IP Telephony To A Branch Office

[growell]

What is the maximum number of IP Phones that can be supported over a WAN link to a branch office. The WAN link would need to support both voice and data. Is LAN/WAN QoS manditory. Is a Voice VLAN at the branch office an absolute requirement. The Branch office is connected to the main office via a common WAN HUB. Would you recommend a Performance Management assesment be done prior to attempting. Any guidelines you can recommend I follow would be appreciated. Thank You.

[davidjmeier]

There are equations where you can figure out how many IP phones you can support over certain types of links. Cisco has some great white papers on the subject here:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk652/tk701/tech_white_papers_list.html

QoS *should* be used, especially if this link is being used for traffic other than your VoIP. I'm assuming that is the case, so yes use QoS.

Hopefully the white sheets help you out, they're a great reference! Good luck...