I was wondering if any of you had any inputs on this. I am presently working on an Air Force facility that is going VOIP in the near future. We had a visit from CISCO last week. We are going to schedule a NORTEL visit in the near future, but I was wondering from some of you who have already sat through these if you had an opinion about which is better. Also, why did some of you go the route you did???? Thank you
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VOIP questions
- Thread starter espen19
- Start date
I guess you have to weigh out a lot of things.
If you didn't have any system in now and were going with a brand new system, Cisco would not be a bad solution. I don't care what people say, Cisco knows IP, whether it's phones are computers. A single source vendor could provide you a single point of contact when trouble shooting. The drawbacks would be a down IP network. If you have an all IP solution that can be scary. How many times has the network gone down as opposed to the phone system? And the phones are a little pricy. But the system works. It will provide you dial tone.
If you have an incumbent system, like a Nortel or Avaya, then their solution would probably fit. It would not make any sense to discard a $200,000 phone system because you want to start using VOIP. You would need to have a definite ROI (Return on Investment) or it would be like buying a new car because you just want one. I like the Nortel solution, but I am biased. I have installed and seen them in small environments as well as environments with upwards of 3500 ip sets (not a great idea without some serious hardcore network assessment) and it worked fine.
I guess you have to ask yourself what are you going to get out of VOIP and what do you really NEED from VOIP.
My 2 cents.
John
If you didn't have any system in now and were going with a brand new system, Cisco would not be a bad solution. I don't care what people say, Cisco knows IP, whether it's phones are computers. A single source vendor could provide you a single point of contact when trouble shooting. The drawbacks would be a down IP network. If you have an all IP solution that can be scary. How many times has the network gone down as opposed to the phone system? And the phones are a little pricy. But the system works. It will provide you dial tone.
If you have an incumbent system, like a Nortel or Avaya, then their solution would probably fit. It would not make any sense to discard a $200,000 phone system because you want to start using VOIP. You would need to have a definite ROI (Return on Investment) or it would be like buying a new car because you just want one. I like the Nortel solution, but I am biased. I have installed and seen them in small environments as well as environments with upwards of 3500 ip sets (not a great idea without some serious hardcore network assessment) and it worked fine.
I guess you have to ask yourself what are you going to get out of VOIP and what do you really NEED from VOIP.
My 2 cents.
John
I am going to through a stone in the bush here but have you thought about avaya?????? I don't know how big it is over there but I have seen it in action and it is awesome. I believe there is only 3 players in the VOIP field @ the moment and that is Nortel, Cisco and Avaya
Riaan
Riaan
All have different opinions..
We sell Nortel, Cisco and Alcatel.
They all works very very well with IP.
I am working with Nortel every day, so I say, they are all good IF you have a good network!
Decide what functions is vital for you.
- Functionality?
- Redundancy?
- Possibility to connect other products?
- Return of investments
- Failure frequency?
- Do i get an engineer out from my vendor if I have a problem? (where are they located?)
Cisco - IP and what more can you get? Digital sets, analog sets?
Good at networks, but telephony experience?
Alcatel - Nice IP solutions and a good switch, it you buy a new system
Nortel - Upgrade what you have, use IP, existing digital and analog sets as you please.
We sell Nortel, Cisco and Alcatel.
They all works very very well with IP.
I am working with Nortel every day, so I say, they are all good IF you have a good network!
Decide what functions is vital for you.
- Functionality?
- Redundancy?
- Possibility to connect other products?
- Return of investments
- Failure frequency?
- Do i get an engineer out from my vendor if I have a problem? (where are they located?)
Cisco - IP and what more can you get? Digital sets, analog sets?
Good at networks, but telephony experience?
Alcatel - Nice IP solutions and a good switch, it you buy a new system
Nortel - Upgrade what you have, use IP, existing digital and analog sets as you please.
- Thread starter
- #7
Your network guys are used to Cisco. There's nothing wrong with them feeling the same way about their equipment as you do about yours.
It's an ongoing, never ending battle. But look at the cost of a forklift upgrade to Cisco, and management will keep an 81C.
John
It's an ongoing, never ending battle. But look at the cost of a forklift upgrade to Cisco, and management will keep an 81C.
John
clayndwoods
IS-IT--Management
I work in the world's largest medical, educational, treatment and research campus. I have spoken to telecom and data people from many different institutions.
The one's that have Cisco are obvious. The voice quality is not what one expects from a telephone. The servers are Windows based, and as such subject to the ravages of every hacker, worm, virus, and trojan commonly on the loose. they are not singing about "cost of ownership" either. Cisco's fax solution is "iffy" if not non-existent.
One has Seimons, and they hate it. It's only two years old but they are replacing it with a Nortel Option 11 (oh, excuse me, Succession small system, or whatever they are calling it this week).
The Nortel and Avaya shops both seem quite happy. The voice quality is good. The support is excellent.
Let's face it people. Cisco does make some good stuff. And one day, when they escape the Microsoft mindset, and become real telephony people I bet their stuff will rule the VoIP market. But it's just not quite realy for prime time as is evidenced by the growing number of disappointed customers out there.
Your network guys don't know telephony. The knee-jerk falling to the knees in front of the Cisco god that they all do has no tecnical basis. Of course, the world is becoming conditioned to think the telephone system's reliability can drop to that of the network's. Cisco is hype.
The one's that have Cisco are obvious. The voice quality is not what one expects from a telephone. The servers are Windows based, and as such subject to the ravages of every hacker, worm, virus, and trojan commonly on the loose. they are not singing about "cost of ownership" either. Cisco's fax solution is "iffy" if not non-existent.
One has Seimons, and they hate it. It's only two years old but they are replacing it with a Nortel Option 11 (oh, excuse me, Succession small system, or whatever they are calling it this week).
The Nortel and Avaya shops both seem quite happy. The voice quality is good. The support is excellent.
Let's face it people. Cisco does make some good stuff. And one day, when they escape the Microsoft mindset, and become real telephony people I bet their stuff will rule the VoIP market. But it's just not quite realy for prime time as is evidenced by the growing number of disappointed customers out there.
Your network guys don't know telephony. The knee-jerk falling to the knees in front of the Cisco god that they all do has no tecnical basis. Of course, the world is becoming conditioned to think the telephone system's reliability can drop to that of the network's. Cisco is hype.
generally a new site or new buliding move, etc most people them move to IP voice, mainly cisco
otherwise its hard to justify "throwing away" a huge PBX investment for no good reaso, just to "go IP" and make admin and MAC work easier.
but here in NY, especially after 9/11, most people went to VoIP and mainly Cisco, due to the fact that you can make your PBX and voice network redundant MUCHHH easier and cheaper since its IP based and really just a redundant cluster of servers you can wherever you want for a few thousand dollars. Most network bacbones are Cisco so it makes sense to use their voice products as well
Hom much is a second PBX for redundancy cost? ALOT more than a server
otherwise its hard to justify "throwing away" a huge PBX investment for no good reaso, just to "go IP" and make admin and MAC work easier.
but here in NY, especially after 9/11, most people went to VoIP and mainly Cisco, due to the fact that you can make your PBX and voice network redundant MUCHHH easier and cheaper since its IP based and really just a redundant cluster of servers you can wherever you want for a few thousand dollars. Most network bacbones are Cisco so it makes sense to use their voice products as well
Hom much is a second PBX for redundancy cost? ALOT more than a server
clandywoods-
1 - Cisco is soon to release Linux based OS software
2 - If you have a decent voice and data team you can EASILY secure your voice network from any and all viruses
3 - Cisco's fax solution doesnt apply, even in my nortel sites we use 3rd party fax server solutions, so I wouldnt need Ciscos. This is not relevant to voice
4 - If QoS is in place and you use the preferred DSP and compression rates, IP voice is not noticable to the human ear. No normal person would know the difference
I am "REAL" telephony person and I was a purebred Nortel tech until a few years ago when i started using callmanager for some remote sites. Call me open-minded, but after using both systems for a few years i have a preference, yes. For business continuity and DR reasons Cisco blowas away Nortel. Also for MAC and administration, and also for features.
Is nortel maybe abit more reliable, maybe 1%.But they damn well should be since they are in the voice business for like 100 years longer than Cisco! Give Cisco a few more years to keep innovating, and Nortel a few more years to keep falling apart, and you'll wish you were more open minded earlier
1 - Cisco is soon to release Linux based OS software
2 - If you have a decent voice and data team you can EASILY secure your voice network from any and all viruses
3 - Cisco's fax solution doesnt apply, even in my nortel sites we use 3rd party fax server solutions, so I wouldnt need Ciscos. This is not relevant to voice
4 - If QoS is in place and you use the preferred DSP and compression rates, IP voice is not noticable to the human ear. No normal person would know the difference
I am "REAL" telephony person and I was a purebred Nortel tech until a few years ago when i started using callmanager for some remote sites. Call me open-minded, but after using both systems for a few years i have a preference, yes. For business continuity and DR reasons Cisco blowas away Nortel. Also for MAC and administration, and also for features.
Is nortel maybe abit more reliable, maybe 1%.But they damn well should be since they are in the voice business for like 100 years longer than Cisco! Give Cisco a few more years to keep innovating, and Nortel a few more years to keep falling apart, and you'll wish you were more open minded earlier
SwitchWitch
IS-IT--Management
Excellent advice from all.
I too am investigating Nortel's VOIP.
Espen119, I'd be interested in your decision, and hope to keep track on your upgrade
I too am investigating Nortel's VOIP.
Espen119, I'd be interested in your decision, and hope to keep track on your upgrade
- Thread starter
- #13
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