by | Sep 20, 2016 | Uncategorized
To answer that question you could pick a number out of the air that seems right or if you are moving to a new location decide that “since we had 4 trunk lines in the old place, 4 lines should suit us just fine when we move to the new place.” Let me suggest a more analytical approach. The best answer to the question of how many lines are needed to conduct business efficiently can be derived through a series of calculations using telephone traffic engineering formulas. Telephone traffic engineering is something of an arcane science. It is a field of study founded by Dutch mathematician and engineer A. K. Erlang early in the 20th century. Not limited solely to the realm of telecommunications, though, traffic engineering is just as readily applied to determining, for example, how many tellers are needed in a bank branch to take care of customers on a busy Monday morning or how many lanes of highway are needed to reduce commuter congestion on those get-away Friday afternoons. But regardless of the type of traffic being measured, the goal is always the same: to rationalize resources and satisfy demand in an efficient, cost-effective manner. Having the right number of trunk lines in place is critical to the performance of your telephone system, to the level of service your customers and prospects receive, and to the profitability of your business. To ascertain what that number is, traffic engineering uses probability analysis and statistical forecasting tools to predict levels of caller activity to establish the number of lines needed to handle an expected volume of calls. These...
by | Sep 20, 2016 | Uncategorized
Mobotix Night & Day Camera There are few areas of technology where advances have been more profound than in video surveillance systems. Where once video surveillance consisted of one or two fixed cameras feeding blurred video into a black and white monitor at a central location that was viewed by a security guard who may or may not have dozed off, there now are high resolution computerized camera systems with multiple functions mounted on a network platform that allow for nearly unlimited user options. Built-in software organizes digital video into a manageable database and by the use of video analysis software greatly facilitates targeted monitoring. When looking at video surveillance system manufacturers, industry leader, Germany-based Mobotix, A.G., most often comes to mind. So, let’s see why Mobotix equipment enjoys the market appeal that it does and how it may well serve the security needs of your business. Mobotix manufactures megapixel IP cameras that create accurate, high resolution images that are easily viewed. These durable instruments, with built-in software, are cameras with the attributes of computers. What is more, since software is provided with each camera, there are no licensing or update fees, as updates are delivered free of charge via the company’s website. Moreover, the cameras have no moving parts, no lenses or positioning motors, which translates to minimal maintenance requirements. And weatherproof models can withstand temperatures from -22 degrees to +140 degrees Fahrenheit. High resolution cameras with up to 360 degree views reduce the number of cameras needed to monitor a work area, thus producing a cost savings for the business owner. Mobotix, by building a high-speed computer...
by | Sep 20, 2016 | Uncategorized
No doubt every enterprise is careful to arm its computers with surge protection devices, as nothing can wreak havoc on the operations of a business like damaged hard drives and fried servers. Do telephone systems, so integral to commercial activity, receive the same level of attention? Perhaps not, but they certainly should. A telephone system failure caused by a power surge or lightning strike can inflict a damaging blow to a business. And it can be an expensive ordeal, both in terms of real, out-of-pocket costs to repair or replace a system and in terms of the opportunity costs of missed calls during downtime. These are costs that can be easily avoided by having the right surge protectors on the job. Surge protectors are designed to insulate equipment from voltage spikes, and they do so by diverting and curtailing the voltage supplied to electrical devices. A surge constitutes a level of voltage beyond a safe threshold, which in a typical business setting would be 120 volts. When voltage exceeds that level, the surge protector diverts the stream of current to a ground, thus preventing damage to equipment like telephone systems. While lightning strikes can be the cause of power surges, particularly during summer months, the more typical causes of surges are downed power lines, faulty wiring or the cycling on and off of high-powered electrical components like heavy duty compressors and motors, air-conditioning units and elevators. Though these more common causes don’t inflict nearly the jolt of a lightning strike, they can be strong enough to damage a telephone system. A telephone system actually requires two levels of surge...
by | Sep 20, 2016 | Uncategorized
Polycom Conference Telephone With so many businesses having facilities in far flung locations and with more and more employees working at home these days, teleconferencing has become an effective, rational way to conduct group meetings without the expense and disruption of gathering staff members in a central location. Consequently, improved technology and the economic imperative of businesses to reduce expenses have been responsible for the broader use of teleconferencing telephone systems that we have witnessed in recent years. Examining the benefits of teleconferencing may well be a timely exercise for your business. Teleconferencing is an efficient way of assembling any number of people to communicate interactively by telephone. Typically, in a business setting, the purposes of such conference calls are management or sales meetings to discuss operational developments, to introduce new products or procedures, to train staff, or for periodic progress reports on important projects. Participating in a conference call ordinarily requires that attendees dial a designated number and enter a log-in or PIN in order to connect to the call by way of a conference bridge. A conference bridge is a server that can accommodate multiple calls simultaneously, which makes dialing in easier when a call involves a large number of participants. Depending on the size of the business, a company may deploy its own bridge or utilize a service provider to host conference calls. The use of a log-in or PIN ensures confidentiality and protects proprietary information from being divulged during a teleconference. Communication on a teleconferencing system is two-way, so that everyone on a call can participate. A note of caution here: if the meeting is...
by | Sep 20, 2016 | Uncategorized
One sure way to avoid damage to a business telephone system is to deploy UPS batteries. An uninterruptible power supply, or UPS, is a battery that backs up the primary power source for a telephone system in the event of a service interruption or failure. Depending on the size and capacity of the UPS device, it may also “condition” the flow of current to a system to provide a clean, stable supply of electricity, thereby eliminating drops or surges in power that can damage system components. For business telephone systems, two types of UPS batteries typically are used: (1) line-interactive batteries, and (2) double conversion batteries. Both are considerably more robust than stand-by batteries that often are used to provide back-up power for individual desk top computers. Line-interactive batteries are designed to tolerate continuous under-voltage brownouts and over-voltage surges without consuming the reserve battery power, while double conversion UPS systems, providing the same protections, are appropriate for use on larger business telephone systems. The reliable operation of a telephone system is dependent upon a steady, uninterrupted supply of electrical power. Since business telephone systems have become increasingly computer-based, they have become even more vulnerable to power surges and outages. Telephone systems now contain many components that are sensitive to changes in power flowing to them, including integrated circuit boards, silicon chips and high performance cables, and it is vital to insulate them from dips and spikes in electric current. With companies so dependent on telephone communication for the profitable conduct of business, downtime caused by damage to a system can have substantial costs due to lost sales and missed...
by | Sep 20, 2016 | Uncategorized
You’ve selected a new telephone carrier, confident that the services offered meet the needs of your business, and a date has been set to make the cutover. Now the clock is ticking. The cutover of business telephone service to a new carrier is a major step for any company, no matter its size, and therefore requires a solid game plan. The ideal is that the transition from one carrier to another be as seamless as possible, with no surprises and no disruption of service. But the ideal is not always the reality, so a good plan must contemplate worst case possibilities in order to prepare for them. Moving your telephone numbers (“porting” them) from one carrier to another is permitted so long as your business remains in the same geographic area. In the jargon of the trade, this is referred to as local number portability, or LNP. Regardless of your current phone service carrier, the FCC requires that all land-line service providers allow customers to port their numbers to a new service provider, which is done by way of a location routing number (LRN). By removing the inconvenience of having to change telephone numbers when signing on with a new carrier, you will find that there is greater competition for business among local service providers. When a customer moves its local service to a new carrier, a new LRN is assigned to the telephone numbers being ported. Each local exchange, long distance or wireless carrier needs to know what that new LRN is in order to route calls correctly, accomplished though use of Local Service Management System (LSMS) databases...
by | Sep 20, 2016 | Uncategorized
You’re on the phone with your banker discussing a preliminary plan to acquire a competitor, a matter of utmost confidentiality and though you’ve closed your door, staff members linger outside of your office discussing last night’s ball game. How do you insure that your conversation is not overheard and that word of your plan is not leaked to the public? Shooing the staff members away with a broom may be one answer. A speech privacy system is another and more elegant answer. When you finish the phone call, you step out of your office, walk across the floor and are struck by the level of noise from multiple telephone conversations taking place in cubicles, the clacking of copier machines, the hum of printers, and you wonder how work gets done with all of those distractions. You rightfully become concerned about employee productivity, particularly as you contemplate that acquisition. There must be a way to mask all of that sound, you think. And you’re right. Sound masking in a business environment has become an effective tool to improve worker productivity, which leads to higher profits. Over the years, business management has responded to ever-rising operating and occupancy costs by maximizing the use of existing space and a result of this has been that more employees are being squeezed into those existing spaces. Further, there has been a trend to fewer and smaller private offices and more worker cubicles with lower panels to reduce the costs of lighting, heating and air conditioning. One result of these changes has been a loss of speech privacy; another has been the increase in distractive...
by | Sep 20, 2016 | Uncategorized
You’re looking over last month’s profit and loss statement for the business and when you come upon the line item for telephone expenses you wonder if there’s room for some cost savings. You begin to ask yourself: How many wasted calls are being made every day? Do we allocate the proper costs by department? Are we being billed correctly by our carrier? Are we charging our clients properly? You wish you had a tool to come up with the answers. Well, there is a tool and its name is “Call Accounting”. All major telephone equipment vendors offer call accounting software as an added feature to their systems, and no matter the size of your operation there is an application available that will give you the information to monitor telephone usage and to measure worker productivity. Call accounting systems capture and record telephone usage and produce useful management reports. Initially, such software was developed as a tool to allocate costs between departments or profit centers within large enterprises. While these early versions of call accounting software did not concern themselves with measuring productivity, the effectiveness of sales staffs or with identifying misuse or fraud, new applications perform these and many other functions. In today’s workplace, call accounting systems can be used to audit telephone service invoices and wireless and long distance charges. System outages are easily identified for possible credits from carriers. Toll calls can be tracked as well as any unusual or abusive calling patterns of employees. These systems can assist in measuring the effectiveness of customer service call centers and help management determine the appropriate head count to...
by | Sep 20, 2016 | Uncategorized
NEC UT880 IP Phone with Touchscreen & Speaker Telephone paging systems have come a long way both in terms of sound quality and the variety of ancillary equipment that expand and enhance their use. You don’t have to settle for blast, blare and static or sounding like you’re 20,000 leagues under the sea when using a paging system. Step into the realm of internet protocol (IP) paging, with its broad menu of advanced features and functions. IP paging is suitable for a wide range of businesses, from office buildings and medical suites to manufacturing plants, and from hospitals and schools to automobile dealerships. No matter the venue, the results are always the same: improved productivity and better customer service, which translate to increased profits. Network-based IP paging is more easily installed than legacy wired analog systems and it eliminates the need for and the cost of having separate voice and data networks, since IP paging is deployed by using a company’s existing data and telephony infrastructure. Unlike traditional 70 volt systems that require the use of special shielded wiring to prevent interference and noise from being picked up by a paging system, IP amplified speakers are connected using standard low-voltage telephone and data cabling. There are several ways to connect a paging system to a telephone system. Most telephone systems have external built-in paging ports, while others require a converter for an analog trunk, an analog station or a digital station interface. Paging system amplifiers are used to connect a telephone system to overhead paging speakers and horns. Many paging systems can also support talkback features and ambient background...
by | Sep 20, 2016 | Displayed
Get leading edge technology and lower your telephone service costs. Sound too good to be true? Well, as so many businesses and institutions have come to realize, those are the key advantages gained when switching from a traditional PBX phone system to a hosted VoIP solution. A hosted VoIP system gives your company the benefits of a PBX system plus a lot more, and does so without the investment in capital assets that quickly depreciate and are soon rendered obsolete by ever-advancing technologies. Furthermore, there is no need to put money into maintaining temperature-controlled phone and server rooms that require expensive wiring and air conditioning, and you will avoid having to deploy back-up systems and battery packs to protect against the dangers of equipment failures and power outages. Without all of that added equipment at your facility, you may also find that you’ll be paying lower insurance premiums and smaller utility bills. Just as important, a hosted VoIP service, by utilizing your existing internet connection, will reduce monthly telephone bills. For those new to the idea of a VoIP hosted service, installation is a simple matter. All that’s required are an internet connection capable of meeting your needs for voice and data transmission, a router and IP telephones. What is more, you can have your same business telephone numbers ported to the host provider. This is an important aspect, since most businesses have a vested interest in their existing phone numbers and wish to avoid the cost and inconvenience of re-printing business cards, letterhead and marketing materials and don’t want to go through the bother of notifying customers and...
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