atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums VOIP Phones & IP PBX VoIP & Cloud Phones, Hosted PBX, General IP Phones VoIP vs TDM

Well walterv, if the customer wants to use SIP phone on the systems we sell they sure can. Why they would want to do that I have no idea...in fact I don't even see how that is even a selling point. Although, I do have quite a few systems in the 1000-3000 port range where they use any single line they want..oh and I can push that out over 13k from the system.

TDM, just more business for me. Best VOIP (or rather TOIP) systems out there are hybrids (IMHO) so I get the best of both world with support.

My table is pretty big right now with a TON of companies that are out of business (my former competition)..which we acquired customers. Good luck...and 18 years and going strong!

Coral Tech

I have now upgraded the pole that shall not touch this subject to 20-feet.

LOL Kumba. For the sake of keeping it clean I won't touch THAT with a 20 foot 1 inch pole!

Remember when we use to read “Telephony” magazine and we would get all excited to see a review on the PBX we supported. I followed the trade mag every month and still do but it is now called “Internet Telephony”. You may see something on AVAYA now and then but most of the time it lists products most of us have never heard of and if you do not pick one up for 6 months you are lost when you do pick it up again. The new world of telecom may not be everyone's favorite but the market is moving to next generation converged networks according to my media outlets.

I would love to have a mag sent to my mail box that is pushing traditional CPE offerings. What magazines do you guys get now that have features on ESI, NEC, Vertical, Mitel, Toshiba, Siemens...

Thanks in advance,
Rob

"Although, I do have quite a few systems in the 1000-3000 port range where they use any single line they want..oh and I can push that out over 13k from the system. [Smile]"

I don't get what your saying???

Rob,
The reason you see what you see is because our industry has changed and is changing at a rapid pace.
We have two types of thought on this, denial or acceptance. Denial for the inevitable is not the right choice IMHO. Acceptance and positioning yourself is the right choice IMHO.

The posture of negative selling against complete IP solutions is getting weak, sure four years ago it would work, today, it is a tough sell if you have an educated sales person.

Hybrid is great, don't get me wrong, but it does not compare to a full IP solution implemented properly and on its own network. I will go one step further, it does not compare to a full IP solution implemented properly on a current network.

Coral,
The left and the right coast move at a faster pace, my market in NY, dictates what I sell and support. If you were where I am now, and you will soon be (few years) you will get my posts then.

Honestly,
Wish I was in your arena still, just not the case here.

Those that sell against IP based systems, with the ridiculous claims of less features. harder to use, and not as reliable, better revisit those claims, it is simply not true, and can easily be proved.

Just My 2C in my little neck of the woods


Walter

13k feet from the phone system over regular copper pair with TRUE 90V Bellcore standard.

Same here. We have a lot of customers in campus environments, where there may be many buildings thousands of feet away from the switch that only require a handful of SLTs. Show me an IP solution that can do this without thousands of dollars worth of 'extenders' or other 'servers' that can provide such a simplistic expectation and I'll eat your hat.

What about OSP situations with cable plant? What about tools and test equipment that cater to traditional industry standards? What about reference to ground? It ain't so simple once the phones are outside of the four walls.

IP phones at the home of the boss or even as wide-reaching as remote workers? Hell yes! I'm all over that concept. With the exception of the reliance upon the public Internet, these are excellent scenarios for the use of VoIP. That is where it ends and sanity has to step into control.

Sorry, Walter (and you know that I love to bust your chops), but IP will only capture the market when it can address ALL scenarios, and anyone who understands our industry knows that this concept of reality is years away at best.

Don't get me wrong: I was all over the concept of '1A3' and sold a bunch of those systems, but even then, I knew that the concept was full of holes. I was not wrong in my thinking. We look back at those systems as a joke these days, despite the fact that they were 'cutting-edge'. We laugh at systems that use more than one pair these days.

How come Microsoft decided to bail out of VoIP? Bill Gates owns the computing industry and he is obviously very smart. Has anyone ever wondered why such a man of his power and expertise would just ditch what is such supposed technology?

It is difficult to hug a new technology (with VoIP on its third roll-out after two debacles over two dedades) that still can't address the rigors of the real world. When it really works and replaces the industry-standard, I'll welcome it with open arms. Until then, I'm going to have to stick with what works and what can do the job.

On a side note: I have customers who paid to have fiber drops run to every desktop in 1993 that remain coiled in the outlet boxes, unterminated. Sure, FTTD was the sign of the times, but now it is nothing but a bunch of wasted glass (and money). I visited one today and they suggested that we use the vacated fiber as drag lines for the new copper that they need (CAT5e). I chuckled (in my mind, of course).

I still have to face the customer and refuse to lie to them. Things are different here.

Forget features and continuity lets start with the box itself...

I am not selling another 3-4 generation product that requires software on PCs to run UM or needs third party drivers to perform screen pops. I do not want my customers calling me to ask why they lost their enhance tool bar on their Outlook or complain about the fax mail. I am not offering any product that takes hours to restore when it crashes and requires me to keep a bunch of parts in stock. I do not want an external server for Call Center, reports or other enhancements and I do not want to unplug and plug it back up half the times I am called to fix it.

It should work 99% of the time and can be fixed within 10 min after the customer calls in a problem even if it is Super Bowl Sunday. Now what is going to provide this to my customers? TDM or VoIP technology?

So you don't stock any parts for TDM Systems? Or am I to assume their magical white boxes have somehow less swappable parts then a VoIP's white box? Or are you saying that the network switch is this extraordinary increase in parts count?

That whole argument seems wrong for some reason. Every time I think of a TDM system, I think of the chassis/CPU, CO cards, expansion cards, then feature cards (like VM/etc). That also isn't including the ancillary devices I usually see spread around the backboard, like paging interfaces, voicemail sometimes, MOH devices, call loggers/recorders, etc.

Most of the VoIP systems I see (granted, I see them at vendor booths in trade-shows) are usually one box that does the majority of it. They seem to have very few (if any) internally selectable or even swappable parts, and about the only external devices they use seem to be a paging interface and maybe MOH (Sometimes that's just a radio).

You seem to be painting with a very broad brush. I won't even go into the whole call center subject as I could talk ad-nauseum about that (unfortunately). All I'll say is that some of our happiest clients come from the commercial PBX market (both TDM and VoIP).


Now that's just silly. Neither TDM or VoIP will provide that to your customers unless you carry a complete compatible spare of their entire system in your inventory, throw it in the truck every time you roll out to them, and have a recent back-up of configurations including voicemail. And that's even assuming the part that is broke can be diagnosed and swapped out in 10 minutes upon your opening of the closet.

Guess I should have upgraded to that 30-foot pole.