Why go to VOIP

[miket]

What would be a business reason to Install a I/P Telephony System other than moves add and changes.

I am trying to justify the installation and I was wondering what some of the reasons might be.

[steve]

COSTS of long distance? And you get phones with java interfaces :P

[ckossmey]

IP telephony is not for everybody. There are lots of marketing collateral and whitepapers on cco.cisco.com that discuss the advantages of using your IP infrastructure for telephony, as well as products out there that can integrate into an IP telephony environment.

A simple example of cost savings would be a company with remote offices. You can leverage your existing IP network and reduce/eliminate long-distance charges to these remote sites.

Regards,

Clay

[mallen]

Don't discount the MAC issue. We save a tremendous amount of time administratively with the AVVID solution. Other things that come to mind: cabling savings, wireless deployment, trunk savings (coming from Centrex, that was significant), unified messaging, a single network to manage for voice/video/data, etc.

[notcreative]

We had a unique challenge of building a feasible business case without using the XML apps. Strictly used MAC and hardware savings. Our PBX holds 8 DN's per digital line card and 8 cards per PBX chassis. Adding up the cost of growth accross the line card purchases, expansion chassis purchases, and vendor hours, the cost of IPT quickly went away. That would greatly depend on the PBX that you are considering replacing but since we didn't see toll-bypass savings and the phones are twice as expensive we had to get creative.

[rgjones]

You justify a voip system the same way you justify a PBX.....

You need phones .. you put in a phone system.

Take your pick there are all kinds ....

Put in the technology that suits your current needs, one that will hopefully address your future requirements (a.k.a. ka's) and try not to empty the piggy bank along the way .

Sorry Mike ... i couldn't resist :O)

[gruiz]

Here are my two cents.

1. Toll bypass. (Although this can be done in legacy systems, with IP telephony is more simple and in most cases cheaper).

2. Cable Integration. If it's a new office, only data cabling has to be run, no cabling for voice is required. This is particularly good when your leveraging fiber optic connection within a campus. (That's a lot of savings in copper).

3. XML applications. This one you already know.

4. Messaging Integration with Exchange. This option exists already in some legacy PBX's but is rarely implemented. (Probably for the cost of the solution or because of the exchange skills of the PBX technicians) In Unity it comes with the product.

5. IP softphones: If the office has a lot of mobile users. IP softphones are a big plus for traveling people with laptops. (Especially overseas).

Most of these solutions are available in high-end legacy PBX systems. But the price of these features are way more that for what you can get it on an Integrated IP Telephony system; especially a Cisco one ;-)

[ggiannattasio]

Only customer needs do provide reasons to instal any system

If customer just want to talk , just a old PBX is enough, no need to change.

BUT any application like IVR, Call Center, Assistant and very specially remote distributed sites have only one technical solution: IP Telephony

Customer has to consider all costs not only equipment but monthly payments to carriers ( FR, ATM etc) that are in the unseen part of the iceberg, an IP solution reduces total cost of ownership and makes any IP project a valuable asset for the customer.

Try to make a 3 year cost analysis and check results