IP Telephony

[RHARVEY]

OK... I need to vent. I work for a county government and we are looking at a VoIP solution to replace our rock solid Nortel PBX. Currently we are under contract with Verizon for service at the tune of $8000 per month.

The 2 solutions that we have looked at are Shoretel and Cisco. From what I have seen the Shoretel is the best option when it comes to monitoring,configuration,hot swap hardware etc. And the things that we are wanting they come with the Shoretel. Now on to Cisco #@$%! #@$%! #@$%! junk... To get it to do something you buy another box. . oh you want it to do this buy another box.

Even after suppling all the information about how bad Cisco is. . my director still does not listen. .

The last year or so we(family) have kicked around the idea of opening a muscle car restoration and mod shop... maybe things are working around for us to do that... I have been doing things like that for 20 years off and on so maybe its time to put it to use...



Rick

 

[nps]

Used to be when buying a computer, the saying "you'll never get fired for buying IBM" has been recently updated for network purchases to "you'll never get fired for buying Cisco. "



Further I have yet to see an economic justification that supports changing out a working legacy PBX system for a VoIP system. Heck, even brand new installations have a hard time justifying IP phones and a full set of voice features.

 

[RHARVEY]

Around here its like talking to a rock...



Rick

 

[Todd G]

I run a Nortel Option 61C PBX here. It is very solid as you said. We are now adding on to the system with IP telephones. The price of the IP phones is quite a bit less than the older digital phones and the cabling costs are cut in half. I have 900+ digital phones and will be adding 150 IP phones to the mix.

 

[RHARVEY]

Todd,

Are you using the Nortel solution or are you using another brand??? Currently we have an 81 and a Callpilot voicemail system...



Rick

 

[Rman]

Hey some fellow cisco haters, right on!

 

[Todd G]

We are adding on to our Nortel equipment with the Nortel IP phones, probably the i2004 phones. We also have CallPilot.

 

[RHARVEY]

We also have Callpilot... . The local support company is Verizon and that is it. We pay approx. $8000 per month for support. And since they are the only game in town... we are looking to move away from the Nortel PBX...



Rick

 

[Todd G]

$8000 per month! That's crazy We just renewed our service contract with Qwest for $32,000 for a year. What exactly are they giving you for 8K? A deticated on-site programmer?