Telecom Talk

Why I love my iphone

2012-02-10T08:18:00.000-08:00

My first experience with a "Smart Phone" was a Palm Treo. I bought the phone because I did not want to carry both a Palm Pilot and a cell phone around with me and I could run my Act Contact database on the Palm Treo. It had the capability to access the internet but it was terribly slow. It was painful to try and do anything on the web. It had a 1.o megapixel camera that took blurry pictures and video. Nonetheless, I was happy with it because I could get into my contact database while I was on the phone. I was thrilled to have consolidated my cell phone and Palm Pilot into one gadget.

The next step in my smart phone evolution was a Blackberry Pearl. Email worked great. It had a slightly better camera. The internet experience was tolerable. Surfing the web was still a little painful, but I could read the news or access my online banking without too much trouble. It was around this time that the iphone came out. I did not run out and buy one immediately for two reasons. The first was the price - I think it was around $500 when introduced. The second was that I would have to go on the AT&T network. I have been a Verizon cell phone customer since 1997 and I have found the call quality and reliability to be excellent. I conduct a lot of business on the cell phone and I cannot afford to have dropped calls. I had friends that were on AT&T and had heard too many horror stories about how lousy their network was.

Soon after the iphone became available on the Verizon network in 2011, I purchased an iphone4.
Nine months into the iphone experience I am just amazed at what it can do. I have had zero technical problems. The apps are easy to install and they work well. With a single device, I have consolidated the cell phone, satellite radio,navigation system, kindle reader, digital camera, digital voice recorder, video camera, ipod(or mp3 player) into one gadget! And that's not all! There is an app for everything and I can usually find what I need with free app. I had no idea before I bought one just how great a device it was. I don't even bring my laptop with me anymore when I leave the office because I can pretty much do whatever I need to to do on my iphone.

As a business tool, the messaging works really well for me. It's really easy to cut and paste phone numbers and info into text messages. I have become a bigger fan of texting since getting my iphone. It's a great way to stay in touch with busy colleagues. It is much more efficient than leaving them a voice mail message. If they have an iphone and there is a phone number in the text they can click on it. Addresses in text messages will take you to google maps and navigation.

The one criticism that I have is the email. There may be an app out there to address this that I am unaware of, but it's hard to go back through and search your emails. You have to scroll through them chronologically to find an old email. If you are an uber-emailer and you have to go back and search for old emails then you may not be happy with the iphone.

Last but not least, the iphone works great as a plain old phone too. Voice quality is excellent. Battery life is good, I get a full day's use out of a charge. I like the visual voice mail where I can see all my voice mail messages and choose what I want to listen to. The speaker phone works great too!

Do you have questions about your phone system or telephone service? Please feel free to contact me!

Adam Stern
Atlantic Business Systems
410-239-2227
astern@absphones.com
www.absphones.com

Is it time for an upgrade?

2012-01-09T11:44:00.000-08:00

Did you know that phone sets are pretty much "dumb" terminals and that the features and capabilities come from the Key Service Unit or PBX that the phones are tied into? Many manufacturers such as Nortel, Avaya & Vodavi allow you to use your old telephone sets and upgrade your system to allow for the latest features and capabilities. Given that the cost of the phones is a major portion of the price of a new phone system, there is an opportunity to get upgrade for a fraction of the price of an entirely new phone system.

Even with Nortel phones dating back to the mid 1990's, you can upgrade to the Nortel BCM or the state-of-the-art Avaya IP Office. This allows you to implement features such as VOIP lines and VOIP Phones and to do cell phone integration while still using your old digital phones.

We were a Vodavi dealer dating back to 1991 before they were purchased by Vertical a few years ago. One of the most popular phone systems for small business was the Vodavi STS phone system. (STS 24 button digital phone pictured at left). The STS was a digital system that offered PBX features and capabilities at a price point that was very affordable for our customers. The system was very reliable and we sold hundreds of these before the STS was discontinued recently. The STS was what I would call all the best in digital telephony but it had some major drawbacks. It would not do VOIP and it had a non-user friendly interface making it difficult for our customers to administer the system. Fortunately, when Vertical discontinued the STS about a year ago, they made the phones compatible with their new VOIP system for small business: The Vertical SBX IP 320. The SBX has an easy to use browser based interface making it easy to administer. You can also utilize SIP(VOIP Phone Lines) and VOIP Phones.

And no discussion of telephone upgrades would not be complete without mentioning the Avaya Partner System, probably the most popular phone system for small to medium size business ever manufactured. The system was on the market for about 10 years before being discontinued. Avaya now offers a "Partner Mode" on their IP Office phone system that allows you to use the old Partner phones.

If you don't think you should upgrade right now, you might want to consider the fact that once a system is discontinued the price for replacement parts goes up. The pricing on Partner ACS processors has about doubled since it was no longer manufactured. Vodavi STS parts are very scarce at the moment. Not only you are you at risk of being down while you scramble around looking for replacement parts, but you could get stuck with an expensive repair bill!

Would you like to discuss your upgrade options? Please feel free to give me a call.

Adam Stern

410-239-2227
astern@absphones.com
www.absphones.com

Selecting the right type of Phone Service for your business

2011-12-13T12:52:00.000-08:00

One thing that is sometimes overlooked when shopping for a new phone system is how important having the right type of circuit is. There have never been more options for business phone service than there are now, and having the right phone service plays an important role in how efficient and cost effective your communications are. Even if you are not considering purchasing a new phone system, I would recommend shopping your phone service every couple of years.

Here are some examples of the products being offered:

Analog Phone Lines: Even though more and more voice traffic is shifting to VOIP, the telco providers still have a lot of companies using analog phone lines. They are very affordable, call quality is excellent, and they are very reliable. For a small business with five or six lines and basic communications needs, analog lines are a perfectly good choice.

PRI: A PRI is a digital circuit. A full PRI is 24 channels. One channel is used for caller ID so the other 23 are available for incoming and outgoing calls. When you have over a certain number of analog lines a PRI becomes more affordable. With a PRI you can have DID (Direct Inward Dialing) Numbers so that each person in the company can have their own phone line and be called directly without having to go through an attendant or be routed through voice mail. Cell phone integration, sometimes referred to as "twinning" requires a PRI as well.

SIP: Sip lines or "trunks" are VOIP lines. They have been around for about five years now. I have not seen a big push for SIP trunks in my region. I'm not sure why, but I think the telco companies are reluctant to push the technology because it takes away from their highly profitable analog phone lines and PRI circuits. I think that the main advantage of SIP is cost with a line being about $20 per month. Like a PRI you can do DID and cell phone "twinning" on SIP trunks.

Cable Phone Lines: I have noticed that Cable companies have become very aggressive going after the business phone line market. I deal with a lot of small businesses and they are switching because of the cost savings over using analog lines and dsl. They usually get much faster internet speeds with cable along with the savings. Cable companies do an "analog" handoff so that the lines will work with your old traditional pbx or key system. You do not need a VOIP phone system to use Cable phone lines. They also sell PRI Circuits.

Flex Circuits: One thing that the major carriers like Verizon, XO, Paetec etc. are selling is what is called "flex circuits". What they do with these circuits is combine your voice and data into one circuit. They will guarantee a certain amount of bandwidth for your voice traffic and when the voice lines are not in use, the bandwidth will be freed up for faster internet speed. They will deliver your voice lines as an analog handoff or PRI to your PBX.

Shopping your phone service is easier than you think. All you have to do is give a copy of your bill to one of the carriers and they will analyze it to tell you how you can save money and or provide you with a better product for the same price. Most of the time when I shop a Customer's service, I can save them an average of about 20%. As a full service telephone company, we do cutovers all the time when Customers switch from one carrier to another. For the most part it is a pain free procedure. It's easy to port your phone numbers over and there is very little downtime in the process.

If you have any questions about whether you have the right type of phone service for you business, feel free to give me a call.

Adam Stern

www.absphones.com
astern@absphones.com
410-239-2227

VOIP Explained

2011-11-30T15:39:00.000-08:00

I get calls all the time from customers telling me they want to purchase a VOIP phone system. When I ask them what it is about VOIP that will benefit them most of them think that they can save money. At this point, I tell them that VOIP really does not mean any one thing. There are a number of different ways to use VOIP with your business phone system. Here are some of the different applications for VOIP:

VOIP Phone Calls: You can make phone calls over the internet using VOIP. These calls go out over your internet connection not a telephone line. You can make domestic calls for free and international calls very cheaply.

VOIP Phones: VOIP Phones are hard wired telephones that connect to your LAN and access your internet connection. They will synch up with your VOIP PBX phone system and allow you to function just as if you were connected to your office where your PBX resides. You can make and receive calls, transfer calls, intercom & check voice mail from wherever you are connected. It is all seamless to the outside caller, they have no way of knowing that you are at a remote site.
There are also software VOIP phones that you can use on a laptop, ipad or smartphone. These work the same way as a hard wired phone. It is a seamless connection to your office and you can stay in touch wherever you have a wi-fi connection. If you are out of the Country, you can intercom back and forth with your office and make calls in the US without incurring any charges.

The Avaya IP Office 500 has a teleworker application that uses VOIP and your local landline together. You can make and receive calls on your analog phone line (such as your home line) and the outside caller will only see your office phone line where your VOIP PBX resides. Callers can call the office number and the IP Office 500 will route the call to your home number. Companies are saving a lot of money by getting rid of offices full of cubicles and setting those people up in home offices using this technology. Employees are much happier working from home and they can be more productive without the downtime of a commute every morning.

Site to Site: You can have an office in DC and an office in California with a VOIP PBX at each
end. With VOIP you can transfer calls and intercom site to site just as if both offices were all on one phone system. Many fortune 500 companies with offices all over the world use their data network and VOIP to seamlessly route calls between offices. If you are on a tech support call for example, you may start out in a call center in India and wind up being transferred back to a US call center as the call is escalated or if you need to go to a different department.

You do not have to go what is called "full VOIP" to utilize these technologies. Many of the VOIP capable phone systems are what they call "converged" systems. They will allow you to use analog phone lines, a PRI circuit or SIP trunking. You can have digital telephones in the office and just use VOIP to connect phones outside the office or to transfer calls between offices. The telephone PBX manufacturers started coming out with converged systems about five years ago so that you could utilize your traditional telco technology and deploy VOIP as needed.

One thing that is worth mentioning too is that there is some IT work involved to deploy VOIP for your business. If you do not have an in-house IT department. You will need an IT consultant to configure your network. You need to make sure you have enough bandwidth and that the voice traffic is being handled properly over your network so that you get good call quality.

If you would like to discuss how to deploy VOIP for your business, please feel free to get in touch with me.

Adam Stern

410-239-2227 direct

www.absphones.com

Unified Messaging Explained

2011-11-29T09:30:00.000-08:00

For years now, one of the buzzwords in telecom technology has been "Unified Messaging." To begin with, let's take a look at messaging in the late 1990's to understand the problem that Unified Messaging addresses. There you are in 1999 driving to your appointment. Your customer calls you in the office and leaves a message in your voice mail. Your coworker calls you on your cell phone and leaves you a message. Meanwhile, your boss sends you an email asking for your quarterly sales forecast and he needs it by the end of the day. We have all these ways for people to contact you, but all the information is going to different places. You leave your appointment and check your cell phone voice mail. You call into the office and get your voice mail from the office phone system. When you return to your office at 4pm, you get your email informing you that the boss wants his sales forecast by 5. Your customer that left you a voice mail on the office phone system is mad because you did not respond quickly enough. Do you see what the problem is here? We have all these ways to communicate, but no way to manage it. It is a liability having to be responsible for messages on your cell phone and your office voice mail. Customers get your cell phone number and call you there instead of the office and run up your bill. You are getting time sensitive emails when you are out of the office and cannot respond quickly enough.

Unified Messaging allows you to manage all of your communications in one place. With a smart phone such as the iphone or android, you can be directly linked to all your communications wherever you are without even having to be in the office. There are a number of different technologies in play here. With voice mail to email, your emails are all converted to an audio file and sent to your email. You can now listen to your voice mail messages in the same place you are checking your email. Instead of having to listen to your voice mail messages sequentially through the phone, you can skip ahead to the more import messages. This feature is sometimes called visual voice mail. You can check your email right from your phone or from your home computer or ipad. No matter where you are, you are now getting all of your communications delivered directly to you in your email inbox.

Then there is the problem of customers leaving you messages on your cell phone and on your office voice mail. Unified messaging solves this by giving your customers one number to call to contact you. You do not have to give out your cell phone number. You have a DID number which stands for direct inward dialing. When your customer calls that number your desk phone and your cell phone ring simultaneously. If you don't answer the call then the call is redirected to your office voice mail so that your voice mail messages are only going to one place. You no longer have to provide your cell phone number to your customer. It is much simpler and efficient and you get the added bonus of saving on cell phone costs by no longer having customers call you on your cell phone when you are in the office and could have taken the call on your office phone.

The blackberry solved the problem of getting your emails when you are out of the office. With the advent of "cell phone integration" with your business phone system, the problem of having two points of contact was resolved.

Does anyone still send faxes anymore? I try not to. It seems like such a hassle. Nonetheless, unified messaging addresses faxes as well! You can also assign a separate DID number for faxes. Just like your DID number for your voice calls, this DID is your own personalized fax number. So now your faxes come directly to you, instead of having to walk down the hall to the fax machine and sift through a pile of papers. Like your voice mail messages, the faxes are delivered to your email inbox wherever you are! All of your communications - voice, fax, & email are delivered directly to your email inbox which you have access to via your smartphone wherever you are 24 hours a day. Besides the savings in cell phone costs, think about how much more efficient it is to manage all of this from one place!

If you would like more information about how to implement Unified Communications for your business please feel free to contact me:

Adam Stern

www.absphones.com

410-239-2227