Managed Hosting PBX Gets You Out Of The Telephone Business

Many companies aren’t just in the business space they target. They’re also in some peripheral businesses simply because they can’t get out of them. For instance, how many companies wind up in the phone business because they need phones to do their job? It’s something that we may just shrug and accept, but it doesn’t have to be that way anymore.

What got businesses into the phone business was the need to manage anywhere from dozens to thousands of telephone sets within their organization. Why so many? Because the productivity that comes from each individual having their own telephone and phone number exceeds the cost of the equipment and service.

Back when most of us worked on the farm, one crank phone in the house was plenty. When we all became factory workers, a wall phone that you used on breaks served the need. Now that we’re in the information age, interpersonal communications is both necessary and frequent. We all need to talk to customers, suppliers and co-workers. The more efficiently we do this, the more profit the company makes.

This is how we got to telecom departments within companies. The telecom department manages the PBX, which is nothing more than a small version of a telephone company central office switch. All those handsets plug into the PBX and the PBX then connects them together like the phone company does. The PBX also manages outside lines for calls that enter and leave the company premises. In most cases, you dial outside with a one number access code just like you would call long distance anywhere else.

What the telecom department does is manage all those handsets. If one breaks, it has to be replaced. If someone changes desks, their phone number must be re-routed to their new location. That might even involve making some wiring changes. People are always coming and going, and their phone service needs to be accommodated too.

Some companies have two separate departments. One is just for telephones. The other is for computers and the company LAN. In a smaller company, one department might manage both networks. A very small company might outsource one or both functions to a contractor. But the cost of the activity is always there, no matter how you handle it.

The cost being in the phone business is both the cost of handling all those moves, adds and changes on a daily basis and the capital expense of all that equipment. The PBX system itself is an expensive piece of equipment. When it becomes too small to handle the number of extensions or too old to be easily maintained, you need to take out a loan and do what’s called a “fork lift upgrade” to haul out the old system and bring in the new one.

Now, what if there was an easy way to have all the communications ability you have now, and more, but not have to be in the phone business? There is such an option available and it’s called a hosted PBX. What “hosted” means is that someone else has the responsibility of managing the PBX equipment using their people at their facility. What you have is a big empty space where the PBX system used to sit and lots and lots of telephone sets.

When this is done right, an employee in your company won’t know or care where the PBX is. Their phone works just the same either way. In fact, it may work better because their old “dumb” phone has been replaced by a “smart” phone that connects to the computer network and has processing power built-in. The phone and the computer may work together or you may even have a “soft phone” as an application that runs on the computer.

It’s the ubiquity of the company computer network connected to every desk that makes the hosted PBX possible. By adapting telephones to transmit and receive Ethernet packets instead of analog voltages, they can piggyback on the broadband network that every company has anyway. That network invariably connects to the outside world or WAN, which can include a connection to a service provider hundreds or thousands of miles away. That service provider bears the capital cost and operating expense and performs the move/add/change function for you. They’re more efficient at doing this because that’s all they do, and they do it on a much larger scale than you did. In effect, we’re back to telephone as a service or, in today’s terms, voice as a service.

Are you reluctantly in the telephone business? If so, why not compare costs and features and see if a managed PBX hosting solution would be a better option for your company? There are more and better options available today than ever before.

Microsoft is a Phone Company?

With all the recent buzz over the Android, we know that Google is getting into the telephone business big time. But did you know that Microsoft is also in the phone business? The enterprise phone business?

Microsoft Response Point is a software based PBX telephone system that is intended for small businesses with fewer than 50 employees. Like nearly every new PBX design, this one is based on VoIP telephony with SIP for switching control. So are larger enterprise VoIP solutions. But Microsoft has targeted Response Point to companies that are small enough that they probably don't have a dedicated IT or telecom department. These companies need solutions that are easy to set up and manage, and don't require all-day training seminars to teach employees how to use their strange new desk phones.

Wow! Microsoft could be my new phone company. I can hardly wait to run out and buy the Response Point software in the box next to the Vista upgrade.

Just kidding. Response Point is sure to cause you less grief than trying to get your old Windows XP machines to dance a Vista tune and not fall over. That's because YOU won't be trying to round up the right CPU and peripherals to roll your own phone system. Response Point comes embedded in ready-to-run small business phone systems, like the ones offered by Aastra.

The AastraLink RP phone system based on Microsoft Response Point consists of three components. They are a base unit, gateway, and special IP phones designed especially for Response Point systems.

The base unit - think PC or server - runs the Response Point software. This is the brains of the system can comes with a voice activated auto-attendant, voice to email integration and easy integration with Microsoft outlook. Microsoft outlook? Remember that SIP telephones run right on your company LAN along with your computer terminals. This is one of the big advantages of enterprise VoIP. Being packet network based, they easily integrate with computer systems. Easy, that is, compared with traditional telephone systems that have proprietary hardware and software and their own unique network architecture.

The AastraLink Gateway is the interface box that connects your IP PBX system to the PSTN or Public Switched Telephone Network. Standard phone lines plug into the gateway. They are accessed as outside phone lines through the base unit connection to the gateway. Alternatively, you can buy SIP trunking telephone service from competitive carriers and not worry about connecting to the phone company yourself.

The SIP telephones, also called terminals, are the user interface to the IP PBX system. They look like standard business desk sets but are designed for easy interface to the system. No separate phone wiring is needed as they plug right into an Ethernet jack. Some, like the Aastra 57i, even have PoE or Power over Ethernet capability so that you don't need a separate power supply. A PoE phone is the network equivalent of the analog telephone that plugs into a phone jack without any other connections needed.

AastraLink's Response Point systems have the smarts built-in to make these phone systems pretty much plug and play. The system will auto-discover and auto-configure any new handsets plugged into the network. Moves, adds and changes become invisible, so you don't need a technician to come running whenever someone needs to relocate to a different desk.

How's your business phone system? Ready for an upgrade or launching a new office? Find business telephone system suppliers that can get you set up Aastra and other high quality telephone solutions at the right price.

Telephone Installers Business Networking

If you make your living selling or installing business telephone systems, there's a business networking service you should be aware of. It can help you garner more warm leads for your products and services, and expand your line card with no additional investment.

What I'm speaking of is the VAR Partner Network, an online service of Telarus, Inc. Telarus is a master agency representing over a dozen competitive voice and data carriers. But it's much more than that. Through its VAR Network Telarus actively seeks businesses who need not only communications line services, but equipment sales and installation work as well.

VARs, or Value Added Resellers, are independent business owners. The VARs who will be interested in this network are those who sell, install or service business telephone systems, point of sales equipment, company LANs, network optimization and security appliances, and related technology. The reason Telarus is recruiting VARs in this field is that many customers who buy line services also desire one stop shopping for their related telephone and network equipment.

Rather than take a pass on this business and risk customers going elsewhere, The VAR Network gathers the prospect's requirements and enters them into an online database. That database actively processes the leads and directs them by email to appropriate VARs who have the necessary expertise and area located physically close to the client. One or more VARs may be alerted to the business opportunity. It's up to the VAR to contact the prospect and close the sale, if desired.

OK. That's how you, as a VAR, get free equipment leads. But how do you expand your line card at no expense? Simple. Remember that most customers for business phone systems not only need a PBX or IP PBX, but they also need phone lines to plug into it. Those T1 PRI digital telephone lines are part of the core business that Telarus seeks. Businesses installing phone equipment are perfect prospects for related line services. So are corporations expanding their network operations. How would you like a piece of that action?

You can easily collect a percentage of every T1, DS3, or Ethernet line that your customers install, for the duration of their service contract. The way you do that is to take a few minutes and input your customer's requirements into your VAR Network online back office. Your consulting partner at Telarus will use that information to get competitive price quotes from appropriate carriers. If your customer elects to go with one of the deals, Telarus will take care of preparing all the paperwork and making sure the line services get turned up as soon as possible. You get a cut of the commissions for... what... ten minutes of data entry?

Pretty sweet deal, isn't it. Actually everyone benefits. Your customers get access to lower cost services than they would typically know about. And they'll probably thank YOU for getting them the deal. You'll probably find that this expansion of your business is actually more lucrative than the equipment leads from the network. That's because you can go out and offer line services to your existing customers as well as any new ones. It's a way of generating additional business income from current accounts with minimal effort.

Would you like to get in on this action right now? You can. There's no cost or obligation to join. Once you're in the system you'll start getting leads and you can approach clients with your new line of bandwidth and telephony services. Take a few minutes to look at the VAR Partner Network and sign-up easily online.