Does the telephone system fall under your remit?

[bandgeekmafia78]

Hi all new Network Managers!

 

Quick question: in your role as NM, are you expected to manage and maintain the Telephone System?

 

I'm curious because it has been written into my job description, although I have no existing knowledge of the system. I've been given £12K to spend on a completely new system, so I'm a bit nervous of buying into the wrong system!

 

I just didn't realise this would fall under my remit!

 

Alan.

[Number6]

Not me.

 

I did sell and install phone systems in a different life though.

[localzuk]

Yup. It falls into my remit since I replaced the old one with a new one using Asterisk.

 

How many extensions are you wanting?

[sparkeh]

Not currently, but if we moved over to VoIP then I would expect it to.

[elsiegee40]

Not usually, but everything else vaguely electrical seems to be my problem

 

I was asked to sort out a problem with a cordless handset last week by a teacher. After fiddling with it for about half an hour, I had to declare it dead

[bandgeekmafia78]

I guess its not a bad thing - something else I can add to the CV for later years.

I'm thinking of moving towards VOIP so I suppose it should fall under my remit from now on.

I'm not complaining, I was just curious how many NM's have to work with their respective telephone sytems.

[vikpaw]

are you expected to manage and maintain the Telephone System?

 

Well, it has wires and electrical pulses so yeah of course it's within the remit; just like all microwaves, fridges, washing machines, the new electronic whistle activated alarm Teacher A just bought for their 5 year old . . . .

[pete]

Nope. It's an documented rats nest of cable and I stay well away from it.

 

I'd make sure the new one fell under my remit though, if only so I can ensure it's done properly.

[maniac]

Nope, I have little to do with it apart from ocassionally moving extensions to different parts of a room, it's an absolute nightmare the switchboard in this place, so I'm quite pleased to have nothing to do with it!

 

Mike.

[TYO]

our old system used to come under FM but now we are VOIP using Cisco call manger express it does come under IT. make sure you get training out of it to!

[bandgeekmafia78]

Even the engineers who fitted our current system dont know how it works!, what cat in hell chance would I have.

 

This has been my main problem! We have a really old phone system that no-one knows how to use. There is no documentation whatsoever on how to use it, and nobody supports it.

 

All I know is that it is on deaths door right now, and I'm getting a lot of earache!!

[mb2k01]

My current role is slightly different, but when I was network manager it did yes.

Mainly only because of local circumstance though - it was capable of being managed via the network and no one else had knowledge or interest, so I took it on.

 

On newer sites I would expect it to be normal practice as it would probably tie in with unified communications etc.

[CraigM]

At my old job, I started off by simply doing some of the more simple physical things like moving a wall box, checking cords etc.. For everything else, I logged a support call with the company who installed the system.

 

Eventually, after a massive crash, the techie gave me the software to access the switch over the network. After that, I was able to do most of the necessary funtions. I never went further though, as it was an incredibly complex package, and I had no documentation or support on it.

[Kitkatninja]

Currently part of it does, it's shared between myself and the business manager (my manager), as we're currently buying a new system. Once it's in, then I believe it will fall under my remit (with 3rd party support from the people we buy it off).

 

-Ken

[apoth0r]

Yep, we look after the voIP stuff

[Ric_]

I'd love to be given £12k to get rid of the rubbish we have!

 

Back on topic - kind of me since I know how to reboot it when it goes wrong

[Quackers]

We had a normal PBX phone system, but i chose to put a VoIP system in and be responsable for it, having never touched VoIP before, it was very easy, and really enjoyed the project.

 

You could go banana's on £12,000. Get a server, install elastix (its cool!), configure voip phones to use it. We used an ISDN line to carry the outbound calls.

[john]

Yup its under my hat as well like anything with a wire on it

[Soulfish]

Not at the moment. Our existing phone system is ancient and we've maxed out the number of extensions it can run. Currently looking at possible alternatives, although I haven't been told what our budget is yet

[EduTech]

Yup, We look after our College Telephone System It's a simens HiPath System and it's pretty easy to administer. IF there are any faults we do have a company we pay a support contact too but we dont tend to use them much unless we need replacment phone or the system does actually Die!

 

James.

[Jamman960]

The current systems aren't quite in my remit but I've pretty much spec'd and ordered the new system being installed when we break up for xmas myself, The school lease the phone system over a 7 year period(about 5k/year for 2 systems)... I kind of volunteered myself to take it over as know one else had a clue about that sort of thing and the lease had been allowed to lapse without us getting a new system.

[bandgeekmafia78]

Yup, We look after our College Telephone System It's a simens HiPath System and it's pretty easy to administer. IF there are any faults we do have a company we pay a support contact too but we dont tend to use them much unless we need replacment phone or the system does actually Die!

 

James.

 

I was looking at the Siemens HiPath too. Looks quite good. Comes with some software called OpenScape - do you use it?

[EduTech]

I was looking at the Siemens HiPath too. Looks quite good. Comes with some software called OpenScape - do you use it?

 

No we dont use that, buy saying that our system is quite old now it's running version 3 of the software and they are online version 7 (8 coming soon) so we cant upgrade unless we upgrade our board. we are looking at getting a new system soon. But i wont knock the reliability of them been running none stop havent had any problems with it at all. it has just worked!

 

I have looked at openscape though and it is good

 

[SpuffMonkey]

Yep - we've got an Inter-Tel setup

[Willott]

Same as localzuk, built our own asterisk box (VM) and we're running over 50 extensions, and handling hundreds of calls (both internal and external) daily. Oh, and all for a lot less than you have in your budget!