VOIP for businesses

[joto815]

Is there a site where I can learn more about how to convert my 12-line Nortel traditional networked telephone system to a comprable VOIP with ViaTalk?

[DracoFelis]

What's wrong with this site for starters?

OK, OK. Here are some other places you could also look:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/voip
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/viatalk
http://forum.voxilla.com/

[IronHelix]

also www.voip-info.org is a great wiki with tons of stuff about VoIP

You might want to look into a server running the Asterisk soft-pbx, or one of its variants such as trixbox or AsteriskNOW that include GUI interfaces. ViaTalk will work great with Asterisk.

Also for IP phones, I recommend AAstra or Snom, although Grandstream works too if you're on a budget.

[johca]

My question is, what improvement, increased capability, or cost saving is being expected?

I have a reluctance to move to VoIP because I lack a improvement, increased capability, or cost savings to do so. I also in addition to having concerns of reliability during power failures, the concerns of getting back into during happenings of significant area natural or man-made disaster, not to mention I still do lot of faxing, which is a lacking capability of VoIP. The other is VoIP uses bandwidth I need for more income generating large volume data transfers.

My current solution is to dedicating a desktop to be a communications center. The primary part component being a Mainpine (http://www.mainpine.com/) multiport Rockforce Quatro+ modem used with Ventafax (http://www.ventafax.com/) or vent4net (http://www.venta4net.com/) fax and phone answering software.

[DracoFelis]

I have a reluctance to move to VoIP because I lack a improvement, increased capability, or cost savings to do so. I also in addition to having concerns of reliability during power failures, the concerns of getting back into during happenings of significant area natural or man-made disaster, not to mention I still do lot of faxing, which is a lacking capability of VoIP.
IMHO those are valid concerns. However, the thing to keep in mind is that this need not be an "all or nothing" type thing. With the right equipment, you really can "mix and match" between VoIP and the other (older) phone technologies. This allows you to get much of the reliability of the older technologies, while still picking and choosing where to add in VoIP to the mix, to get significant savings. And it also lets you "ease into VoIP" at a rate that is comfortable to you.

For example, a business could easily start off by keeping most of their existing telco service, but add in some VoIP service (ViaTalk White, perhaps?) to the mix to allow for cheaper outbound long distance calls (while still having access to their existing LD calling options, as a "backup" for their new outbound VoIP). Then, once that is working smoothly, the business could add in inbound VoIP numbers, in areas that they want a "local presence" in, but for which that area isn't "local" to their existing office(s). Then once that is working smoothly, they could consider replacing some of their telco POTS lines, with VoIP lines. Etc. The idea is, you can (if you put some thought into the migration process) do things "a step at a time", vs having to commit all at once. And by doing things that way, you keep the comfort/safety of your existing telco system, while still starting to save money now (by cheaper outbound LD calls, if for no other reason).

The other is VoIP uses bandwidth I need for more income generating large volume data transfers.
That is a valid concern. And the bandwidth that VoIP takes really does need to be "budgeted for" when you look into the "costs" of VoIP.

However, most of us have times when we don't really "need" all of our bandwidth, and let some of it just goes to waste. And we also have times where something (a file download, perhaps?) might be using all our bandwidth, but it really wouldn't hurt things much if that other internet applications slowed down a little while we are on the phone.

And if you fit into either or both categories, than the "solution" IMHO is to get (and properly configure) a "router" that supports good QoS ("Quality of Service", or the ability for you to prioritize which of your internet traffic is at the front of the line for internet access). With good QoS (that's been properly configured for your specific internet bandwidth and usage) on your router, you can easily declare your VoIP device(s) to be the most "privileged" of your internet devices/computers/etc (which you would likely want to do, as VoIP is probably the most "time critical" internet application running on your LAN). The main effect of this QoS adjustment to your LAN, is that your VoIP will take whatever bandwidth it needs to keep the active call(s) going smoothly, and release anything else back to other devices/computers on your LAN. And if you set this up properly, when you aren't currently on a VoIP phone call, virtually all of your internet/WAN bandwidth (including much of the bandwidth you use to maintain a VoIP call, when a call is in progress) will be available for other devices/computers on your LAN to use whenever you aren't currently on a VoIP phone call (and the QoS will again give that bandwidth back to VoIP, as soon as you again start talking on a VoIP phone call).

BTW:
If you haven't already guessed, I really like QoS for VoIP (in my case, I got the QoS I use at my house, by taking a cheap home router and flashing it with the open source http://www.dd-wrt.com firmware). QoS isn't a perfect solution to bandwidth quality issues and VoIP (mostly because there is a minority of internet traffic that QoS equipped routers just can't "throttle" properly, to release bandwidth back to the VoIP device). However, it's amazing how much of a different good (properly configured) QoS can make to the sound (and reliability) quality of VoIP (when that VoIP is being used on an internet connection that is also being used by other internet applications)!