new ip phone system

[viper92086]

So i searched, but i cant seem to find the best way to implement this. We are moving into a new office within the next month so we purchased a new phone system from talkswitch. Now the system itself uses landlines, but the phones themselfs are ip phones. The question is. would it be best to keep the phone network seperate from the data network. I have the ability to use the data network (each phone has a built in miniswitch; pc connects to phone, phone connects to ethernet jack).

In terms of cost, we have the switches to do it either way. The cost would be to buy an additional patch panel (each desk already has a cat-3 and a cat-5 cable running to each one, i'd have to redo the patch panel in the telephone room for rj45).

which way is better practice?


cliff notes:

combine telephone system and internal network together? or keep them as two separate systems. Service is not VOIP.

 

[StarTrek4U]

You can do either, if you combine on the same physical network you will want to have separate voice and data Vlans and probably some QoS in place to give your voice traffic priority. While this makes the switch config a bit more complicated it can save you on HW replacement costs down the line.

You of course can also implement a physically separate network however that's just more devices to manage and HW to replace, although it will be easier to implement upfront.

 

[kevinzak]

You can do either, if you combine on the same physical network you will want to have separate voice and data Vlans and probably some QoS in place to give your voice traffic priority. While this makes the switch config a bit more complicated it can save you on HW replacement costs down the line.

You of course can also implement a physically separate network however that's just more devices to manage and HW to replace, although it will be easier to implement upfront.

We do it this way, VLANs with QoS upping the phones' traffic priority. If you have a strong QoS system in your router/firewall, it works very well. Also makes troubleshooting phone issues much easier.

 

[Skud]

I'd say it's a wash..

I've done it both ways and each has it's merits and downfalls.

Single Run
=========
+ less costly
+ simpler to manage
+ less infrastructure (switching, etc.)
- can be more difficult to troubleshoot; network issues on the PC can be caused by the phone
- cabling can become cumbersome if a user wants his phone in one location and PC in another


Dedicated runs
===========
+ Complete separation of duties. Runs for voice, runs for data
+ Phones will NOT cause issues with PCs and vice versa, easier to troubleshoot
+ Don't necessarily have to deal with QoS as much
+ You still have another switchport on the back of the phone to use if your network is configured.
- more costly to double your cable runs
- Need more switches

 

[viper92086]

hmmm well there is a cat-3 and a cat5 line running to each desk so that is covered. my understanding is that cat-3 will be more than enough for ip phones. I already have plenty of switching hardware to do either way. I think u have me sold on just doing two seperate systems to make things easy. thanks

 

[Skud]

hmmm well there is a cat-3 and a cat5 line running to each desk so that is covered. my understanding is that cat-3 will be more than enough for ip phones. I already have plenty of switching hardware to do either way. I think u have me sold on just doing two seperate systems to make things easy. thanks

Unless you manually force your phones to run at 10Mb then Cat3 will not be enough. I think all IP phones will try and sync at 100Mb or 1Gb depending on the phone. Also, if this is existing Cat3 it may not be terminated properly for ethernet. It was probably used for some other traditional PBX system.

Looks like your decision was just made for you..

Oh! Another gotcha is implementing a gigabit network and putting 100Mb phones on it. This will cause any PCs connected to phones to sync at 100Mb instead of 1Gb. I know there are gigabit phones out there, so you will need those if your network is gigabit.

Riley

 

[mattjw916]

Separating the voip phones from the data network essentially defeats the purpose of implementing voip in the first place. That's not to mention you'll need double the amount of switchports and more administrative overhead configuring and maintaining them...

 

[viper92086]

Unless you manually force your phones to run at 10Mb then Cat3 will not be enough. I think all IP phones will try and sync at 100Mb or 1Gb depending on the phone. Also, if this is existing Cat3 it may not be terminated properly for ethernet. It was probably used for some other traditional PBX system.

Looks like your decision was just made for you..

Oh! Another gotcha is implementing a gigabit network and putting 100Mb phones on it. This will cause any PCs connected to phones to sync at 100Mb instead of 1Gb. I know there are gigabit phones out there, so you will need those if your network is gigabit.

Riley

ok thank you.. i have alot to learn about phone systems. i just spoke with talkswitch and confirmed that they do operate at 100Mb. I guess that makes the decision real easy. I will then use my untangle box to do QoS. Thanks guys

 

[Skud]

No problem.

You will have to implement QoS on any devices which handle your voice traffic. On those devices you will want to make sure that voice has priority. Since you said that your IP PBX had traditional POTS lines then I don't think any voice traffic will be going through the Untangle box. That's assuming Untangle is only used as your firewall/router/NAT device and you don't have any off-site phones or a SIP trunk to a voice provider.

The best way to go about this will be to setup a separate VLAN for the voice traffic and put the phones in that VLAN. Then, simply mark the voice VLAN tags as higher priority.

Riley