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What are the biggest hurdles we'll encounter in an IP telephony migration?
My company is making the transition from a legacy tdm allworx pbx solution to a cisco ip telephony solution in the next month. What are some of the hurdles that we'll encounter in this migration?
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4 Answers
Most of the issues you will encounter when moving from one system to another are minimized when moving from digital to IP. The reason for this is that you are going to be using different cables to connect the telephones now then you were previously. There should be very little downtime (only a few minutes while the phone lines are being switched from your old system to the new.) You may encounter issues with your network, however. Hopefully the dealer who is doing the installation has done a network analysis to be sure that your network can handle voice traffic as well as your current data traffic. If this analysis was performed correctly, the impact should be minimal. Be patient as IP technology is not a science like TDM. There are a lot of tweaks that will need to be performed to make the quality acceptable. Make sure you are in contact with the installing dealer to work out all the bugs quickly. Don’t just live with poor voice quality. Training will be the biggest challenge. Most features will be accessed through the PC now rather than through the telephone itself. It takes some time to get familiar with it. Make sure you provide training when the system cuts over as well as 2-3 weeks after the implementation for best results.
I agree with Amy, following are some of the hitches you may face during migration
Selecting the right solution
Deploying end to end QoS
Bandwidth sizing
Dial plan for new IPT Solution
Educating users
Devices not supporting or identifying voice traffic on LAN or WAN
Compatibility issues while integration with cross platform solutions
Regular reviews of the usage patterns needs to be done and finally your companies PSTN phone bills should come down which will indicate that associates are really using voip network
Hope it helps
Jignesh J
Make sure you interview the key department heads within your business and understand how they use the phone, features, and capabilities of the existing system and make sure you exceed how they are doing it now. Identifying existing analog phones/devices is another overlooked process.
Pam,
I want to alert you to the fact that what I've seen while SE'ing for 10 years now is that Cisco is really wrapped up in licensing you to death. Be aware of this. They also in the past, not sure now, have had alot of trouble getting analog phone message waiting lights to operate without having to add on an adjunct "box". this may cost you extra. Not sure where you are in the sales cycle or if you've already bought, but make sure you dot your "I's" and cross your "T's" with your vendor.
Best, Chris Chabriel
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