After going through a 4 month bid process we have decided on a Cisco UC560 with a PRI.

What I would like to know is what to start reading? I have the CCA manual and will shortly have the Cisco QOS and UC books.

Is that enough? Anything else I should look for?

I am not a phone guy by any stretch but I do have some knowledge. Mainly with the 4 different Toshiba systems we are currently running.

Any gotya's to watch out for? Things that should be first on the list?

Thanks

Brian

I should add. I will not be doing the heavy configurations of the system, but I hate putting things on my network without knowing how they work.

I'd suggest you SERIOUSLY consider a separate network for the Cisco system.

Brian, may God be with you. Be prepared for many long nights and lots of antacids. I wish that I could sugar-coat it, but you are stepping into a completely different industry.

You are not giving me a warm fuzzy!

A separate internal network is a possibility, separate internet connect is not.

Main hub is sitting on a 10mb fiber connection.

Smallest of the remote sites is a full T1.

Biggest remote site will have 10 extensions, sitting on 10mb fiber.

Most remote sites will have 5 or less extensions.

Nothing to elaborate. DID for each remote site, only AA for night ring.

I will just be happy to only have 1 system to administer and not 5!

Make sure the vendor has multiple people on staff who can work on it?... I replaced a one year old uc 560 because the vendor lost the only guy who knew it. Cisco and the vendor were no help and were not willing to do anything.

They told my customer they needed to remove his system and send it out to be programmed for a PRI and would have it back in a week!

The BEST advice.....if you haven't written the check..... DON'T .

As an IT type, you are used to one system....CRISCO, being a computer company, is used to marketing to you. Telephony does it in layers, not, one down and it is all gone.

Remember, REAL telephone equipment is tested and proven to work 5-9s (99.999% up time...good luck on finding any computer systems {read CRISCO} with that standard).

Good Luck.

Are they really that bad? I can understand some issues coming up but really are they truly that terrible a product?

Next closet quote was 25% more then the Cisco system. Not something I could overcome. The contract has already been signed, gear is on the way.

It was 25% more for a reason.

As long as the vendor installing it is qualified and you have a good network in place then you should be fine. The real problems come in when the network is not voice ready and the remote sites have slow or variable internet connections. At the worst you may have to put dedicated connections, like MPLS between HQ and the remote sites.

Make sure your network is clean and mitigate expectations of potential down time and you should be fine.

There are plenty of horror stories of Cisco installs, but most were/are predicated by a company that is not capable of installation or come from a company replacing a bad install. The same is really true for almost any full VoIP system installation though. There are terrible Avaya, Nortel, and ShoreTel installs too. And we all remember the bad digital installs. As long as the installing company understands voice AND data it should be OK. A big problem for Cisco is having people that really only understand data doing voice installs.

One of the biggest issues with Cisco is not the install, it is the continued maintenance - but if you are Cisco certified and you have a Cisco network then it should not be too bad for you. Cisco also has high recurring annual costs compared to other VoIP, but if it is the system you are moving forward with then that really does not matter now.

Steve

Thanks.

We are having a complete VOIP network readiness test conducted prior to any attempts at installation. Hopefully this will ID any potential issues prior deployment. Though what exactly the assessment entails I have yet to find out.

telemarv - I understand what you are saying, but the price difference was just to big to justify without concrete evidence that the proposed product would not meet our needs. I was pushing for the AllWorx solution as it was a close 2nd in the write up, but again the price difference took the decision out of my hands.

The price difference will most likely be offset once you have your network readiness test done and find you need to replace most of it. VoIP still has a long ways to go to meet the quality and dependability of the TDM systems.

We have a 3COM system at work, it's all IP but the phones are on separate switches from the data. We don't seem to have any problems with bandwidth and the system works like it should.
I do agree VOIP is not the be all-end all, but with the right internal network it will function a lot better.

Biggest difference between a botched VOIP system and a digital system is that you are still getting calls on your digital system and not having voice grade issues.

Thanks for the info.

All of our quotes were for VOIP systems, so the costs for network items would have affected any of them.

I will look into having separate switches for phones/network. But some locations will share as the desktops will need to run off the phone network drops. Only a couple but I am betting they will be the sites that have issues at the start.

The network test should have been done before you signed anything. Watch the cost go way above the 25% savings. Keep your check book opened.
Your questions should have been asked before buying, not after.
Good Luck

Yeah I agree on the Network test.

The same questions were asked of all vendors and they all agreed after looking at our current setup that things will work as planned. There were no issues brought up during the process. We have a very good and healthy WAN setup that has been running for a few years. We have the available bandwidth and the lines are clean.

Of course there are always things that are missed and that's why we are conducting the testing prior to the roll out. This will give me time to work out any issues. I will be the one doing any network improvement/wiring etc not the vendor. I knew going in there will be some inside work to be done.

I did not go into this blind. I did dig into the basics of VOIP, but until the actual system was nailed down I could not dig to deep into specific requirements, that's why I posted this to see if anyone had some info on this specific system. If we had went with another system I would have made the same post in that vendors sub-forum.

Being a computer guy, you know what CRISCO will do.... BUT ....in the computer world. In the telephony world you find they are rookies....with the usual rookie mistakes in equipment design and durability.

If you had a hurt foot, would you go to a dentist?

Now your options are very limited .... and of course the vendors said everything is "OK"....they are there to make a sale, not to verify anything else. The worst of that type are the CRISCO sales people....they think you IT guys know their data rep so they can lie to you anyway they want and you will buy it anyway.

Why am I so negative about these people? I used to buy telecom equipment for a very major international company....and the IT people pushed for CRISCO. Tried it, done it, and they had to pay to take it back as it DID NOT operate, nor deliver what they claimed/promised and the contract specified they where responsible to pay the price. Thankfully it was only one new location....we stayed Nortel based at world headquarters and the IT guys soon learned their "black eye" in telephony helped them....we took great care to get them "big honking pipes" and they took great care in letting the telephony guys make sure their telephones rang.

Keep us informed....we always like to hear how these things work out. :thumb:

I support an enterprise-sized Cisco system (more than 1000 phones, eventually about 3000 phones, covering multiple sites). If built and installed well, and if you have a good LAN and WAN, all should go well. TCO is probably higher than other systems, but then a lot of companies are moving to contract/subscription based pricing to stay in business. I was just as apprehensive before we installed our system. Get as much of the configuration and promises in writing as possible, and make sure you understand the limitations of the system, as well as what add-ons are required to make it do what your old key system was capable of doing.

Justin

More good info. I wonder if folks are thinking this system is a lot larger then it actually will be.

Here is a quick breakdown of locations/# of extensions. 12/63

We have a total of 12 locations. The main location will house the equipment and PRI and has 19 total ext.

19,5,6,4,4,10,6,3,1,1,3,1 is the breakdown of the ext at each site. The largest remote is 10 and it sits on a 100mb shared fiber connection. All others on on T1 or better.

Thanks again for the info and keep it coming.

That kind of bandwidth you should be good to go. Pretty much any IP enabled system would work with that small number of phones.

Thank you!!

Nice to hear something positive.

One key thing to keep in mind for this to work correctly...

QoS is important for WAN and LAN (expecially WAN). If you have control from end to end, make sure you're using QoS as recommended in Cisco's documentation.

Will you keep us updated on the progress?

Justin

Thanks. I am in the process of upgrading all out IOS software to support QOS, our current setup uses the Advanced Security IOS. Moving toward advance IP.


And yes I will definitely keep things updated.

UCxxx or CME (28xx based ) would be fine as long as your EU don't ask for lots of fancy features . Be expect to do lots of self support as most telecom shop that has CCNA voice guys would definitely charge you quite bit !

Thanks. I am awaiting our gear. I am currently in the process of upgrading wiring/switches at the locations that will require it.

More to follow in the next weeks.

Hi Brian,

Here is a UC560 issue that I helped troubleshoot recently and might be something to watch out for on your network.

If you are adding a UC560 to an existing Cisco network, make sure that your vlan assignments match up with the UC560 config. UC560's default config is Vlan 1 data, Vlan 100 for voice, and Vlan 90. Vlan 90 allows the onboard AA and voicemail module(CUE) to communicate with the rest of the system.

If your LAN setup has VTP turned on, your switches can overwrite the VLAN config on the UC560. If the UC560 loses Vlan 90, you will not have access to voicemail or AA.

Anyway, since you mentioned that you already have Cisco switches I wanted to make you aware. Feel free to ask for clarification if I wasn't clear.

Hey Keep,

Its been a while since your last update how goes the cut over? Just out of curiosity what kind of dollar figure does cisco charge for annual costs?

No updates yet. I am currently in the process of upgrading/installing our wiring in all of our offices to meet the needs of the system.

I was told there are no annual fees with this setup.

rsinfo - Thanks! I will take a look at things as we set them up.

I have a few more offices to wire up, new 891 routers to install at the remote locations.

PRI install is on the 14th, we are looking to cut over the 2nd week of June, per our request as we have a big agency accreditation deal the 1st week of June and I do not want to have to fight phone issues during this period.

I see your costs are already going up.
What happened to your network should be fine.

No cost increases, the wiring and new routers were already planned. I was doing them either way.

I was doing a voice line call repair at u-haul the other day for a alarm. The phones are Cisco VoIP. The echo was really bad. So much for good quality product that was installed poorly.

Just wondering, how is it working out....

Well all the network stuff is complete, but the phone system roll out starts on the 18th.

I have the tech onsite for 2 days to get all the config setup and for some testing.

I took this week off knowing I will be in for some long days/nights in the coming weeks!

I am doing a cutover tonight at work...100 phones on a Cisco Business Edition 6000, running on 2 servers.
So far so good, our CDW guy has been great. We have tested everything thoroughly including a soft cut of the PRI after hours.
They have a feature called ETAPS. The phones are all programmed into Call Manager, I just plug the phone in, set the extension, and it resets.

Thats great to hear. I have 70 phones, but spread over 11 locations. So I am hoping things are that nice that once I program them they will pick things up once I move them to their permanent home!

I will try and keep things updated as I go.

We have 2 at a small branch office connected by a P2P T1. Programmed them here, went to the branch and plugged them in, crystal clear!!

That's a best case scenario install. With a point to point T1 then you're using a proven, traditional telco circuit with low, consistent latency and telco-grade uptime. I would hope they would be clear...