Cisco vs. Polycom - Phone System
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@scottalanmiller said:
How did Cisco and Polycom come up as options? Cisco would almost never be on a short list. Polycom isn't the same animal. Of these only Asterisk would I generally consider.
While a lot of people want to use this as "read into" what I asked to make this into something it is not to make a point that doesn't exist.... to actually help the OP here, it is important to understand what are the driving factors causing the short list to get created, which is what I asked and all that I asked. If that is behaving like a 12 year old girl and "reading in" then those are good things because it is an important and useful question.
Understanding what is driving the questions to be asked and why we are going the direction(s) that we are is important. We don't know all of the needs and requirements so we need to figure those out.
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@BBigford said:
Does anyone have any numbers on an RFP they put out, or have gone down that road comparing Cisco to Polycom?
RFPs will probably drive you in the wrong direction because the nearly certain best options won't be available from a company that will give you a RFP. RFPs are only good when you've made the assumption that you are going to deal with a reseller and that the reselling has the profit built into it. This is almost never a good assumption, especially in a case like this where your nearly always best option is one that is free (Asterisk.)
What you want is to step back and look at the needs and evaluate at a higher level. You'll also want to think of Polycom and Asterisk as likely the same solution. Polycom is an expensive option typically used with Asterisk because most PBXs that are not Asterisk or 3CX come with their own branded handsets (at least typically.)
But even in the Asterisk world, while Polycom is good, it is also wildly expensive. Most of us working with Asterisk will generally talk Yealink and sometimes Snom or Grandstream phones. Far more cost effective.
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@Jason said:
Why wouldn't you use asterisk? Start there. It's FOSS and easy to manage. I've used it at plenty of other jobs. We have avaya IP office and cisco call manager here, the IP office is going away though. For us shear scale is the only reason we aren't using asterisk.
I was told that the provider can't port an Asterisk setup. But again, that's just what I was told...
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@JaredBusch said:
@BBigford said:
I've managed Cisco's UCS/UCM phone system in a previous environment, and I know it was really expensive. Now I'm in a network that uses Polycom, that we don't really manage all that much (we do about 90% of requests, but anything deep level we have a contract). I was asked by a director at a school district about Polycom vs. Cisco vs. Asterisk. I said Asterisk is going to be the least expensive but I didn't think his provider could port for outside calls (that's pending), and wasn't sure about cost difference between Polycom and Cisco. He also asked what the Polycom software is called (I thought it was InCom?). Does anyone have any numbers on an RFP they put out, or have gone down that road comparing Cisco to Polycom? Thanks!
Polycom is not a a phone system. So first, identify the actual phone system. If it is InCom, that is a rebrandable IP PBX.
Either way, move to Asterisk. The provider is not relevant to that decision.
The decision for What PBX to use is never part of the decision for a provider unless you choose a proprietary provider that uses their own PBX thus technically not even giving you a choice.
Asterisk, or any other modern IP PBX, can connect to any type of trunk you choose to use. Obviously, some trunk types require hardware to interface from the physical to the IP, but there is a device for every scenario out there.
The management console is indeed InCom. I know Polycom is just the hardware, for purposes I just said Polycom because I really don't know much about it to call it something else (like Cisco UCS/UCM..) If someone could correct me (Polycom PBX?) I'd use that in my questions instead.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@scottalanmiller said:
How did Cisco and Polycom come up as options? Cisco would almost never be on a short list. Polycom isn't the same animal. Of these only Asterisk would I generally consider.
While a lot of people want to use this as "read into" what I asked to make this into something it is not to make a point that doesn't exist.... to actually help the OP here, it is important to understand what are the driving factors causing the short list to get created, which is what I asked and all that I asked. If that is behaving like a 12 year old girl and "reading in" then those are good things because it is an important and useful question.
Understanding what is driving the questions to be asked and why we are going the direction(s) that we are is important. We don't know all of the needs and requirements so we need to figure those out.
The short list was something I didn't ask about. To be honest, I was way too busy at the time to ask a bunch of other questions to go in a different direction, so I was just doing a simple "These are the differences in price and functionality" for the director. As I haven't worked with Asterisk or Polycom's side, I had little input for him and wasn't finding anything concrete online for InCom/Polycom vs. Cisco.
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@BBigford said:
@Jason said:
Why wouldn't you use asterisk? Start there. It's FOSS and easy to manage. I've used it at plenty of other jobs. We have avaya IP office and cisco call manager here, the IP office is going away though. For us shear scale is the only reason we aren't using asterisk.
I was told that the provider can't port an Asterisk setup. But again, that's just what I was told...
I'm not even sure what that means, can't port an Asterisk setup. What kind of phone circuits do you have today? PRI/T1, POTS lines, SIP?
What reason would they not be able to work, other than they simply don't want to bother with it?
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@BBigford said:
@Jason said:
Why wouldn't you use asterisk? Start there. It's FOSS and easy to manage. I've used it at plenty of other jobs. We have avaya IP office and cisco call manager here, the IP office is going away though. For us shear scale is the only reason we aren't using asterisk.
I was told that the provider can't port an Asterisk setup. But again, that's just what I was told...
Who told you that? It doesn't even make sense. Asterisk is the PBX, it is not related to the porting. Porting is from provider to provider. It's like being told that your house does not support that street address.
Either someone is just making stuff up to try to sound good or someone is actively trying to sell you something.
When porting you don't even have a PBX. Like moving your phone number from TMobile to Verizon, you don't necessarily even have a phone when you port. You port then get a phone.
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@BBigford said:
I was told that the provider can't port an Asterisk setup. But again, that's just what I was told...
The other thing would be.... change providers. Why stick with a provider that can't support any phone hooked up to them? This can't be the actual case, but if it were, I would drop the provider on this alone.
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@BBigford said:
@JaredBusch said:
@BBigford said:
I've managed Cisco's UCS/UCM phone system in a previous environment, and I know it was really expensive. Now I'm in a network that uses Polycom, that we don't really manage all that much (we do about 90% of requests, but anything deep level we have a contract). I was asked by a director at a school district about Polycom vs. Cisco vs. Asterisk. I said Asterisk is going to be the least expensive but I didn't think his provider could port for outside calls (that's pending), and wasn't sure about cost difference between Polycom and Cisco. He also asked what the Polycom software is called (I thought it was InCom?). Does anyone have any numbers on an RFP they put out, or have gone down that road comparing Cisco to Polycom? Thanks!
Polycom is not a a phone system. So first, identify the actual phone system. If it is InCom, that is a rebrandable IP PBX.
Either way, move to Asterisk. The provider is not relevant to that decision.
The decision for What PBX to use is never part of the decision for a provider unless you choose a proprietary provider that uses their own PBX thus technically not even giving you a choice.
Asterisk, or any other modern IP PBX, can connect to any type of trunk you choose to use. Obviously, some trunk types require hardware to interface from the physical to the IP, but there is a device for every scenario out there.
The management console is indeed InCom. I know Polycom is just the hardware, for purposes I just said Polycom because I really don't know much about it to call it something else (like Cisco UCS/UCM..) If someone could correct me (Polycom PBX?) I'd use that in my questions instead.
I just went to Polycom's website to look this up and their main website is a 404 right now. You get their "select your country" portal, select "United States" and.... page not found.
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@Jason said:
@Dashrender said:
Please, explain how this statement is helpful at all?
Oh, sorry I offended someone.. Don't care.
Dude, seriously?
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Looks like the current system is just an InCom PBX. I've never worked with them before so can tell you nothing about it beyond what their website tells me.
Looks like they primarily do hosted PBX systems.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@BBigford said:
@JaredBusch said:
@BBigford said:
I've managed Cisco's UCS/UCM phone system in a previous environment, and I know it was really expensive. Now I'm in a network that uses Polycom, that we don't really manage all that much (we do about 90% of requests, but anything deep level we have a contract). I was asked by a director at a school district about Polycom vs. Cisco vs. Asterisk. I said Asterisk is going to be the least expensive but I didn't think his provider could port for outside calls (that's pending), and wasn't sure about cost difference between Polycom and Cisco. He also asked what the Polycom software is called (I thought it was InCom?). Does anyone have any numbers on an RFP they put out, or have gone down that road comparing Cisco to Polycom? Thanks!
Polycom is not a a phone system. So first, identify the actual phone system. If it is InCom, that is a rebrandable IP PBX.
Either way, move to Asterisk. The provider is not relevant to that decision.
The decision for What PBX to use is never part of the decision for a provider unless you choose a proprietary provider that uses their own PBX thus technically not even giving you a choice.
Asterisk, or any other modern IP PBX, can connect to any type of trunk you choose to use. Obviously, some trunk types require hardware to interface from the physical to the IP, but there is a device for every scenario out there.
The management console is indeed InCom. I know Polycom is just the hardware, for purposes I just said Polycom because I really don't know much about it to call it something else (like Cisco UCS/UCM..) If someone could correct me (Polycom PBX?) I'd use that in my questions instead.
I just went to Polycom's website to look this up and their main website is a 404 right now. You get their "select your country" portal, select "United States" and.... page not found.
Heh, that is very re-assuring... I'll ask about Asterisk again. Not sure if that is a dead end where he is at. There's a monopoly on the small town he's in with one provider and I remember TDS (provider) explicitly telling him they don't allow an Asterisk setup to go outbound. Maybe there was a miscommunication but they were pretty clear about that. I'll ask again though because obviously free is good.
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@BBigford said:
I had little input for him and wasn't finding anything concrete online for InCom/Polycom vs. Cisco.
That's why, because they are different animals. InCom is a hosted PBX. Polycom makes the handsets for any system you want. Cisco does a top to bottom integrated system. So comparing them is not a simple thing. Cisco could be compared against Avaya or Shoretel for example, because all of them offer a complete package of everything from the phone through the PBX.
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@BBigford said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@BBigford said:
@JaredBusch said:
@BBigford said:
I've managed Cisco's UCS/UCM phone system in a previous environment, and I know it was really expensive. Now I'm in a network that uses Polycom, that we don't really manage all that much (we do about 90% of requests, but anything deep level we have a contract). I was asked by a director at a school district about Polycom vs. Cisco vs. Asterisk. I said Asterisk is going to be the least expensive but I didn't think his provider could port for outside calls (that's pending), and wasn't sure about cost difference between Polycom and Cisco. He also asked what the Polycom software is called (I thought it was InCom?). Does anyone have any numbers on an RFP they put out, or have gone down that road comparing Cisco to Polycom? Thanks!
Polycom is not a a phone system. So first, identify the actual phone system. If it is InCom, that is a rebrandable IP PBX.
Either way, move to Asterisk. The provider is not relevant to that decision.
The decision for What PBX to use is never part of the decision for a provider unless you choose a proprietary provider that uses their own PBX thus technically not even giving you a choice.
Asterisk, or any other modern IP PBX, can connect to any type of trunk you choose to use. Obviously, some trunk types require hardware to interface from the physical to the IP, but there is a device for every scenario out there.
The management console is indeed InCom. I know Polycom is just the hardware, for purposes I just said Polycom because I really don't know much about it to call it something else (like Cisco UCS/UCM..) If someone could correct me (Polycom PBX?) I'd use that in my questions instead.
I just went to Polycom's website to look this up and their main website is a 404 right now. You get their "select your country" portal, select "United States" and.... page not found.
Heh, that is very re-assuring... I'll ask about Asterisk again. Not sure if that is a dead end where he is at. There's a monopoly on the small town he's in with one provider and I remember TDS (provider) explicitly telling him they don't allow an Asterisk setup to go outbound. Maybe there was a miscommunication but they were pretty clear about that. I'll ask again though because obviously free is good.
This is generally do to collusion. The phone provider might be in bed with Cisco and intentionally seeking out and detecting competitor's products and attempting to block them. At the end of the day, though SIP is SIP and you can't tell who is connected. Just like with a website, HTTP is HTTP, you can respond with what web server you are using or you can choose not to. It only causes a problem if one side is intentionally blocking some clients.
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@mlnews said:
@BBigford said:
I had little input for him and wasn't finding anything concrete online for InCom/Polycom vs. Cisco.
That's why, because they are different animals. InCom is a hosted PBX. Polycom makes the handsets for any system you want. Cisco does a top to bottom integrated system. So comparing them is not a simple thing. Cisco could be compared against Avaya or Shoretel for example, because all of them offer a complete package of everything from the phone through the PBX.
Ok, that's where I was getting confused. I was thinking Polycom had a top to bottom solution like Cisco and Shoretel, but obviously that is not the case. So where we use InCom, serviced by a company called CTC... You can buy Polycom hardware, go with a variation of backend services (beyond InCom) and is managed either internally or through a provider like CTC? Is that right or am I off somewhere...?
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Let's back up a little. Instead of only looking at the phones it sounds like there is an issue with a bad provider. What provider are you using and how are you limited to them? How are they achieving lock in?
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@scottalanmiller said:
Let's back up a little. Instead of only looking at the phones it sounds like there is an issue with a bad provider. What provider are you using and how are you limited to them? How are they achieving lock in?
It's a provider called TDS (tdstelecom I believe). When he inquired about going with an Asterisk setup, the provider said "Nope, nope. You can't use Asterisk with us. You have to use a setup like Cisco." I was told it was how they port the numbers... He's limited to them because there is literally NO other company in the area. There is one single company that services all the surrounding towns within about a 40-45 mile radius...
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@BBigford said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Let's back up a little. Instead of only looking at the phones it sounds like there is an issue with a bad provider. What provider are you using and how are you limited to them? How are they achieving lock in?
It's a provider called TDS (tdstelecom I believe). When he inquired about going with an Asterisk setup, the provider said "Nope, nope. You can't use Asterisk with us. You have to use a setup like Cisco." I was told it was how they port the numbers... He's limited to them because there is literally NO other company in the area. There is one single company that services all the surrounding towns within about a 40-45 mile radius...
Wait, are you not on VoIP? That's the issue. Can you not move to modern telephony? I can come to your town and would never even know TDS existed because I'm on VoIP and my phone lines come with me anywhere. TDS has nothing to do with my phone lines.
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@BBigford said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Let's back up a little. Instead of only looking at the phones it sounds like there is an issue with a bad provider. What provider are you using and how are you limited to them? How are they achieving lock in?
It's a provider called TDS (tdstelecom I believe). When he inquired about going with an Asterisk setup, the provider said "Nope, nope. You can't use Asterisk with us. You have to use a setup like Cisco." I was told it was how they port the numbers... He's limited to them because there is literally NO other company in the area. There is one single company that services all the surrounding towns within about a 40-45 mile radius...
Been there done that. Can the numbers get ported to a different provider? IE could you go pure SIP for this?
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@BBigford said:
He's limited to them because there is literally NO other company in the area. There is one single company that services all the surrounding towns within about a 40-45 mile radius...
Like many things in the Internet era.... what would make you even consider a local provider let alone select one? not that there aren't reasons why it wouldn't make sense, I'm not saying that. But local would be the last place I would consider. I would want the best service, flexibility and options. Local almost always means bad things - like treating customers like crap because they assume that they are valuing locality over quality or value.
