IP phone installation and setup, help!

[Ultra_Extreme]

Hey guys, im an IT professional and work in local government (dont let that fool you, im actually pretty good ) but ive just been asked to install something ive never dabbled in before....IP phones!!!

Now i know the principles of these from maintaining networks, bunch of phones with RJ45's connect into your standard network switches and somewhere in the place they connect to a router or something that handles the phone system like an old school PABX

Could anyone take me through this from the ground up? what are the options, what are the connection methods, how can i best implement this in a location where there is already a network with network points in each room but where the router is a specialist cisco that cannot be replaced or altered.

 

[Ultra_Extreme]

@Jez erm i really think your jumping to some odd conclusion that knowing how to network hundreds of PC's across my entire county has anything at all to do with VOIP and since im all self taught i missed the side lectures on such protocols that graduates might have had.

@Shelster, thanks for that m8 looks like youve trodden the same path as myself. The setup and layout is all very easy as the phones will be mains powered with switching so the PC's can connect to the phones and both can go down 1 pipe. The switches in the premesis are big ass expensive HP PoE's by and large but not all of them so i dont want to rely on PoE as a solution. I guess my real question was to do with methods of getting the calls out into the wider world. ISDN would seem ideal though it feels a little old fashioned in this day and age. Internet pipe would be preferable however for that i may need a new line as the county manages the adsl on the main one and we have so many VPNs and other things going on that it would prove difficult to organise.

@Trifid - m8 the only difference between a professional and an amateur is knowledge. In my experience you're best off asking and learning and then doing rather than having some braindead muppet with a clipboard come along and do it for 10x the price. However i do appreciate the sentiment and in the long run it may be easier to subcontract, but ill be damned if im not going to learn something about it first.

Is there any kind of ip phone system in existance that operates over a normal telephone line? Like the way old PABX's used to? That is to say telephone exchange/box connected to standard phone line, many phones connected to exchange, exchange handles internal calls freely, someone wants an outside line the exchange routes the phone externally and call is made over normal phone line? Im sorry i dont have all the jargon for that description, but surely such a thing exists? My parents hotel has a London 32 exchange from the 80s that does exactly that only it wouldnt take IP phones! Or probably even touch tone ones lol!!