Nortel’s Mess – Why would anybody want this ?

Quite the legacy Mike Zafirovski has left behind. Granted, he arrived into an already disheveled mostly broken Nortel, but, he took the job on with some major promises.

“I’ll fix it – trust me.” Three years and a Six Sigma later, he’s made a mess. He leaves with a crappy legacy and many many many millions of dollars in his pocket. People make mistakes. Zafirovski made many. His first mistake was getting on the sinking ship thinking he could save it. The reality is, he tried to fix the business, but the culture still prevailed.

Nortel was destined for failure before Mike Zafirovski stepped in – he was too love struck to see it.

It’s a culture of arrogance. The “we’re the best” culture of arrogance was so pervasive it actually continues even until today. The fact is – and I’m speaking from an enterprise perspective – Nortel’s products are poor. Granted, they did at one time build an amazing product. The Norstar and Option 11 were the best pieces of telecom equipment during their time. That changed, at least from my perspective, with their BCM, Succession, and Passport products.

I know many people will disagree with what I’m saying, but, most of those people have never seen the other side. For those who have, they’ll probably agree.

When Mike Zafirovski arrived, he believed the arrogance. I’m sure he didn’t arrive with the attitude – it probably took some time for him to start believing what he was told. The fact is just because Nortel made it doesn’t mean it worked well. In fact, it didn’t. BCM, Succession, Passport. Those are the products I’ve seen. They don’t work very well. Overpromise and under deliver.

I could go on and on about system trays, bad MSC cards, hardware and software issues, and a PATCH PATCH PATCH “there’s a patch for that” – patched attitude that prevails. Customers bought into the mess, and Nortel continued selling it.

The culture of arrogance was so pervasive that the people that worked there didn’t see it – at least not until they left. And then, and only then, did they see the other side. The WE ARE NORTEL and WE CAN”T DO WRONG because we’re Nortel attitude – that’s hard to fix.

Now, I’m trying to figure out why anybody would want to buy the enterprise business. What on earth do they think they’re going to get ? It will be MANY millions to buy. That’s a lot of money. How will somebody make that back?

Maybe somebody will buy Nortel and keep the products intact – and try and fix it. The BCM, Succession – it doesn’t need fixing, it needs gutting. The name “NORTEL” is damaged from the last six months of their public relations nightmare. But there are existing customers who would be looking for upgrades, software support, maintenance … maybe there’s some value in that.

Avaya has been rumored to be interested in purchasing Nortel’s enterprise business. What could they possibly see in it? It’s certainly not for the engineering – that they’ll gut. Rip and replace. While there are many issues Avaya would need to consider when looking at Nortel’s enterprise business, it should be noted that Avaya had
been doing well in the enterprise market, and been successful in convincing a growing number of Nortel customers to switch suppliers.

Is there enough maintenance and upgrade dollars available to make back heavy price tag ? Most good dealers have taken on a secondary, and now alternate primary product line. Does it mean that much to keep this out of Cisco’s hands? Can they make their money back? Are there that many customers left?

It’s possible, with the right attitude!

How packet loss impacts VoIP

Some of the challenges of VoIP include things like packet loss, latency, jitter … it’s impact on a VoIP call is the difference between usable and not usable voice.

Packet loss is quite typical in all applications of network design. If a data packet is getting sent from point A to point B and the packet gets lost, then the receiving end will request a retransmition of the packet (the protocol that controls packet retransmission is known as TCP – or transport control protocol). There is, of course, no point in retransmitting a lost packet in the voice world. A lost packet in the voice world is useless – by the time the packets get retransmitted in the voice world, the conversation has moved on. A lost packet means a dead spot in the conversation. So, instead of hearing: “Hello Mark. It’s a beautiful sunny day here”, which is what the sender is saying, the recipient of this (where a packet might have been lost) will hear: “Hello Mark. It’s a (dead air) here”.

Jeff

What is Voice over IP ( VoIP ) – Part 1. Let’s de-mystify the myths !

There seems to be a real misunderstanding surrounding VoIP. So many of the people I speak with assume that installing a new VoIP phone system means they won’t ever have to pay long distance again. OR, that a VoIP system by its vary nature supports Unified Messaging.

What I will do, over the course of the the next many articles, is explain what VoIP is and how it works ?

IP (as in Vo IP) means Internet Protocol, or in the data world, means packets. Essentially, what happens in VoIP is that voice packets are compressed into streams of data packets (IP packets), sent along the data path to their destination (the person at the other end of the phone), uncompressed, and played back at the other end. Now, that is a very simplistic explanation, and encapsulated within that very brief description are some fairly critical underlying issues which need to be further analyzed.

The key term in the above explanation is “Data Path”. What data path are the IP packets getting sent to? If the data path is the Internet, then the voice is subject to the vagrancies of the Internet itself – a poor quality data path will result in a similarly poor voice quality. If for example, the data path that the voice is getting transmitted to and from is excellent, then the voice quality will in turn be excellent. The Internet, and for that matter, LAN, is never perfect however – it is possible to have packet loss (where a packet just gets lost). Having said that, the basic foundation of good quality voice on the LAN is the (for those techs out there) LAYER 1. Layer 1 in a LAN is the wiring.

Stay tuned (and when I have more time), and I’ll keep this discussion going.

Jeff
Digitcom.ca, Resellers of Avaya and Cisco servicing the North American market – HO in Toronto

Discounts better then ever to upgrade your old Nortel system

There’s never been a better time to upgrade your old Nortel Norstar or Nortel BCM phone system to a new Avaya IP Office or Cisco UC500, or Cisco Unified Communication Manager Express system. Both manufacturers have promos extending until September which will provide for some significant credits toward trading in your old product.

Avaya’s promo – called “Beat Nortel” provides for a 35% discount on hardware if you are trading in an older Nortel Norstar, Nortel Option 11C or Nortel BCM phone system. This promo extends to the end of September 2009.

Cisco’s promo – called “TDM Escape” provides for a 30% discount on hardware if you are trading in an older Nortel Norstar, Option 11C, BCM, or Mitel phone system. This promo extends to September 2009.

These discounts started in January and Digitcom has sold more phone systems in the last 6 months then we have ever sold in our 19 year history. Customers are concerned about Nortel’s future, now more then ever, especially with Nortel’s latest divestiture announcements last Friday.

Give us a call – 416-783-7890

Jeff Wiener
(416) 783-7890
250 Rimrock Rd., Toronto, Canada
jw@digitcom.ca

Quality of Service (QoS) – the difference between VoIP success & failure

In the world of packet switched and computer networking, the traffic engineering term ‘Quality of Service’ refers to the control mechanism that can provide a different priority to different users, or data flows, or guarantee a certain level of performance to a specific program or application. Quality guarantees are important if the network capacity is limited, and especially in a situation where packet delays are extremely sensitive. That is certainly the case with voice and data where a delayed or lost packet will result in a poorer quality voice.

A QoS Multilayer switch (MLS) can prioritize packets by the 6 bits in IP DSCP (Differentiated Services Code Point). Alternatively, what this really means is that a QoS enabled switch will allow for voice / video packets to get priority over other packets (web surfing for example).

In addition, you can get a QoS PoE switch instead of getting two separate devices (PoE patch panel and QoS switch). You can now get one device to do both (PoE QoS enabled switch).

If you are looking to run VoIP on your network make sure QoS is included in your LAN & WAN planning.

Jeff Wiener
jw@digitcom.ca
(416) 783-7890

Avaya IP Office training – great turn out

Every other week Digitcom hosts Avaya IP Office basic and advanced system administration training seminars from our world class boardroom. You can get more information on these seminars from our web site at:

http://www.digitcom.ca/index.asp?PageAction=Custom&ID=4

The session is about 3.5 hours in length and covers all basic system admin functions on the Avaya IP Office product.

Yesterday’s training was our best attended yet – we had 24 people attend !

If you are interested in attending please send an email to: sales@digitcom.ca and we’ll send you more information.

Jeff
(416) 783-7890 X 201
jw@digitcom.ca

Assign a DID (Direct Inward Dial) line to your desk phone for better efficiency

Looking to make your reception position more efficient ? Assign a DID (Direct Inward Dial) line to each internal desk set and bypass the receptionist entirely.

This is a feature offered by the telephone company which allows a range of numbers to be connected into the phone system and route directly to an individual’s phone, bypassing reception and the automated attendant entirely. By way of example, each desk extension (Avaya or Cisco phone) off the phone system may be assigned a seven-digit external telephone number. Someone who knows the DID of the person they wish to reach can connect directly to that person. DID’s are only available on PRI service. When people give their work number and say it is a “direct line”, often what they mean is that it is a DID.

You need a PRI (next article) to have a DID.

Jeff

SIP Trunking – a new line beginning

Let’s simplify this otherwise somewhat complicated concept.

SIP Trunking is the mechanism used to connect phone lines into an organization’s business telephone system, and is emerging as a viable alternative to legacy (TDM PRI and analog lines). A SIP trunk is essentially a telephone line, or series of telephone lines and DID’s brought into the office over a broadband (Internet) connection. The SIP trunk is a viable option, although the technology is relatively new and still not that well understood by the carriers. The problem with a SIP trunk, which must be addressed, is that since the telephone line is coming in via a broadband / Internet connection, the quality of the data line from the organization’s offices into the SIP providers premises is absolutely critical.

Digitcom has been researching SIP trunk providers, we have done 4 deployments so far (3 on Avaya IP Office, and 1 on Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express) including our own office, and have had excellent success. All of these deployments have been in Toronto. We’re finding it quite challenging finding reputable carriers although we’re making some progress. This is obviously a work in progress, so we’ll keep you posted.

Jeff

Avaya IOC Advisory Council

I sit on the Avaya IOC Advisory council. We have our next meeting in late July in Denver. These meetings are attended by some very proactive, interested Avaya dealer principals with some amazing insight and direction as to where the IP Office product should go. I’m always looking for features, thoughts … to bring to these meetings, so, if you have any ideas please send me an email to: jw@digitcom.ca. I will keep you posted and let you know how it goes.

Avaya – IP Office. Top Features 4, 5, and 6

We received a very positive response to the first “TOP 3 Avaya IP Office features” email that went out a few weeks ago; hopefully you will find my next TOP 3 features to be equally as helpful.

In case you missed the first email, you can find the first TOP 3 on Digitcom’s blog at:
http://jwiener.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/avaya-ip-office-top-10-features/

NUMBER 4:  Remote activation of IP Office features
For those of you that didn’t know, you can activate twinning and change your call forwarding status, call forwarding number, voice mail to email mode, and Do Not Disturb (DND) remotely feature on/off from a custom personal auto attendant.  This menu could be setup to play when you retrieve your messages from your mailbox.

NUMBER 5: email notification of voice mail messages
I haven’t actually logged into my voice mail in about 8 months.  I get all my voice mail messages delivered to my handheld and / or Outlook.  I listen to my messages through email.  No more calling into the system by phone – and forwarding the voice mail is as easy as forwarding the email.  Only one place to check my voice messages and emails.

NUMBER 6:  inbound fax delivery
Just like the email notification of voice mail messages, I now also get all my fax messages through email as an attached PDF or TIF document.  No more paper sitting in my inbox – just click and there’s the fax.  And sending the fax to someone else is as simple as forwarding the email.  Fax to email also means your confidential faxes stay confidential, delivered right to you without going through other hands.  Saves paper and toner too;  junk faxes are simply deleted.

Now that’s “Unified” Messaging !

We will be sending out 1 more email listing more of these features.  In the mean time, if you want technical or sales assistance, give us a shout.  Call (416) 783-7890 and press “1″ for service.

Thanks

Jeff

Digitcom, 250 Rimrock Rd., Toronto, Ontario, Canada