SWing'R Posted December 28, 2009 Report Share Posted December 28, 2009 I've spent all day trying to get ahold of ANY hhgregg store to scheduleservice on our dryer that failed last night. All the store phones ring busy.Stopped at the one in Hilliard, called them while standing there in front oftheir customer service desk, rang busy, no one on the phone.Apparently the entire company uses VOIP for their phones, and ironically, the entire company is without phones right now... Even the 800# they gave me to use to schedule my service is down.Hopefully some corporate yahoo learned a lesson today.Ma Bell is still the most reliable service. I'll never give up my hardline @ the house! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Likwid Posted December 28, 2009 Report Share Posted December 28, 2009 VOIP reliability depends on a lot of things... I've worked at companies that are 100% VOIP and never had an issue, and I've worked at companies that are 100% hardline and have problems.It all depends on how well you do the initial install.... I'd expect HHGregg would be way better but hey, shit happens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmh_sprint Posted December 28, 2009 Report Share Posted December 28, 2009 VOIP reliability depends on a lot of things... I've worked at companies that are 100% VOIP and never had an issue, and I've worked at companies that are 100% hardline and have problems.It all depends on how well you do the initial install.... I'd expect HHGregg would be way better but hey, shit happens.+1. My organization installs VoIP for small, medium and large customers in every possible industry. It is all in the design and implementation, which equates to the amount of cash you want to spend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redkow97 Posted December 28, 2009 Report Share Posted December 28, 2009 Many of our offices recommend,sell, and install, VoIP systems.Reliability is dependent upon your power supply and internet carrier, but it's always a good (and cheap) idea to have a forwarding system in place for situations such as this.My phone number is an Atlanta area code (rings on my desk in Cleveland), but if i don't pick up after 5 seconds, it rings to my cell. If our VoIP system goes out, the hosting service still forwards the call after 5 seconds - it just may not actually RING for those 5 seconds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cheech Posted December 28, 2009 Report Share Posted December 28, 2009 +1. My organization installs VoIP for small, medium and large customers in every possible industry. It is all in the design and implementation, which equates to the amount of cash you want to spend.And there you have it. I'm been installing our Cisco VoIP for the last 6 months, and unless you have end-to-end QoS (which includes not being a cheap-ass and only getting Cisco PoE switches for the periphery of the network and not for the core) and enough bandwidth/network management to counteract the moron who's going to attempt to download 3GB of stuff at 9AM, you'll be fine.It's these little fly-by-night IPtel "solutions" that promise you can drop in IP phones in your current network environment using 7 daisy-chained Netgear switches as your core switch that give VoIP a bad rap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hwilli Posted December 28, 2009 Report Share Posted December 28, 2009 It's these little fly-by-night IPtel "solutions" that promise you can drop in IP phones in your current network environment using 7 daisy-chained Netgear switches as your core switch that give VoIP a bad rap.I would appreciate it if you didn't bad mouth my side business. Daisy chaining Netgear switches is perfectly acceptable per the Cisco CCDP certification. Also it is the preferred method of cost savings via the CCNP VOIP administrative handbook. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cheech Posted December 28, 2009 Report Share Posted December 28, 2009 I would appreciate it if you didn't bad mouth my side business. Daisy chaining Netgear switches is perfectly acceptable per the Cisco CCDP certification. Also it is the preferred method of cost savings via the CCNP VOIP administrative handbook.Only as long as you have 2 hubs with multiple uplinks plugged into the core switch. Since there are two, they soak up the network collisions which cleans up the VoIP traffic and gives the voices a warmer sound. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hwilli Posted December 28, 2009 Report Share Posted December 28, 2009 Only as long as you have 2 hubs with multiple uplinks plugged into the core switch. Since there are two, they soak up the network collisions which cleans up the VoIP traffic and gives the voices a warmer sound.I do love a warmer sounding voice... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cheech Posted December 28, 2009 Report Share Posted December 28, 2009 I do love a warmer sounding voice...It's like James Earl Jones meets scratching a chalkboard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vw151 Posted December 28, 2009 Report Share Posted December 28, 2009 Don't blame it on the VOIP, blame it on the people running it or the people that installed it. The technololgy is reliable and in most cases better if built out correctly with the proper back end infrastructure. IE, good switches, good wireless (if we are talking abouut wifi voip) and most importantly good power.... oh, and people who know how to run the callmanager. Many times, the money and or know how isn't there, in some cases cause VOIP is being handed to the old school phone techs to put in and they don't know a thing about modern networks aside from the physical cabling. That's just my two cents as a network engineer though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jporter12 Posted December 28, 2009 Report Share Posted December 28, 2009 This is why I'm not a network engineer. I know little of what is being discussed! When it comes to a home or small office network, I'm ok though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MidgetTodd Posted December 28, 2009 Report Share Posted December 28, 2009 Ma Bell is still the most reliable service. I'll never give up my hardline @ the house! Ive not had a hardline at home for years and have never had a problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goldie Posted December 28, 2009 Report Share Posted December 28, 2009 BMW used VOIP and only had one issue in the two years that I was there.I agree with VW151. Don't blame the VOIP. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jporter12 Posted December 28, 2009 Report Share Posted December 28, 2009 Ma Bell is still the most reliable service. I'll never give up my hardline @ the house!I gave up the hardline at home a couple years ago, we only have cell phones. We really have no need for anything else, and it would be an unneeded cost. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbot Posted December 28, 2009 Report Share Posted December 28, 2009 i could save all you VOIP millions! it's called magic jack, son!lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gump Posted December 29, 2009 Report Share Posted December 29, 2009 I'm moving to a fairly large At&T flexreach program. If I don't pick the correct amount of lines that will be in use at the same time it will have a fast busy signal. I might have 60 phones but i'm estimating about 30 in use at a time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SWing'R Posted December 29, 2009 Author Report Share Posted December 29, 2009 i could save all you VOIP millions! it's called magic jack, son!lolMagicJack is pretty nice, I use it as a second line, works good as a private voicemail number when you need to give out a number but would rather not give out the cell or home #.Anyway, ok, I hear all you network engineers, so maybe VOIP technology is okay but today was a good example of how damaging it can be to your business. I tried calling some hhgregg locations in OTHER states, they were ALL down, including their 800# service line!As someone mentioned, a "backup" plan for issues like this would certainly be nice.The hhgregg I stopped in at did not even realize their phones were down.They had no idea until I brought it to their attention Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cheech Posted December 29, 2009 Report Share Posted December 29, 2009 MagicJack is pretty nice' date=' I use it as a second line, works good as a private voicemail number when you need to give out a number but would rather not give out the cell or home #.Anyway, ok, I hear all you network engineers, so maybe VOIP technology is okay but today was a good example of how damaging it can be to your business. I tried calling some hhgregg locations in OTHER states, they were ALL down, including their 800# service line!As someone mentioned, a "backup" plan for issues like this would certainly be nice.The hhgregg I stopped in at did not even realize their phones were down.They had no idea until I brought it to their attention [/quote']Sounds like someone didn't have a Cisco system, or if they did they didn't spring for SRST. Bad kitty. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vw151 Posted December 29, 2009 Report Share Posted December 29, 2009 (edited) We've got a mix of Cisco and Nortel Voip here at OSUMC. It's solid. We also have an old PBX that runs most of the phones. It's also solid. The only reason I would say the PBX system is more solid is because the technology is super mature and very well understood by the people that run it and generally has the back up power in place already by law to support things like 911.If you have VOIP that has switches that are on Battery back up and generator supporting the phones and you have good people running the management it's just as good in terms of reliability, not to mention you get a very solid data network to go along side it, and the phones more to offer in terms of features, such as video phone and other interesting things. I like VOIP but that's because I think running a copper wires all over creation back to a central PBX is archaic. But this is coming from a guy that runs networks, of course I'm gonna like the solution that runs on my network. My network is cool. Lastly, since OSUMC is a hospital we already have battery back up in place in most cases and have generator power available as well so moving to VOIP isn't too painful. If you don't already have batter back up in your data switch closets and don't have generator available then getting your VOIP to be as reliable as your old school phones is gonna be expensive. LOL @ magic jack.Not sure what happened to HHgregg, sounds like somebody was either dumb or had to build something on less of a budget than they'd have liked and it bit them in the rear. Edited December 29, 2009 by vw151 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fusion Posted December 29, 2009 Report Share Posted December 29, 2009 Did anyone say it's a great idea yet? International company running all Cisco stuff and it's all been solid over the years. We use all power over Ethernet for the phones and most desks only use a single network connection so they just use a line out of that.You can't forget though that standard corporate phone systems go down too. They aren't the little single line you have coming into your house that's always on even when the power goes out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vw151 Posted December 29, 2009 Report Share Posted December 29, 2009 Did anyone say it's a great idea yet? International company running all Cisco stuff and it's all been solid over the years. We use all power over Ethernet for the phones and most desks only use a single network connection so they just use a line out of that.You can't forget though that standard corporate phone systems go down too. They aren't the little single line you have coming into your house that's always on even when the power goes out.same set up over here. I have a Cisco 7940 and 7920 (old crappy wireless) sitting at my desk. Works very well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gump Posted January 29, 2010 Report Share Posted January 29, 2010 So what is a good business VOIP? I was considering At&T but now there is another quote coming in for around $580/month. Doesn't seem right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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