On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 5:52 PM, Jack Hardcastle
<jwhardcastle@mcdonogh.org>wrote:
> [snip]
> 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)?
>
>
We've been a Cisco VoIP customer since 2001. Three summers ago we built on
the Call Manager infrastructure, adding InformaCast by SingleWire Software
as an emergency PA system; we also used InformaCast as the 'class bell'
system for our two divisions - which we viewed as an additional bonus on the
InformaCast installation.
We had to replace most of our single line classrooms phones, dating back to
'01 they didn't meet baseline requirements. For public spaces without an IP
phone set (or too large for one) we used IP speakers from Atlas Sound; they
make a number of them for differing installations needs, including
weatherproof units for exterior locations. Having worked with folks from
both SingleWire and Atlas Sound I'd recommend them both.
As to "loss-of-power or loss-of-Internet concerns" I've become a bit of a
pessimist. UPS devices were never meant to provide production level power,
a brief interlude of juice is about the best that can be expected. True
loss of power scenarios need professionally maintained emergency generation
solutions and fuel sources.
Loss-of-Internet concerns - how wide do we go? My perspective on this
questions was broadened at the first InformaCast Users Group meeting I
attended. A fellow electron wrangler was responsible for a statewide
emergency notification system for a good number of community and technical
colleges and had a very extensive wired and wireless notification system in
place. Unfortunately his state also had a higher than normal number of
tornadoes and other weather related events. More often that one would
expect ice storms or high wind+rain events took out the regional or
statewide infrastructure needed to carry the message traffic of their
emergency notification system.
Hope This Helps,
Mark
--
Mark Nelson
Director of Information Technology
Thayer Academy
745 Washington Street
Braintree, MA. 02184
voice: 781-664-2264
fax: 781-380-0515
email: mnelson@thayer.org http://www.thayer.org
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