Hi Again,
Does anyone have experience with comparing Nortel's VoIP solutions with 
Cisco's? I am currently evaluating the two beasts and so far have only got 
my hands on Cisco's CCM 4.0(1) and a Unity Server. I must say they are 
pretty slick products. I have no experience with Nortel equipment as of yet,
 
and would like to know if there are any caveats to either one that would 
rule it out of the comparison.
Background:
Deployment size will be 10,000+ phones at the end of the project.
All cisco Data network is existing.
40 WAN locations (Frame Relay) would talk to a Centralized CP and have SRST 
enabled routers.
Any help would be great. +s and -s of the two products would be 
appreciated.
Steve

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

Overall I have been impressed with cisco CallManager and Unity. There have b
een things which I have not been pleased with, but let's be serious, every v
endor/product has their weaknesses. If you are migrating from an existing so
lution to a new solution, then I would strongly suggest evaluating what your
 current system can do now and what the proposed system can do very carefull
y. Take promises of features with a grain of salt and don't expect those to 
come to fruition any time soon - plan on deploying what you can see in front
 of you. And don't underestimate the importance of any one feature - or in o
ur case any one person that might be using that feature. ;) 

There are many features that are common place in other PBXs that for some re
ason are not in the cisco product, e.g. forwarding from secondary lines and 
PLARs, and require additional steps and or programming to make things work. 
In the case of forwarding secondary lines they will point you to the user's 
phone configuration web page - since there is a solution, there has been lit
tle effort to including that as a feature. In the case of a PLAR, you have t
o create a special class of service for that phone which only contains one d
ialable pattern - a lot of work if you have a lot of PLARs with different de
stinations. Other systems have a dialdown field parameter. In actuality, man
y of the features you might need require seperate classes of service definit
ions to make them work. That's one of the things that I don't like. Not scal
able in my opinion.

The other thing I've found difficult to deal with is the lack of documented 
changes in the upgrade cycle. There are some documented changes but many are
 missing. Phone upgrades in particular seem to change quite a bit of the ast
hetics of the phone without any sort of documentation whatsoever! Enterprise
 and System Parameter changes are not documented in new releases so you have
 to sort through them to see what might be missing or added - with over 300 
of them, it is time consuming. 

Your deployment is similar to ours, except ours is a central campus with ~75
00 phones. We've deployed 6 servers - publisher, TFTPserver and four subscri
bers, two each for our distinct groups - business and residence. An upgrade 
can take the better part of the whole day.

I'm sure others will join in in the discussion..... ;)

-----                                                                -----
Lelio Fulgenzi, B.A.                                  lelio@uoguelph.ca.eh
Network Analyst (CCS)
University of Guelph                             FAX519) 767-1060 JNHN
Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1                          TEL519) 824-4120 x56354
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
mob lawyer: your people insulted my brother.
dr. house: what? romano in the parmesan cheese shaker again?
----- Original Message ----- 
From: Steve G 
To: cisco-voip@puck.nether.net 
Sent: Saturday, May 28, 2005 12:24 PM
Subject: [cisco-voip] Nortel vs. cisco IP Telephony deployment


Hi Again,
Does anyone have experience with comparing Nortel's VoIP solutions with Cisc
o's?  I am currently evaluating the two beasts and so far have only got my h
ands on Cisco's CCM 4.0(1) and a Unity Server.  I must say they are pretty s
lick products.  I have no experience with Nortel equipment as of yet, and wo
uld like to know if there are any caveats to either one that would rule it o
ut of the comparison. 

Background:
Deployment size will be 10,000+ phones at the end of the project.
All cisco Data network is existing.
40 WAN locations (Frame Relay) would talk to a Centralized CP and have SRST 
enabled routers.

Any help would be great.  +s and -s of the two products would be appreciated
.

Steve


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--


 ________________________________________
_______
cisco-voip mailing list
cisco-voip@puck.nether.net
https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/cisco-voip

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

Thanks for the reply Lelio. Today we are a Nortel PBX shop, so Nortel is 
deffinatly a player. Perhaps the largest + that cisco has going for them is
their presence on a weekly bassis. By making hardware readilly available and
 
coming on site every week to help with LAB and design puts them
way ahead. I can't remember the last time a Nortel Rep was at our location 
to see how they can sell us products in the future. cisco may not be
the absolute best in any 1 area, but they will support the heck out of 
their products. At least that is my experience.
Steve
------------------------------

Overall I have been impressed with cisco CallManager and Unity. There
have been things which I have not been pleased with, but let's be
serious, every vendor/product has their weaknesses. If you are
migrating from an existing solution to a new solution, then I would
strongly suggest evaluating what your current system can do now and
what the proposed system can do very carefully. Take promises of
features with a grain of salt and don't expect those to come to
fruition any time soon - plan on deploying what you can see in front
of you. And don't underestimate the importance of any one feature - or
in our case any one person that might be using that feature. ;)

There are many features that are common place in other PBXs that for
some reason are not in the cisco product, e.g. forwarding from
secondary lines and PLARs, and require additional steps and or
programming to make things work. In the case of forwarding secondary
lines they will point you to the user's phone configuration web page -
since there is a solution, there has been little effort to including
that as a feature. In the case of a PLAR, you have to create a special
class of service for that phone which only contains one dialable
pattern - a lot of work if you have a lot of PLARs with different
destinations. Other systems have a dialdown field parameter. In
actuality, many of the features you might need require seperate
classes of service definitions to make them work. That's one of the
things that I don't like. Not scalable in my opinion.

The other thing I've found difficult to deal with is the lack of
documented changes in the upgrade cycle. There are some documented
changes but many are missing. Phone upgrades in particular seem to
change quite a bit of the asthetics of the phone without any sort of
documentation whatsoever! Enterprise and System Parameter changes are
not documented in new releases so you have to sort through them to see
what might be missing or added - with over 300 of them, it is time
consuming.

Your deployment is similar to ours, except ours is a central campus
with ~7500 phones. We've deployed 6 servers - publisher, TFTPserver
and four subscribers, two each for our distinct groups - business and
residence. An upgrade can take the better part of the whole day.

I'm sure others will join in in the discussion..... ;)

-----                                                                -----
Lelio Fulgenzi, B.A.                                  lelio at
uoguelph.ca.eh <https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/cisco-voip>
Network Analyst (CCS)
University of Guelph                             FAX519) 767-1060 JNHN
Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1                          TEL519) 824-4120 x56354
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
mob lawyer: your people insulted my brother.
dr. house: what? romano in the parmesan cheese shaker again?
----- Original Message ----- 
From: Steve G 
To: cisco-voip at puck.nether.net
<https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/cisco-voip>
Sent: Saturday, May 28, 2005 12:24 PM
Subject: [cisco-voip] Nortel vs. cisco IP Telephony deployment


Hi Again,
Does anyone have experience with comparing Nortel's VoIP
solutions with Cisco's?  I am currently evaluating the two beasts and
so far have only got my hands on Cisco's CCM 4.0(1) and a Unity
Server.  I must say they are pretty slick products.  I have no
experience with Nortel equipment as of yet, and would like to know if
there are any caveats to either one that would rule it out of the
comparison.

Background:
Deployment size will be 10,000+ phones at the end of the project.
All cisco Data network is existing.
40 WAN locations (Frame Relay) would talk to a Centralized CP and
have SRST enabled routers.

Any help would be great.  +s and -s of the two products would be appreciated
.

Steve

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

Its kind of funny as I follow this thread. I am in EXACTLY the same
situation right now. Except we are small shop with big needs. We are
moving, have an old Norstar system that has been very reliable and
currently entertaining bids from Nortel and cisco for a VOIP system.
Cisco has broken their backs to get our business while Nortel is more
interested in talking bad about Cisco. cisco is currently in a major
lead for the very reasons you say below. I get the sense that Nortel
could care less.
 
It also seems to me that there are more 3rd party products readily
available for cisco systems than there are Nortel. Maybe I am wrong and
its just another point that Nortel hasn't let us know about.

________________________________

From: cisco-voip-bounces@puck.nether.net
[mailto:cisco-voip-bounces@puck.nether.net] On Behalf Of Steve G
Sent: Sunday, May 29, 2005 8:51 AM
To: cisco-voip@puck.nether.net
Subject: [cisco-voip] RE: Nortel vs. cisco IP Telephony deployment


Thanks for the reply Lelio.  Today we are a Nortel PBX shop, so Nortel
is deffinatly a player.  Perhaps the largest + that cisco has going for
them is
their presence on a weekly bassis.  By making hardware readilly
available and coming on site every week to help with LAB and design puts
them
way ahead.  I can't remember the last time a Nortel Rep was at our
location to see how they can sell us products in the future.  cisco may
not be
the absolute best in any 1 area, but they will support the heck out of
their products.  At least that is my experience.
 
Steve
 
________________________________

Overall I have been impressed with cisco CallManager and Unity. There
have been things which I have not been pleased with, but let's be
serious, every vendor/product has their weaknesses. If you are migrating
from an existing solution to a new solution, then I would strongly
suggest evaluating what your current system can do now and what the
proposed system can do very carefully. Take promises of features with a
grain of salt and don't expect those to come to fruition any time soon -
plan on deploying what you can see in front of you. And don't
underestimate the importance of any one feature - or in our case any one
person that might be using that feature. ;) 

There are many features that are common place in other PBXs that for
some reason are not in the cisco product, e.g. forwarding from secondary
lines and PLARs, and require additional steps and or programming to make
things work. In the case of forwarding secondary lines they will point
you to the user's phone configuration web page - since there is a
solution, there has been little effort to including that as a feature.
In the case of a PLAR, you have to create a special class of service for
that phone which only contains one dialable pattern - a lot of work if
you have a lot of PLARs with different destinations. Other systems have
a dialdown field parameter. In actuality, many of the features you might
need require seperate classes of service definitions to make them work.
That's one of the things that I don't like. Not scalable in my opinion.

The other thing I've found difficult to deal with is the lack of
documented changes in the upgrade cycle. There are some documented
changes but many are missing. Phone upgrades in particular seem to
change quite a bit of the asthetics of the phone without any sort of
documentation whatsoever! Enterprise and System Parameter changes are
not documented in new releases so you have to sort through them to see
what might be missing or added - with over 300 of them, it is time
consuming. 

Your deployment is similar to ours, except ours is a central campus with
~7500 phones. We've deployed 6 servers - publisher, TFTPserver and four
subscribers, two each for our distinct groups - business and residence.
An upgrade can take the better part of the whole day.

I'm sure others will join in in the discussion..... ;)

-----
-----
Lelio Fulgenzi, B.A.                                  lelio at
uoguelph.ca.eh <https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/cisco-voip> 
Network Analyst (CCS)
University of Guelph                             FAX519) 767-1060 JNHN
Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1                          TEL519) 824-4120
x56354
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^
mob lawyer: your people insulted my brother.
dr. house: what? romano in the parmesan cheese shaker again?
----- Original Message ----- 
From: Steve G 
To: cisco-voip at puck.nether.net
<https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/cisco-voip>  
Sent: Saturday, May 28, 2005 12:24 PM
Subject: [cisco-voip] Nortel vs. cisco IP Telephony deployment


Hi Again,
Does anyone have experience with comparing Nortel's VoIP
solutions with Cisco's?  I am currently evaluating the two beasts and so
far have only got my hands on Cisco's CCM 4.0(1) and a Unity Server.  I
must say they are pretty slick products.  I have no experience with
Nortel equipment as of yet, and would like to know if there are any
caveats to either one that would rule it out of the comparison. 

Background:
Deployment size will be 10,000+ phones at the end of the project.
All cisco Data network is existing.
40 WAN locations (Frame Relay) would talk to a Centralized CP and have
SRST enabled routers.

Any help would be great.  +s and -s of the two products would be
appreciated.

Steve

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

Martin,
I have implemented a Call Manager Express system which I must say was very 
simple with basic CVOICE-type knowledge. It is very reliable and cost 
effective for a small location under 200 phones or so.
Have you looked at the CCME product?
Steve

On 5/29/05, Martin Blackstone <MBlackstone@superioraccess.com> wrote: 
> 
> Its kind of funny as I follow this thread. I am in EXACTLY the same 
> situation right now. Except we are small shop with big needs. We are movin
g, 
> have an old Norstar system that has been very reliable and currently 
> entertaining bids from Nortel and cisco for a VOIP system.
> cisco has broken their backs to get our business while Nortel is more 
> interested in talking bad about Cisco. cisco is currently in a major lead 
> for the very reasons you say below. I get the sense that Nortel could care
 
> less.
>  It also seems to me that there are more 3rd party products readily 
> available for cisco systems than there are Nortel. Maybe I am wrong and it
s 
> just another point that Nortel hasn't let us know about.
>  ------------------------------
> *From:* cisco-voip-bounces@puck.nether.net [mailto:
> cisco-voip-bounces@puck.nether.net] *On Behalf Of *Steve G
> *Sent:* Sunday, May 29, 2005 8:51 AM
> *To:* cisco-voip@puck.nether.net
> *Subject:* [cisco-voip] RE: Nortel vs. cisco IP Telephony deployment
> 
>   Thanks for the reply Lelio. Today we are a Nortel PBX shop, so Nortel is
 
> deffinatly a player. Perhaps the largest + that cisco has going for them i
s
> their presence on a weekly bassis. By making hardware readilly available 
> and coming on site every week to help with LAB and design puts them
>  way ahead. I can't remember the last time a Nortel Rep was at our 
> location to see how they can sell us products in the future. cisco may not
 
> be
>  the absolute best in any 1 area, but they will support the heck out of 
> their products. At least that is my experience.
>  Steve
>   ------------------------------
> 
> Overall I have been impressed with cisco CallManager and Unity. There have
 been things which I have not been pleased with, but let's be serious, every
 vendor/product has their weaknesses. If you are migrating from an existing 
solution to a new solution, then I would strongly suggest evaluating what yo
ur current system can do now and what the proposed system can do very carefu
lly. Take promises of features with a grain of salt and don't expect those t
o come to fruition any time soon - plan on deploying what you can seein fron
t of you. And don't underestimate the importance of any one feature- or in o
ur case any one person that might be using that feature. ;) 
> 
> There are many features that are common place in other PBXs that for somer
eason are not in the cisco product, e.g. forwarding from secondary lines and
 PLARs, and require additional steps and or programming to make things work.
 In the case of forwarding secondary lines they will point you to the user's
 phone configuration web page - since there is a solution, there has been li
ttle effort to including that as a feature. In the case of a PLAR, you have 
to create a special class of service for that phone which only contains one 
dialable pattern - a lot of work if you have a lot of PLARs with different d
estinations. Other systems have a dialdown field parameter. In actuality, ma
ny of the features you might need require seperate classes of service defini
tions to make them work. That's one of the things that I don't like. Not sca
lable in my opinion.
> 
> The other thing I've found difficult to deal with is the lack of documente
d changes in the upgrade cycle. There are some documented changes but manyar
e missing. Phone upgrades in particular seem to change quite a bit of the as
thetics of the phone without any sort of documentation whatsoever! Enterpris
e and System Parameter changes are not documented in new releases so you hav
e to sort through them to see what might be missing or added - with over 300
 of them, it is time consuming. 
> 
> Your deployment is similar to ours, except ours is a central campus with ~
7500 phones. We've deployed 6 servers - publisher, TFTPserver and four subsc
ribers, two each for our distinct groups - business and residence. An upgrad
e can take the better part of the whole day.
> 
> I'm sure others will join in in the discussion..... ;)
> 
> -----                                                                -----
> Lelio Fulgenzi, B.A.                                  lelio at uoguelph.ca.eh <h
ttps://puck.nether.net/mai...info/cisco-voip>
> Network Analyst (CCS)
> university of Guelph                             FAX519) 767-1060 JNHN
> Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1                          TEL519) 824-4120 x56354
>  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> mob lawyer: your people insulted my brother.
> dr. house: what? romano in the parmesan cheese shaker again?
>   ----- Original Message ----- 
>   From: Steve G 
>   To: cisco-voip at puck.nether.net <https://puck.nether.net/mailman/lis...br />
sco-voip> 
>   Sent: Saturday, May 28, 2005 12:24 PM
>   Subject: [cisco-voip] Nortel vs. cisco IP Telephony deployment
> 
> 
>   Hi Again,
>        Does anyone have experience with comparing Nortel's VoIP solutionsw
ith Cisco's?  I am currently evaluating the two beasts and so far have only 
got my hands on Cisco's CCM 4.0(1) and a Unity Server.  I must say they are 
pretty slick products.  I have no experience with Nortel equipment as of yet
, and would like to know if there are any caveats to either one that would r
ule it out of the comparison. 
> 
>   Background:
>   Deployment size will be 10,000+ phones at the end of the project.
>   All cisco Data network is existing.
>   40 WAN locations (Frame Relay) would talk to a Centralized CP and have S
RST enabled routers.
> 
>   Any help would be great.  +s and -s of the two products would be appreci
ated.
> 
>   Steve
> 
>

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

I would agree. While we were going through the migration phase there was a
strong cisco presence. Unfortunately, we've seen that presence wane now that
 we
are fully deployed. Unless of course, we start talking about buying a new
product... ;)

We've picked up quite a bit of experience from the migration, so our request
s
now have become quite a bit more complicated and are more design related, wh
ich
may be at the root of the problem, however, sometimes, we just need a pointe
r in
the right direction.

We've (or I've) been getting much of that from this list where I once got th
at
from our SE team pointing us to different internal cisco resources via
conference call, etc.

I like reading documentation like everyone, and expect that I have to do my
part, but a half hour discussion with a knowledgable rep can give you a
headstart that no documentation can.



Quoting Steve G <stephengustafson@gmail.com>:

> Thanks for the reply Lelio. Today we are a Nortel PBX shop, so Nortel is
> deffinatly a player. Perhaps the largest + that cisco has going for them i
s
> their presence on a weekly bassis. By making hardware readilly available a
nd
> coming on site every week to help with LAB and design puts them
>  way ahead. I can't remember the last time a Nortel Rep was at our locatio
n
> to see how they can sell us products in the future. cisco may not be
>  the absolute best in any 1 area, but they will support the heck out of
> their products. At least that is my experience.
>  Steve
>   ------------------------------
>
> Overall I have been impressed with cisco CallManager and Unity. There
> have been things which I have not been pleased with, but let's be
> serious, every vendor/product has their weaknesses. If you are
> migrating from an existing solution to a new solution, then I would
> strongly suggest evaluating what your current system can do now and
> what the proposed system can do very carefully. Take promises of
> features with a grain of salt and don't expect those to come to
> fruition any time soon - plan on deploying what you can see in front
> of you. And don't underestimate the importance of any one feature - or
> in our case any one person that might be using that feature. ;)
>
> There are many features that are common place in other PBXs that for
> some reason are not in the cisco product, e.g. forwarding from
> secondary lines and PLARs, and require additional steps and or
> programming to make things work. In the case of forwarding secondary
> lines they will point you to the user's phone configuration web page -
> since there is a solution, there has been little effort to including
> that as a feature. In the case of a PLAR, you have to create a special
> class of service for that phone which only contains one dialable
> pattern - a lot of work if you have a lot of PLARs with different
> destinations. Other systems have a dialdown field parameter. In
> actuality, many of the features you might need require seperate
> classes of service definitions to make them work. That's one of the
> things that I don't like. Not scalable in my opinion.
>
> The other thing I've found difficult to deal with is the lack of
> documented changes in the upgrade cycle. There are some documented
> changes but many are missing. Phone upgrades in particular seem to
> change quite a bit of the asthetics of the phone without any sort of
> documentation whatsoever! Enterprise and System Parameter changes are
> not documented in new releases so you have to sort through them to see
> what might be missing or added - with over 300 of them, it is time
> consuming.
>
> Your deployment is similar to ours, except ours is a central campus
> with ~7500 phones. We've deployed 6 servers - publisher, TFTPserver
> and four subscribers, two each for our distinct groups - business and
> residence. An upgrade can take the better part of the whole day.
>
> I'm sure others will join in in the discussion..... ;)
>
> -----                                                                -----
> Lelio Fulgenzi, B.A.                                  lelio at
> uoguelph.ca.eh <https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/cisco-voip>
> Network Analyst (CCS)
> university of Guelph                             FAX519) 767-1060 JNHN
> Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1                          TEL519) 824-4120 x56354
>  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> mob lawyer: your people insulted my brother.
> dr. house: what? romano in the parmesan cheese shaker again?
>   ----- Original Message -----
>   From: Steve G
>   To: cisco-voip at puck.nether.net
> <https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/cisco-voip>
>   Sent: Saturday, May 28, 2005 12:24 PM
>   Subject: [cisco-voip] Nortel vs. cisco IP Telephony deployment
>
>
>   Hi Again,
>        Does anyone have experience with comparing Nortel's VoIP
> solutions with Cisco's?  I am currently evaluating the two beasts and
> so far have only got my hands on Cisco's CCM 4.0(1) and a Unity
> Server.  I must say they are pretty slick products.  I have no
> experience with Nortel equipment as of yet, and would like to know if
> there are any caveats to either one that would rule it out of the
> comparison.
>
>   Background:
>   Deployment size will be 10,000+ phones at the end of the project.
>   All cisco Data network is existing.
>   40 WAN locations (Frame Relay) would talk to a Centralized CP and
> have SRST enabled routers.
>
>   Any help would be great.  +s and -s of the two products would be
> appreciated.
>
>   Steve
>

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]