VXSuite Takes the Scary Out of VoIP

By: John Shepler

You know that Unified Communications based on VoIP telephony is the future of business communications. You also know that it is likely a good UC solution can improve the productivity of your business. You’ve been hesitating, though, because ripping everything out and moving to the new technology is downright scary. The phones work fine on their old twisted pair wiring. Well, if by fine you mean you can make and receive calls on your desk phones. That’s pretty much the end of the road for analog and TDM technology. If you want more, you’ll have to make the leap to IP networking all the way around.

Not So Fast...
Oh, but you’ve heard horror stories about companies merging their phones onto the computer network. All of sudden, voices get distorted, calls get dropped. Who wants that? Perhaps it’s better just to stay old school and let somebody else take on the new technology.

Can You Afford Not To?
OK, but you are also letting them take the profits that come with the increased efficiency of having your business apps, desk phones, smartphones, video conferencing, and call center all on one integrated system. Wait long enough and your competitors responsiveness will improve so much that they’ll run circles around your company and start siphoning off customers, then employees.

Looking Under the Hood
What if there were tools that could take the guesswork out of implementing VoIP and UC on your network? Most of the issues you’ll encounter arise from the fact that a network set up for computers can work just fine for file transfers but be a disaster when it comes to handling real-time apps like voice and video. You need to protect those interactive streams from getting crushed by mountains of data moving around. To do that you need to look inside the network and see what is happening.


VXSuite is a toolset ideally qualified to analyze your currenct legacy network and report if you have bandwidth, latency, jitter or congestion issues that will make a mess out of VoIP. You’ll need to implement class of service on your network so that each type of packet stream has the priority and other characteristics it needs to perform optimally.

Before the Move
First, use VXSuite to analyze your system before your make any changes. VXSuite will report on your current voice call volume and usage. It uses that data to calculated min, max and average bandwidth requirements that will support VoIP when you switch. Find and fix problems here and you’ll have a much smoother transition.

A Quality of Experience Assessment is an automated test that deploys software agents on your network to create VoIP test calls to see what bottlenecks arise. Each test call is analyzed for delay, jitter & packet loss and then assigned an MOS score that indicates the quality of the voice communications.

After the Move
Once you deploy your new VoIP and/or UC system, you are not left in the dark. VXSuite monitors call quality and network issues during the rollout phase that can include both VoIP and legacy PBX systems simultaneously. You’ll get reports on how things are working and alarms if there is trouble.

Continuing Support
As ongoing support, the VXSuite cloud-based analytics toolkit continues to monitor your network environment to ensure that voice quality is maintained and issues diagnosed and resolved. You can set threshold levels for delay, jitter, packet loss, MOS, CPU utilization, memory utilization and so on to enable your IT staff to know instantly when problems develop. No more worrying that trouble is sneaking up behind you.

The Toolset You Really Need
Have you been putting off making the technology changes you should because you are worried that things will get worse, not better, when you make the move to VoIP and Unified Communications? If so, now’s the time to get more information about how VXSuite tools and cloud based communications
can improve your productivity and likely reduce cost at the same time.

Are Your WAN Circuits Monitored For Quality?

By: John Shepler

As we transition from circuit switched telephony and make the move from in-house data centers to the cloud, our WAN (Wide Area Network) circuits become more critical than ever before. A misbehaving network connection that might once have been a mere inconvenience is now a productivity killer at best and a business shutdown at worst. It is essential that every copper and fiber optic line that leaves the building be running at peak performance all the time. But… how do you make sure that is the case?

Do You Know What is Going On Behind Your Back?
Technology has a sneaky side. When your outside network circuits are installed and checked out, the lines are verified to make sure they meet specs for latency, packet loss, jitter and bandwidth. Everything is running great. Tomorrow it’s still running great. But the next day, next week or next month something goes wrong. it might be a subtle change that degrades performance rather than knocking the line out completely.

Where do you point the finger?
The problem could be anywhere in the system. Is your LAN congested or are you dealing with a failing switch? Is it just your computer or telephone set that is having problems? Perhaps it is one of several network circuits that connect you to the outside world. How do you find out for sure?

Circuit Monitoring Is Your Eye on the Network
You can’t just blindly trust that everything is running smoothly. You need a way to look into the system. Likely, you already have that capability. You can run Ping and Traceroute diagnostic tests from your computer whenever you want. That’s great for troubleshooting if you know there is a problem and have time to sit down and run the tests. But what happens when no one is running diagnostics? Hard to say.

That’s where continuous circuit monitoring shines. You don’t have to jump in and run some tests. They are running all the time. Better yet, a monitoring program gives you a chart of how the circuit has been performing over time. Run a diagnostic yourself and you have only a single data point.

Get Automatic Heads-Up Messages
The other beauty of automating the performance monitoring of your WAN circuits is that the monitor can let you know when something goes out of whack. You can get an email when something goes wrong. That way, you don’t have to sit there and watch the screen continuously just in case there is an anomaly. You’ll get notified 24/7. The monitor never sleeps.

Best Deal Ever: Free Circuit Monitoring
The best way to get your WAN circuits monitored is to have it done for free. Ever hear of this? Probably not. This is a fairly new service powered by VXSuite and offered by Telarus on Internet and coax circuits with static IP addresses that they provide. MPLS and other monitoring is available. Telarus is well known for the extensive suite of carriers that they partner with and the best prices on WAN circuits. Now you get this bonus of free circuit monitoring included on both domestic and international circuits.

This circuit monitoring includes a ping and traceroute to that circuit. Packet loss and latency are also measured. If the circuit goes down, you get an email. You also have access to a web-based dashboard to view your current circuit status and performance graphics. A monthly email report is available if you wish.

Do you need WAN circuits you can depend on? Would you like those circuits to be monitored with the powerful VXSuite tools at no extra cost? If so, it is time to get the latest competitive pricing and availability of monitored WAN network circuits for your business.