We are currently looking at CISCO and The NORTEL BCM product lines as an entry to our VOIP offerings. Anyone out there have any advice as to the pitfalls of either product. I have been researching both and have heard horror stories with implementing both products in a WAN environment. I guess I am asking if there is anything to look out for from a manufacturer "side". I hate it when I hear things like "it will work great and your IT guy will hardly notice the draw on your network bandwidth"!

In addition, I am looking for any advantages of offering a complete IP based system over TDM. I keep asking myself if I were my customer, why would I want a CISCO AVID type system, or the Nortel BCM verses other TDM type systems. I am aware of the "toll bypass" and remote networking capabilities, but besides remote applications, why would anyone need a pure IP system? Set relocation is done on the patch system, and it would seem that adding more data to a network would be a bad thing.

I any case, we understand that the telephone world is becoming a data world, and we are in this for the long haul. So, any help is appreciated in our quest to understand and choose the proper product.

Breeze