For IT
Network requirements
Phone calls are only as good as the network under them. Your IT team runs your network; this page lists what it needs before cutover, so your phones work well from day one.
Who looks after what
Pylon is an advanced phone system for IT teams to run. We take care of the phone service; your team takes care of the network it runs on.
Pylon
- The phone service, phone numbers and calling carriers
- Number transfers (porting)
- Phone provisioning, call flows and 911 location data
- Datacenters across the US, with failover
- Engineer support for your IT admins, all in the USA
Your IT team
- Cabling, switches and power (PoE or adapters) for every phone
- VLANs, DHCP, DNS and firewall settings
- Your internet service and its capacity
- Wi-Fi, for wireless phones and apps
- Power backup for network equipment
Every phone needs
- A network cable to a switch port: standard Ethernet (IEEE 802.3), the same cabling a computer uses.
- Power: a PoE switch port (802.3at) or a power adapter.
- DHCP, DNS and internet access, so the phone gets an address, finds our service and sets itself up.
Yealink phones set themselves up (zero-touch). Other supported brands use DHCP options, which your team configures with our help.
We check these with you during planning
- Network and switch capacity for the phones
- PoE on the switch ports, or power adapters
- A voice VLAN
- DHCP options for phone setup
- The installation method: a scheduled cutover, or forwarding first
Ask us for the current list of addresses and ports your firewall should allow.
Recommended for clear calls
General good practice for any internet phone system.
Separate voice traffic
Put phones on their own VLAN so voice traffic is easy to prioritize, secure and troubleshoot.
Give voice priority (QoS)
Prioritize voice on your switches, firewall and internet connection, so a big download doesn’t break up a call.
Leave room on the internet line
Each call needs a steady slice of bandwidth in both directions. Plan for your busiest moments, like morning attendance.
Don’t let the firewall “help”
Turn off SIP ALG or “SIP helper” features, and keep connection timeouts long enough for calls.
Back up the power
Phones and switches need power. A battery backup on network equipment keeps phones (and 911) working through short outages.
Test Wi-Fi where it’s used
Wireless phones and apps are only as good as the Wi-Fi signal in that room. Check coverage before you rely on it.
Common network problems that affect calls
If you see one of these, start with the network. Our engineers will share what they see on our side.
| What you notice | Usual cause on the local network |
|---|---|
| You can hear them, but they can’t hear you (one-way audio) | A firewall or router rewriting call traffic (often a “SIP ALG” or “SIP helper” feature), or blocked return traffic. |
| Calls drop after a set time, such as 30 seconds or 15 minutes | Firewall or NAT session timeouts closing the connection mid-call. |
| Choppy or robotic audio | A busy internet connection or network with no priority for voice (QoS), or a weak Wi-Fi signal. |
| Phones won’t register or keep dropping offline | Missing DHCP or DNS, a blocked firewall rule, or power problems on the switch port. |
| Every phone goes down at once | An internet outage, or a switch without power backup during a power cut. |
Not sure your network is ready?
Talk with an engineer before you buy. We’ll walk your IT team through the requirements and check them with you during planning.