Networks·41,397 discussions

Is your company doing VoIP?

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We’re polling TechRepublic members about whether their companies have already deployed VoIP, are planning to deploy VoIP, or are currently avoiding it. Which camp do you fall into and why?

Topic

No

In reply to Is your company doing VoIP?

We tested it and decided against it. It is just not reliable enough.

Yes

In reply to No

We use it, have for years, love it.

Evaluation Process

In reply to Yes

As title states are evaluating it for use in various situations.

Mainly for various clients.

Will advise how it goes.

Yes and No

In reply to Is your company doing VoIP?

My company sells hardware and software to vertical markets. We aren’t using VoIP internally thought should we need to replace existing equipment we would look at it. In the case of our customers, we do sell it, but usually in situations where they are moving into new facilities or doing dramatic renovations.

One of our other divisions is implementing a hybrid type system. Everyone keeps their existing phones/PBX, but a switch gets put in to route the traffic to the data pipes between offices.

James

Talking about it but not in detail

In reply to Is your company doing VoIP?

It’s on “The List of Technologies to Look at in More Detail at Some Vague Unspecified Time in the Future.”

Yes, using Gateways

In reply to Is your company doing VoIP?

We got some gateways that our existing phone system plugs into, converting to IP, and then gets dropped onto the network.

Saving a bundle on phones!

This is not something I would recommend doing if you are wanting to move to a new IP phone system in the near future. Because we already got the savings part of VoIP, it is hard to justify the expense of replacing our old system, just to get the new functionality.

If you have a newer phone system, this is a great way to go!

Great Technology, do it do it do it.

In reply to Yes, using Gateways

Great technology, pick a good vendor such as Avaya, and you are home and dry. Cisco also do good stuff. There is also an opensource implementation called Asterix. Its a bit fiddly but have used it and it does work well.

Voip is especially good for cost saving on site to site leased phone lines, or calls between sites. Lots of good call agent software that integrate with address book software and do caller id and a whole load of stuff. Voip.. Just do it

Reply To: Is your company doing VoIP?

In reply to Great Technology, do it do it do it.

We use Cisco VoIP Phones and software here.

We have a WAN that spans most of Central and Northern california, and it works great. We use it in all of our 30+ offices, with more than 400 users.

Every user has a direct line, two extensions, and remote access to e-mail and voicemail using the VoIP system. A call can come in to one of our Central California offices, and be transfered anywhere in the organization.

It is a fantastic solution if you are planning on redoing your phone system. While the initial costs may be high, you will end up saving money in the long run.

RE; Yes, using Gateways

In reply to Yes, using Gateways

what type of gateway are you using? what type of PBX?

VoIP Implementation

In reply to Is your company doing VoIP?

I am an engineer and familiar to VoIP basic. I have been asked to investigate the possibility of implementing a VoIp solution in a medium size company, If any one has been down this road before, Can you please provide a few pointers.

Running a 300 seat call center on VoIP

In reply to Is your company doing VoIP?

I currently run a 300+ inbound tech support customer care center using viop technology, and have been running the technology for a little over 3 months. Touch wood as of today we haven’t had any downtime. We do experience some slight delay issues during high traffic times, kind of like when you you have a slight delay with your wireless phone. But, besides that the technology hasn’t let us down.

Our customers haven’t made mention good or bad of the sound quality, but we including it in our customer service feedback surveys for the next quarter and I will post some numbers then.

The ROI numbers are excellent, and our phone time variance is currently better than when we used a traditional switch.

Looking into it

In reply to Is your company doing VoIP?

A new facility is in the raw stages of construction. We are currently looking at the technology and will probably go ahead.

I am researching our needs right now.

yes

In reply to Is your company doing VoIP?

yes, we are currently in the process of deploying a small environment. Also connecting PSTN gateways.

Internal vs. External VOIP

In reply to Is your company doing VoIP?

We have implemented both external and internal flavors of VOIP in the past year, with mixed results.

External (VOIP gateway using MP-108) – Relatively small application with only 8 call center agents.

For about 9 months, we had a VOIP enabled call center connected to a gateway out of state. The platform we chose came as an all-in-one solution integrated with CRM, IVR and Dialer. Lookup five9.com – I was not impressed.

Inbound calls were non-problematic, with what I’d call acceptable levels of jitter.

However outbound calls were a different story. Calls dialed directly by the agents were acceptable in terms of quality, but calls throught the dialer could not connect back to the agents quickly enough, and therefore abandonment was sky high.

Our new solution is a typical PRI based phone system (Altigen) with some atypical IP VOIP boards. We are able to leverage more phones per board than the normal analog boards. We get 30 phones per board as opposed to only 12. The boards cost roughly the same.

We use an HP ProCurve Switch with QOS to ensure prioritization of the voice packets, and the quality is great.

One clear advantage is we need only one CAT-5/6 port at each user’s station. The phones have a built-in switch and an ethernet port on the back. From a cost perspective we saved a ton on cabling since we never had to run RJ-11 in the building.

Hope this helps.

Chris

Yes, since 2002. . .

In reply to Is your company doing VoIP?

Not entire enterprise yet, but main facilities, and spreading further as budget allows. Started with needing a system for a new department/new facility, and it just made more sense to go VoIP than run a separate cable plant and buy a system that would be out of date in 5 years. . . .

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