New to the forum, need some guidance

Hey,

Please bare with me, as this may be a little long. Currently I work for a long distance telephone company. We do both TDM voice and VoIP. Our switch is a Nortel DMS-100 and we use Cisco AS5400's and AS5850's for our VoIP traffic. Now I started this job with absolutely 0% experience in the field. I was an above-average computer user at best (I was good enough to know what the BIOS was and that was about it) and knew nothing about VoIP, Codecs, E1's/T1's,Switches, DAX, etc.

I've come a long ways after being here for 1.5 years but I still basically know just enough to get by and some basic troubleshooting. I took a CCNA class and finished about a year ago (never took the cert. exam though) but now want to self-study for the CCNA Voice, and then I want to do the CCVP. I have some questions on what equipment I should get to practice on and what software to get to use for emulations.

I read in another thread that the Cisco 1760 would be a good starter for a router. Now currently, the most I do on the Cisco's we have is build voice dial-peers. Basically I need to get to the point where they hand me a blank Cisco and I can configure everything on it to get it up and completing live voice traffic without any help. Will I be able to learn this on the 1760 and have it translate over to the AS5400's and 5850's? I will also need to know how to use programs like wire shark to troubleshoot why VoIP calls and faxes are failing to complete(I only know very basic troubleshooting). What would be a good book or video to get to teach me all this?

Here's my next question. I have no clue where to even start looking for material that will teach me how to configure and troubleshoot our switch. Like I said, it's a Nortel DMS-100. Am I stuck with just trying to find the manual for it and study that? I need to know how to build trunk groups, how to implement new T1's/E1's, apply dial-code corrections,etc.

And last but not least, does anyone know a good site that I can get some info on for satellite voice circuits, because we got them too lol.

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Comments

chmorin

Well I am in a similar boat as you, but you should be aware of a few things. You said you never got your ccna, and that is a requirement for the ccna voice. So unfortunatly you will need to get that in order to get your cert. I can't tell you much on the equipment part, but depending on which voice exam you are taking will change what you need to learn.

peanutnoggin

jc_smith wrote: »

I've come a long ways after being here for 1.5 years but I still basically know just enough to get by and some basic troubleshooting. I took a CCNA class and finished about a year ago (never took the cert. exam though) but now want to self-study for the CCNA Voice, and then I want to do the CCVP. I have some questions on what equipment I should get to practice on and what software to get to use for emulations.

I read in another thread that the Cisco 1760 would be a good starter for a router. Now currently, the most I do on the Cisco's we have is build voice dial-peers. Basically I need to get to the point where they hand me a blank Cisco and I can configure everything on it to get it up and completing live voice traffic without any help. Will I be able to learn this on the 1760 and have it translate over to the AS5400's and 5850's? I will also need to know how to use programs like wire shark to troubleshoot why VoIP calls and faxes are failing to complete(I only know very basic troubleshooting). What would be a good book or video to get to teach me all this?

JC_Smith,

Welcome to TE first and foremost!

I can only answer a few of your questions so I'll do my best... You can study, take the exam and pass but you will not be awarded the actual certification of CCNA Voice until you complete your CCNA. I will tell you... A lot of the CCNA is going to be foundational that will help you get that "blank cisco router" and be able to configure it from scratch. Simply put... the CCNA Voice will teach you how to setup the voice aspect, but if you cannot add a route or configure a routing protocol on the router... what good does that router do you? I said all that to say, start off with the CCNA material again. Since you've already taken a course on it... it shouldn't be too difficult for your to pickup a few good books Todd Lammle's CCNA or Cisco Press' Official Exam Cert Guide .

Also, the CBT Nuggets or Train Signal training videos are awesome as well. Once you're done with that and have the foundational knowledge of this material, the CCNA Voice material would be next. Starting with the 1760 routers are great because you can add WIC-1T and also they can run ipvoice IOS. Those routers are inexpensive and excellent tools for both CCNA & CCNA Voice. You can pickup a few of these on eBay for pretty cheap. I hope this answers some of your questions... good luck my friend!

-Peanut