So your organization is finally planning on upgrading the old PBX, you’ve got a enormous project on your hands, and you are looking for the first things that you need to do to opinion this beast out. Well have no fear because I have been on the planning, design, deployment and support side of the assert over IP business for 10 years and will give you a grand picture overview of what the next 3 to 12 months are going to be like for you. The first thing that you have to know is what the reasons are for the deployment. It is important to keep the reasons for the upgrade in mind when planning and selecting the new system, so as not to get sidetracked into less important reasons during the process. Here are the most current good reasons ones that we run into:
-The old PBX is failing or breaking down all the time.
-People are complaining about how old the phone system.
-There are potential monthly cost savings by converting to SIP trunking.
-You are hearing about improved productivity from other companies using yelp over IP systems.
-There are a lot of new features available that you need.
There are, however, other benefits to upgrading the existing phone system that you may not have conception of and will come out during the process:
-Your old data network gets an upgrade as allotment of the cost of the recent phone system.
-There will be an ability to improve business processes.
-There are many ways customer service and vendor interactions can be improved.
-Faster handset moves, adds, and changes.
This guide assumes that you are looking at getting an on premise voice over IP-based phone system. The other options of getting in on premise traditional PBX system or a hosted voice over IP system are not discussed because they are a minor portion of the overall market at this point.
Planning the VoIP Upgrade
So, where do you start? Well, the first step is assessing your recent phone system and data network. You have to find out what the current capabilities are that you have, what people like about the system and what they don’t like about the system, and especially how the people that are big users of the PBX on the customer and serve desk interaction side make use of the current system and want to improve it. From a calculation standpoint, what it means you have to figure out a bunch of things for every site:
-How many analog and digital phones you have. Which analog handsets can be replaced by low end IP phones (usually all of them will be).
-How many outside lines you have in the effect of voice T-1’s and analog ports
-Number and type of data T1’s at every site. (A T1 can be old for voice, Internet, WAN, or a combination).
-Current wide area network per site bandwidth and utilization.
-Current local area network switches quantity and location; quantity of used ports per closet.
-Any special requirements for ACD, IVR, call recording, handset paging, and application integration.
If you want to catch funding benefit for this you have to get a handle on what your current monthly costs are. Current monthly costs include charges at every site:
-Internet and wide area network circuit costs.
-PBX lease costs.
-PBX monthly service costs. Average cost of additional PBX service on a monthly basis.
-Cellphone costs, since some of these can be offset using single number reach.
-Monthly conferencing costs.
-Monthly maintenance and support on all network hardware and software that may be replaced.
Once you related what your current monthly costs are you’re ready to figure out what the budget for your new project is. The best outcome to the new project would be that your original monthly costs are lower than your current monthly costs, after accounting for new equipment installation services and everything else to place the unique phone system in place, when financed over a 3 to 5 year period with a one dollar buyout at the end so you own the fresh system. You may find out during the course of this planning that it will be necessary to get a unusual Internet phone and wide area network connections in order to realize the desired return on investment so make sure you keep your monthly circuit costs and your financing of equipment, maintenance, and installation separate..
Choosing VoIP vendors and resellers
There are two choices to make next. One of the choices is to determine the manufacturer of the new phone system that you want to purchase, the other choice is to pick a local vendor who’s going to do the effect installation and support of the new system. To glean the best price and the best service on the fresh system you should go about this in a very specific way. Customers have found in many cases that it’s best to get a phone system from a manufacturer who has expedient local resellers that will do a top-notch installation of the system, a smooth cutover, enabling all the features that they want, and then support them well in an ongoing fashion afterwards.
The size of the reseller that you probably want to work with depends on the size and needs of your organization. I recommend that you work with the reseller who is colossal enough to handle your business but won’t be overwhelmed by it and is small enough that your business is important to them and they’ll bend over backwards to take care of you. So how do you find a reseller that’s the right size for you? This is where you go back to the phone system manufacturers to catch some options.
The major phone system vendors are the best source to find out the local resellers. The major vendors of voice over IP systems at this point in time are Cisco Systems, Avaya, Mitel, Shoretel, and Digium Switchvox. If you contact these vendors either online or through their local salespeople you can ask them for a recommendation of their top three resellers who would do a good job for you. After you get those reseller names from the vendor try to secure their recommendation of whom that you should really work with, then call that reseller, as well as the other two.
At this point you should have three equipment vendors three resellers for these vendors will have nine good options of a local business that will do a ample job for your voice over IP upgrade. Be aware though as soon as you begin this process of contacting vendors you are going to start getting phone calls because people know that you’re interested. Now, that may be a way that you can find out who’s the most involved to collect your business, but it also might just give you unprejudiced indication of who has the most aggressive
So be very clear to everyone your expected timeframe is going to be, that you can take your time and select the best vendor review, and if they bug you excessively that will put them on the bottom of your list. By the device, you should start this process at least six months before you want to have a new phone system up and running. It is going to you 2 to 3 months to seize a vendor, another month to figure out pricing and financing, and from when you say go it will prefer about two months to get the equipment then another month to fully set up and cut over to the new phone system.
Vendor expectations
What you should expect from these vendors is that they are going to want to meet with you determine what your needs are, do a walk-through of your existing systems and find out any special requirements that you have. They will then try to sell you on some specific feature that their system has that nobody else has and try to get you to see a demo of their system. I recommend that you see the demo of their system, don’t buy into any of their must have weird special features, then ask them for a list of reference customers about your size and requirements that you can call and talk to to see how things went. Definitely call these reference customers and see how the reseller did during the design phase, how competitive their pricing was, how they did during the installation, and what their support was like after the sale.
During this part of the engagement is when you have the most leverage and you can get the most things for free. By all means take the time to accumulate some safe lunches and get to know the people that are going to potentially doing work for you for. Furthermore find out who is actually going to be doing the installation for you, if they’re going to be coming from out of state, or if they are local and are going to be available for support after the installation. Don’t be afraid to ask this query as it is perfectly valid and definitely will have a bearing on the outcome of the project and should be a decision factor for you.
At this point you should have proposals from everyone of your vendors and you can start comparing them. Some phone system vendors will try to give you just a monthly cost with a summary description of the parts, then say hey that’s the way it’s done. Since most of the voice over IP vendors are coming from the data side of business they expect that you’re going to be wanting a line item pricing and a bottom-line cost. You can then exercise this to decide what you want finance or not. If you’re not getting this ask for line item pricing and the specific part and model numbers of equipment and a complete breakout of what the annual maintenance costs are going to be.
Annual maintenance is broken down into three areas. Annual product maintenance which provides for support and replacement of hardware and software, upgrade maintenance costs which allows you to upgrade the applications, and a local vendor support contract. All three areas of maintenance are valid. The first two are very important and should be bought in just about all cases, and a local support contract should be purchased if you are not going to have someone qualified to operate the equipment after it’s installed.
Since this is a allege over IP system you should expect that you’re going to be able to hurry the system over a new data network and not on a separate network that you keep in parallel to the existing one. This means that the company is putting in your state over IP phone system should have honorable networking capability and be able to demonstrate that they understand Quality of Service, which is tuning the network equipment to differentiate between different types of data and prioritize voice. This is easy to do on a local area network, somewhat challenging to do on a wide-area network, and difficult to do over a firewall connection to the Internet. If you are looking at doing SIP trunking make sure the vendor shows where they are going to apply quality of service on all the SIP voice paths.
Making a VoiP phone system decision
So at this point you should have your line item proposals with all the pricing, with all the installation and maintenance included, have seen the demos, and have gotten a chance to meet with the local vendors and contact their reference customers asked some basic questions. Step back and asked her steady basic questions at this point. Ask the vendor if there’s anything that you’re missing. Ask the vendor if any parts or over engineered. Ask the vendor if this is the best price, then go one step further and ask the reseller if there’s any method to regain better pricing out of the vendor. Sometimes there is an end of fiscal quarter or year coming up and it’s possible to gain a few extra points discount or some other concessions thrown in.
During the process you’ve probably eliminated some vendors from consideration, because you’ve been trying to narrow your list of nine vendors down to about three. For those six vendors that you eliminate call and give them a good reason so that they deathly know why they’re out of the running and what they can do about it in the future with other customers.
For the other three, let them know that they made the shortlist and given the timeframe for when you’re going to construct the evaluation and the decision. Go through whatever decision-making process your organization uses and settle on one vendor. As you go through the final contract negotiation with this vendor, the other two on the shortlist who haven’t made it are going to be calling you nonstop unless you let them know that you have placed the order with somebody else and that they’re out of the running. This is a diminutive industry and there are not a lot of companies that do a good job in this space; I recommend next you let them know that they did not make the cut in a nice professional way and that you appreciate all the hard work that they did on your behalf. At some point in the future you may be calling them for assistance, and you want to make clear that you parted on good terms.
Finally, as you start the installation with your vendor of choice, make positive you work closely with her project management team and get them all the information that you’re looking for as speedy as possible. This is going to accomplish your installation go much smoother, faster, and successful. Hopefully this guide has been helpful to you in describing the process of how to go through and choose a voice over IP solution vendor, as well as give you some conception of what to expect.
Please let me know if you have any questions or comments on any parts of this. If you have specific questions about your status, please ask them at Geeknick.
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Filed under Small Business Pbx by on Jan 25th, 2012. 
- The threats of Cyber Attack and Cyber Inconvenience on the Internet are real and escalating.
- Do not rely on governments, corporations, and the private sector to protect you.
- Develop and implement an individual, personal Internet Disaster Recovery Thought, now.
The Threat of Cyber Attack and Cyber Disaster
During the cold war, we knew who the bad guys were, and they had nuclear weapons. There was a finite group, and there was a deterrent, because they knew that if they attacked us, we would know that they attacked us and we would attack them back. That’s a significant deterrent. But now, anybody who goes down to Best Lift or Radio Shack can engage a computer for two or three hundred dollars, and they have Internet connectivity. And these individuals can . . . have a weapon of mass destruction sitting on their desk in their bedroom.
Overview of the National Security Threat
James Christy
U.S. Department of Defense
The threats of cyber attack and cyber peril are real and escalating. Network infrastructure and information, data, and communication systems are all at heightened cyber risk of cyber attack and cyber disaster. Intrusion, spyware, malware, viruses, worms, et al. are some of the weapons in this overt and covert cyber warfare. Cyber risk assessment, cyber risk mitigation, and cyber security protocols and practices must be a national priority.
Internet security, .equally, for you the individual, is famous. Cyber security must be an individual, personal priority.
Are you personally prepared to survive a Cyber Armageddon? Do you have an individual, personal Internet Disaster Recovery View?
Internet Disaster Scenario
It’s Sunday, 11pm EST. You’ve just finished the final draft on three articles for Associated Content. One – with great keywords and keyword phrases you’ve extracted from four day’s deep research pouring over forecasting models and trend analyses – is not time sensitive and you’re submitting non-exclusive for upfront payment. The second, a C4C, has to be in by tomorrow. The third, to jack up your PV’s immediately, you’re submitting for display only.
You crank into your wireless network and go to the Associated Content residence to log in. Seconds trudge…and stride. You know what’s coming.
You get a 404, “requested resource could not be found,” error message. Shit! Before you can move, you get a 410, “Gone,” error message. What? You’ve never seen that one before. While you’re quiet trying to digest that one, a 500, “Internal Server Error,” error message slaps you into a smile. System’s fail, you remember, and you approach to reboot. Before you can, the screen goes black.
Whatever… You turn your desktop off manually and then go to the laptop. You power up, hit the network – and nothing. Black veil. You do a system repair and watch as the usual “disabling…,” “enabling adapter” messages come, and wait for the “connecting to wireless network” and “renewing IP address” messages. They don’t come. Instead, you get “unable to connect to network.”
O.k., o.k., you’ll check the router and the modem. The router and modem seem to be a.o.k., but you power them off anyway and then encourage on. You go back to your desktop, bring it up, hit the network, and – dim screen.
Damn ISP! Some genius network admin doing unannounced maintenance. You’re going to call and ream someone a new asshole.
You pick up your digital phone to dial – but it’s slow. What?
O.k., it’s becoming clearer now. You turn on the TV to check the cable objective to make sure. Yup. Honest as you suspected. The entire ISP bundled service package, Internet, phone, and cable, is down.
You stop by the kitchen, refill your glass of Pinot Noir, and flip your cell open to give the ISP a wake-up call. Your cell announces the numbers as you punch them in, you push ‘dial,’ and get primed to nail someone. No ring on your cell. In fact, no sound. You cancel out and redial. Nothing.
Your cell service provider is different from your ISP. Why can’t you call your SP? Battery charge and signal bars are full.
Maybe you’re too tired to consider straight. You go to bed. The gremlins will be exorcized by tomorrow morning.
Monday morning, early. You’re up, showered, and in the kitchen grinding your Starbucks coffee in 20 minutes. While the coffee brews, you stroll into the study to power up the desktop. You go through the start-up routine, bring up your three files, and hit the network. Nothing. UFB!
You check the landline and the cell. Nothing. TV? Zip.
You go out to get the newspaper, expecting a headline or at least a front page allotment on some local technical snafu. The newspaper isn’t in the driveway. You look in the bushes along the driveway, in the front yard, and up and down the street. No newspaper.
Somebody’s playing a joke on you. You don’t know how or why, but when you find out who, they’d better have a paid up insurance policy.
You go benefit inside, turn off the coffee maker, copy your files to a diskette, get into your car, and drive to your FWB’s house. She’ll smooth be home this early and will let you upload your stuff through her machine.
You use the key she’s given you and slip into her bedroom, maybe prepared for a little diversion. She’s sitting up in bed, still in her red silk PJ’s, her PC on her lap.
“Late night, Darlin’ or early morning? “
“Wow! Jack, am I happy to see you! I can’t get my computer to work. Can you help me? “
You stare at her in disbelief and whisper “No.”
“I’ll be back.”
You go back to the car and drive to the corner gas station where there is a POTS payphone. You call the ISP. You notice a odd buzzing, with intermittent clicks, on the line before you get the message “Due to unexpected call volume, we cannot answer your call. Please call back.” Click. Tiring,.
This is beginning to seem like a seedy plot from “The Twilight Zone” or “The X-Files.”
Your ISP has a local office about five miles away. You drive there.
This early, the parking lot should be nearly empty. But this morning, it’s jammed, with a dozen or so cars having Emergency Management insignia and Highway Patrol tags.
The front doors to the ISP are wide open. Odd. It’s already in the mid 80’s – haven’t these clowns heard about conservation? You walk in and are met by two men in dark suits.
“I.D., please.”
You don’t respond immediately. They step back and to your sides, flanking you, and instinctively slip their fair hands inside their jackets.
“I.D., please.” A miniature louder and less conversational.
HFS!
“Uh, I wanted to talk to somebody about my computer.”
“On the floor, now! Hands slack your head!” You obey.
After they search you for weapons, find your I.D. and over walkie-talkies confirm you identity, they help you to your feet.
“Sorry for the inconvenience, sir. Please go home.”
They’ve got your attention now and you immediately move to comply, heading out the front doors to your car.
As you drift toward your car, Billie, a friend of yours with the ISP, comes out a side door for a smoke.
“What is going on, Billie?!”
“We don’t know, Jack. Everything with any hook to the Internet is locked up and down. Been that way since before midnight.”
*****
“Twilight Zone”? “X-Files”? Trailer for next season’s “24″ premiere? Nope. 2008 Specter of Internet Threat Reality. And it may not be “if,” but “when”: Internet down.
Don’t Rely on Government, Corporate, and Private Sector “Black Hats” for Internet Protection
There’s government-this and global-that trying to blunt cyber attacks, trying to keep cyber danger from happening. There are US government departments and agencies, corporate IT’s, and private sector Internet security and Internet vulnerability firms. They all are trying to halt one step ahead of the whiz bang individual hacker, the technologically enabled terrorist cell, and the rogue nation-state committed to bringing it all down – to tumble the 21st Century backward to the 14th Century.
But, what can YOU do to CYA? What is YOUR Internet Disaster Recovery Plan to safeguard you, your personal interests and property, your small business, when the Internet goes down?
Recommendations for Your Internet Disaster Recovery Plan
1. Absorb and use firewall software on your primary workstation.
2. Run the latest scan and clean software on your well-known workstation, daily.
3. Back-up your mission-critical output/production files to CD and diskette. Make two copies. (External hard drives or memory sticks are other options.)
4. Run the latest scan and clean software against your back-ups.
5. Do your back-ups weekly or more frequently, if working on a large-scale project or completing a project.
6. Keep one set of copies in a physical fail safe location like a safety deposit box or a personal, fireproof safe.
7. Don’t keep any mission-critical information, data, or output only on the Internet. Going back through your scanned and cleaned primary workstation, include these in your back-up routine. (See Step 3, above.)
8. Maintain a standalone system which IS NOT connected to the Internet. NEVER connect it to the Internet. Spot a copy of your weekly back-ups on this system. In case you need hardcopy output, be sure to include sufficient, minimal peripherals with the system. For example, printer, plotter, et al. Never connect the peripherals to the Internet.
9. Never install or load anything except your personal back-ups directly to your standalone system. No freeware, no upgrades, no games or graphics – nothing…not even from friends.
10. Remember how to consume a pencil and paper.
These Internet Disaster Recovery recommendations come from nearly ten years’ federal, state, and corporate IT experience and practice with Emergency Management, Disaster Recovery, and Business Continuity Planning. Also, they come from being a writer with notable intellectual property and knowing how destructive things would/will become if/when the Internet goes down. Finally, they come from a small business owner who has a vested interest in not only his survival, but the survival of America.
The threats of cyber attack and cyber disaster are real and growing. Protect your interests and property from cyber destruction. Gain your individual, personal Internet Disaster Recovery Plan a priority.
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Filed under Small Business Pbx by on Oct 30th, 2011.
For a business that is just starting out and has a limited budget, an Internet-based phone system will save money, provide maximum flexibility and make a great first impression on customers. In the past, businesses that have wanted a sophisticated phone system have had to use thousands of dollars to purchase and install hardware, only to be locked into equipment that quickly becomes obsolete. By using an Internet-based phone system (sometimes called a virtual pbx) the business owner can be up and running within minutes for very little upfront cost, and will always have the most up-to-date technology at his or her disposal.
There are many companies that offer Internet-hosted phone systems. In choosing one, you will want to consider the features offered, any set-up charges (which are typically less than $100), the monthly account charge, and any charges for calls made and received. If you already have a phone number, you will want to check if it can be ‘ported’, or transferred to the new provider. Most companies offer both toll-free numbers and local phone, so if you are getting a new number, you’ll need to decide. You may also want to check if you will own the number, which will allow you to transfer to a different provider in the future.
The central feature of a hosted phone system is the auto attendant. When callers dial your number, the auto attendant will answer the call and exhibit a list of extensions and other options. In addition to listing available extensions, many auto attendants include dial-by-name capability. Once the caller chooses an extension, the auto attendant will either send the caller directly to voice mail or else ring one or more physical numbers for a space amount of time before sending unanswered calls to voice mail. It is up to you to program the attendant to follow the sequence of actions you wish, and this can vary by extension, time of day, and day of the week. The sincere phone can be located anywhere – in your office, across town, or in another county.
Although a hosted phone system can be set up using standard phone lines, the most flexibility and cost savings are achieved when you consume the system with VoIP phone lines (calls are transmitted via the Internet), and IP phones designed to budge directly into your local status network. While this will increase your initial cost, it is well worth the investment.
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Filed under Small Business Pbx by on Oct 23rd, 2011.
Since immemorial communication has been an integral fraction of our life and will continue to be so. With an increase in globalisation and constant boost in world economy, communication has become a high priority area. As a result the selection of an appropriate channel of communication is one of the most critical decisions to be taken by an organisation looking at a long and successful run. Up until now public switch telephony network was the in monopoly. However with changing times, internet has provided us with an extremely beneficial alternative to it, namely VoIP.
Understanding The Working Of VoIP
VoIP or voice over internet protocol is a technology that works through internet. Unlike PSTN (public switch telephony network), voice over IP converts voice which is analog signal format into small sized digital IP packets and terminates it via Internet to the final destination or receiver. Before reaching the final destination these shrimp digital IP packets are reconverted into analog signals i.e. your voice.
The number of people deploying VoIP call termination service is constantly rising with no sign whatsoever of slowing down. This is chiefly due to the numerous benefits of this proper service. Let us have a eye at how this service can help us gain.
Advantages Of VoIP Services:-
Cost Deduction – VoIP helps in tremendously cutting down the cost of calling as compared to PSTN. You can end up saving over 40% for every call made through this service.
Efficiency- Announce over IP services works on packet switching instead of circuit switching technology thereby increasing the overall efficiency which has a advise impact on the productivity which too rises.
Flexibility – One of the major benefits of using this turn key technology is that you can get VoIP calls from across the globe irrespective of the network from where you are connected to.
Convergence- VoIP allows convergence of notify, data and video through a single network i.e. Internet. This proves to be advantageous for virtual workers or even while you are traveling.
More Features Functionality - With instruct over internet protocol, you get multifarious features with your telephony which are either not possible through PSTN or you are charged heavily for it. For instance, call forwarding, 3 way calling et cetera.
Disadvantages Of VoIP
Till a few years relieve VoIP was a technology almost unheard of and the only people who knew about it were either the IT professionals or the so called technology geeks. Even with number of advantages that voice over IP bestows upon us, it wasn’t given preference by the users. This was chiefly due to its quality. Jitters and fraudulent billing were some of the common issues that disappointed the users. Over a period of time constant improvement in the technology and awareness about its advantages has changed the entire scenario with most of the corporates and residentials switching over to VoIP service.
Impact Of IP Telephony On Business
Corporates from all sectors of the industry have acknowledged the golden points offered by IP telephony and this is precisely why they have started slowly but consistently bewitching towards deploying this service. A business irrespective of its size and area of expertise can successfully and profitably switch over to this service.
With the support of VoIP solutions and services business houses can substantially increase their revenue as well the productivity of the organisation. Gone are the days when PBX was used in organisations. Its place has now been taken over by VoIP PBX. It enables inter and intra office calls to be made at running cost. One can only imagine the savings that it leads to not to mention the rise in the efficiency of functions.
All said and done, no one can challenge the fact that VoIP is back and this time to stop. It won’t be too long before all of us would be making cheap calls across the globe with a smile on our face.
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Filed under Small Business Pbx by on Sep 5th, 2011.
There are many types of phone services and systems to choose from these days. Phone companies and services vary in packages and service as much as insurance companies do. You can choose a pre-built package or you can custom build the package that is suitable for your business needs. The following are a few types of phone services you can settle from.
The Announce over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is the choice of most sole proprietors and shrimp business offices that need only a few phone lines and voice mailboxes. This is an Internet-based phone service and requires that a business have a computer network with enough bandwidth to carry the system. This system type requires that a company purchase more than just phones. Once a business owner determines how many calls will be coming in they need to occupy the correct equipment in order to accumulate the highest-quality. VoIP system providers each have specific recommendations for equipment. Dedicated routers are proprietary with each carrier. There are some that allow for the use of regular phone equipment that are adapted to their system but more often than not, VoIP providers will require that a company purchases and installs their equipment in order to ensure that the system works properly.
Another popular phone system is a Private Branch Exchange or PBX. This system consists of onsite switching equipment in order to route calls between employees as well as outside lines. Most people are familiar with the standard PBX because when main switchboards were introduced, PBX systems became very popular. Many hospitals still use these because of their reliability. These types of systems often work best for medium and large businesses. If you are a business that isn’t all that comfortable with immerging VoIP technology this may well be your acknowledge. These systems also sport more sophisticated auto-attendant features such as specific call forwarding as well as being able to program different messages for different lines.
PBX systems are more expensive than the VoIP system. Start up costs for a PBX system will hurry into some money because you will have to purchase switching equipment as well as current phones. The PBX system is the most used business phone system to date however more and more companies are changing to VoIP systems as the technology grows.
Finally, there is the Virtual PBX which is sort of a hybrid of the two systems together. The Virtual PBX layers an auto-attendant PBX system within the phone lines, it sort of doubles up on PBX and VoIP. Using this type of system will allow your business to use all of the lines you have. These systems will run you about $45 per month. The cost will be more or less when taking into consideration the features and the number of lines that your business requires.
Choosing the lawful business phone system will take some time and research if you are to do it correctly. It is best to consider all of the possibilities in the beginning so that you don’t salvage yourself changing mere months or even a year later. Take into consideration what your recent needs are and also what your future needs may be. Remember that for some of your customers your phone system is the first “face” they stare, make determined your first impression is a good one.
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Filed under Small Business Pbx by on Aug 12th, 2011.