atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums VOIP Phones & IP PBX Cisco Telephones and Systems The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

We are looking at Cisco solution for our Health System

We have 5000+ handsets, 40+ physical locations, Business offices, call centers, etc...

This would be a full enterprise system, single dial plan, mail, call center, redundancy....

Looking for input, whats good, whats not so good.

Thanks

You won't find much love for Cisco on here ..... if you do consider it make sure to get a good handle on the overall cost including network updates prior to cutover and ongoing support agreements.

Try looking into the NEC SV-8500, or UC3. The UC3 can have multiple servers in different locations as back up at no additional license cost. Both systems would require that your network be up to date WRT IP voice.

we went with ShoreTel, support costs being the decisive factor. not as large as you -- we have 76 sites, 1800+ IP phones, coupla hundred analog devices. no call center. process 600k+ phone calls per month. MPLS with QoS. works good. reliable.

royb, that's good to know.

With 76 locations, how did you handle the dial plan? It is not very flexible.

upstateny, outside of price, what don't you like about Cisco?

Been there, done that. I work for a company that owns 19 hospitals in 4 states. After looking at several manufacturers, and previously being a Nortel shop, we settled on Cisco. My 4 hospitals were the first in the organization to deploy, and I helped develop a single dial plan for our area. Feel free to contact me for more feedback, if you'd like.

Justin

hey mj, shoretel dial plan more flexible than you might think. we use 4-digit numbers througout, using the last four digits of a DID number as the extension. we are close to needing to move to 5-digits because telcos are starting to have difficulty matching openings in our coordinated dial plan (former nortel house here, too). cross that bridge when we must, in no hurry.

instead of 40 or 50 (or now 76) separate PBXs tied together, we get to manage one big system. let's us get more done with just us two guys. we self-install the WAN, LANs, routers/switches/and ShoreTel system, only buy the hardware. good luck on your decision, let us know how it goes (or how it went).

I also inherited a Shoretel system, and from what I've seen just from the exercise of connecting Shoretel and Cisco, Shoretel isn't nearly as flexible for dial plan as I am used to with Cisco.

Justin

Did you go with Cisco?

We have finally come to a decision. Only took the better part of a year.

We looked at Cisco, Avaya, and Shoretel.
Shoretel is not too bad a system for smaller companies. But it is not very flexible. It is one of those systems that if you like what it is then great, but if you want to change something well good luck.

Avaya is actually a very nice system, rather pricey, even by Cisco standards, And lots of training, even more training then the Cisco.

We went with Cisco, It is actually a nice system, not much of what you read in these forums is true. It scales to an almost unlimited size, it is very complex, but that allows it to do almost anything at all. Training is intense, especially if you want the certifications. But all in all I think it was the best solution for the Health System.

MJ,

Have you installed the system yet or just selected it?

"not much of what you read in these forums is true."

Actually it was true at the time the posts were made. Customers and Interconnect owners were amazed that a product could be sold that required a separate server for paging. A separate server for Music On Hold. Product has probably matured a lot since then but that would be expected with time. Good luck with your choice and keep us updated on your progress!

MJ, who did you end up using as your Cisco partner? I already have one, I'm just curious. PM me if you want to share info.

Thanks!

Justin

Justin, looks like we are going with Windstream. Not my first choice, but the accounting people like it. They are combining it with our data and voice services so we are getting a nice cut rate on it.

CDW provides all our switches and routers.

CDW also does very well with Cisco UC. They picked up a company called Berbe to develop their professional services business for supporting Cisco UC. I've always been very leery about having a carrier design and install such an advanced system. There are ways to get great deals without bundling the entire farm.

Justin

hey mj wald do they have a full featured GUI for administering the system yet?

I havent worked on Cisco in a few years and the GUI was always a problem because for certain features you would have to go to the command line programming then when you tried to make changes in the GUI it would be all confused and lock up. spent hours on the phone with tech support.

Cisco Communications Manager (the enterprise version) is full GUI, and very good and responsive. Depending on the config, there is some CLI to work with for voice gateways (H.323 or SIP voice gateways, especially if setup with PRI's).

Justin

The old CME was like that, Rally had to know your CLI to get things done.

Where are you with this???

Funny you should ask, the scope of the project was expanded. It was only to cover two of our locations, but our executive team decided to just go ahead and cut over all 45 locations.

So we had all our site surveys done, all our quotes were in, and ready to cut a PO to the vendor when... Our executive team said hold up. We are going to put this project on hold for 3 to 5 years then re-address it. So this whole thing was just a waste of time.

So happy.