[asterisk-users] VoIP PoE phones for restaurant

[Tom Rymes]

On 01/04/2011 8:52 AM, Andy Graybeal wrote:

> Is it possible that I can run one cable to the phone, then run a cable
> from the phone to a computer or another device and have those the phone
> and computer or other device be on separate networks?
> I'm sorry if this sounds newbish; I'm still learning.

I'm no networking expert, but no one else has answered, so I'll give it 
a shot.

It is indeed possible (quite common, actually) to run the wiring as you 
describe. If you want to keep the data and voice traffic separate, you 
can use VLANs to do so. Your switches will need to support VLANS, and 
you will need to configure VLANs to separate the voice and data traffic.

As I understand it, though, you are still subject to the bandwidth 
limitations of the underlying network, so it's still possible that heavy 
traffic from the PC might affect the voice traffic. QOS or other methods 
might be used to help avoid this.

For this reason, I personally prefer to keep my voice and data LANs 
physically separated when possible. Obviously, cost and complexity do 
increase somewhat. It's probably not a good solution for everyone, but 
it sounds like you have a pretty small installation and you might decide 
that the additional cost is justified.

Tom