sundance-communications.com Forums Telephony Discussion Phone & VoIP Systems Avaya - Lucent Telephones & Systems Partner ACS upgrade to 2xBonded T1 VOIP

I looking for advice on upgrading an existing small office setup.
Here is what we got:
Partner ACS system w/ an ACS 509 R7 module and a 308EC module being fed by 6 POTs lines in a hunt group servicing 13 Partner 18D phones. We also have 3 direct FAX lines outside the Partner ACS and a T1 going into a Cisco 1700 for our server internet connection.

We are looking to upgrade to VOIP and upgrade to a 2x bonded T1.

My question is how does the VOIP solution connect into the Partner ACS?

Our carrier wants to sell us an Adtran 908 w/ a PRI handoff, will that work w/ the Partner?

What are the right questions to ask, is there a better solution?

Are there any drawbacks to going completely VOIP?

Any thoughts about the best way of going about this would be helpful.

The Partner ACS does not support PRI/ISDN. If you want to use PRI/ISDN or pure VoIP, you would need to upgrade to the IP Office.

That's a mighty big question njwlog, lol.

With the change of services are you looking to save money or do you need the extra bandwidth by bonding 2 T's.
2 bonded T's is a lot of pipe for a Partner sized office.

This is kinda a loaded question.
VOIP has it's place/advantages/disadvantages ect.

If you don't mind, tell us what you plan to accomplish with this transition,..........save money, increase data bandwidth, DID's, link a remote location with MPLS....ect.

But in short, No, your Partner R.7 won't do PRI or direct VoIP directly. (As Dex already pointed out).

Thx. for the feedback, alot has changed since we redid all our telecom/internet services 10 years ago.

We need a bondedT1 for extra bandwidth, we are limiting out on our exisiting T1.

Cost is not the main issue here. That being said, a 2x bonded TI w/ VOIP is cheaper than what we are currently paying PacBell for all our POTs lines and Vz. for our T1 combined.

Is it worth or even cost effective to save our investment in the Partner ACS system we have that we have been happy with?

How many sets do you have on the Partner? It sounds like your best option might be migration to IPO. You may also want to check into seperate voice and data service options. You might be suprised at the cost savings, especially with CLECs. For more bandwidth, have you checked into DSL or business class cable? A lot higher bandwidth there. Some places are even offering bonded DSL for areas that are running into distance limitations on DSL. Our church was one of them. Because of distance, we couldn't get the higher speed rated DSL. But for roughly the same price they bonded two DSL's and doubled our bandwidth.

We have 13 Partner 18D phones. Our voice needs are pretty basic, we don't have alot of call volume.

I'll check out IP office, looks very similiar to our current ACS setup. I would however hate to junk what is essentially a fullly functional ACS which has meet our needs well.

Thanks for the tip on bus. class cable, a quick check looks very promising at least on a speed basis. I am a little worried about cable uptime matching essentially flawless T1 service, however.

If you are interested in upgrading from the ACS to an IPO, most Avaya BP's would give you a good trade in on your ACS gear.

Just have the carrier supply a voice gateway and hand off as analog like you have now.
Mike