Hi All:

I am new to this site and I need some assistance with Networking two business locations. I am providing a VOIP solutions between two locaions 35 users, their current T1 provider is providing an Ethernet handoff for the data and they currently have 8 analog lines for their voice... I normally suggest MPLS for network connection, but the customer will like to look into a VPN connection. My concern is QOS on his network, can anyone suggest a good router i can suggest. I suggested a 750 Watchguard Firewall but the T1 provider said that it does not work with their solution.

Any assistance on this will be greatly appreciated.

For VoIP I would recomment finding a VPN solution that uses UDP for it's transport medium instead of TCP (personal bias). As far as just a router goes something like a Linksys RV-042 or Cisco ASA should work if you want a commercial brand. If you like opensource then I would recommend Untangle or Vyatta (the latter being the more "serious" of the two). I'm afraid I don't have much experience with watchguards, fireboxs, sonicwalls, or barracudas.

The only other thing I will mention is to turn off SIP helper applications on the routers. They almost ALWAYS break SIP despire their misleading name. Cisco calls it "SIP Inspection". Others call it different things.

Most commercial VPN products use GRE instead of TCP or UDP. It's similar in structure to UDP and deals with missing packets.