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writes:
>I am new to the VoIP bandwagon and am extremely confused by the options
>available in the VoIP market. I have a few fundamental questions about
>the working and installation of a full fledged VoIP solution.
>The Environment:
>We are a small-mid sized business with about 100 employees.
>We are relocating our office in about a year to a newly constructed
>building.
Excellent time to be considering a VOIP system! Plan on individual VOIP
telephones, depending on vendor, model, features and quality, to cost in
the ballpark of $100 to $500 apiece. Multiply that by 100 phones, assuming
1 for each employee, and you can get some idea where this is headed. The
main controller, again depending on vendor, features and quality, will
command another $5000 to $30,000.
Upstream connectivity to the PSTN is something I don't personally think I
would trust to just anyone. We're talking about your *business* here, so
I'd tend to lean toward one of the majors, i.e., one of the regional Bell
operating companies or MCI or Sprint.
>The new building will have a new network infrastructure built from
>scratch. Plans are still being discussed and any customizations can be
>made.
A perfect time to do VOIP!
>We would be having a separate server room, a gigabit ethernet backbone,
>WiFi connectivity, T3 line and rest of the works.
Plan on establishing at least 2 VLANS and put your phone system on a
separate VLAN with 802.1p/q QOS (Quality Of Service) and priority VLAN
tagging. When choosing your Etherswitches, make sure they provide VLAN
support and Power-Over-Ethernet (POE) to run the phones. All VOIP phones
require power, hence all 4 pairs of the Cat-5/6 Ethernet cable will be
needed.
When cabling, plan on separate cabling for any printers. You can run your
Office PC off the 2-port switch built into the VOIP phone, but they do not
recommend connecting printers (or hubs) to these ports.
>Requirements:
>Every employee should have a IP hard-phone in his/her desk
>Soft Phone options should also be present for remote users (hardly 10 -
>15 of them)
If the employees need "display" phones, i.e., callerID + multiple line
capabilities, multiple line keys, speedcall buttons, etc., then we've
eliminated most of the low-end phones.
>Questions:
>1) How exactly does VoIP work? Do I provide the connection between my
>VoIP network and the local exchange?
Yes, normally - especially if you're concerned about dependability
>Or, Do I just route the voice
>traffic to a VoIP provider through my T3 line and pay somebody to take
>care of the connection from IP to PSTN?
You could do this too, tho I wouldn't - at least not yet. I don't think
this service is yet mature enough to trust my business phones to it.
>2) Who are the most common vendors and what solutions do they offer
>which could match my requirements?
My personal recommendation would be a MITEL SX200_ICP "Premier Bundle".
Great feature set, IMO.
>3) What would be the cost ( a ballpark figure) ?
Probably in the ballpark of $50,000. The phones themselves will be your
single biggest expense. I'd guess a Mitel SX200-ICP Premier equipped with
100 IP user licenses, 100 voice mail licenses would go somewhere in the
ballpark of $18~20,000 plus the phones. Figure $100 apiece for low-end,
non-display (Superset 5207) single line phones, $200 apiece for a display
model (Superset 5215) with 7 line buttons and $300 apiece for their high
end, 14-line model (Superset 5220) (and these are just wild guesses).
You'll want at least the mid-priced phone for its ability to allow
connecting a PC to the back of the phone, thus allowing for only 1
Ethernet cable to each office or workstation.
>4) What hardware would I be required to buy?
Actually nothing. Mitel has leasing plans available that make good
business sense, plus the lease cost is tax-deductible.
>5) What level of technical expertise is required from the compay?
You'll want to go with a major brand with an established nationwide
network of VARs and dealers. This means systems from one of the big 5, in
alphabetical order; AVAYA, CISCO, MITEL, NEC, NORTEL. You certainly can
also purchase a cheapie from any one of a half-dozen other manufacturers,
tho I sure wouldn't if the success of my business depended upon the
reliability/dependability of the phone system.
On a related note I would personally avoid the CISCO phone system, mainly
because I've seen it, used it amd hated it. CISCO's IP phone system (Call
Manager) is based upon a cluster of Microsoft Windows-based servers, with
all of the usual security problems, patches and reboots associated
therewith. System administration (routine adds, moves & changes, even
simple user name changes) are cumbersome. True, Cisco also has a smaller
"Call Manager Express" which they claim will handle "up to" 100 lines, but
with your stated needs you'd be maxed-out on capacity the day you
installed it. Cisco would be a good choice for your DATA network but I
think you'll see best bang for your buck with a MITEL phone system.
Your softphone requirements also would be a good fit for a MITEL system.
Either or both their YA-PRO and/or TELEWORKER systems will address this
need. MITEL also has some WI-FI phones. Just beware that VOIP over WI-FI
can quickly flood the WI-FI bandwidth once you start getting a few calls
in progress. I'd plan my WI-FI system with the intent of having no more
than 6~8 concurrent wireless phone users per access point.
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