We moved to a Cisco Call Manager and voicemail system about 5 years ago.
During the first few months we experienced some settling-in issues, the most
prominent of which was call echo. This was a subsequently fixed in new
releases of Call Manager. The first generation of Cisco handsets were also a
bit lame, especially the 7905 desk/wall phone and their 7920 wi-fi portable
handset. Fortunately, those are also behind us, but we did not budget for
replacement of handsets for another 10 years. We expected greater longevity
since the "smarts" are in the server. We made a mistake here.
We had been suspicious of our physical connection to the local telco lines
for some time and VOIP clearly demonstrated that our connection was not of
high quality. We resolved this with a new fiber connection to replace the
aging copper. This was un unanticipated added expense, but one that has
reaped other benefits as we use other fiber run at the same time for our
data connection to the outside world.
As a largely Mac shop, the VOIP options for calling through a computer the
desktop that Cisco offers to PC users was not useful to us. Similarly, their
unified messaging system was of little use to us as we're not an Exchange
shop.
When we purchased the new system, we also purchased a block of DID numbers.
While this is not a huge expense, if we were doing it now I would give a
look at Google Voice. You may note in my signature file that is the number I
give out to people. I'm not sure if or how that could integrate with a VOIP
system, but I am intrigued by the possibilities.
As for using the VOPI system as part of an emergency notification system, we
found that we also needed to cover outside areas, hallways, etc. and opted
to go with a third-party integration with Cisco though Valcom. It was, and
remains, a pain in the butt to maintain. It's working now and we don't touch
it, but the slightest issue seems to render it inoperable, such as extended
power outages.
Speaking of power, you may want to consider how much "up-time" you must have
the the phone system. We put a lof of UPS units in our IDFs, but the uptime
for keeping Call Manager and phones alive is no where close what the system
integrator told us it would be. You may be better off looking into
generators.
Good luck with your project!
s
-----
Steve Taffee | Director of Strategic Projects
Castilleja School | staffee@castilleja.org
1310 Bryant Street | www.castilleja.org
Palo Alto, CA 94301 | taffee.edublogs.org
650.924.1040 (Google Voice)
Women Learning, Women Leading
<http://twitter.com/sjtaffee> <http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevetaffee>
On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 2:52 PM, Jack Hardcastle
<jwhardcastle@mcdonogh.org>wrote:
> We're in the initial discussion phases regarding converting our existing
> NEC PBX system to a modern, VOIP-based solution. The primary driver for us
> (beyond all the great new features we'll get and the ease of maintenance)
> are safety concerns. Putting a network-attached speakerphone in every
> classroom for public address and emergency broadcast messages seems like a
> no-brainer to us.
>
> With that said, I don't see many recent discussions on this list about VOIP
> solutions or VOIP providers. For those that have already made the switch,
> are there drawbacks? Unexpected benefits? What about recommendations
> regarding hardware and service providers? How did you handle loss-of-power
> or loss-of-Internet concerns? We're looking into redundant broadband
> (copper and fiber) and we're working with a local UPS reseller to beef up
> our batteries.
>
> For those who haven't switched, what are your concerns (other than cost)?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jack Hardcastle
> Director of Technology
> McDonogh School
> Owings Mills, MD
> jwhardcastle@mcdonogh.org
> (410) 581 - 4754
>
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