Hosted Gateways - Anyone use them?

[Davin Dameron]

We currently use a local router with local T1s to service our call center.  I was interested if anyone is using hosted gateways.  I may be using the wrong term, but I'm talking about a third party company that would host my phone numbers and would connect to my Call Manager.  If i needed to expand my capacity, my assumption is they can do it faster than I can order more T1s and get them installed, etc.

1.  Who do you use?

2.  Has your experience been positive?   

3.  How quickly can you expand capacity?              

[Gergely Szabo]

Hi,

this might be a bit out of context, but did you explore the possibilities of using a VoIP provider? Expanding the capabilities/capacity of a SIP or a H.323 is usually more flexible and tends to be faster than ordering a new T1. Plus, there's no need to translate between the IP world (CUCM) and the TDM world (ISDN).

G.

[Davin Dameron]

Gergely,

That would work as well.  I'm not married to T1s.  I think really, a VOIP provider is what I meant.  I'm just not up on the correct term.  I assume the VOIP provider would provide the phone numbers and can expand capacity quickly.

[Gergely Szabo]

David,

yes, exactly.

I would strongly recommend considering a CUBE - Cisco Unified Border Element, aka IP to IP Gateway. Using this kind of an equipment you can control what IP traffic may reach the CUCM and how.

G.

[Jay Schulze]

Seems you would loose a lot of control if they are controlling your ingress gateways. And delievering to your CUCM. Usually in my experiences it's the other way around. You can bring your PSTN to your premis back to the hosted solution. Or if you wanted fully hosted. You could port your numbers over to their ingress gateways. But just seems like an another unnecessary point of failure if they hosted your ingress gw. Just MHO.

[Davin Dameron]

Valid point, Jay

My issue is it taked me 30-60 days to get a new T1 installed when we sign up a large customer that will increase our call volume significantly.  Then I need to add more T1 cards to my router, more DSPs, etc.  I like the idea of someone else dealing with that and give me the ability to expand capacity quickly.  I do, however see your point.

[Jay Schulze]

Yeah the lead time to add a new PRI is frankly ridiculous. So I'm sympathetic to that. Went through a similar experience where we were told 5 months for an NFAS. After that we made the decision to strictly use cube as suggested and the lead time from ITSP's went down to days. Made it really difficult to expand capacity with PRI's. With cube depending on your platform you can have hundreds of sessions with no needs of adding new hardware, etc. But I wouldn't be opposed to the hosted solution you are considering. Just our architects would never go for it .