rixride

Hey Bob, I know what you mean, it is still tough even today to find a fully qualified person in both. Especially since you point out normally neither side lets the other play with their system.

There are a couple of ways to gain experience
1. See if the data guys have a extra switch or router somewhere you can plug into and learn. See if someone has a guide to programming or documents on setting it up. Practice configuring it...
2. Try configuring stuff at home and use the internet as a guide. That is how I learned Linux. There is enough resources on the internet to help anyone do pretty much what you will want to learn.

Other then that, even taking classes is almost useless unless you have something to do with the information afterwards. Start small and don't kill yourself.

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Bygcland

Hey Rix,

I look at the job boards all the time for that "dream job" and all I see is what Bob sees as well. Most companies are looking for an all around person to jump in with both feet and not have to worry about training for the employee. The problem is that there are few people with the knowledge of both IT and Telecom. I am sure the recruiters are having nightmares trying to find someone that is a perfect fit. I think after a few years you will see more and more of these "special" people because of VOIP compatible PBX's. The PBX tech will need to be more versed in networking protocols because he will have to know it to "talk" to the IT personel. I have been in the business for a while now, about 15 years and I can honestly say that even though I look forward to the challenge of learning more IT related stuff I wish sometimes it would stay the same as it was a few years ago. I know that is not going to be so I guess us guys that grew up on Phones will have to grit our teeth and bear it.

dwatkins

I guess I'm one of the lucky ones on this. I am a certified Nortel tech and I also have my CCNA. The company I work for has me as their in house telecom tech but believe in cross training everyone. I not only was trained on the network side but our desk top support have been trained to do the day to day MACs, while I handle the higher end issues. Due to the cross training, my pay scale is close to 6 figures.

David in Atlanta

MSYoung

After leaving Avaya I worked for an Avaya Business Partner for a few years. All the current switches are IP based systems so you have to work on networks to install them, and I have seen all sorts of IT departments.

Everything from embracing it to raising the drawbridge and guarding the gates with swords and cannon.

It has been my experience that it is easier to know telecom and learn data than the other way around. Nowadays most all data hardware is connected with either an Ethernet patch cord or a fiber. All the work is software internals. Not every phone is a single pair phone nor is every phone an IP phone.

You want to see a deer-in-the-headlights expression, give a data guy a punch tool and tell him to punch one phone down on the second and third pair, the next phone on the first and third pair, another phone on the first and fourth pair, etc. Then tell him that the T1 goes on the first and second pair, but if it doesn't come up he might have to roll it.

We have the easy part, data guys have the hard part.

As far as job hunting, any company will publish their want list for the ideal employee but they will take the closest match for the job that walks in the door. If a person applies that actually does have all the certificates, he/she probably won't get the job because they will ask for too much money.

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Marty

Bygcland

I totally know what you mean about the data guys. Not taking anything away from them but about a year ago, a big customer of ours got bought out. The Main headquarters decided to replace our system with a CISCO Call Manager with a Contact Center solution. To do this they wanted to implement a gradual change and connect the 2 systems together thru QSIG or just regular T-1. For some reason their in house telecom guys didnt know how the wiring on a T-1 was supposed to be and was getting a Loss of signal on the card. I told him 9 times out of 10 there is a cable issue of some sort with an LOS. I took the time to go there and low and behold there were 2 Cisco CCIE guys scratching their heads wondering why it wasnt working. I fixed the problem within 5 minutes and started making calls soon after back and forth. One of the Cisco guys told me that he is strictly programming and that the cabling pin outs he knows were on a patch cable. After that day I felt better knowing that I know my job very well and also know a lot of networking as well... I think I need to get a raise after I think about it. I am one up on the IT people.

MSYoung

Yep, the data guys that know the color code and even how to make a simple patch cord are very rare. They are taught how to program their devices and nothing about wiring.

How many data closets have you been in where the wire management trays are completely empty and the patch cords just loop from one jack to the next?

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Bygcland

I cant begin to count the times I have seen such a mess....

sillejo

So this is an interesting discussion. I come from the other side. Came into a Telecom company in 1999 with data experience and started learning telecom. Then got into the Cisco stuff right when CallManager was bought up from Selsius Systems.

I gotta say that I did not know my color code either until 4 years ago when the networking guy who was an Electrical Engineer by training, quized me on my first day of putting in his IP tel system. Honestly, slate?! who knew!

But the blend is tricky. I would guess that most of you see Hybrid systems a lot and still have to deal with cable issues. For me it's not that hard. Slap in some Cat5/6 everywhere and if everything is configured correctly then bring out the cable tester. It really ONLY gets hard in a hybrid enviornment when you hit all the legacy cable.

So the rub is this. The data guys are in an everchanging developing enviornment. The telecom guys know their stuff solid, but it's not changing either. If we do an interation between a CM with certain routers and an old Fujitsu then the data and telecom guys will both learn something, but the next time we do the same integration, our stuff will have changed and the Fujitsu will have not changed.

I'm affraid that when it comes to which is harder to learn the data stuff wins out soley because it is still changing.

On the job seach front, I have a similar issue "that guy doesn't exist" in posting for guys who know MCSE, MCP, CallManager, IPCC scripting (ICM) have a CCIE or CCNP and 10 years telecom experience.

You can put 10 CCIE's in a room wth CallManager and they may get it up and running. Same to be said for 10 MSCE's. THe killer is that being either of them does not qualify you to make a server or router do phone stuff.

ICND is a good start, as is CCNA. But unless your getting trained on the particular servers and applications that are replacing the PBX's then your not really replenishing your skills. KNowing which pair to punch down does you no good when 300 phones are WiFi and the messaging system is XML or Exchange

Don't make the mistake of lumping "the Cisco guys" together Just like an Avaya PBX cert won't help you program the Avaya networking equipment.

Cisco IP Tel guys with 5+ years of experience are getting $85k+/year Specializations in WiFi, IDS, or Security will get you over $100k because it proves you can also take care of more than just the routers and switches.

In the end getting the phones up is the easy part, getting them to do something besides dial-tone is hard.

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Bygcland

This is a very impressive and informative response. I went to a Cisco Boot camp for the Call Manager Express not too long ago. Getting the phones up and running on the local network seemed to be quite easy. Where I think it got tricky was the dial plans between different Network "nodes" or "sites". That to me was the most confusing but I picked it up pretty fast.
I was thinking of one thing you said though which is to me somewhat correct but not fully. When you said the Data side is constantly changing.. That is totally correct. What I think is not, is that the phone side of things are not changing. When it comes to VOIP the systems I work on are constantly needing to be upgraded to be more compatible with the Data network changes. I think the industry as a whole is going in a direction that some wont be able to follow just because they are not able grasp the concept of "converged" technology.