FOOD FOR THOUGHT Local or Cloud and extra line or not?

[Mark D. Montgomery II]

I have a friend with his realty office in the local mall who is seriously considering replacing his relatively new voip phone system (he is currently on a setup with a very expensive T1 line dedicated to the phones and leasing the desk phones and such, and apparently has little or no control over the phone configurations).
Sometime shortly I'll be going over to look over and help him try to make a plan to switch to a good solution (i.e. PIAF).

His basic setup now as I understand it:
Comcast business line coming in for data internet to the office.
T1 line coming in for the phone system.
There are about 10 desk phones in the office.
I'd say there are typically around 5-10 computers/laptops in use at any one time in the office.

If my documentation (and memory) is up to date the network configuration is:
Comcast router connected directly to a Verizon Cell Extender and to a Netgear Prosafe router.
Everything else in the office is behind the Prosafe (mix of switches and wireless and whatnot).

Based on this, what would be the generally recommendation?
Should we target a PIAF server on site or do a cloud setup?
If we do on site, would the best option be to get a dedicated line (and redo wiring) to separate the voip phones from the main network? (I'm guessing this wouldn't be a big deal as my home network generates quite a bit of traffic and I've never had an issue with voip quality through it - and no I haven't touched QOS stuff).

Ideally I'd like to put the comcast router in bridge mode to a proper router (pfsense or such) and redo things anyway, but I don't know enough those cell extenders to know if moving it behind somewhere would break something (I'm guessing not as long as it's not double-nat and such - and I don't remember if his comcast router can do pure bridging, it's been quite a while since I logged into it).

 

[TwigsUSAN]

I think the big question is if he really needs to keep the PRI or not. Do a cost analysis between the PRI and the other methods you are thinking about.

From what you have said, replacing the firewall shouldn't effect the existing system. Reason being that it doesn't sound like they have any VoIP trunks right now. Everything is going out the PRI.

 

[Mark D. Montgomery II]

One of his goals is to drop the T1 because of the ridiculous cost. I'm not sure if the actual voip system server is on site or if there's a router or some such connecting them to it remotely over the line.

 

[Robert-BCC]

> system server is on site or if there's a router

I'd guess their system is on site and serves as the T1 termination point. I recently installed PiaF for a 10 person, 20 phone office with a very similar profile so I have some thoughts about your original questions:

> Comcast business line coming in for data internet to the office.

My install was Comcast business, 50Mbps down, 10 up. More than sufficient bandwidth, but my users were low-tech, no streaming video, etc. If they did, QoS would have been a necessity. As it is, I want to deploy QoS but not having it hasn't caused any outages. Comcast Business can be challenging to work with, their reps have told me that loss of Comcast connectivity was due to: insufficient bandwidth, users with software subscriptions, and too many connected LAN devices (~ 25). They don't seem to understand the difference between layer 2 & layer 3 connectivity, and it leads to some frustrating conversations.

> Comcast router connected directly to a Verizon Cell Extender and to a Netgear Prosafe router.

I'm not familiar with the Verizon device, presumably a picocell to augment poor local cell phone quality? What's their bandwidth consumption overall? How is latency to say, the midwest or east coast? Also, I'm not sure if the Prosafe is SIP-friendly, worth investigating. Your pfsense idea is good, everyone seems to like that thing.

> Should we target a PIAF server on site or do a cloud setup?

My office/phones are near San Francisco, the PiaF is remote, hosted by Vitelity in Denver. We have their cheapest instance (1GB RAM). I've found Vitelity employee and consultant Andrew Chi to be very helpful during setup, and the consulting rates are fair. If you sign up with them, please use this link to support PiaF.

> If we do on site, would the best option be to get a dedicated line (and redo wiring) to separate the voip phones from the main network?

That would be painful and lo-tech, but it would certainly separate voice and data traffic. It would be better to create separate VLANs and separate DHCP scopes for phones vs. all other devices. If the know-how is a challenge, if bandwidth is at a premium, and if rewiring is cheap maybe the dual-wiring and second network connection would be OK.

> Ideally I'd like to put the comcast router in bridge mode

A call to Comcast is all it should take. They can determine the device's capability and make the change even if the user interface doesn't appear to permit it.

Robert