A friend with an accounting firm called in a panic. His web connection was dead, along with his phone system.
Clients couldn’t call in. Their email was bouncing. They couldn’t reach his website. And his overpaid partners couldn’t reach clients via email or phone either. The whole firm had screeched to a halt, with folks using their personal cell phones for only the most pressing business. Total disaster.
First time he’d ever seen or heard of such a disaster in his twenty-four years in business.
How could such a perfect storm happen?
A tech at the ISP’s shop had screwed up a router during normal maintenance. After four frantic hours, the accountants were back to accounting.Our non-technical friend was a victim of Progress… at the hands of a blindly optimistic telephone salesman, who happened to also represent an ISP. The ISP, it turns out, was operating a phone business (CLEC) that used VOIP for call connection.
A few questions later, we discovered that our staid accountant was relying on a single vendor… and a single incoming pipe… for all his voice, data and email services. Very risky business indeed.
To prevent a recurrence, we suggested that he separate his phone and network services. Use a full-blown phone company with phone company Quality of Service requirements for your phones. Then pick anybody that suits your fancy for Internet service… preferably on a different set of incoming lines.
The best solution calls for making sure your voice and data services are 100% separated, with no common use anywhere. Each feed should feature separate wiring into your office. The delivery network should employ distinct central switches. Ideally, neither network should depend on the other’s cable, routers, switches or personnel for delivery of any service to you.
If a rep promises they don’t or won’t, ask for maps of both networks. Then ask tough questions about any points at which the networks seem to meet.
You’ll pay a little bit more for distinct services, but a sharp network manager can design your internal network so each provider backs the other up.
Instead of twisting in the wind for a stupid mistake, you’ll always be reasonably safe.
3 comments
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March 17th, 2006 at 3:33 pm
d’OH
OMG! Where were you last week? Our ISP-foneco cratered and left us w/o fonz for 3 days:(
March 21st, 2006 at 8:24 am
Big Red
Wisdom from old seems apropos - Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
March 22nd, 2006 at 9:07 pm
je.saist
I work front lines support for Cox Communications, and I’ve run into this a lot with our VOIP customers. I’m not even sure where to start. First there are those who call in and can’t get online, yet are using the VOIP phone to call in on. Explaining that if they can call on the VOIP phone, then there is no problem with the internet access, the problem is at the computer. Then explaining to them that if they happen to be talking on that VOIP, there isn’t anything we can do to troubleshoot the problem because if I do anything to the modem I will terminate the phone call. Thus the customer needs to call on a completely seperate line. Nine times out of 10, they call back on another phone… also connected through the VOIP modem.
Then there is the whole crowd who fall into the above mentioned problem. They only have “one” home phone, and it’s their cable modem. When the modem fails, the network drop, the DNS serves have an issue, DHCP servers have an issue, or anything happens on the network, the phone is GOING to drop, period. If there is a power outage, the phone is going to DROP. Explaining this to customers after they have experienced the problems is a work in fustration.
The problem, I presume, is made worse by over-eager sales people who don’t think to realize that they may be causing more harm than good. As for me and myself, thanks to the problems I’ve had to fix, I refuse to have any part with VOIP outside of fixing the problems I get during work. It just is not with the trouble.