atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Inter-Tel Telephones & Systems PRI vs BRI

System - 5000 series.
We are going to open a new office and thought for this one we would like to use all IP phones.
Problems arose when we started discussing what sort of lines to use. I was all for the PRI. More channels, faster speeds. But also higher cost.
It was suggested we go instead with a BRI.
I am not totlally supportive of the BRI idea because I am concerned that the with only two channels and a slower speed, it will effect the overall effectiveness of our phone system set up.
Any thoughts on this?

Are we talking about the voice side? If so then PRI is the way to go. Who suggested a BRI and why? The telco side has nothing to do with the IP phones on the inside it doesnt matter if you have IP phone, TDM, or mix and match. The decision between PRI, POTS, T1, etc needs to be based on the companys phone line needs. How many CO lines will this office need? If you only need 4 or 5 lines then it would not make sense to use a PRI or T1 and I would stick with POTS lines. BRI is not typically used for incoming phone line service. The speed of a PRI or BRI is also of no consequence here unless your also discussing bundling some kind of data plan. It sounds like there may be some confusion about your IP phones on the inside and the Telco side on the outside.

Not that I'm any expert in this but becareful of POTS lines and IP phones. We have a Axxess system and the POTS lines are fine for digital endpoints but terrible on the IP phones. Maybe this has been improved on the 5000. We have just switched to the local cable TV company to supply our POTS lines and this has fixed the sound issues on the IP phones. Their lines are digital into the building then are coverted to analog copper within a few feet of the switch.

An internal IP phone does not care nor it does it even know what kind of CO service is connected to the phone system. An internal IP phone only uses VOIP to communicate with the phone system itself and the phone system converts the VOIP communication back to TDM. We have many customers that use all IP phones or a combination of IP and TDM and there has never been an issue with their choice of CO lines. Who was providing your service before and what kind of CO lines were they? Where there any other changes made on the network besides changing providers?

IP phones depend on QOS. As tito said, the problem is the network, not what CO service was being used.

Is this a place with remote locations? If not, we would usually recommend digital (TDM) phones.

Who suggested BRI?...........that is almost never used.

The CO lines we had were supplied by At&t and were copper into the building. Even with the IP phone connected directly to the IPRC there was a lot of echo and listening volume very low. Never had any quality issues on IC calls even from remote site. At&t tested our lines and said they were fine. I was told it had to do with the 2 - 4 wire conversion. I had Inter-tel out many times and they said the Axxess was setup fine.

Now with the new lines from the cable company CO calls are as good as IC calls. No other changes were made.

Didn't mean to hyjack this thread only wanted to give my experiance with POTS lines and IP.

No problem D. Who told you there was a 2 to 4 wire conversion? The voice communication leaving your phone system is just analog. Theres nothing digital, ip, or any other kind of conversion to it. The phone system takes care of any VOIP or TDM conversion that needs to take place in order to put that signal on the public network. Your saying these were just plain old pots lines?

Anyways back to the BRI .... who suggested that and what was the reason behind it?

I believe the conversion Inter-tel was talking about happens in the back plane of the switch. Several experts on this forum made refrence to it as well. Yes they were just your normal POTS like at home.

Don't worry about the 'Hijack', DeWayne. A lot of useful information came out of it for me.
In answer to several of the questions that may have originally been directed at me:
The reason the BRI was suggested was this is currently a small office (30 phones max), but has the potential for growth to a larger scale.
The BRI was also suggested due to possible lower cost VS a PRI.
Our carrier is Verizon.
The BRI was suggestd by one of our Network Technicians.
Currently there are only about 15 CO regular POTS lines between the two office we are combining onto this one site. However, the site is going to be a Disaster Recovery Site for us and could suddenly need a large infusion of available lines directed to one specific department.
The QOS question is interesting because our home site has had some issues with this with our TelCo and is working to resolve them right now.
This is a remote location site itself. It connects back to a central hub where I maintain about 13 sites.