atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums VOIP Phones & IP PBX VoIP & Cloud Phones, Hosted PBX, General IP Phones VoIP Phone System Questions

put the VOIP NIC in front of the data LAN and you shoould be fine. however, some IT guys would rather have everything behind a firewall... thats where the trouble begins.

That's exactly why we keep our stuff in front of the router and LAN. To keep it out of the hands of the IT guys. They might know their stuff, but they don't know ours.

Well, time for an IT guy to chime in

I have also setup the switch in front of firewall and it does work well. For the most part (read MOST PART) QoS means squat for the same reason listed above IF the install is planned for correctly. I have NEVER installed VoIP solutions using the same connection as the data at the main point. That is where all the traffic is.

As for the remote users, QoS router could help them as they will ikely use the connection for both data and voice. This will be something you will need to think about and warn your users accordingly. Otherwise you will see major issues with remote users.

As always, choose the right vendor (though thats always not easy). Also I woudl recommend lookign at hiring an IT firm to "consult" on this project. They often have better knowledge of routers, internet protocals, etc than do phone guys (remember i said OFTEN!).

We do numerous consulting jobs for other phone guys that are lookign at VoIP as we have more knowledge and experience on high end networks, VPN, frame links, QoS, etc.

In short, do research, ask losts of questions, and choose a vendor you are comfortable with.

P.S: Hope i didn't offend any phone guys as I am both an IT guy and Phone guy. Sorry if I did, not my intention.

Well the samsung phones have a built in 2 way switch. Meaning that someone could plug the phone into VoIP phone, then have the ethernet chord go into the DSL or Cable modem.

Company 3 said that we wouldn't necessarily need the QOS or VPN routers with them just checking emails and transferring files small files. That's on the other end. However, we would probably need one here in the office.

After reading the replies I am not sure if that is how you guys were looking at it or not.

All of our employees will still have their house phones.


Okay company 1 (NEC Delaer) said we would need a VPN channel for ever single phone to connect to all the other phones. He said, "For every phone to connect and not for it to be conisdered long distance you need a VPN channel." So if we wanted every single person to be able to dial a quick extension it would have to be on a seperate VPN channel. However, he also stated the employee could take the phone with them to a hotel room and be able to use it. Would the employee have to take the 10 channel VPN router?

Company 2 declined the job...so 3com is out of the picture.

Hillyard, you could use the soft phone for the people on the road and use windows to VPN to the network.

I am just getting a lot of conflicting information from the vendors. I am wondering who is offering me the best service.

VPN's are required?

For the NEC Aspire..yes otherwise they will not recieve support from NEC. Like I said, the only company I have ever seen offer a firewall system that gets rid of VPN is Tadiran. Otherwise you have to expose your system directly to the public network...which is not always a bad thing and I have had to do it before because the IT staff was not good enough to configure a router.

Should we have VPNs going to every phone?

I like the Samsung system personally and am waiting to hear back from the local dealer. Our choices around here are kind of limited.

Do you guys have any things that I should pay close attention to?

Here are some questions I came up with.

Do you see a problem with DSL or Cable connection on their end?
Concerns about voice quality?
What happens if we implement this in and the voice quality is horrible, what will you guys do to try to fix it?
What all different variables do you guys see as a problem?


Things that are a given

22 of 24 channels of a T1 Connection dedicated completely to the VoIP Phone System
VoIP Phone System
8 Dedicated phone lines to the system (not part of the T1)
10 employees with either cable or DSL connection
I sent a survey out asking how their connections were and if they have routers now or not.
I know 5 of them don’t.

Welcome to the internet and VOIP. You asked the RIGHT questions.

Over the internet voice quality cannot be guarranteed.

You will need a routers that prioritizes the voice traffic for the phone..they are cheap routers that will do this for people at home. That is if they use their broadband for computer and phone.

Voice quality is amost a 99.9% network issue. Going over the open internet there are no guarantees for VOIP. I use a voip phone at home and have good luck with my connect butthat isn't a guarantee. Run away from ANYONE that says they can give you 100% voice quality over the open internet. VOIP system have a hard enough time with redundant networking and dedicated networks.

VOIP phone system OR a hybrid?