| I think if you are going into an office where you will have to run all new cabeling VOIP makes alot of sense. Here's why
1. You can run 1 cable to each desk. This saves between 100 and 200 dollars a work station which adds up after a few.The phone plugs into the Network jack then the computer plugs in the phone. In an envionment this small you will have no QOS problems as long as you use a layer 2 switch. Try to get a switch that will power your phones over ethernet so you dont have to have seperate power for the phone.
2. It saves alot of money on mac. You want to move a phone? just pick it up and move it anywhere on the network. Thats it.
3. It sets you up for all kind of neat technology in the future. You could use 802.11b to run wireless computers as well as phones. Your people could VPN into your network from home/hotel and use their VOIP phone or a softphone just like they were in the office. The list goes on...........
Personally if I were in your situation I would look hard at a BCM by Nortel. It will have almost everything you want in one unit and can grow to about 100 phones. It also does plain TDM phones, analog phones, 802.11b wireless phones, ACD, VM, CDR and programs via web browser. Nortel also makes a ethernet switch to power the phones and the phones are 802.11af compliant so you can use any switch that meets the standard to power them. Try to use the same vendor for voice and data so you can put it all on one contract if you choose to have one. Also make sure whatever brand you choose that there is more than one company in your area that are authrozied distributers.
good luck |