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:
Originally posted by Noisycow in another thread:
We have noticed our competition quoting 'all VOIP' phone system configurations with IP vs digital phone systems are estimating jobs without telling the customer about all the facts.
Jobs with network hardware and cabling that is not of the level required to support a VOIP are told that their pending 'VOIP' projects are likely to be a 'cakewalk.' "Just plug in these VOIP phones"
They seem to quote their boilerplate system, then when, not if, there are problems they then refer to the fine print that any network/cabling issues are the customer's responsibility. These 'problem' upgrades can end up costing the customer more than the initial phone system.
Seems pretty careless. I mention this because there a simply many installations where digital makes more sense and these vendors selling the almighty 'all VOIP' leave a lot of acccounts in worse shape then if they kept their old systems.
Today's hybrids offer the best of both worlds (but then everyone here knows that). We just couldn't ever see selling something we know is doomed to failure because the customer was left uninformed of all the issues. What is scary is this type of sales practice has become pretty much standard.
Kudos to those who sell VOIP systems and are truly professional and test/quote the entire upgrade hardware necessary and don't leave accounts in a lurch - however they are in the minority by far.
