If we were to purchase a brand new, in the box CME with all the licensing and hardware we need now from e-Bay, and installed it ourselves, how would we go about getting service contracts, upgrades, and expansions later?
They are installing it themselves
You should be able to establish a relationship with any data VAR that sells Cisco gear for your follow on needs.
You should be able to establish a relationship with any data VAR that sells Cisco gear for your follow on needs.
Just hope that they have a clue about telecom
What John said above !!! Good Luck
...bob...
Cisco sells the service contract, which includes hardware replacement and software upgrades under the name Smartnet. Be careful buying a router on eBay. Even if it is new in the box, make sure the seller is willing to guarantee that it is Smartnet eligible. If the router was originally as part of a government, academic, or foreign sale you most likely cannot get Smartnet coverage. If you start shopping for Smartnet, the part numbers look like this: CON-SNT-2901CMST. That part would be for next day service on a 2901 series CME router.
One thing you may want to consider is a Cisco factory certified refurbished - look for RF at the end of the part number. These are eligible for the exact same warranty coverage as a new model and can be had for a pretty good discount off new.
Just curious - why do you want CME? Is this location tied to a larger Cisco deployment? Do you already have Cisco gear in place?
Cisco doesn't seem real interested in the small business voice market - they already killed the UC series and they market CME as a branch office solution for bigger organizations.
If buying from ebay, there looking to go cheap. not going to pay CISCO prices.