sundance-communications.com/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring VOIP Cabling

I don't know if this should be posted in this department or in the VOIP. One of my customers is a bank and they are taking over some new office space in a different buidling. They are in the process of looking at a new telephone system and want to go to VOIP. Do you recommend 2 or 3 cat 5e cables in each office? Should there be one cable for the telephone and one for the PC and one spare for printer etc.I talked a littel to the customer today he asked about C6 but felt it was too much money so won't go that way. Thanks for your input.

I would recommend running 3 seperate Cat5 cables. Especially if you are running cable anyway. Most VoIP systems either have a passthrough port on the back of the phone or they use a PC as the phone, but much better quality (IMO) if they are on seperate networks, switches, cables.

Having an extra cable is never a bad idea. Easier to put in now than later.

This is one of the major problems with VOip. Customer has a good working TDM phone system. They are convinced they need to go to VoIP. Voice and data can run on one cat 5 cable. When they find out through frustration it does not work, they are told to put in seperate network for the telephone system. Where is the saving to the customer. Some building codes make you remove abandoned wiring. So now you have the expense of removing the old cat 3, recable with cat 5. Just so you can have a color display on your phone.

VoIP networking works well, but VoIP to the desk top without carefull planning and design does not work.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Telephoneguywayne,

The guys are very right, for all the listed reasons. History has already shown the "simple" plug in a phone and/or computer and you are done is WRONG!!!

To do that you need to so overbuild the network the cost savings are shot long before the QoS issues, slow data to the desktop, and POed customer are taken care of. Is it worth the loss of their customers due to the poor data and voice conditions and for you to lose a customer and your reputation because the "PITA, don't work, I'll sue if you don't make it work as promised" system ???

Remember the bad taste of the above will last longer than the sweet taste of the initial money saved.

My $2.98 (Inflation, you know)

CAT 6 is a no brainer...expensive labor and material, when CAT 5e will handle 1GIG easily and GIG hardware is cheaper than fiber today, that’s why the glamour of fiber has dropped.
The quality of voice in VOIP in a fixed environment is about 10% less than a good working TDM phone system, as bamartz pointed out. With an expensive overhead in routers and switches just to maintain that quality. Separate cable for voice and data may reduce any outages, but they would still have to wait until the network guy got around to replacing the equipment when it fails. The national average for network failures, I think, is still around 10%.
No Charge!

1)Voice quality depends on what codec is being used. I'm sure you're aware that there are several different codecs that can be used for VOIP, including but not limited to G.711u/G.711a, G.729a, and GSM. (Normally GSM is only supported by softphones. This is indeed the same codec used by GSM wireless phones).

2)What does 10% mean in relation to network failures? The percentage of downtime? 2.4 hours of downtime in a 24 hour period is certainly not average. Network equipment usually becomes functionally obsolete LONG before it ever fails.