Page 23 - Telecom Reseller September-October 2017

September/October 2017
To VoIP or not to VoIP - Is tAhat the Question? Part 5
s we covered previously, a decision to For IP desk phones, you need to know that move from “traditional” PBX to VoIP (unlike most PBX desk phones) they require is not for the faint-hearted. ere are power. It can come in two forms: PoE (Power
many factors to consider before setting a budget over Ethernet) or a local “wall wart.” To help and signing a contract. You will rst need to do you decide, think about what happens when
RUFFIN
by Phil Ruffin
that currently use analog lines, and maybe other devices as well. Will you provide the analog service from your VoIP system, or eliminate them by moving to digital service? Some printer/fax machines can use a special Ethernet card to connect to your network just like a
VoIP phone, and many other devices can be converted to network-based.
ose have to be considered. Another solution provided by some VoIP system vendors is a device that converts the VoIP signal to an analog one.
If you go with that, you can either have a multi-port device in the wiring closet and patch the analog signal to a cable (it has to be moved whenever the fax machine is moved—ouch!) or purchase a local converter box for each analog device that can plug into any network jack (don’t forget power, though!).
Of course, you cannot easily answer all of these questions in a vacuum. As you talk to various vendors (and they will climb out of the woodwork before you know it), some of these answers will be much clearer.
In fact, you may want to use these questions to help determine which vendor or solution you should consider. You will need to be open to new solutions without losing your own good business sense in looking at the options. e next, and I believe last, article will be looking at issues closer to the actual deployment, but they still need to be understood to some extent before you get too far. ■
Telecom Reseller 23 TrueConf and AVer Announce
Interoperability Partnership
...continued from page 20
some company self-assessment to see how VoIP will be used.
You probably have a telephone on each desk for the employees to use. Will you replace all of your phones with IP phones, or will you use so phone applications and headsets to bring telephony into your employees’ computers? In fact, you may already have some employees using VoIP services on your network, such as Google Talk or Skype. If so, you need to hear whatever concerns those users have, since they have personal experience using your network for voice.
If you plan to use VoIP phones, do you have enough Ethernet ports to add phones? If not, that cost needs to be considered. On the other hand, some IP phones have “pass-through” capability in the form of an Ethernet switch to allow a PC to be plugged into the phone. at eliminates the need for another jack, but only if the built-in switch provides adequate speed and throughput.
Do you know what category of Ethernet wiring is in your walls? If you’ve been hobbling along with Category 3 cabling, this could be the time to consider upgrading it to 5E or (better) 6. at expense should not be discovered late in the process. It would be considerable.
your building loses power. Unless you have back-up power throughout your building, your phones will go dead with each outage. If you choose PoE, you can have back-up power just in the wiring closets and the phones will work in the dark.
Speaking of PoE, that’s normally provided by your network switches. Do yours have it? If you haven’t planned for VoIP, you need to look into replacing all of your switches with PoE switches and think through your power outage plan for them.
When the power goes o in the building, many companies provide about 10 minutes
of battery backup in the wiring closets so the devices serving the network can do a gentle shutdown. If you are planning to add VoIP and power phones from the wiring closet, how long do you want the phones to continue to work in a power failure? e PoE switches will take more energy, but also you will need them to work
as long as you want the phones to continue to work. If your employees use laptop or tablet computers, they will be able to work as long as there is power and the network stays up. How long is that?
What about your analog devices? You probably have fax machines and alarm panels
testing and follow-up improvements, the companies achieved full compatibility between TrueConf solutions and AVer endpoints running the SIP/H.323 protocols. In addition, TrueConf and AVer now support mutual H. 239/BFCP content sharing. Thanks to this collaborative eort, TrueConf and AVer customers can now enjoy frictionless communication.
“TrueConf recommends AVer solutions to our clients, as Aver always provides high audio and video quality,” says Dmitry Odintsov, TrueConf CBDO. “Our recent product improvements would allow TrueConf and AVer clients to use AVer’s video conferencing endpoints in their meeting rooms and eortlessly communicate with TrueConf users and vice versa.”
TrueConf hopes that their partnership with AVer will allow the companies to expand their horizons and create high quality UC solutions for a diverse array of businesses around the world.
“This step not only opens up new possibilities for video conferencing users, but also removes the barrier between hardware and software solutions,”
says Boris Kozyrev, video conferencing development manager at AVer. “Our cooperation will also allow us to build
a hybrid structure, combining all the advantages of hardware and software systems.”
More at www.trueconf.com and www. aver.com. ■