CCNA Voice worth it?

Currently I work for a telecommunications company that has recently migrated it's voice services to in house, we used to use sprint as the backbone. Because of this we have taken on a lot more control and troubleshooting in the Network Operations Center (department I am in). Since we have taken all this on I have learned a lot and had no real prior knowledge of the telephony world other then what we were dealing with prior to the migration.
I have discovered that i have an aptitude for this field and want to increase my knowledge. I am wanting to know if the CCNA Voice certification is worth the effort when it comes to Telephony with regards to the PSTN. Our core network is Cisco, would it be worth it in this case to continue on this path? Or are there any Voice engineers out there with experience in the PSTN that can recommend any other training/certifications? I know SS7 is one of them, and I am studying that but i'm not aware of any SS7 specific certifications that can be taken to improve my resume.

Find more posts tagged with

SAVE $250 on Your CISCO Boot Camp — Use Code "EXAM26"

Exclusively for TechExams members for Infosec Boot Camps starting before April 30, 2026

View CISCO Boot Camps

Comments

JoJoCal19

Apparently the Cisco Voice certs are very worth it. I just got told today that if I had a Cisco Voice cert that I could have one of the IP Engineer positions that are available for a company my father in-law works for. He knows the hiring manager and was talking to him today. Apparently it is not only a union position but also a name your price position because they really need these positions filled and have not been able to fill them with qualified people. My experience is good but they will not budge on the cert.

chmorin

What the IIUC and CVOICE exams are would probably be very good for what you mention. The new exam, that replaces those two options, is probably not so good anymore. It focuses on administration of a pre-configured environment. This does include some PSTN troubleshooting, but not as much as the IIUC or CVOICE exam would probably. If you will be administering a call manager environment, then it is a great certification to get as it does that and shows proof of basic voice concepts. If you are trying to simply prove knowledge of voice concepts, it might not be the best choice anymore.

At least, that is what I get from it. I have not taken the new exam or seen any press material released on it. I'm going off of exam topics.

I'm not sure for any alternatives either, sorry. Havn't looked around.

chmorin

phoeneous wrote: »

Voice is awesome and I'm really pissed that IIUC is ending Why couldn't they give me at least 6 more months ggrrr...

IIUC can still be applied to help you get some specialist certifications, if you are interested in the small business CUCME stuff.

drkat

Depends on the type of provider you are? My company does SIP/SCCP with Broadsoft as our feature server. We dont "own" any numbers so we have SIP originations from class 4 carriers and we use a MSX to route traffic to our different platforms.

SS7 is gonna be a good PSTN read - also read up on Genband/Lucent 5ESS - protocols like ISUP etc it's a BIG world out there and there are so many connections it's ridiculous.