. You should show both sides so the customer can make an informed (not emotional) decision.
"

Absolutely correct on the "not the best for all customers" point. There will always be a place for Local iPBX, Classic PBX and even key systems. A Hosted product should be one more arrow in the quiver for a provider. Where we DO fit, we fit very well.

The "VOIP Boot Camp" mention was from a PR regarding a presentation on marketing that we gave at Channel Partners Boston.

We do NOT expect the customer to utilize the GUI to troubleshoot problems; that is why we work exclusively through Partners. We do what we do best: provide the hosted iPBX and live customer support for that. Our Partner/Installers take care of the rest of the infrastructure. No way nohow is this a turnkey "never have to call my telephone guy again" product. But it IS a way to satisfy the little guy who needs a lot of features and flexibility but doesn't have a big chunk of change to spend all at once.

Take a break, Hal, I'll handle this one.

We don't care what the whole world calls it. (Personally I don't believe you, but that's just my opinion.) There are mis-informed people in the US who use the same wrong term.

Whenever we real telephony professionals hear that mistake, our guard goes up, for we know that we're about to encounter a conversation with a CG, or worse...a misguided customer, general contrator, architect, or interior designer.

One thing that burns me is the theory that if enough people repeat the same mistake, it becomes the truth.

I suspect that you're a CG in clever disguise, your assertions to the contrary notwithstanding.

Here are a few questions from a bloody colonial:

When the repairman ("postal engineer"...don't you just love how you got that term correct?) goes to get a thing that holds the transmitter and receiver and has a curly cord attached to one end, off the shelf to replace a defective one, what does he look for/what is stamped on the box/what does the invoice from the manufacturer say?

Same questions for the situation when the repairman needs to get that thing that has a dial, switchhook, keys, ringer, line cord on it?

What is the curly cord called? Is it called a handset cord? What does it interconnect? The handset and the...?

What is the straight cord called? What does the straight one interconnect? The wall jack and the...?

I've often dared myself to take specifications literally, and to go around a new installation and plug "handsets" into the "RJ11's".

"Oh...you wanted TELEPHONES??? The specs call for HANDSETS. Sorry!!!"

Arthur,

Take a look at this old British Post Office N-diagram and associated notes, and I think you'll see that the terms are used exactly as you would expect them to be:

https://www.samhallas.co.uk/repository/n_diagrams/1000/N1841.pdf

Like an "RJ45" computer network jack? :rolleyes:

The plugs are going to be a loose fit, aren't they?

"I'm not sure that I understand the rocket science behind that supposedly "new technology" statement made by the original poster.

I've had customers doing that on digital (TDM) systems since the late 1980's. Comdial's Digitech (long-since discontinued) offered that with no customer intervention whatsoever. Simply pick up the phone and move it to another live jack and retain that phone extension's attributes. Vodavi's systems have also offered similar flexibility for nearly two decades as well. I can even do that on my dinky Panasonic system at my home, circa 1992.

Am I missing something here or does VoIP make this same thing happen even better?
"

Yes it does. You can take your telephone home, plug it into your cable broadband and the iPBX "knows" that it is there without reconfiguration. For that matter, you can take it to France and do the same thing!

But we've had that capability with hybrid systems for years. I use IP phones at home and when I travel via our TDM system in my office. Several of us do this. One of our admins here has an IP phone on our system at his home in PA. This feature is great, but it doesn't require that the entire system be IP.

I just don't think that it is fair or honest to assume that if people want these kinds of features should be expected to pay 2-3 times the cost. Especially for a system to have features that have been around for quite some time.

You beat me to that one Paul!

Anybody remember the "Eagle" phone system? Came out about 1984. You set the extension number using a 10 place 'DIP' switch in the phone. Move the phone to a different system jack, and Ta-Da, it was still the right extension number. And you could move it immediately without confusing the KSU, unlike the 'set relocation' feature of the N/T systems. That was about the only thing I liked about the system, but that's a different story! John C.

Where is this "2-3 times the cost" element come from? Cost of what?

Hal thanks for starting this thread. With the wealth of telcom experience here, it's certainly a subject worthy of discussion on this board.

Dave (Mooretel here on the board) recently pointed out that NoiseyCow had made a very credible post regarding VoIP in the Installer's Forum and felt it would be a good addition to this thread. I'm reposting it below with NoisyCow's permission:

NoisyCow has hit the nail on the head squarely: the biggest problem that we have marketing our hosted solution is overcoming the bad taste left by those who did VOIP badly and carelessly. To that end the very first step that our installers MUST do is to run our speed test (which tests bandwidth, jitter and latency in the real live environment) on the prospective customer's site. No good speed test (without a resolution by the installer/partner) = No System Install.

Just for starters.....1 48 port patch panel compared to 2x66 type blocks....actually the patch panel is MANY, Many times the cost.

Edited for spelling error....Oooops!

Peterbu, 2-3 times the cost of a TDM or hybrid. After all, even if the client has an exhisting 10/100baseT network, it's probably going to wind up overloaded with traffic, requiring a Completely Seperate network for the VOIP. And either way, it will probably require upgrading all the exhisting routers, and providing POE power, either in the network or power cubes to plug into the starved-for-outlets offices. And never mind the reboots, licensces, and continious upgrades and patches for the patches. Those power cubes alone list out at 1/2 the cost of a TDM phone!

The TDM system can use CAT three cable that, in truth, only has to have 1 decent pair, though any ethical communications company would not cut corners in that manner. AND it's probably already in place AND in use with the exhisting TDM system, that can be upgraded for 1/5, or less, the cost of going 'VOIP', or replaced for 1/3-1/2 the cost. And if a few VOIP extensions actually make sense, they can be added with minimal cabling and disruption. As I have said before, the only use I, and I think most others here, can see for VOIP, is remote/home worker(s). And the occassional on-the-road worker, who will probably have problems finding enough capacity to run his VOIP phone, sitting in his hotel/motel room.

The DOG "JUST DON'T HUNT" to quote a highly appropriate saying! PUFF, PUFF, PUFF, danged emphezema! Any body else want the soapbox!? John C.

If I had any doubts about existing wiring, I'd check it from top to bottom. (Sorry for the small hijack )

How is a telephone call or any reasonable number of telephone calls going to saturate a network? They are approximately 100 kilobit/second over a 100 megabit/second network. Even if you only want to use 1/4 of your capacity for voice you still end up with 250 simultaneous calls.
There's not much price premium for a PoE ethernet switch compared to a decent non-PoE switch.
We just completed a 50 station IP Office installation and the cost savings in not installing separate voice and data cabling and moving over their Toshiba system with a few upgrades covered the price of the system itself and the required ethernet switches.
There's a great quote that this discussion reminds me of:
<quote>I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year. (The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, Inc., 1957 </quote>

What if the customer only needs a dozen phones or so? Where is the cost justification? You know, the typical corner store or small business. It seems as if the pro-IP or pro-hosted IP guys see this or 2/4 line phones as being the only options. They seem to feel the need to convince customers that the systems that have carried our communications for decades are suddenly junk.

I don't understand that part. I see their proposal as "overpriced or junk", with nothing in between. Exactly who is setting these standards? I really doubt that the customers are making such decisions.

I think that a big part of this discussion is that VoIP isn't for everyone, yet people who sell it exclusively manage to figure out a way to "force-fit" a customer into $15K worth of hardware. Worse-yet, they are sold hosted IP with never-ending fixed monthly station costs.

Oh on a side-note: What happens if the customer loses their IP connection? With hosted IP, they lose everything, even internal communications. Should I have brought that up?

All of this when $3K would have been more than sufficient with a few POTS lines for the standard small business. Let us not forget that small business makes up 60% or more of our industry.

I am not trying to be argumentative, but I still have a hard time in justifying a 100% IP system or even more so, a hosted IP setup. Maybe I am just ignorant, but consider me to be your customer for a moment and try to convince me why this is a better solution. I just don't see it.

Well said Ed.

VoIP isn't for everyone, yet people who sell it exclusively manage to figure out a way to "force-fit" a customer into $15K worth of hardware. Worse-yet, they are sold hosted IP with never-ending fixed monthly station costs.

I think the over-simplified answer to your question is that this happens because of greedy salespeople and gullable customers. When it comes to technology you can't expect customers to be experts any more than you can expect a salesperson not to take advantage of that fact.

-Hal

I for one know of MANY small business and corner store type places that are completely happy with their older key systems (Avaya, Panasonic) and would not take the VOIP hype. Heck, most of them only have one computer and a DSL connection at best, and 2-4 lines and a few phones.

The best fit for hosted solutions is outfits like Norvergence, that way they can be location independant. Therefore keeping one step ahead of the law.

Also is good for small start ups that have no capital and are destined for failure.

JMHO

Private message to Avalon:

It's "xenophobia" not "zenaphobia."

It's "foreigners" not "forigners."

Some people who are xenophobes have become that way because foreigners have messed with their language.

That's exactly the case with a customer I have to see later today -- Currently two POTS lines, two separate phones on the main counter, one connected directly to each line, a fax/phone on one of those lines in the small office area at the rear, plus DSL on that same line. The DSL has only been in place a couple of years, but the basic phone setup has been the same for 10 years or more.

We're only now just looking at installing a small PBX as they're taking over an adjoining unit next door.

VoIP is coming into the picture, because on their two POTS lines at the moment they're paying over £300 ($600) per month for line rental plus calls (all calls are chargeable here, including local). By ordering a VoIP number from BT they can get all outgoing calls (local & long-distance) for £20 ($40) per month inclusive, so it will certainly be a money-saver to have the PBX route all outgoing calls on the VoIP service.

But to install a full-blown VoIP phone system for what will end up being at most two POTS lines, two VoIP numbers, and probably about eight extensions (including fax & credit-card dialer) would be crazy in my mind in a very simple installation such as this.

Contrary to what some slick salesman tried to get them to sign up to last year, there is also no way I would ever suggest that they have their existing main numbers ported away from the POTS lines. With the POTS numbers left as they are and the PBX in place, at least if the DSL goes down they can still receive all incoming calls properly and the PBX can revert to sending outgoing calls via POTS.

My thought is that VoIP is perfectly fine to connect remote sites/users to a main/central location.

Small companies, mom & pops and most churches really do not need the complexities of a VoIP or hybrid system. T1 loop charges alone would be enough of a deterrent.

Trouble is, many manufacturers are now focusing on the medium to large players and leaving the little guys to fend for themselves.

I know the following points have been stated before, but I thought I would bring them up again.

1) People now entering the work force were born after the breakup of Ma Bell and they really don't care about Western Electric or what the telephone company was like prior to 1984.

2) They have, for the most part, grown up with a computer in their homes, some form of Internet access and are comfortable in that environment.

3) Many homes no longer have land line service. In an attempt to save money, people are going 100% cellular. Even the kids have their own cell phones. In exchange for lower rates and bundled features, they accept the fact that the audio quality of their calls will not be 100%.

4) After adding taxes, fees and options, POTS lines are not cheap. Before the breakup, long distance calls were very expensive and basic dial tone was just about given away. Maybe the telephone rental fees helped offset the price of local dial tone. Then again, some of the features we take for granted today (Caller ID/Call Waiting ID) did not exist. If all of the goodies were around, who knows what prices would have been?

VoIP is here to stay. While it is an option, it is not (nor should it) be the only option.

Well put Dexman!

Just another thing to Add, 3 years ago I started using skypee to chat to a friend of mine in Australia.

3 yrs ago it was very jittery and the connection would drop out every 10 to 15 minutes or so.

But this last yr it has improved 10 fold, i can have uninterupted conversations for hours, and the other party sound's like HD quality when played over my PC speakers.

The other day I had to call someone in Australia via my conventional phone connection, the call sounded like we were under water, I could not believe I was actually paying MCI for this call it was so bad..............

My thought is that VoIP is perfectly fine to connect remote sites/users to a main/central location...3 yrs ago it was very jittery and the connection would drop out every 10 to 15 minutes or so... this last year it improved 10 fold. I can have uninterupted conversations for hours and the other party sound's like HD quality when played over my PC speakers.

I can assure you nothing has changed with the internet. I have always said that voice traffic over the public internet is a crap shoot. The public internet was never intended for real time, only data. What works for one person, one call, one time, one location may not be the case for anybody else. The only way you can have any assurance of reliability and QOS is with a private network connecting all locations.

So no, VoIP over the public internet to connect remote sites/users to a main/central location is not something that I would recommend as a business solution.

-Hal

johnp, don't you have trouble typing with your tongue jammed that tightly in your cheek! I'd think the pain would be very distracting. John C.

Just an observation. This particular section "VoIP" has gotten VERY few posts over the last month. Now someone has posted about how VoIP is most assuredly Satanic and will probably lead to warts and there more posts then in an entire month. What do you think this means?

Halloween is coming?

-Hal

Ooookay...where did I put that...

Ah! Here it is!



As Hal said, VOIP over the public Internet is a crap shoot. There is a reason that manufacturers do not support it (they want a point-to-point T1 if you are talking remote locations).

It has been over-hyped and many times in the end, is not really a cost-effective solution.

I have been to several locations where an unscrupulous salesperson has sold such a system without offering the proper support and leaving the customer in the lurch (I have had to deal with that more than once...)

We have some VOIP customers, and unlike the above situations we do not just blame the ISP or their network and walk away. We don't sell a VOIP system to customers where a TDM system will do just fine either.

But as Dexman said, VOIP isn't going to go away. And as Avalon said, we are going to have to adapt sooner or later. Here in Michigan (where competition is pretty stiff in this economic climate), we are looking into a package to sell with SIP trunks. Hence why we are looking into the ISPBX. We do not see it as replacing the TDM systems, just another thing we sell.

The thing is that it is as if we are arguing religion or something. It is just a phone for crying out loud!

One of the common places that like our hosted system is smaller sales or other offices where everyone wants their own external telephone number and if they are on their phone would like callers to get to voice mail or show up as another call on their telephone - without using telco voice mail.

If you have an office like this with 4 people in it you are looking at 8 POTS lines to achieve what they are asking for. Depending on which set of features you are looking for my local monopoly charges $30-40/month/line.

Our hosted system is $35/phone/month and depending on the phone they chose lets them have between 2-4 call appearances.

It's really a wash if you have a customer that wants enough features that they would need a PRI or fractional PRI and they are still looking at getting a new system and telephones to support that circuit. If you have a $500/month PRI or even 6 $40/month POTS lines you can get more features from the hosted system.

We won't sell it to anyone that's not on our IP network because we don't have enough control over the QoS once it leaves.

This brings up another point- the inequity in pricing between VoIP and cable company telephone dial tone providers and real telephone companies. We know that the difference in pricing is because real telephone companies are hammered by government imposed taxes and surcharges that are not levied on their competition. How long do you think this is going to last?

In my area Verizon is losing customers by the dozens daily because Cablevision can offer unlimited service for the fixed rate of $19.95 per month. This is unfair competition in my book and you can bet it won't last long.

-Hal

Perhaps, but Verizon is beating a path to follow suit with FIOS and at&t is doing the same with their "U-Verse" product. Both of which are unregulated products and not subject to the ridiculous taxation that has been levied upon phone lines forever.

Personally, I think that the reason that Verizon is destroying existing copper drop facilities upon completion of a FIOS install is to distance themselves from being a regulated utility. By having no formal facilities connecting the customer to the "old" network, they are not subject to such tight regulation, scrutiny and taxation. With these new service packages, they are regulated in much the same way at that point that CATV and Satellite providers are.

They are already delighted to lose customers to CLECs. They are more than happy to provide a T1 and let their competition deal with the end-user headaches. We've known that for years.

There will eventually be an end to this. For now, Verizon and at&t have enough money to keep the regulators at-bay, but at some point when the funded offsets start running out of money, like TDD/TTY programs, someone will bring everyone to the bar. I'm not so sure that I'll live long enough to see that happen.

One disadvantage of a pure voip setup using polycom phones in a small business is that they are not very user friendly to somebody who has been used to parking calls & having line appearance on their old key/pbx system.

The people who do better working in small business's with this new gear are the people who used to work in a $billion company & are at ease with having a DID & not having to announce calls to other workers.

Ed, unless you come to an untimely death, I'll bet you've got 15-20 years before you meet your reward. (And we won't go there!) That said, the 'playing field' is going to get leveled in .... oh...say...5 years, or less! When the yahoos inside the Beltway, and their cohorts (Or is that cowhores) outside the beltway, figure out there is a specific group making serious $$$$$$$$$$ and the government is not getting at LEAST 35% of it, THINGS WILL CHANGE!!!! John C.

I agree with you John that this will happen sooner the the demise of Ed. With the ISP's now trying to limit the amount of upload. What's going to happen to those people when they get cut off and can't make a simple phone call because the reach a plateau?

Big Brother will step in to placate the misfortunate. Taxes will be added, as well as some type of regulation. After which, we won't be able to trade in our old light bulbs for new. LOL

So, we will be back to square one? Why must we keep trying to reinvent the wheel instead of improving upon the ones we have used for centuries?

What's the saying, "Those who fail to pay attention to history are doomed to repeat it." John C.

Edit:
Decided to delete the rest, off topic and would start a 'situation'.

Speaking of light bulbs, whose hoarding? Wish I had paid attention when the feds in their wise and wily way, modified toilets to require 2 flushes. My water bill would be lower! John C.

It has also been said that those who teach history are doomed to repeat it. :toothy:

So in my networking class we were talking about servers...and my teacher mentioned getting one of Microsoft's 'phone systems' to set up in the class. Lord help me...

Jeff, for Pete's sake keep your head down. John C.

In a nutshell...schools get lots of federal money for IT gear, but no money for telcom gear. VOIP is IT gear, analog intercoms and phone systems are not.

Like it or not, the RJ-45 jack is the future.

I wouldn't count on it. I remember years ago the new must have technology at that time was "digital". Most systems were digital in some way and all worked as well as another, but the ones that sold the best were the ones that said "digital" on them.

This just goes to show what the customer perception is. VoIP can mean different things to the educated but to the customer it means only one thing- it's something they should have. And as long as it has the VoIP tag on it that's what they want.

To answer your statement about schools getting federal money for IT gear, I doubt there is a list of approved phone systems. I think even a system with digital phones would qualify as long as it said VoIP somewhere on the box.

-Hal

There's no need for a list of approved systems.
If it is IP based, it qualifies for federal funds by default as it is IP technology.

This has been an industry approach for the last several years. The Cisco-Berbee relationship is a good example of this approach. Avaya also uses this approach. As previously stated, it's easier/quicker/less cumbersome for school systems to get technology funds than it is to submit request for new comminucation systems which tend to get lost in the red tape.

Basically, if it connects to a network, sends data, and is routed through a switch, it is catogorized as IP gear and qualifies for federal technology funds.

Just my two cents...

There's no need for a list of approved systems... Basically, if it connects to a network, sends data, and is routed through a switch, it is catogorized as IP gear and qualifies for federal technology funds.

I can do that with a Partner. Guess I'm missing some markets.


-Hal

Wow, that's strange to hear. My company just completed installing a TDM system in a new middle school this summer and will be installing two more for this school system over the Christmas holiday break. These will be our 31st and 32nd system installations for them and they have absolutely no interest in any form of IP system equipment. I guess things are different at the other end of the state. :shrug:

Hi, Rockmodule... to the BB.

Now then, I hope you have a thick hide and a good sense of humor because you just have to have your tongue so far out in you cheek you can't chew your cud....

VoIP is like waving a red flag in the bulls' pasture. RJ45 is a poor subject also. Could get you run out of Dodge on a hitching rail.

As an electrical engineer you should know the rules change every day. Federal money for IT? Apparently it is in VA but out here in the real world away from DC Inside the Beltway where pigs wear lipstick it is rare to non-existent. My school district hasn't seen any .... we paid for it when we remodelled the school.

Anyway, stick around, don't take anything personal, and have a good time....we may even "learn ya" something about telecom.

:scratch:

Thanks for the welcoming! I've been a lurker for quite some time, and chime in occasionally when time allows.

I'm not a big fan of VOIP, but accept the fact some people want it even when it's not the best solution. I liken it to optical patch cords some audiophiles use to interconnect their component audio systems that cost $200.00 each when any $2.00 sheilded patch cord with suffice.
:rolleyes:

Long live 1A2!!!

I liken it to optical patch cords some audiophiles use to interconnect their component audio systems that cost $200.00

That is a pretty good analogy. Think also about $200 (or $2000) speaker wire or even $200 gold plated cryogenic treated power receptacles. It just goes to show the power of marketing and the gullibility of people. Make a convincing case and no matter how flawed it is people will hand over their money.

It's kinda like reading the Inquirer and thinking that because it's in print it must be true. There are virtually NO publications today that say anything about TDM yet every PC or IT publication is guaranteed to have something supporting VoIP nearly every month.

Even the friggin' cable company boasts that their "cable company telephone" service was rated #1 three years in a row by PC Magazine. A computer magazine rating telephone service?? No wonder all the geeks and IT "professionals" recommend it.

As telecom professionals our job is to provide a cost effective solution for our customers based on everything available, not what we read about in magazines or what is marketed to appeal to the IT industry.

-Hal

Manassas VA is a good example of a school system hellbent on deploying VOIP systemwide. Once they're convinced it's the way to go (thank the Architects and Enginnering companies) and endorse the system, it's only a matter of time (as history has shown in VA), before the other school systems follow. Sad but true...

service was rated #1 three years in a row by PC Magazine

Thats the funny fact, when you read one of these free IP telephony mags, Its seems like every single product have an award;

"best IP in class" "best new IP system" "best at show 2008" "best IPBX for single mothers"

Best system in range for making callers sound like Donald Duck on helium?

If PC Magazine readers say it's the best it just has to be!

Now, where are those aliens being kept?


-Hal

Once they're convinced it's the way to go (thank the Architects and Enginnering companies)

And they are certainly the ones to ask about telecom. Aren't they the ones who ALWAYS leave out the telephone closets and wiring in their designs?

-Hal

Well I'll start by saying that I am an IT guy with some phone experience. My company is in the process of moving to a new location and we are replacing the Rolm 9751 that I've worked on for several years now.

We decided on an IP-based system, ShoreTel to be specific. In the process we looked at both IP-only and Hybrid systems. We are a 15-site distribution company with around 300 employees.

This was a long process in which we issued an RFP, including a detailed breakdown of features/functionality that we require. Now we are early in the process, so the jury is definitely out on whether or not this will prove to be a good decision. I'll try my best to describe why we made the decision for this particular phone system, which is IP-only.

SETUP
We are going to have around 170 phone sets at our new location. Dial tone will be provided through dynamic T1 lines from the CLEC. We’ll also employ some POTS lines for backup. Eventually we’ll bring more sites onto the system using our backend WAN to route calls between locations. At present this is a private VPN, which does allow for QOS, though we may look at moving to MPLS. I’ve been told by more than one service tech at our provider that the WAN setup we have now is quite sufficient for voice traffic. At all current hub sites we still plan to have local phone lines delivered from the LEC or CLEC.

We have numerous outside sales people, so remote access is critical. Our sales reps require that calls follow them to cell phone, home office, or wherever they happen to be located. We probably won’t do soft phone immediately, though that is something we will investigate once the dust settles from our move.

Our new environment will be highly redundant from the network, phone system, and power standpoints. We’ll have multiple core switches, multiple paths to the core switches, redundant phone switching, full server room and distribution frame UPS, and a building generator. All equipment will be energized on different PDUs so that any power module failure won’t take down the entire system. This is my company’s hub site, so all this was going to happen regardless of which phone system we chose.

COST
The cost of the system was not the primary factor in our decision. It is certainly expensive to move to a VoIP system. The cost of the switching alone is huge. In our case we were going to replace the switching environment anyway, and will have a completely new cable infrastructure. That mitigated some of the additional costs for things like PoE switches and additional cable runs. I know that I’m not supposed to quote prices on this board, but perhaps I can say that the PoE switches we will employ are more than $5K each. This switching environment takes expertise to setup and our phone vendor has subcontracted that piece to a network integrator, which is another cost to consider.

This isn’t just plug in phones and go. The networking side of this installation requires knowledge by those who will maintain it. I plan to be there during the configuration of our switching environment so that I’ll have some understanding of the setup. There will certainly be some costs for support, but eventually in-house staff will have the knowledge to maintain the network completely. I have worked on routers and switches for quite some time, so this is not all completely new to me, though I’m not too familiar with VLANs and COS.

The cost of the phones is not insignificant either. I don’t have a really good basis of comparison, since I haven’t had the need to purchase new phones for quite some time. I am used to purchasing refurbished phones relatively inexpensively with our current system. Needless to say, the cost of new phones adds up quickly when you’re talking about purchasing as many as we’ll require.

Many systems have additional costs depending on the add-ons you select for the system. We found that ShoreTel provides most functionality with the base license. There are some things (like instant messaging) that require additional licenses or even additional servers. This is definitely something to keep in mind when purchasing an IP phone system.

FUNCTIONALITY
I think the biggest selling points to us were ease-of-use, flexibility, and integration that the phone system provides. Of course this is prior to implementation, so we’ll have to see if these things work out as well as we plan. Basically, here’s what we like on each count:

Ease-of-use
This system is so far superior to what we’ve been using and I think it will transform some aspects of our work. I’ll grant you that our technology is well out of date, so I’m not speaking from a place where I can compare to recent TDM or Hybrid technology, just relating what I like about the system we are buying. I will preface this by saying that major maintenance for our Rolm system is easy since the thing basically never goes down. I do have a support vendor to handle the major issues with our Rolm, but rarely have to see them.

The fact that our users can check the call manager software to see who’s on a call, how long they’ve been on it, or if they are in the office or out, will be very nice. I also like the fact that we can see received, missed, or place calls, as so many folks are used to on their cell phones. I think that in the call manager software that’s like a thousand records of call history. In addition, I like the fact that the feature buttons are straight-forward and employees can use the call manager to direct phone calls to whatever phone number they happen to be at. The call manager gives users a subset of their office phone functionality provided they are logged onto our system. Since we deliver applications through Citrix, our employees can access our systems (and call manager) from just about anywhere.

On the administrative end, I sure do like what I see. The user setup is a snap, taking less only a minute or two to setup an extension with voicemail. Obviously MAC work becomes a trivial matter at best. I think this will really be beneficial at our remote sites where we don’t maintain network folks on staff. Apparently all of the systems can be managed from one interface. The phone directory for the entire system is updated automatically once an extension is added to any site.

Flexibilty
The flexibility I’ll speak of here will mostly be realized when we start connecting additional offices and home users. We want our inside sales folks to be able to answer queue calls from any office, or even at home if necessary. We do have folks that travel between offices and it will be nice to have their phones follow them regardless of location. We also will have salespeople who only occasionally visit the office, so we don’t have to maintain dedicated workspace for those folks. They can come to the office, sit anywhere, and have their extension available when they log onto the phone. Again, since we deploy applications through Citrix, it really doesn’t matter which PC they use when in the office.

One area where the flexibility of this VoIP system will immediately be felt will be in our current office space. As I mentioned earlier, we are moving to a new office. While most folks will be moving, the company plans to leave 4-5 people in part of the building we are moving from. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to keep our current server room, where our Rolm phone switch is located. When I first heard that some folks would be staying behind, I was wondering how I was going to deliver phone service to them. Initially I thought of either moving the current Rolm system, or purchasing a smaller key system to accommodate these folks. The current building will remain on our network using the same WAN connection we currently use, though with a different subnet. With the ShoreTel system, I can simply buy some phones with power bricks and have them connect to the phone switch in our new location. No expensive new PoE switches, no key system, no moving our old system, no rewiring. And the best part is that since we are moving all of our phone numbers (DIDs) to the new site, these folks can retain their current numbers.

I also like the idea that users have the can manage their own settings, such as call forwarding, presence, and the like, and that the administrator has some flexibility in what options end-users can change. Of course the caveat with users having access to features on any system is that it could increase administrative work. The functionality seems pretty straightforward on the ShoreTel system, so I’m hoping that this won’t present too much of an issue. If it does, I can ratchet down security so it’s no longer an issue.

Integration
Of particular interest to our CIO (my boss) is the ability to integrate the phone system with our inside sales application. We are moving to a new ERP system where we anticipate functionality such as screen pops from our CRM application based on caller ID to our agents. Also, the system is capable of adding contacts to Outlook directly from the call manager software. We will deliver this functionality some time after the initial installation, but it certainly helps to know that it’s able to do this and the application programming interfaces are already written. Click to dial from Outlook is another feature of the software, though it remains to be seen how much benefit we’ll see from that. We haven’t yet moved to Outlook for our email, though that change is coming in a few months. With that may be a move to unified communications. This would allow for voicemails to be sent directly to email for retrieval. I’m not so sure of the value of this yet, but I do know that many of our folks carry blackberries and other smart phones, so there may be some benefit. The down side is that I imagine data storage requirements would go WAY up as well as backup times for our servers.

The addition of instant messaging is another benefit of this system. That’s an area that we will explore as time permits. There is another server required to accomplish this, and of course the cost of additional licensing. Since we run VMWare, I can setup a virtual server rather quickly, without the cost of additional hardware. The licensing is certainly a consideration, so we’ll have to do a cost/benefit analysis.

I realize that there’s probably a lot of functionality that can be achieved through Hybrid or even TDM systems available now. I will say that of the systems we looked at the Shoretel seemed to most naturally integrate into our data architecture. That’s not to say that other systems can’t do this, but from what we saw from that system, it seemed to be part of the architecture. As my boss put it after seeing the demo, “This is what I envisioned a VoIP system looking like.”

Again, I’ll reiterate that we are just beginning this process, so I’ll have to follow-up once we’ve gotten the system installed. Hopefully there won’t be too much pain on the way, though I certainly expect some.