[asterisk-users] network design philosophy and practice

[David Gibbons]

Two separate networks? Did I miss something? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Two separate physical networks means twice the hassle, twice the maintenance, twice the cost, twice the headache. Not to mention the fact that the whole idea of VOIP is to simplify IT and focus on converging data and voice networks.

This is what VLANs and QOS do best. I dare say it's what they were designed foe. I can't think of any reason that I would ever recommend two ports per desk to support telephony -- ever. It's ludicrous to think that two ports will be better than one if we're setting up our VLANs and QOS properly. A phone takes very, very little bandwidth away from the desktop and a decent one will support tagging its frames for the alternate voice VLAN.

--snip--
In almost all cases it is much better to have two seperate networks.
This may be impractical in some smaller installs, but in any office
setting we always do this. The only reason I can think of not to is to
eliminate the cost of the second cable.
--snip--