I'm 30. I'm about 6 years in to an IT career....but there's something nagging at me. I've always enjoyed telecom work a whole lot more. In my current job, I do get to maintain and perform moves/adds/changes to our customer's phone system, but general IT work is the bulk of what I do. We sell IP phone systems as well, though I installed what will likely be our last on-premise system last fall. Everything since then has been hosted, which comes almost entirely pre-configure. Changes are quick and simple....entry level employees can make changes. There's no challenge in it at all.....and a lot of it is junk.

I'm at a dead end at the firm I am with now, and it's time to move up and out. I've already started working with some recruiters, but honestly, I would rather move to doing telecom full time. Where do I go from here? Is there even much of a future in selling, installing, and maintaining phone systems? I'm sure we are going to see on premise equipment, especially in large installations, for some time. But even that will start to disappear. Am I crazy in wanting to make this jump?

I did have dumb luck and was approached about a position administering a large Avaya system and a dozen or so Nortel BCM's, earlier this spring. They were even going to pay for Avaya training / certification.....unfortunately their budget got cut before I could even start.

Is this doable.....or should I stick it out in IT?

I'd be real careful moving into the Telecom industry - and I say this as someone who's spent 50 years in it.

I remember, years ago, complaining to my wife about the competition the industry was facing from "Trunk Slammers" and the like. Her response was excellent:

"As the equipment gets smarter, the installers can get stupider."

So what if these yahoos can't troubleshoot a simple problem? So what if the install looks like crap? The consumer wanted a cheap job and got it.

My suggestion to you is - if you really want to get into Telecom, try to get into one of the "Cadillac" operations, one of the top places in your area. There will always be some people who are willing to pay top price for top service - but in the coming years they will be few and far between. And I wouldn't leave IT completely, because so much of Telecom will be moving more and more to IT.

Just my $0.02.

Sam

You are young enough and honestly based on what you said in second paragraph, I think you should give it a shot. Many companies in your market want someone with experience in both IT and telcom. That can be hard to find.

PM sent.

Hardware Telecom is coming to a slow end. Even the big guys, Avaya, Cisco, Mitel, etc are all going Hosted to the Cloud.

IT is taking over Telecoms, so stay where you are and increase your knowledge.

Most of us old guys with decades of experience who sign on and discuss things here are now doing something other than telecom. Does that answer your question?

Concentrate your efforts on routing and switching (ethernet). CCNA etc. Telephones aren't going anywhere and I would bet that bandwidth is due to start being taxed like a commodity. Stay tuned. Telecom is evolving too but it still has it's place. Hell most people don;t even know where that stupid term cloud is from and what it actually used to relate too. Lord I'm old..lol.

In the meantime, to enhance your overall telephony knowledge, and to allow me to make ends meet, I am forming a 1A, 1A1, 1A2, 4A, 6A, and 9A key system tutorial group. The tuition is $25,500 per semester. Includes room, board, supplies, tools and the supreme benefit of being able to bask in my intellectual arrogance.

The campus is located on beautiful Manhasack-aha-quash-awamoc, just off the Long Island (NY) coast.

Guest instructors will include famous former electro-mechanical telephone system technicians whose comments grace these forum pages.

Arthur, I think this is a movie that you stared in. Click Here

Rcaman

Along the same line:

I'm in IT, have been 16 years, own an IT consulting business for the past 12.5 yrs and I'm seeing some dramatic shifts in our industry. Much like all of you fighting a losing battle with installing key or pbx systems, I'm installing fewer and fewer on-site servers. Installing and maintaining fewer workstations too as a lot of things are going mobile, tablet, or smartphone based. Everything is going to the "cloud". Line of business apps, e-mail, etc. All of my business will become how do I make recurring revenue partnering with cloud vendors on slim margins rather than labor from remotely or on-site configuring & maintaining servers. It stinks. I'd rather be working with my hands installing servers, data cabling, etc. For what it is worth, I've bowed out of installing VoIP for my clients. In fact I pushed one of my clients to someone on this forum to get a small pbx system since it was what they needed.

So things aren't all that rose-y on this side of the tracks.

I'm also seeing the end of copper telco plant in this state. As a contractor for a CLEC installing various DSL and POTS services, that will be real hard for the CLEC to continue to do business with a LEC that is doing almost no maintenance and employees with real knowledge retiring.

Scary times ahead. Wish I had better news for you OP.

Yep it is all going to the cloud. No one seems to care where the equipment is actually located or who has access to all their data.

I haven't put in a key system for ten years or more.

Basically now I install: Voice, Data, Intercom, Nurse Call, Fire Alarm, Security, Paging, Audio/Visual, Controls.

Things like: Data Centers (Google/Amazon, et cetera), IT Rooms, Distributed Antenna Systems, HVAC controls, REX, Door Mags, Sound Masking, Intel D1X, Installing AP's Public Schools...

All those things need cabling.

At 62 I need to keep up with the new kids... or I should say the new kids have to keep up with me!

One good solar flare that takes out all microprocessors and we'll be back to using 1A2 and driving antique cars.

Are you thinking EMP Merritt?

In that case string and two tin cans for a call... or string and three cans for a conference call.

Given enough string and tin cans and we can re-create the World-Wide Web. -minus the pop-up ads. (I hope)

OP: Keep up your IT certifications while expanding. Once it's earned, it's a shame to lose.

I'm going to chime in with my own experience. In the Washington, DC market, key and PBX system sales are still strong. Hosted IP is practically non-existent except on the very small end. I'm guessing that this is largely due to the federal government presence here and they wouldn't dare commit to anything like that.

I also work in the Virginia Beach metro area, which is a completely different business demographic. I will say that the hosted IP market is bigger there, but we also spend a lot of time taking hosted out and replacing it with a key system. I'm doing another one this Thursday.

What I'm seeing is that customers fall for marketing buzzwords with regard to communications. If it's something that they've never seen or heard of, then they figure that they must have it. Hey, this happened in the 70s when AT&T started a new version of 1A2 called ComKey. Same product, same basic operation, but that magic woodgrain faceplate and amber flash/recall button had everyone hooked. The local telcos made zillions for a bunch of nothing. Once everyone else came up with woodgrain faceplates and amber flash buttons, the thrill was gone and the competition resumed to a normal state. Then something else came along, again, and again, and again.

Just like when everyone had to have a 4X4 SUV when they became affordable. Or when everyone had to have a satellite dish. Or when everyone had to buy a hybrid car. Or an iPhone. Let's not forget the H2 Hummer. Or whatever...

Huge operations are continuing to plug along with their own IP networks and that's appropriate. Nobody can deny that they have the flexibility to allow even the dumbest of the dumb to administer them. It's all point and click, so anyone can do it, right? No, I'm serious. Once an IP voice network is built, it doesn't take much in the intelligence department to run it.

Most small businesses (60% of the market) don't need VoIP and can't justify the long-term costs and commitments of hosted. Those who do fall for the hosted show soon realize that this isn't the right fit for them. Fortunately, most hosted providers in Virginia offer an exit clause. I'm guessing that this is a 30-day legal thing. I'm seeing more customers take the out. Simple things like hold buttons and intercom are staples that the small operations need. I'm also encountering new system sales opportunities where the customer implicitly states that they do NOT want a proposal for VoIP.

Since I'm seeing so much business going both ways lately, I'm giving it a few more years. As others have suggested, my advice is that you keep one foot in both doors and let the industry's never-ending vulnerability guide you. The technician who is proficient on both sides of the fence is going to become quite invaluable as the older technicians retire. People may think that traditional telecom is gone, but that's not the case in the near future. Thankfully, nothing happens overnight.

In the Boston metropolitan area, the situation is different from what Ed sees in DC/VA. Boston & Cambridge are home to many colleges and large national & international corporations, thus, VoIP has a commanding presence here. Towards the end of my time @ Global Crossing/Level(3), we were installing far more Gig-E along with routers than T1s & DS3s.

Over 30 years of key and PBX undr my belt. The 81c and 61c that I maintained for a dozen years are gone. I now maintain 3 SBCs and 500 ports of analog to SIP gateways. We are in the process of phasing out our ISDN\PRIs in favor of SIP trunks. Once you understand the mechanism of how registrars work and the nomenclature used by each vendor to describe their related functions it becomes pretty easy. The data geeks that I work with are terrified of anything to do with dialtone or transcoding and forget installing an analog port on campus. For that they call out "Gandalf the Grey" (me). They are more concerned with packets not their contents. There are niches out there and I will second EV607797s opinion that more than a few SMBs are moving back to IP enabled TDM key hybrids. A Net+ or similar certification coupled with an Alta3 SIP certification will take you futher than the stack of TIE\Toshiba\Comdial\Nortel\Etc.... certifications that are yellowing in my attic.

Well, I've thought over the input form everyone here. I've also done some observing here in St. Louis on my own. I am seeing very small hosted systems in very small companies with a small handful of employees. But I am also seeing just as many, if not more, new IP enabled traditional systems. NEC, Toshiba, Mitel, and Vertical in particular seem to be popping up all over (and ShoreTel too). I've also noticed a few companies that had gone to new, all IP systems dumping them in favor of equipment from traditional vendors. A local grocery store chain that dumped their NEC and Tie equipment for Cisco a decade ago is back to using Avaya systems (maybe that's a bad example given the latest with Avaya). It's a changing market, but not done. I also realize that as these traditional systems start to incorporate IP phones and trunks, my IT knowledge won't go to waste. I think it's worth making a go of it.

All that said, I found out the university I went to retired its Fujitsu 9600 for a hosted system. Kind of surprised me that a hosted solution replaced such a large system. Either way, I think I can find my place in a telecom career.

Well the F9600 has been orphaned for years with no upgrades and limited service opportunities, so I'm not surprised that they changed. That they went hosted....well it's like going CO Centrex, isn't it?


Sam

It's just like Centrex.....until you have Internet problems. And that happened all the time.....granted, that was 10 years ago.

And again that's a bad example. I think there is definitely still a market and hopefully room for me in it.

Here, in Western PA, all the IT weenies are pushing VoIP and Cloud.
Of course, SIP is making inroads as well. The problem is that most of these companies DO NOT need VOIP, Cloud and SIP. A traditional digital system, either Key or PBX often, provides more features and is a magnitude greater in reliability than the LAN based systems. The main reason is people in Western PA are extremely provincial. They will purchase this "Whizz Bang" VoIP, Cloud, SIP abortion and NOT upgrade their LAN wiring or switches. Many times we walk in and find a few hundred POE power supplies connected to VoIP phones instead of the POE coming from the switches.

We, on average, remove VoIP, Cloud, SIP systems at a rate of 2 a month. In 2016 we removed 30 and replaced them with traditional digital systems WITH the option to go VoIP if they ever want to do that. Our ESI systems come as VoIP ready, so we, occasionally, will install a system and find that a few areas have network but no phone cabling. In those instances, we will use VoIP.

As I have stated before, I would be cautious about Cloud and SIP only because no one knows what is going to happen with Net Neutrality. If the government gets into the taxing of data usage, the advantage of VoIP, Cloud and SIP may vanish or become less attractive. Beside that issue, I have not, as yet, seen a VoIP, Cloud, SIP system with more features and reliability than that of a traditional digital system.

As far as SIP is concerned, the most ratty and poorest quality voice is on SIP. Sorry, but that is THE main reason people call us and want their "High Tech VoIP, SIP" system yanked and replaced with something that they can "Hear The Caller Clearly."

Rcaman

Let's face it, the business is changing and personally I'm ok with it. Almost by accident I'm doing jobs a few years ago I never figured to be doing. Service companies used to call be to troubleshoot a fax line or replace a phone. Now when they call, it's to install a router, a wireless access point, etc. I'm getting calls to install cameras. This on top of taking care of older systems and VoIP. I like the challenge of the new stuff and besides, I'm still a few years away from retirement. I'm not ready to be put out to pasture or drive for Uber.

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