Avaya Kills Off Nortel & Mitel Abandons the Under-100 User Market

There are big changes roiling the waters of the telecommunications market.

Nortel is dead, what has been suspected is now confirmed. As reported in The Telecom Blog, Avaya has announced it is killing off the Nortel flagship BMC phone system and retiring all support for what was once one of the world’s most widely sold business phone systems. The product line will be terminated in 2012, and by 2015 all support for the Nortel system will have been completely ended.

Mitel is in the throes of a painful restructuring and has decided to abandon the under-100 user market — the “S” in SMB. It announced recently that it will focus its products and support on the mid-size and enterprise market from 100-2,500 users. As their new CEO Richard McBee told Channel Reseller News, Mitel views the “S” in SMB as just a “financial transaction” as opposed to a market that requires more personal attention and “best in breed” solutions. 

Really? Here at Zultys we think every customer is valuable and deserves a “best in breed” solution — especially when the “S” in SMB comprises over 80% of the businesses in North America and other markets! Zultys’ flexible solutions cover the full range of company needs, from 1-10,000 users.

It’s time to help your customers understand that if they have been using a Nortel or Mitel system, they can  find a steady solution in Zultys. Please contact your Zultys RSD today to see how Zultys can help your customers make the transition from roiling seas to smooth sailing.  

Regards,
Zultys Marketing

Digital Systems v/s IP Phone Systems

Pierre Kerbage, VP of Sales North America Zultys, Inc.

Digital Systems have been around for decades. Many of these systems have proven to last 10 to 20 years in some cases, showing strong reliability in the work place. In the past few years, these legacy systems have added expandability and functionality such as T1, PRI, Automatic Call Distribution and much more and some models can scale to thousands of end points (phones) with great reliability.

IP Systems originated about a decade ago, and today, some of these systems can scale to tens of thousands of units in dozens if not hundreds of locations.

What is the advantage of an IP Phone system over a traditional systems?

Some of the IP Systems today are HYBRID: meaning that they can handle TRADITIONAL phone lines (including Analog trunks, ISDN, T1, E1 and PRI to Multiple T1 and PRIs) as well as Voice Over IP (VoIP) phone lines. So they provide the best of both world. VoIP phone lines (also called SIP: Session Initiated Protocol) are typically provided by an ITSP (Internet Telephony Service Provider), and these type of trunks can replace or augment your traditional phone lines. Each TRUNK (meaning phone line) requires roughly about 84 Kilobit of bandwidth (uncompressed) when a conversation is in session. That means that a DATA T1 (1.5 Megabits) can handle about 17 or so conversations simultaneously. Many companies find that SIP is the way to go because they cost far less than traditional phone lines, as well as provide extremely competitive rates for long distance, and some providers have plans which include unlimited long distance. And if you make calls overseas, you are in for a treat as some of these plans can provide rates as cheap as a few pennies to Western Europe or Southeast Asia. In essence, if you are paying $1000 for Long Distance a month, and you can buy a brand new IP Phone system (that costs say: $20,000), you could lease to own that system for around $460 per month, therefore SAVING the company nearly $5,000 per year and much more once you finish paying on the lease. THIS IS AN EFFECTIVE ROI that makes sense.

Having said that, many people are buying IP Phone systems today and STILL using traditional Phone lines because they either don’t trust the internet or don’t understand SIP Technology that well or don’t have the upload bandwidth it takes to sustain these type of phone lines. But they LIKE the idea of buying an IP Phone system because it provides the FLEXIBILITY to use traditional phone lines OR VOIP Lines or BOTH.

But the appeal of IP Systems goes FAR BEYOND the fact that you can do IP Trunking.

Here are my Top Reasons why IP Phone Systems are incredibly beneficial and result in drastic cost savings and why Digital Systems are dying:

1. an EASY TO USE Programming Interface. Many people don’t want to have to call the “phone guy” every time they need to make a change to their system. IP Systems provide a Graphical User’s Interface, that can be launched from anywhere and make changes to the system that can take effect immediately. So making changes to the system is much easier to understand than legacy systems. This often provides tremendous cost savings for the lifetime of the phone.
2. The ability to have a Phone in your house or another location and to be able to use the office’s Dial tone is beneficial too. The remote user appears as if they are working at the office. So if a call comes in – it can be transferred to that remote user (wherever they have that IP Phone plugged in) and the caller has no idea that the remote user is working from home or from anywhere in the world (where broadband is available). Working remotely can cut costs of Travel, time, gas, etc… and quickly and easily enables remote workers. Just think: no added desks, real estate, electrical, supplies, etc… etc… Teleworkers can take their office phone, plug it in, and off they go. Their extension remains the same and is totally transparent to the caller
3. If you have more than 1 Office – the ability to have 2 systems – and the ability to do an extension to extension DIAL and of course when that happens – you bypass any tolls (no long distance) not to mention the ease of talking to someone by just depressing their button or extension. Another cost saving.
4. The ability to have very flexible “find me follow me” – For example – if you are out to lunch and are expecting an important phone call – the system can easily transfer that call to your cell phone. In the case of SOME large Enterprise (yes, expensive) system, the Cell phone can even be a MOBILE EXTENSION – meaning that you can transfer BACK the caller to an INSIDE EXTENSION from your CELL PHONE (or put them on hold and them hearing your CORPORATE ON HOLD messages). Now you can DROP that expensive CALL FORWARDING (multiplied by every line you have) and drop the after hours answering service since calls can be forwarded ANYTIME ANYWHERE.
5. Some systems add features like Fax Services (Fax from your desktop or TO your desktop). Cut costs of Toner and Paper by having the fax come RIGHT TO YOUR DESKTOP in a TIF File Format and FILE that fax in a folder on your desktop or your server. Recording conversations and dropping that WAV File is also huge.
6. Some of these systems can handle call recording, allowing you to record conversations by simply pressing a key and then archiving these to an external storage area
7. How about Unified Messaging: When receiving a VOICE MAIL – that voice mail is also EMAILED to you in a WAV file enabling that Voice Mail to be SAVED forever on your desktop or server or be forwarded as a WAV file outside your company.
8. The ability to move your phone by simply unplugging it and plugging ANYWHERE on your Network where you have Ethernet (without having to reprogram a THING). Cut costs by NOT dispatching the “phone guy”
9. IP Systems cut cost of Wiring in HALF. So if you are moving to a new place and where you normally have to provide a VOICE and DATA Cable – you would NOT need to do this anymore. Most IP Phones have a 2 port switch on them – allowing you to plug your PHONE into the Ethernet Wall Plate and your PC into the back of the phone – therefore only requiring 1 Cable to the desk NOT 2. This cuts cost of cabling by 50%.
10. The EASE of use of an IP system is amazing providing you a Software interface on your PC (and some systems like the Zultys can support Linux and MACs too) so you can have full “dial from Outlook” capability, Chat, Presence (I am at Lunch) and MUCH more
11. The ability to use your LAPTOP or your Desktop as a PHONE – so if you are traveling – simply plug your Laptop into the Hotel’s or your house’s Internet and you are now connected to the office. Add a Headset for better sound quality and you have yourself a great communication device
12. Call Detail Reporting is often built-in to many of these systems. The ability to find out just about anything you want about incoming or outgoing calls and produce reports that can translate into TIME BILLING and providing important information on where your callers are finding you (i.e. having them dial a different Phone Number for certain add campaigns) or how about tracking what your call center is doing, or Sales reps, or who called us today? Etc…. Of course these reports can easily be exported into a multitude of formats making them easy to manipulate for many reasons.
13. Cell phone Twinning: The ability to have your cell phone function as a remote extension of your PBX and then be able to transfer that call back to any extension in your office. Imagine working from home and your cell phone rings, it is a client. You speak to the client and now they want to be transferred to your customer service dept. You use your computer to initiate that transfer in no time. What is the price of CONNECTIVITY
14. Webinars: Many of these systems today integrate or have an option to include Webinar facility like Webex. Unlike recurring costs like Webex and Gotomeeting, these are appliances that easily add to your phone system and DEFER these recurring costs.
15. How about application interface where you can make a phone call from Salesforce.com or CRM or Outlook. Or the ability to call anyone in your contact’s list from outlook.

 

In short – IP Systems are here to stay and are definitely where EVERY Phone vendor on earth today is going. SIP is the ONLY ratified standard of telephony today. Simply putting it “If you ain’t SIP, you AIN’T” and you won’t connect to tomorrow’s applications or phones or systems.

IP Phone systems DO save money by providing lesser expensive alternatives for Local and Long Distance lines as well as 0 Toll when using them between each other, and decrease costs of Cabling as well as the need to dispatch a Phone guy every time, since they use a Graphical User’s Interface allowing each person the FLEXIBILITY to manage their own end points and the ability to move their system as much as they want WITHOUT requiring a phone Guy. Finally – moving an IP System is as easy as unplugging 3 connections. No more 66 Blocks and the confusing and unattractive wire closets you sometimes see. They are often a 2 or 3U Rack Mounted appliance that EASILY travel and here again, reduce cost if you ever have to move the system. IP Systems provides ease of use, flexibility, mobility, compliance, scalability, and a drastic overall reduction of price.

Related Links:

• Products: Business VoIP Phone Systems
• Products: Zultys MX250: Business PBX Systems
• Products: Zultys MX30: Small Business Phone Systems
• Products: Business Telephone Systems
• Products: Best IP Telephony Equipment
• Solutions: VoIP PBX
• Solutions: VoIP Phone Systems Solutions
• Solutions: Call Center Solutions
• Solutions: Unified Communications
• Solutions: Multi-Site & Branch Offices Solution

VoIP Demystified

VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) phone systems can be mystifying to many people. A “system” is by definition a group of items forming a unified whole. VoIP PBX phone systems vary greatly in their features, capabilities, size, form factor, telephone carrier service connectivity, cabling, connected phone sets, etc. Although VoIP technology has evolved greatly over the past decade, such fundamentals of IP PBX systems as how they operate and what they require to perform reliably has not changed. That is the focus of this paper.

For starters, a common misconception is that VoIP means that phone calls are carried primarily over the Internet. Although that capability exists, the “Internet” as used in “Internet Protocol” has nothing to do with the World Wide Web. It really should be spelled “inter-net” — between networks. And, a definition for “protocol” is that it is just a technology rule or standard, in this case for enabling the transport of voice data packets over a network. That network can be a local area network (LAN) that is within a building, a wide area network (WAN), and yes, the Internet itself.

If using the Internet, connectivity to the IP PBX is achieved through SIP (Session Initiated Protocol) trunks (lines) and the communications are managed by an Internet Service Provider (ITSP), the equivalent of the “phone company”. SIP represents another industry standard protocol, and the trunks can be a broadband T1 circuit, DSL, Cable Modem, etc.). If one uses SIP trunks, does it then preclude standard connectivity to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) using analog trunks and/or a Primary Rate Interface (PRI) circuit? No. All can coexist on the PBX opening up a new world of communications capabilities and savings including remote worker communications, inter-office system integration, least cost routing of phone calls including international calling, unified communications, effective “find me” routing of calls, lower line costs, etc.

As a result, Zultys’ MX line of IP PBX systems allows our customers to be able to use a variety of trunks in the most effective way. For example, a company might use PSTN trunks for most of its inbound or local outbound calls while using SIP trunks for lower-cost long distance calls. In fact, that company may use two or more ITSPs on SIP trunks. One for domestic long distance calls, one for international calls and several that have a low rate for calls to a specific country. Moreover, the Zultys MX automatically manages these least cost routings greatly reducing communications costs. IN MANY CASES, THESE SAVINGS ARE SUFFICIENT TO PAY FOR THE PHONE SYSTEM ENTIRELY!

OK. However, can you depend on SIP trunking for providing business-level communications?

Yes. IF it is done correctly!

Briefly, the way VoIP works is that voice energy at the phone is converted to packets of digitized voice data that are transmitted over data networks and then reconverted at the destination. Each SIP conversation typically requires 84Kilobit of network bandwidth. (The use of voice compression algorithms can reduce this need.)

So, here is how to roll out CORRECTLY a VoIP phone system in your Enterprise:

1.Decide if your voice network and data network should be converged onto one network or if it would be better to keep them separate.
2.If converging the two onto one network, perform a DETAILED network analysis. Will it be able to have adequate bandwidth, can it provide for a guaranteed quality of service (QoS), is your firewall VoIP-friendly, etc? An analysis by a qualified, outside firm often is a worthy investment.
3.Ensure that your network is cabled properly for the phone sets (CAT 5e is the minimum today and CAT 6 is quickly becoming the de facto cabling standard with video communications a growing requirement. Test your cable structure. Are any cables pinched or noisy? Be sure that none of your cables exceeds 100 Meters in length.
4.NEVER daisy chain switches (switch to switch) – this piggybacking causes major slow downs of network traffic, affects QoS and can cause unpredictable results.
5.Remove all network hubs.
6.Use single, layer 3. QoS, power over Ethernet (PoE) Switches.
7.Use enterprise-level antivirus software on all servers and client PCs.
8.Ensure that you have running a business class, server-based spam filter appliance or a hosted spam filtering solution. Hosted anti-spam systems have the advantage of filtering the spam before it enters into your network.
9.Monitor which users are abusing your network bandwidth e.g. are users running applications for downloading music or streaming video or audio all day?
10.Require DEDICATED BANDWIDTH for your SIP trunks. Some providers also allocate additional bandwidth dynamically when required, giving priority to voice traffic.
11.Ensure that QoS routers are used end to end – meaning the provider has a QoS router(s) on its end, as well.

The investment in this structure provides for a high ROI by having optimal and reliable corporate voice and data communications.

Now, let us look at the requirements you need for your single office, home office and traveling staff to connect to your phone system. Each one needs a SIP phone (or SIP softphone) and access to a broadband connection, of course.

Most likely this broadband connection is a consumer grade DSL or cable modem service that provides asymmetrical upload/download bandwidths, Additionally, the actual bandwidth available can vary widely depending on the number of other subscribers of the provider that are using this shared network at any particular point in time and how they are using it.

To best minimize connectivity problems with remote workers:

1.Have the worker test that Internet service provider’s speed by having running any of the free test tools available on the Internet. Insist that they have the ISP correct a problem. (A service speed upgrade for the service may be needed.)
2.Have them use a modern, quality router/firewall that includes QoS functionality
3.Ensure that everyone on their network is running quality malware-prevention software on all PCs and that all PCs are current with the latest security updates.
4.Finally, the PBX must be programmed to route 911 calls received from the remote worker’s phone to the proper, local 911 location for that worker.

With these preparations, you will end up with a powerful, reliable, excellent communications system.

And, excellent phone communications is the hallmark of successful companies.

Related Links:

•Products: Business VoIP Phone Systems
•Products: Zultys MX250: Business PBX Systems
•Products: Zultys MX30: Small Business Phone Systems
•Products: Business Telephone Systems
•Products: Best IP Telephony Equipment
•Solutions: VoIP PBX
•Solutions: VoIP Phone Systems Solutions
•Solutions: Call Center Solutions
•Solutions: Unified Communications
•Solutions: Multi-Site & Branch Offices Solution

About Zultys
Based on open standards, Zultys Inc., a Silicon Valley company founded in 2001, manufactures feature-rich VoIP Business Phone Systems that easily scale to thousands of users. Zultys makes your business needs our priority. Our solution supports Mac, Windows 32 or 64 Bit or Linux users and integrates features such as soft-phone, Find me-Follow me, Presence, Secure Chat, Tele-worker support, Inbound Contact Center, IVR, ACD, Call Recording, Fax Origination/Termination, Cell Phone Twinning and much more. Zultys delivers on the promise of Unified Communication from open interfaces such as SIP to rich applications and networking. Not only is our solution cost effective, it also provides the highest energy efficiency with its compact single server all-in-one design. Zultys’ distributed architecture also helps companies maintain high availability, while being simple to install, manage and scale. For more information, visit us at http://www.zultys.com.

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