Cisco phone system

[Jarrett]

Thank you all for the input. It was very helpful in making the decision. We have chosen Cisco unified communications over Digium. Some factors impacting that decision was out of the box functionality, and a local Cisco partner who would take the lead on customization for setups in our stores. Also, we connect our stores remotely via dedicated private data lines. Our routers have SRST (survivable remote site telephony) providing a critical backup should the T's go down for any reason. The ability to incorporate handheld IP phones on our wireless network is also a plus. All traffic containing priority routing on v-lans ensuing call quality.

Alex, I made certain we would have call reporting by extension, and also see how important that is. We opted to purchase a 3rd party reporting software that would allow finite reporting not available native to Cisco.

A final selling feature was the CTI integration existing for Salesforce CRM. We will enable screen popping customer data directly from the TSP paired to either the employee's dedicated extension or roaming profile.

Thanks again for all the input all!

 

[Jeff Kershner]

Jarrett, thanks for leveraging the forums and community here to help you and your dealer make a decision. Keep us in the loop with how the install goes - complications, what's working, what's not and any hindsight tips for other dealers to consider.

 

[jmoses]

Jarrett,

We recently decided to redesign our network to connect our seven sites through a fully Meshed MPLS network. Our DMS server will now be hosted in the "cloud" by our telecom, and each store will have a direct connection (right now each store has to connect via point to point t1's to our main store to get internet and ADP access which is a terrible network structure for a few reasons..)

But anyway, most of our stores are getting new Allworx IP phones, while a couple of stores are using their existing digital phones due to current leases (the digital phones can supposedly play nice with the IP phones, we'll see...). Anyway, it would be great to hear how the phones work out for you guys. We are switching over in June, and I know we are excited to be able to take advantage of all the features of the IP phones

 

[Jarrett]

Well, we have been on Cisco Call Manager for 3 weeks now and we are already going to upgrade... Sounds awe full but it is not! Check this iphone app out...



Before Unified Communications 8.5 you had to purchase a seperate hardware appliance to have mobility, it is now built in!

If you purchase Cisco software, always purchase the free upgrade feature with smartnet.

/me deploys more light weight access points

 

[Jarrett]

Jarrett,

We recently decided to redesign our network to connect our seven sites through a fully Meshed MPLS network.

Ensure your routers QoS prioritizes RTP at a minimum. We had some minor issues depending exclusively on NBAR to determine QoS based trust relationships, once we reduced the highest priority traffic to RTP our max jitter was reduced to about 15 and call quality across the WAN was improved as if all phones where on site.

Jarrett