Taken

Do you know what a modem-router is? I didn't until I started figuring out how to better integrate the nearly forgotten branch offices at my last job. This modem-router was a Netgear 4-port router with a built-in 56.6kbps modem. Yes, that's right, the staff were all splitting a dial-up connection.

Over the years I spent a lot of time attempting to integrate the branch office staff so they were less remote. This included VPNs and Citrix, new hardware and regular visits. Eventually many staff were mobile and it worked mostly well. My final hoorah was supposed to be setting up a new phone system that should have made everyone just 3-digits away. The phone system, 15-years old, needed to be replaced anyway, so it was a good opportunity. However, having never worked in telephony, I look back and realize this was one big job to take on. 90 staff, 5 sites, 1 me. It wasn't a complete failure, but I grew a few gray hairs that have stayed with me.

Lesson one has to be not to push the technology envelope on a tight budget. The immediate project budget was robust but monthly recurring charges had to be kept lean. To make the 3-digit extension scheme work vendors repeatedly told me that VOIP was the solution. Of course it was. But I was also told that it could be done over cable-modems and SDSL. My own figuring told me no, yet I listened to the experienced vendor. No, it can't be done that way and it wasn't.

While the main office, which has a hybrid digital and VOIP phone system, works flawlessly, the branch office have been left in bad shape due to poorer than expected voice quality. The main office project ran into cost overruns because the vendor, CBS Whitcom (site), has no concept of project management or the limits of the technology they hock. Though we had used them for 15-years, that made no difference in the level of care shown in setting up the project. While its sales rep and "lead engineer" (and I do mean that sarcastically) insisted that the setup was workable and that they do it all the time, the site technicians stated it couldn't be done in the first hour they appeared (prior to showing up the techs hadn't even been informed what the job was). Thankfully the techs were smart, competent people and over the next few days made the system at the main office work, but only after we wound up spending a couple thousand more than originally projected due to oversights by the lead engineer.

The false guarantees of CBS Whitcom about VOIP capabilities have stranded the company. The project should have been finished months before I left but it continues to be worked on months after. I feel terrible about this. At least if the system worked, albeit delayed, there would be some closure. Certainly lessons were learned. The biggest was vendors will not treat you fairly just because you're a non-profit. Money is money.

To sooth my guilt-ridden soul, I'm wondering if anyone else was taken as badly as I was.