[cisco-voip] Moving to SIP

[Brantley Richbourg]

Chris - I would like to give you my perspective on SIP/VoIP.

For my company, we use Cisco VoIP with SIP trunking and it works very well for us.  We use to have 2 PRIs (One for local and one for LD).  Moving to SIP was a cost savings for us because we were way underutilizing our PRIs.  We had the need for a robust data network to run some customer facing web based applications, so even though all of our eggs are in one basket so to speak, there are at least 3 ways for data to travel from our office, to our collocated network, and then to the Internet where we connect to our SIP provider.  In case all of that fails, then we have 911 fail back to a POTS line.  We have spent a good bit of capital to beef up our network over the years, mainly to support VoIP, however, the rest of our data traffic benefits from these upgrades, so we felt it was worth it.  Our calculations showed that we would get a 5 year ROI from the savings that we incurred from moving from PRI to SIP/Cisco VoIP.  Once of those savings was a smaller maintenance contract from our Lucent PBX to a Cisco ISR.  Not to mention that our phone system took up an entire wall in our Datacenter, and now it consumes 3U of rack space.

Also, we have a smaller system at our collocation site that can intercept calls automatically if our main Cisco CME system is not online.  This is something that we could not have do before with our PRIs for DR/BC since if our building burned down, we would be SOL since the PBX would have gone with it.

We chose Cisco over other less expensive solutions because we had already a large investment in Cisco switches and routers.  Cisco is a name we trust, and it is a single point of contact for network/phone issues.  Our biggest expense was the IP phones themselves.  I think the success with SIP and VoIP depends mainly on how reliable the SIP provider is and if your VoIP network internally is in good shape.  When we moved to SIP/VoIP in 2009, our SIP provider at the time had issues with their network, and after a year we canned them.  It was a black eye for our VoIP "system" because EUs did not understand the complexity of phone systems and networks.  We now have a SIP trunking provider that has a 99.99% SLA, and after over a year with them, we have yet (knock on wood) to have a single issue with our SIP service.  It also works great with our Cisco ASA firewall.

So I guess my point is, that it is not always about just money.  It can also be about reliability, customer service, and making it easier for our EUs to do their job.  They love our unified messaging system (Unity) and how they can access voice messages with their Blackberries and iPhones.

Just my 2 cents.

From: cisco-voip-bounces at puck.nether.net [mailto:cisco-voip-bounces at puck.nether.net] On Behalf Of SouthEastTexasTelecom
Sent: Sunday, September 25, 2011 4:48 PM
To: 'cisco-voip'
Subject: Re: [cisco-voip] Moving to SIP

Personally I cant see the need to change from ISDN PRI to SIP anyway.. I DON'T see the cost savings I would rather had a PRI into a switch for LOCAL calls/911!!!  and use SIP for on-net and LD calls....(and have the ISDN PRI for backup!! I JUST DON'T like putting it all in one basket...cut the internet cord and you are SOL....WHY do people do this??).

One small company locally had a Nortel KSU system with 3 analog trunks.....they changed to a NEC VoIP system...but KEPT the analog trunks!!! DUH!!! WHAT A WASTE OF MONEY!!! They get NOTHING they didn't have with the Nortel (unless they didn't have the CLID cards in the Nortel...BIG deal...that's only $150 for the card...) They had CallPilot VM which does everything Cisco's does....Someone mind explaining this to me???? I took Economics 101 in College (but I FLUNKED that course......who the hell can learn with one bloodshot eye at 7AM!???!!! Kudos to Lewis Black for that JOKE)

I am sorry but VoIP IS NOT the way to go for EVERYTHING....

I HAVE added Vonage lines to Nortel KSUs with CallPilot that gave them unified messaging and free LD....funny, the cost was MUCH LOWER than a new Cisco system and they have ALL the features....SO someone tell me...WHY???????????????????? I JUST DON'T get it....(oh you can plug the phone into the network?? AHHH yeah after you put PoE routers in...there's capital.....and then you change the phones out...more capital....AHHHH AM I MISSING SOMETHING HERE???? NO!!)

YOU DON'T SAVE A DIME GOING TO CISCO VOIP from a TDM box for small/medium offices...MAYBE enterprise....MAYBE...but I doubt the ROI is worth it...

And we wonder why America businesses is sucking, especially in the tech area as a former leader...DUH!!!!

Chris
Owner, SouthEast Texas Telecom
(and buying another telecom company for $2million to add to my customer base; I've been on the rodeo for 36+ years)

From: cisco-voip-bounces at puck.nether.net<mailto:cisco-voip-bounces at puck.nether.net> [mailto:cisco-voip-bounces at puck.nether.net]<mailto:[mailto:cisco-voip-bounces at puck.nether.net]> On Behalf Of Bill Simon
Sent: Sunday, September 25, 2011 1:22 PM
To: cisco-voip at puck.nether.net<mailto:cisco-voip at puck.nether.net>
Subject: Re: [cisco-voip] Moving to SIP

Someone please explain why the codec needs to change from G.711u to G.729 simply because of a transition from PRI to SIP?

Does AT&T's SIP service not support G.711? Or are you simply trying to squeeze more channels onto limited bandwidth? (Get more bandwidth.)


On 9/24/11 12:38 PM, Jason Aarons (AM) wrote:
The larger you are the more advantages.  For small business I agree sticking with PRI since you can get them dirt cheap.  For example bank with 700 branches can see a 14 month ROI versus fractional PRIs across all those sites, more mpls bandwidth to branch for video/digital signage, fewer hardware costs, etc.


From: Lelio Fulgenzi [mailto:lelio at uoguelph.ca]
Sent: Saturday, September 24, 2011 11:53 AM
To: Jason Aarons (AM)
Cc: Haas, Neal; cisco-voip at puck.nether.net<mailto:cisco-voip at puck.nether.net>
Subject: Re: [cisco-voip] Moving to SIP

Anyone else have the feeling SIP isn't all it's cracked up to be? In our case, if you're not already getting Internet service from your your SIP provider, it's just not that economical. Especially if you have to keep a PRI around for faxing, modems, alarms, etc.

Sent from my iPhone

On Sep 24, 2011, at 10:51 AM, "Jason Aarons (AM)" <jason.aarons at dimensiondata.com<mailto:jason.aarons at dimensiondata.com>> wrote:
Yes faxing/modem/postage won't work. Look into separate device pools for g711 stuff, etc.


From: cisco-voip-bounces at puck.nether.net<mailto:cisco-voip-bounces at puck.nether.net> [mailto:cisco-voip-bounces at puck.nether.net]<mailto:[mailto:cisco-voip-bounces at puck.nether.net]> On Behalf Of Haas, Neal
Sent: Friday, September 23, 2011 6:27 PM
To: cisco-voip at puck.nether.net<mailto:cisco-voip at puck.nether.net>
Subject: [cisco-voip] Moving to SIP


We are moving to (ATT) SIP from standard PRI's, of course we just realized that our unity is G711.

Are there any gotchas by just changing the General Configuration to G729a?



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