Anyone work in IP telephony and communications

[Paris2]

I have been invited to an interview for an apprentice for an IP telephony and communications company.

Now they have said that they want someone who is interested in technology and communications. I don't have any experience of this type of work and so don't know if I would find it interesting.

Does anyone here work in this industry and have any experience they would like to share, good or bad?

Also any specific things I can research for the interview or interview tips.

Thanks
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[...]

I work for a company that provides IT support services. VOIP phones make me want to gouge my own eyes out.

Your mileage may vary.

[Rogerborg]

[P.]

If its Cisco kit, drop me a line

[J0Al1]

I now sit with our VOIP team... Very nice they are.
Not sure what they do aside, monitor, install, move, patch, update phone points etc
..
Can I ask them anything for you?

[...]

[Paris2]

It's an Apprentice Engineer position.

I need to do more research, but they install and maintain SpliceCom and ShoreTel, if that mess anything to anyone.

What can people tell me of the industry? Good money? Stability etc.
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[Rogerborg]

You'll want to find out exactly what they mean by Apprentice Engineer.

It could be anything from pulling cables to configuring the call control software at Megacorp Inc (you're welcome).

Phones probably aren't going away any time soon, although more through habit than necessity in some workplaces. It'll get you in contact with customers, which is a good way to springboard to a different job elsewhere.

Protip: when I worked for Mitel, we were told that voice over IP was the equivalent of the Apollo moon missions. That's the level of deluded self importance that you want to fake.
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[ScaredyCat]

[natefz6]

OpenSER SER (now kamailio) would be like getting a novice biker to do an engine strip down and rebuild. If you can master it you will learn a lot but for installing Splicecom and Shoretel you are not going to need much of that in depth knowledge.

Having knowledge of basic networking i.e. DHCP, subnets, routers, firewalls and switches will be more useful I would think. I agree that downloading an asterisk based distro would be a good way to start. I know the Splicecom is linux based (I have one sitting next to me waiting for compliance testing).

Get an asterisk box installed, download some SIP clients like the ones from Counterpath and have a play. Start reading up on Wireshark and learn how to do network captures and extract VoIP traces. Most problems I see from my side are networking related, poor bandwidth/connections and shitly configured networks and firewalls. https://www.voip-info.org has some good info.

As for money and stability, depends on what you are doing and who you work for. I have been doing VOIP for about 12 years and at the same company for 10 of them. I get paid alright. All manufacturers are doing VoIP, ISDN sales are falling and SIP Trunking is on the rise with plenty of years growth.
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[ScaredyCat]

[kawakid]

I know a bit about Avaya and Mitel IP systems, not much to it. You have POE switches for your phones, if you can afford put them on a seperate vlan/networkmto your computers.

You have a phone system that goes in your rack, ths has 2 ethernet ports one for your phone network, one for your data network if they are not the same. The phone system has an rj45 cable that plugs in to your ISDN channel. Some phone systems have analogue ports to connect old fax machines.

Bennefits of IP telephony, you can put phones at home offices remote offices etc.
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[Rogue_Shadow]

VOIP /IP systems and other internet based telephony options is the future.
You'll only be seeing more of it in the coming years, especially in the UK once voice services can be used on residential fibre.
Words of a Copper Network Engineer

If the pay potential is good along with Work/life balance.
Bite their hand off imo

[Paris2]

I got the job

It means a lot to me and I am very, very happy. Thanks everyone for your input.
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