Why VOIP?

[RabbieBurns]

So there are oodles of threads on here talking about various providers of VOIP, PBX, etc, but I have been tasked with a simple question.

 

Why do we need to replace our existing system with a VOIP?

 

So without talking about vendors or different types Im just trying to put together a case for why we should invest in a new solution:

 

This is what i have so far but could use more please:

 

 

VOIP will use our existing network, wherever there is a data port (as long as it is POE) you can plug in a VOIP Phone

Voicemail, Caller ID, conferencing, forwarding (which our current system can do but not on all exensions)

Userswill have more ways to stay connected - By using "presence" technology, you'll be able to see if the users are available and how to get in touch with them

With unified communications (part of VOIP technology), easy to work remotely from any place with an Internet connection, and have access to the phone system (make a local sydney - sydney call from the USA by using the VOIP over VPN)

 

What else is there.

[glennda]

Well you have outlined the main reasons above but unless there is a need to replace phone system due to age/lack of function there is not much other justification IMHO.

 

I was fairly lucky in my last place that the old system was installed in 1996 which we replaced in March!

[Roberto]

I think the point I'd hang on is this whole "Need to replace our current system" thing. If you don't have a pressing business case for unified comms, presence or shared cabling infrastructure, etc. then you probably don't have a need to replace your current system with a VOIP system.

 

However, if your current phone system is shagged and needs replacing with something anyway, then I think it certainly makes sense to replace it with a modern system that enables all the nice features that an integrated VOIP system makes possible.

[Marci]

Extra one for you: most smartphones have a SIP client available that allows your mobile phone to connect to the local network as a local extension (presuming you allow the phone onto your WiFi).

[SYNACK]

The other thing to look at is a hybrid system, there is the possibility of getting a compatible system with your existing one or a simply upgrading your existing one so that it supports both. I know that I was not able to get the whole VoIP thing done at one school as they were quite tied to their old digital system and with NZ price premiums the IP phones were way more expencive so out new system is of the old digital type to support out old digital phones but has modules so that we can simply put a VoIP bridge/gateway in there and integrate the wole lot together allowing the best of both worlds.

 

I think you got most of the main points across, there is also the phone anywhere internally over wireless aspect as well as phone from home/remote worker off sick kind of schenaro where you can tie in a smartphone app to your system as an extention. Lync does this quite nicely and a VoIP gateway in your PBX may allow for this kind of integration. You can even get external bridges that would tie into say four native lines on the existing old PBX and allow these lines to be accessed via a voip solution like Lync or even use exchange as voicemail (expencive) by putting redirects in your PBX to the IP extentions instead of a voicemail box.

 

There are tonnes of options, its just a case of figuring out what you want to do and why then working towards a good solution to handle it.

[RabbieBurns]

money isnt really a sticking point to be honest its just ourcurrent system short circuits every time there is an electrcial storm and we are looking to replace it completely. I have simply been asked why to go to a VOIP solution (which would mean we would need to replace lots of old non-poe switches with POE ones at an added expense) rather than just a non VOIP.

 

I really hate how its not possible to edit a post in this place, but I will add the following points to my original post:

 

Client available for smartphones

It is future-proof and it is cutting edge technology

 

Once I have provided a valid arguement that VOIP is the way to go I will then be looking at providers etc but my inclination as an EES house is to go with a full Lync PBX solution

[glennda]

You don't have to replace switches. When i implemented voip I only put in POE switches where there was a good reason to do so. For example in the music block where there was 1 phone I didn't see the point in spending the extra few hundred £ buying a poe over non-poe switch i just plugged the phone in using a ac adapter

[Geoff]

Also calling costs can be a lot cheaper if you route via a voip provider. I get 0.9p/min to landlines and 7.5p/min to mobiles but more importantly I'm charged per second. This is savings on top of not needing all those ISDN30 lines from BT too (my VoIP provider is PAYG). Furthermore, if you are a multisite school your site to site calls wont cost you anything. Edited June 1, 2012 by Geoff

[RabbieBurns]

thanks Geoff i had already included the fact that costs of calls will be cheaper but the intra-site free calls is a valid point which i have added.

 

What I am really looking for is a 'wow' factor.

 

What would a sales person pitch to promote VOIP that would make someone want it? All ive really heard so far is a 'only go to it if you really need to replace your existing system' which to me isnt very pro-voip

 

I want to be pushing boundaries and forward thinking and have a good visionary bursar but there needs to be proper justification to splash the cash..

 

what about manageability? day to day running? etc

[Ric_]

If you are considering Lync, it is sooooo much more than a VoIP system. The presence and collaboration it brings to all your staff are worthwhile on their own. It is then a logical step to use Lync as a PBX replacement and use the one system for IM,presence, collaboration and voice.

[RabbieBurns]

Yep step 1 is to prove why a VOIP solution is the way to go and then step 2 will be to present the other options for providers of PBX systems of which Lync is my favored option for your reasons

 

To be honest, @glennda pointing out that we are not going to have to spend circa 20 grand on additional switches is probably the winner here.

@Ric_ what hardware phones are compatible with Lync and is there an AC adapter available can you confirm?

Edited June 1, 2012 by RabbieBurns

[Marci]

It's not usually a case of an "ac adapter"... use POE Injectors... they run in line on the cat5 cable and are compatible with practically all VOIP devices which require POE.

[Ric_]

@RabbieBurns - The enterprise voice (dialling outside) part of Lync is a killer feature but it is maybe 20% of the product. Under your EES, Lync is pennies to license so implement it without enterprise voice and you will have the following:

* Presence

* IM

* PC-PC voice/video

* Shared whiteboards

* Desktop sharing - a killer support feature!

 

At that point, people will find it a lot easier to see the benefit of enterprise voice... no more second system to store their voicemail (it will appear in Outlook for them) and they will have click-to-call. Your receptionists will love the Attendant Console too. Depending upon deployment size, hardware requirements aren't huge either so it would basically be the cost of a few handsets and a voice gateway.

 

In my last place I installed Polycom CX300 USB handsets for people who didn't hotdesk. The receptionists also got wireless headsets (Plantronics CS50 USB I think). For 'common area' phones I used Snom 300 handsets. The gateway was a VegaStream Europa - I wouldn't recommend that.

 

Where I now work (with Domino), we are part way through an epic Lync deployment. Most of our users just have a Plantronics Blackwire USB headset which suits them fine. Some people have Polycom CX600 handsets and the receptionists have Jabra wireless headsets. We also use Snom MeetingPoint conference phones and I think there's some Polycom CX500 handsets in the states.

 

For quality handsets check out Microsoft Lync qualified products* - Yes the Polycom ones have very pretty screens but the build quality is terrible in comparison. There's a list of qualified devices at Phones and Devices Qualified for Microsoft Lync - AFAIK all either come with or have optional PSUs. PoE injectors are cheap though and a lot tidier.

 

For a PSTN gateway, we are using Asterisk boxes with Digium line cards. These work really well!

[pete]

We're looking into it for reduced call costs over X years and redundancy. Designing it so VOIP is the preferred transport with failover to analogue (and vice versa).

 

We can also handle a lot more incoming and outgoing calls.

 

And (apart from digital handsets), we're reusing the analogue phones.

[RabbieBurns]

@Ric_ I reckon I've already covered those points in my proposal as advantages, not sure if ive added them above but thanks...

 

also

 

what happens to a usb handset if the pc is shut down ? does it jsut go to voicemail?

 

how does QoS work for a usb phone that just shares the network connection with its host (guessing here)

 

regarding a pstn gateway the cost of implenting a FOSS option like asterick Vs the hardware lync box it is favourable to go down the lync option

[glennda]

Not sure if they are compatible but Yealink phones are brilliant! I configured 76 phones with 10 mins of work and customizeable screens.

[RabbieBurns]

ok so looks like we will be going down the voip in the very near future.

 

so what is everyone using as their PBX?

 

Is anyone using Lync as their actual PBX?

[Geoff]

FreePBX for the office.

[glennda]

FreePBX for the office.

 

Yup i setup this for my last place worked a treat.

[RabbieBurns]

how is it using a free / opensource solution?

 

How many manhours did it take to configure / whats the ongoing maintenance / /reconfiguration requirements?

 

We need an enterprise grade solution that im not sure an opensource solution would provide withouth paying for massive levels of support. ?

[Geoff]

Took about a day to get right. 10% doing the install and system setup, 10% was getting the polycom desk phones configured, the remaining 80% of that was setting up phone extensions and CallerID stuff because people didn't know what they wanted.

 

I have to go change callerids and phone numbers about once a week because someones moved desk or whatever.

 

I do know asterisk based systems very well, without that background knowledge I'd guess it'd take you about a week to get a system right. Maybe longer if you had SIP desk phones or an ISDN card to setup too. But the vast majority of the setup is basic data entry and config work. Basically out of the box you get a working Office PBX with very little effort.

 

Also remember you can just throw it on a VM and play about.

Edited July 6, 2012 by Geoff

[glennda]

how is it using a free / opensource solution?

 

How many manhours did it take to configure / whats the ongoing maintenance / /reconfiguration requirements?

 

We need an enterprise grade solution that im not sure an opensource solution would provide withouth paying for massive levels of support. ?

 

Took me about 4/5 of hours for the initial config to learn it and then there was always the tweaks after and setting up extensions but that can all be done via spreadsheets and bulk import - as i just setup using what i thought would be good and SLT had other ideas!

 

Ongoing maintenance apart from the hardware it runs on - not much - reconfig requirements is only what people want changed

 

We used Yealink T28p's setup VIA TFTP (on its own vlan) so each phone is configured on boot if it needs be. Using SIP outbound the whole system for about 90 handsets was 5k but I had the hardware to run it on (old HP DL120 or DL160 can't remember).

 

the yealink devices had there mac address on the side as a barcode and scanned them to excel spreadsheet and used a mail merge to individual files for the configs for each phone then a script to change *.txt to be *.xml so it renamed them all copied to TFTP server and plugged a phone into vlan it looked at the TFTP server and configured itself.

 

Getting the SIP config right was also a little bit of a pain but that was because we where sending the wrong headers - once we had that sussed it worked a treat. and the good thing about sip is you can get say 10 trunks from different suppliers - should one go down you can still call out from the others.

Edited July 6, 2012 by glennda

[twin--turbo]

I am using a Cisco Call Manager 7.x twin node cluster with one server at one site and the other server on the other site connected by a 1GB wan link ( connect the two networks ). A voice router at each site, although at the second site it's just for backup and all calls go through the ISDN30 at the main site.

 

Cisco Unity Connection 7 does the Voicemail and we have a mix of 7911/7940 handsets.

 

 

 

At my other job we use a Samsung 7300 and it's a fraction of the price but not as nice..

 

A lot of systems can be retro fitted with voip, the Samsug DCS I belive can be enabled and the Siemens Hicoms can have line cards replaced by voip processors.

 

We went to voip partly for the cross site need and also because 2 Hicoms we 10+ years old and would have to be ripped out and then re-installed in new buildings which would have been a costly job on hardware that probably only had 2-3 years life in it.

 

 

The other big advantage of IP systems is the expandability. Analoug/Digital systems require costly line cards.

 

Rob

[twin--turbo]

If anyone has any Samsung voice requirements then drop me a PM, the company I am workig part time for has just invested in another small but skilled Samsung Voice company. You never know I may get sent out on the road...

 

Rob