VOIP vs ISDN30

[mapleleaf]

I am soon looking to replace my end of lease BT BCM 400 phone system at the office and am looking at going the VOIP route. Why? ISDN 30 is considerably more expensive than a 10 channel SIP trunk and provided VOIP for business ( on a dedicated business broadband connection to probably VOIP unlimited) is reliable and robust, I think itmakes economic sense to go that route. I have been advised to keep at least 2 lines on isdn2e as a backup in case the voip broadband failed for whatever reason. The system box will likely be a Panasonic KX NCP 1000 and 16 new digital phones. Not bothering with IP phones as we dont need unified comms - I prefer to keep the phones completely seperate from the computer network plus digi phone are a bit cheaper.

Anyone have any experience of migrating to VOIP for business they can share?

thanks

 

[Ted]

My experience
You will find that the real cost is where you break out at the other end - international/mobile etc. Make sure that you know these charges and they are in line with POTS. IMHO VOIP is great for site to site savings, but less so for 'normal' calls
No problem with quality whatsoever.
Get some soft phones in with the deal. They can be useful, and we got some for free.
We have had a surprising number of outages, all attributed to issues in the core network - I don't think we would have had these with ISDN30.
And last of all we HAVE had issues with recognition of DTMF tones on IVRs.

If it were me, because of the outagesI would stick with standard TDM stuff unless the savings for voip are considerable.

 

[timskemp]

ISDN30 is what? 15 quid/channel/mth, so about 150/mth for 10 channels with guaranteed bandwidth and quality and a good SLA.

Sounds cheaper than any guaranteed bandwidth uncontended broadband to me.

Drop me a PM if you want to discuss more, but I've done the cost/benefit for a few businesses and unless your calls and usage meet certain profiles VoIP trunking isn't competitive for general business.

DSDave is another person who could help you here!

 

[mapleleaf]

thanks Timskemp,

I'm looking to save on the line rentals hence the interest -

I belive I can have 10 SIP channels for £10 - £12/month and even taking account of a second broadband line, over a 5 year cycle it adds up to a significant saving. But if the quality just wasnt there I can always drop back to ISDN 30

Pm on the way

 

[Gawdi]

I used to work for alcatel and we had omni pcx using sips available and on general sale 7 years ago. The QoS was very good then.. Out of intereste I had a quick look on their website and this white paper looks pretty good.

Alcatel-Lucent OmniPCX Office Communication Server

TBH, the issue u need to look at is not isdn vs sip, u should be looking at business needs now and short term future......

Also, if you have a lot of ppl out of the office on business and/or abroad.. take a look at the skype business solutions.. they are actually quite good in certain circumstances..

 

[Alfie]

ISDN = It Sometimes Does Nothing

 

[Noodle-Pulp]

ISDN = It Sometimes Does Nothing

ISDN = It Sometimes Does Nothing
ISDN30E = It still does nothing. (30 Efforts later)

 

[mapleleaf]

LOL actually,and this is going to maybe sound like a contradiction, but we have had on balance very reliable service from BT over the past 5 years - only occasionaly have we had ISDN30 sometimes doing nothing - well, maybe once every 2-3 months it drops all lines for about a minute or two - but the lines having gone away by theselves always seem to come back by themselves

 

[mapleleaf]

thaks for the info both here and the pm's.

I've decided to go for the following set up:
cancel isdn 30 and return bcm 400 to BT
Port all existing numbers/DDI to 10 SIP trunks
VOIP services provided by VOIP Unlimitd who have just launched a voice only broadband / SIP trunk srvice.
Main CCU - Panasonic KX NCP 1000 & 12 digital handsets
Analalogue PSTN lin ecard for 2 backup lines & anlalogue phones in case of SIP trunk or power failure and fax machines for outgoing only . will be using the pstn lines that come with broadband lines - 1 existing and 1 new one for the VOIP connection
VOIP service doesnt support faxes down SIP trunks so will be using their fax to email service for inbound faxes.

job will be done around Easter weekend. I'll update here as to how it goes.

 

[Tan]

Does the broadband that you are being supplied offer end to end QoS, as this will be essential to the call quality.

 

[mapleleaf]

yes it does, so I am informed - there are two SIP trunk products on offer - Voice only and voice with 1 mb data with QOS tagging on the voice traffic. 100% uncontended in both cases. I was going to go with voice only as we dont intend to mix voice and data to maintain voice call integrity and quality. BUt, because I intend to set up an IP extension phone via a vpn to my office in Canada we apparantly need to have the data part to make that work. But as there will onlly be 1 phone on the vpn poss 2 max and no data traffic per se the voice quality wont be affected. Thats the plan anyway and only time will tell.