Hosted PBX

IP Telephony Market Flooding and Cutting the Wheat from the Chafe (Pt 3)

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Can you guarantee 100% uptime for my VoIP system?

Finding companies with the right breadth and depth of experience is an important step in making sure you end up hiring the right hosted PBX provider, and if you choose a company with an impressive and relevant pedigree you’re going to avoid most of the pitfalls the emerging IP telephony market is going to throw your way. But if you want to make sure you end up with a truly great hosted PBX provider then you’re going to need to dig a little deeper and start asking some questions, working out a total evaluation letting you know whether or not they’re the real deal.

How Much Access is Enough Access?

First, you want to make sure they offer the provider can offer you nationwide (and international) access. Even with great hosted PBX providers you might run into a case where they don’t offer coverage for some very remote areas, but overall you want to make sure your new provider is going to offer coverage for major metropolitan areas and anywhere you know your organization is going to need to have phone numbers in.

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IP Telephony Market Flooding and Cutting the Wheat from the Chafe (Pt 2)

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At a very basic level the age of a hosted PBX provider gives you some sort of hint of their quality. Sure, there are some startups that come out of nowhere and truly revolutionize the field with some radical advance of telephony technology, but most of the months-old companies we’re going to see launch in the world of IP telephony aren’t in the market to innovate- they’re going to launch quick to cash in before quickly burning out, and that’s not the sort of provider you really need on your side keeping your phone lines open. VoIP experience comes with time of doing business and it certainly counts.

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IP Telephony Market Flooding and Cutting the Wheat from the Chafe (Pt 1)

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We’ve said it before, but it needs to be emphasized- the hosted PBX provider you sign up with will determine how positively you view the technology and your switch to IP telephony. Being picky about who you choose to work with is increasingly important as the hosted PBX market grows. Not only will more organizations find themselves joining the IP telephony movement over the next couple of years, but we’re also going to see a whole lot of new hosted PBX providers jumping into the market in order to meet this demand and, unfortunately, to try and make some quick cash on what’s shaping up to be a truly hot commodity.

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Is Emergency Calling VoIP and Hosted PBX’s Achilles’ Heel?

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Everyone’s minds have been locked firmly on the potential for disaster and the necessity of contingency plans in the face of some sort of operationally-debilitating experience. In the wake of recent environmental catastrophes the usefulness of remotely hosted communications systems has become blindingly apparent. VoIP and hosted PBX both make it much, much easier for an organization to regain its operational footing almost immediately after a disaster, even if that disaster lays waste to their offices and/or damage their in-house communications equipment. By remotely locating the guts of an organization’s communication systems VoIP and hosted PBX essentially make an organization’s communication systems as disaster-proof as possible.

However, some experts have raised a really good question when it comes to remote hosting of communications technology, and that’s the fact remote hosting can cause some real problems for emergency services.

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Can Hosted PBX Improve Employee Retention?

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Most of the time we talk about the benefits of the Unified Communications, such as hosted PBX services, we talk about the direct benefits your business will enjoy. We often talk about the increased scalability and organizational flexibility that will give your business the ability to grow and shrink as needed. We often talk about the cost savings associated with hosted PBX and how these savings quickly and effectively mitigate whatever start-up costs your business may incur making the switch. We also talk about how hosted VoIP telephony provides business continuity services, and how it offers a wealth of intelligent features and improvements over traditional telephone systems.

All of these business-oriented benefits are true, but focusing exclusively on them obscures the human side of the equation- the fact that all the benefits offered by digital telephony directly assist your employees and improve their satisfaction with their jobs. In fact, a recent study has shown that VoIP telephony may do more than improve customer satisfaction, switching to Unified Communications will likely increase employee retention.

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Hosted PBX and Business Continuity in Times of Crisis

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With Superstorm Sandy causing untold destruction and massive disruptions to large swathes of New Jersey and New York City, some organizations have begun to wonder how, exactly, they’d fair if they were hit by a massive weather systems, while other organizations are left with the mess of figuring out how they’re going to rebuild their communications infrastructure in a manner that will ensure continuity no matter what happens. The solution both of these sets of organizations are looking for lies in a hosted PBX – the only cost effective communications solution that will help them get back up and running as quickly as possible no matter what happens to their HQ.

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PBX Market Bump as Q2 Results Roll In

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Any talk of the PBX market dying or of even slowing down need to be taken with a heavy grain of salt. We do understand why some people might say the PBX market is down for the count. The market isn’t seeing growth quite as explosive as when the tech went mainstream a couple of years ago, but a recent Infonetics report on the market’s Q2 2012 results makes it very, very clear that the PBX market still has plenty of room to stretch its legs. We’ve been saying for a long time that the next 5-10 years of PBX is going to be really exciting, and this Infonetics report seems to validate those suspicions.

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Will the Switch to IPv6 Create VoIP and PBX Problems?

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Right now the Internet is going through a massive transition, an overhaul of the addresses that will impact every network device connected to it.

What is this overhaul?

How will it change the Internet?

And how will it impact business VoIP telephony?

Copyright

Big Questions First

The massive transition we’re talking about here is the change from IPv4 to IPv6, or the change from the old Internet Protocol (IP) system to its newest iteration. Int

Now, the old IP is known as the Internet Protocol Version 4, or the IPv4, and it’s the set of rules that have been in place providing the scaffolding for the Internet since day 1. IPv4 works really well, as most internet communication still occurs using its rules, but we’re now transitioning to the new version of the Internet Protocol, a new set of scaffolding known as the Internet Protocol version 6 or IPv6.ernet Protocol lies at the heart of how the Internet works; it defines the way data packets transfer from one connected device to another over various bundles of equipment, cables and wireless signals. The Internet Protocol outlines the rules for how these data packets are labelled, how they are located, and how they are routed over the web.

So basically we’re in the middle, or more accurately at the beginning, of transition from IPv4 to IPv6.

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PBX Phones Review: Altigen iFusion AP 300 Handset

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iFusion all colours

iFusion All ColorsOk, it’s not really a PBX handset. Altigen iFusion SmartStation is a Bluetooth Speakerphone and a charging station with a handset designed to be used with an iPhone. By design it was meant to serve as a charging station and replace your office handset. I have to admit, that a thought of losing my desk phone and replacing it with a SIP softphone app on my iPhone 4S sounded enticing. One device for all needs! Now, I can really take advantage of our hosted PBX. Considering that I need a convenient place to charge my iPhone anyway, why not put it in front of me and use it as a desktop handset?

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