VOIP Phones  – Cisco & Asterisk

Cost Savings

Why move to VOIP phones?  Simple answer: COST SAVINGS! SIP allows phone calls to be placed through the internet line. With SIP technology, depending on the plan, you don’t have to worry about paying for each line because you get UNLIMITED LINES. Rates for outgoing calls are about a PENNY per MINUTE. Most plans have UNLIMITED INCOMING CALLING. 

Example Plans Available:
Plan1: $11 per month – 1 DID Phone #, 4 incoming lines, free incoming, outgoing 1.5 cents per minute.
Plan2: $40 per month - 1 DID Phone #, unlimited lines, free incoming, and free outgoing calls (up to 2000 minutes, thereafter 3.5 cents a minute). 

Reliability

The top SIP providers are quite reliable. However, there’s still that possibility of losing telephone service when the internet goes down. In this case, it’s wise to use the 2 prong strategy. Use the lines from the telephone company for incoming calls but use SIP for outgoing calls to save money. When the internet goes down, outgoing calls are automatically routed through the telephone company lines. Once the internet comes back up, calls resume going out the internet using SIP.

VOIP vs. Analog PBXes

There are several differences between the modern VOIP architecture and the old fashioned analog PBXes:
1) VOIP enabled routersprovide connections to both the internet and the telephone company (telco) at a single centralized device.  This makes administration easier. This also reduces the need for other devices which clutter the server rack.  Using the same router for both voice and data also reduces equipment cost.  VOIP Routers can also be used to make VOIP calls between offices and avoid telco charges. This is called toll bypass.

2) VOIP enabled switchesprovide power over ethernet (POE) so that both the VOIP phone and PC run off one network cable.  There is no need for another cable run for the phone which reduces cost and administration. In this scenario, the PC connects to the VOIP phone which plugs into the VOIP enabled POE switch.  Hence,  voice, video, and data run off one network cable.  This is also called a converged network.

3) VOIP phones transmit and receive packets over the same network as the PC. VOIP phones can get their power through the switch (POE).  VOIP phones usually have a screen which displays information such as caller id, date/time, missed calls, received calls, sent calls, corporate directory (names of employees in the company which can be used to look up to make a call), speed dials, line extensions, voicemail notification, etc.   In addition,  user settings such as ring tones, speed dials, fast dials, call forwarding, personal directories can easily be set through the phone or through a browser on a PC.

4) VOIP call control serverssuch as Asterisk, Callmanager, or Callmanager Express (IOS based) manage call setup, control call routing, and manage how phones and users interaction.  The VOIP server provides a GUI interface that can easily be logged into for administration purposes (moves, adds, changes).  One can easily setup phone extensions on a phone, maintain users, create routing for incoming/outgoing calls.  No more having to call the telecom technician to add a phone when a new employee joins the company, when you can do it yourself. In addition, voicemail servers such as Asterisk, Unity (with pairs with CallManager), and Unity Express (IOS based and pairs with Callmanager Express) provide voiceemail and auto attendant greetings to the enterprise. These can be easily logged into and administered using a GUI interface.

5) Choice of telephony providers. Imagine having other choices other than just your local telephone monopoly.  There’s dozens of highly regarded SIP providers competing for your business. Rates for incoming and outgoing calls are about 1 CENT PER MINUTE. 

Asterisk vs. Cisco

Asterisk software is free, runs on a PC server, and, hence, is less expensive than Cisco. It will be preferred by small to medium sized companies as it has all the basic features as Cisco’s offering.

Cisco has telephony solutions that are network aware and network based. For example, in the case of the UC500 and Express solutions, telephony applications run on the router (a network device). Cisco telephony solutions are easy to administer as they scale well and work well in a multi location and/or high user environments. Many large corporations use Cisco as their telephony solution.

Cisco Telephony

Cisco UC500 Integrated Suite

UC500

The UC500 suite is Cisco’s most affordable hardware telephony solution. It sports an all in one device which comes with bundled services already preloaded. It features router, switch, telephony, security (firewall+vpn), and wireless functionality in a single device. Since there is no need to buy several different devices for telephony, data, security, and/or wireless, it becomes a very affordable solution for a company that requires these basic services.

 Cisco Unified Callmanager Express and Cisco Unity Express

Express Router + AIM-CUE

Cisco Unified Callmanager Express (CUME) and Cisco Unity Express (CUE) are IOS basedtelephony solutions. The advantage of Express is that everything runs on a single router.  Hence, there’s less equipment to administer or maintain. There is less clutter in the server rack. There’s also a cost savings since the same equipment that’s used for routing, firewall, vpn, and internet connectivity is now be used for voice and to connect to the to telco through analog (FXO)  lines, T1 PRI lines, or to a SIP provider through the internet.

Unlike the UC500, the Express equipment is modular. The router can accept various cards and modules. Furthermore, the routers and switches are scalable to accept future expansion.

The Callmanager Express phone system runs using the router’s IOS. Unity Express is voicemail that runs on either an AIM-CUE or NME-CUE card that’s added to the router. The AIM-CUE is flash based while the NME -CUE uses a hard drive. Hence, the NME-CUE can provide voicemail to a larger number of users.

Additional features that can be setup are paging, intercom, ICMP (a secretary can visually manage and route calls to a manager), night bell, time of day scheduling, class of restrictions (which restrict a user’s calls, for example, to only local calls).

Express is geared toward small to medium sized businesses. A 28xx series platform router is recommended. Number of users supported is as high as 64 users (realistically). Anything over that and you want to go to the Callmanager and Unity server based solution.
 

Cisco Unified Callmanager and Cisco Unity

MCS Server

Cisco Unifed Callmanager (CUCM) is server basedcall processing system. The latest version runs on a linux platform, while the older versions ran on the Windows platform. Cisco Unity is a voicemail system that is also server based. Both have the advantage of administration that is GUI based and centralized. Using the centralized call processing model, one central Callmanager and Unity server controls phones and voicemail at multiple locations/offices/branches. The administrator can easily log into central Callmanager server to add,remove, or modify phones and users, and into the central Unity server to administer voicemail boxes for all users at the various company sites.
 

Cisco IP Contact Center (IPCC) Express

IPCC Call Agent

Cisco IPCC Express is a server based contact center application that allows a caller to be put in touch with the right customer support agent. A caller will be put into a holding queue until an agent is available. Agents can be selected based on skill levels, departments, longest idle time, etc. IPCC Express allows 1 to 300 agents. Application scripts are created to route the caller to the appropriate agent, and if an agent is not available to take appropriate steps like forward the call to a phone to to voicemail. 

Cisco IPCC Express reduces business costs and improves customer response by providing sophisticated and distributed automatic call distributor (ACD), interactive voice response (IVR), computer telephony integration (CTI), and agent and desktop services in a single-server, contact-center-in-a-box deployment.

Asterisk PBX

Asterisk runs on a linux server. The software is free which makes the telephony solution cheaper than Cisco. Just like Cisco, Digium T1 PRI and FXO cards are installed in the asterisk server for connection to the local telco. Furthermore, calls can also be made through the internet via SIP providers. Having phone lines through a SIP provider drastically reduces costs compared to telco lines.