Why Business Needs Unified Communications

By: John Shepler

Time was when there was only one method of electronic communication. It was that heavy black phone on your desk. Now look what we have. Sure, there’s still a black phone on your desk, but it’s a lot lighter thanks to modern plastics and solid state electronics. There’s also a raft of other ways we communicate electronically. How many of these do you use: email, text messages, mobile phone calls and video chats? How about the platforms: desktop computers, laptops, tablets, smartphones and soon… a watch?

One of the biggest communications issues, especially in business, is that all these different platforms and applications don’t necessarily play together well. One solution is to just make sure you have them all with you. That used to mean a pager on the belt, a cell phone in the pocket, a laptop in the briefcase, and somebody to forward you messages from your office when you were in the field. A better solution soon became a crying need.

Let’s Combine Everything into One
The answer that you might expect is to integrate all of these communications systems into one. That won’t really do. There is no one platform that can handle everything equally well. The desk phone is tethered, as is the desktop computer with the nice big screen. The smartphone screen is way too small for a lot of serious work. The tablet makes a ridiculous telephone held up to your ear.

There are forces still pulling in that direction. Enter the “phablet.” It’s a giant cell phone that’s almost, if not really, too big for your pocket. Tablet computers now have clip on keyboards so you can touch type from the coffee house. Laptop computers are shrinking, getting lighter and some have screens that detach from the keyboard and act like tablets. If there was only a way to get a great big screen that you can actually see along with keys that fit your fingers along with a telephone that lets you take calls privately, handles email and text messaging, and all fits neatly in your shirt pocket.

Well, there isn’t. There isn’t even anything on the horizon that fits this description. Someday, the QWERTY typewriter keyboard may become as quaint as the crank telephone. Siri might actually become your best friend and be able to read your mind as well as understand everything you’re mumbling. Something akin to Google Glass may project that big screen in front of your face anywhere. That’s not today, though. Today we need a solution that let’s us communicate anyway we like anywhere we happen to be.

It’s Called Unified Communications
The development that takes what we have and makes it into the closest approximation of what we really want is UC or Unified Communications. The “unified” part means doesn’t mean trying to get one platform to do everything. It recognizes that each device has its strong points and weaknesses. The master solution is to make all of this stuff play together well. In fact, so well that you needn’t be afraid that you are missing out just because you don’t have a particular platform with you at the moment.

A simple example is the lowly telephone call. Every business is still dependent on the telephone simply because it is the only universal medium of voice communications. For a long time, this meant having a business number that you printed on your business cards and a separate home phone number that was printed in “the book.” If you were at home you didn’t get your business calls unless you had a secretary working late to give the caller your home number or forward the call. You came in the next morning and found a raft of pink “while you were out” call sheets on the your desk.

The introduction of the cell phone only made matters worse. Now you’ve got a third phone number that only certain people know. What if they call the office instead of your cell when you are out? Will you miss the sale? Could be.

Unified communications starts with voice mail to replace the secretary and the telephone message sheets. You don’t have to fear missing a call because they’ll leave a voice message you can pick up anywhere. Even better is a “find me follow me” service that routes your calls to wherever you happen to be. With this type of automation you can hand out a single phone number and have it try your office phone, your cell phone or go to voice mail. You can even have it send you an email with the audio file of the call. Toll free number? Just have it routed to your unified business number.

The Technology Behind UC
The most popular platform for implementing unified communications is the cloud. Why? Because the cloud provides a common place to collect and distribute everything with near-infinite resources. All that processing power can easily handle everything from an independent professional up to the largest corporation. You don’t need to make a big capital investment or try to keep up to date on installing the newest features. The cloud provider takes care of that.

Cloud UC is driven by computing power and that computing power understands IP or Internet Protocol. The “Internet” part of IP doesn’t necessarily mean the public Internet. It just means the technical protocol that is also used by the Internet. For security and highest voice quality, you may not want your internal communications on the Internet at all. You will, however, want access to the Internet both in the office and on the road. That can be done carefully so that you use the Internet when you want to but private channels when you don’t.

What UC Can Do For You
Unified communications can be a gateway to both productivity improvement and cost reduction. It augments or replaces your in-house PBX phone system with a more powerful VoIP system that uses a common network with your computers and other digital devices. You can get tools for ease of collaboration among employees as well as the obvious single phone number benefits. Your laptop becomes your desktop with remote desktop access. Voice and video conferences can take place anywhere with a diverse group scattered in offices and hotel rooms around the globe.

Will all this cost a fortune? It’s probably cheaper than you think and may even offer all the new benefits at a lower cost than you are paying now. There’s only one way to find out. Get a set of competitive quotes for unified communications solutions and review the benefits and costs specific to your situation.



Note: The humorous mousepad about unified communications, along with many other items in the same theme, is available from the Gigapacket Zazzle store.

5 Unexpected Ways Businesses Can Use Smartphones to Drive Profit

A Telexplainer guest post written by Kirill Storch

No matter the product, service or industry, mission or corporate philosophy, nearly every business is bottom line-driven. And, there is no shortage of ingenuity as to how companies try to glean more profit out of existing processes. Every so often, a new technology emerges that radically changes the productivity landscape and industry’s related profitability potential in kind. Some notable advancements, of course, have included the assembly line, telephone, fax machine and the Internet. Today, there is a ubiquitous technology poised to revolutionize how business is done: the smartphone… but NOT for the reason you may think.

“While everyone concedes this versatile and portable device has forever changed social culture and that businesses already leverage smartphones for communication, companies are only now understanding the power of intra-company smartphone APPs as a mission-critical Mobile Process Improvement (MPI) asset that can actually drive productivity, enhance competitiveness and maximize revenue,” notes profit-focused internet marketing strategist, Kirill Storch, CEO of Electric Web.

MPI is a burgeoning trend forecasted to have much upside potential. Research* revealed that MPI spending in the U.S. will grow 100% by 2015. By 2016, an additional 45 million employees in the U.S. are forecasted to use smartphones, priming them for MPI integration. By 2017 the MPI market in the U.S. is projected to reach a staggering $4 billion, fueled by cloud services and demand for connected anywhere-anytime enterprises.** However, despite what is clear and abundant opportunity, studies also show that only approximately 10% of all U.S. firms have invested in MPI and that, by 2016, just over 30% of all U.S. firms will have made the investment. That said, there are some U.S. companies and organizations that are currently investing in MPI, including UPS, Amazon and the U.S. Army, which have already collectively saved upwards of $15 billion per year.So what exactly can a business do to save money with smartphone APPs? Here Storch cites five surprising ways businesses are leveraging MPI to promote profitability:

1. Field Employee Management
Over 45% of all businesses in the U.S. utilize some kind of remote employee—someone who is not at a specific work site at all hours of the day. In fact, 24% of all businesses are primarily field-based, from insurance claims adjustors to inspectors, gardeners, builders, consultants, sales agents, and many others. One primary problem with field employees is limited accountability since their whereabouts cannot be monitored at all times. Tardiness, time theft, and a general lack of information as to where employees are is an enormous and debilitating business issue, compounded by the fact that employees must frequently and proactively call in to get needed information from a home base to facilitate their field effort. Today, forward-thinking companies are tying their field forces together into a huge mobile grid that is supported by the employee’s own smartphones. These APPs can be programmed to only allow field workers to clock in when they are at the actual job site, reducing time theft. This MPI APP allows employees to quickly access home office data on the go and, if an employee is sick while afield, they don’t have to wait until the next day to call the home office as their app automatically summons a replacement the second they request a sick day. The total savings are immense.

2. Eliminating Inefficiencies
Companies seeking a paperless business or requiring speedy document access have been quick to adopt smartphones for high-speed scanning. Documents are scanned and deposited into online repositories for easy retrieval by voice or text powered search engines. In addition, having every bit of paper an employee could need inside of their smartphone empowers and enables professionals of all sorts, saving time, boosting efficiency and efficacy and saving the environment in the process. Altogether, the above-reference MPI-based smartphone applications have save the companies in question multiple billions of dollars, hugely impacting bottom lines. That same revenue potential exists for nearly every kind of business. Whether that be updating outdated processes or utilizing mobile technology to enhance modern systems, a custom-designed smartphone APP could very well provide a simple solution that has an enormous impact on the business—and possibly the industry at large. With MPI, “building a better mousetrap” is only limited by imagination and inclination.

3. Inspection Improvement
Using smartphone image-recognition, many companies in charge of inspecting sites or security companies in charge of visual documentation can use smartphones to inspect automatically. If something seems out of place, the photo recognition software is taught, or programmed, to report it. For example, a security company in Boston found that too much of its resources were being wasted “busting” teenagers and troublemakers who were just skateboarding in front of one of their buildings. These people posed no real harm to the company, so they built an APP that allowed the camera to differentiate between harmless intruders and malicious ones, saving the company the need to react with extreme force to relatively benign situations—in this case a single guard needing to respond rather than the whole cavalry. Over the course of 3 years, the company saved over $20 million.

4. Inventory Management
Companies with inventory can now QR codes directly onto the boxes on their shelves and track inventory on employee smartphones. With MPI, employees can simply walk down the warehouse aisles and scan items. The related APP directly links to an inventory management system, resulting in faster inventory count, employee theft prevention, and improved analytics. The back end dashboard allows management to see exactly how much inventory is left and automatically compare it to predicted inventory, in real time, improving visibility into the process. Back-orders can also be created automatically as soon as an inventory count runs low, saving time and human labor. And, best of all, it is impossible to have miscounts, whether they are based on human error or a thieving employee trying to cover their tracks!

5. Becoming Leaner
Companies are leveraging the power of mobile APPs for automation, allowing them to focus employee attentions elsewhere. For example, many companies with an assembly line still use employees to inspect the process and check off moving parts with a clip-board and a pen! Jobs like this can be “leaned” with smartphone APPs. QR codes can be printed directly onto each piece of assembly, and a small hand-held smartphone can automatically scan each piece, syncing to a visual interface that managers can observe remotely. This process enhancement has already allowed entire divisions of human labor to be refocused to other projects, creating tremendous cost savings.

Profit-focused internet marketing strategist, Kirill Storch, is CEO of Electric Web—a field leader in mobile APP and Web site development, programming, and online revenue generation through e-Commerce, social media and marketing communications initiatives. He may be reached online at www.ElectricWebMarketing.com.


Sources:
* Forrester’s Forrsights Business Decision-Makers Survey-2013
** Global Industry Analysts

Unified Communications for the SMB

By: John Shepler

Large companies long ago latched onto the concept of unified communications to improve the efficiency of their business telephone systems and the productivity of their employees. UC, as it is called, may have started out in major enterprises, but it is working its way into the small and medium size businesses. Why? For the same benefits the big companies achieve.

Just what is unified communications? The idea behind UC is that electronic business communications has spread way beyond the corded desk phone. Oh, desk phones are still a staple of any office. But now we have cell phones, smart phones, tablets, laptops, notebooks and the desktop PC. You can treat these as complete separate devices or unify them so that they work as a single system.

Why not stick with separate devices for different uses? One big problem is that we don’t sit at our desks all day. We may be moving around in the office, taking meetings, making sales calls to clients, visiting job sites and collaborating with peers outside the company.

We always did those things, right? True. But how did you stay in touch? Decades ago, pay phones were an important business tool. If you had the option, you left a forwarding number with the secretary when you left the premises. Important clients had your home phone number as well as the office number printed on your business card. If nothing else worked, you could always depend on the answering machine or, later, voice mail.

Sure, this approach works even today. But why are you doing it the old school way when your competitors are embracing the latest technology. While a sales prospect or customer with a big problem sits frustrated after leaving you a voice message, the competition is taking their call while walking down the street. The five members of your committee grind to a halt because you had to leave the office and can’t vote on the issue needing resolution. That company across the street keeps humming along because every member of their team is always connected.

What unified communications does is tie together different communications devices so they work together. No need to list a half dozen phone numbers on your business card and hope a caller has the patience to call each number in order to see if you happen to answer. UC gives you a single phone number and your calls will always get to you no matter where you are.

Cbeyond, a major telecommunications and cloud services provider, is moving unified communications from major enterprises to small and mid-sized businesses. They’re doing this with a new suite of services called “Communications on the Go.” The emphasis is on including smartphones as part of the business communications system. Within that realm, Cbeyond is offering cloud based communications, managed network services, and integration of smartphones, desk phones and computing devices. What this means is that you have access to the same calling features regardless of where you are or what device you are using. You have one phone number and one business phone system to learn.

Cloud communications, also called hosted VoIP, is a real enabler for unified communications. Yes, you can accomplish many of the same things with your own in-house PBX. However, you have the grief of having to cough up a major capital investment to get the equipment and the ongoing maintenance expenses of keeping everything up to data and secure. By moving your communications to the cloud, you move to a cost model of paying for the features you need when you need them. It’s easy to add and subtract users or make changes when people move around. The service provider has ownership of the infrastructure and network connections needed to deliver all the capacity and functionality you need. From your perspective, your unified communications services are infinitely large and always up to date.

Are you looking for a more effective and less costly way to communicate within your business and to your customers? This is a good time to find out what cloud hosted unified communications has to offer for your business, large, medium or small.

A Visual Guide To Enterprise VoIP Justification

Thanks to MegaPath Broadband Service Providers for this intriguing infographic



Are you feeling like your company is missing out on the cost and productivity benefits of enterprise VoIP technology? There are many on-site and hosted solutions available for businesses of all sizes. Get business VoIP options and pricing from MegaPath and other service providers now.

You Pay Too Much For Your Business Phone

While we’ve been busily gathering and servicing new customers, the telephone industry has been changing behind our backs. If you are still using the same phone and provider that you had a decade ago, it’s seriously time for a review. You not only could be, but probably are, paying way more than you would have to and be missing out on some newer productivity features.

What’s so different now? After all, a phone is a phone, right?

Ah, not so anymore. All phones used to be pretty much the same. That’s because they all came from the same supplier, the local telephone company. The phone was a big dumb peripheral to the large scale switching system at the central office. Most single line phones were built from passive components and got their power through the phone line. Multi line business phones were also built from passive components but supplied from a power supply and line card rack in the back room. That was necessary to create such features as flashing a line button when it was on hold.

Some of business phones you can buy today are not much more sophisticated that the one’s that Ma Bell supplied. One difference is that they may have a plug-in power supply or batteries to power the electronics inside. The one to four line key telephone systems that you can buy from office supply stores have replaced the old electromagnetic switching with smaller electronic boxes. Still, they all work on the same old telephone lines called POTS.

POTS stands for Plain Old Telephone Service. It consists of independent analog business lines that run from your office to the phone company over twisted pairs of copper wires. Power and switching signals are provided by the telco switching system. The in-house key system lets you have more than one line on a phone with LEDs to show what’s in use or on hold.

Did you know that you can get POTS service from companies other than your local phone company? The telephone industry has been deregulated so that other providers can lease the bare copper wires that run to your office and supply you with local and long distance service. There can be a cost savings in doing nothing more than switching providers. Your phone system will work exactly the same as it does now only you’ll get a lower monthly phone bill.

If your system has grown to more than a half dozen lines, especially if you have upgraded to an in-house PBX switching system, you could benefit from bringing in a digital trunk line instead of all those separate analog lines. A digital trunk called T1 CAS or ISDN PRI bundles up to 23 or 24 separate lines into a single line that still keeps the phone conversations independent. Why do this? You could realize a big cost savings from consolidating your lines. Chances are that your PBX system already has a T1 or PRI connection or you can upgrade with a adaptor card.

You may be wondering if VoIP telephony is for you. The consumer grade services that run on the Internet may not give you the call quality consistency that you need for good customer support or other business communications. What can work very well and save you considerable money is something called a SIP Trunk. This is a digital line that transports both telephone calls and broadband Internet access but keeps them completely separate so they don’t interfere. It’s a way to take advantage of VoIP technology without losing call quality or reliability.

The latest innovation is cloud based communications, also called Hosted VoIP or Hosted PBX. This is sort of like going back to just having phones in-house connected to the phone company’s switching center. The difference is that you aren’t stuck with the local phone company as your only choice. Using SIP Trunks, you can connect to many different providers, all competing for your business. Not only can you save money on your monthly bill, but you’ll avoid investing in expensive PBX or Key telephone systems and get advanced features like being able to include your smartphones in the system.

Does this whet your appetite to investigate what is available for your business telephone needs? Get prices and features for a variety of business phone service options so you can be fully informed before making any new commitments.

Cloud Hosted IP PBX Enables New Telephone Apps

You know how apps have taken the smartphone market by storm. Now even desktop and laptop computers are changing their approach away from traditional software packages and toward apps. Have you been thinking that there should be some apps for your phone system, too?

Well, they’re here. AireSpring is offering a suite of apps that work with their AirePBX cloud hosted PBX system. What sort of things can you do with these apps? Let’s take a look.

CommPortal is the interface that controls your messaging on the PBX. You can check your voice mail online or have them sent to your email. Set up a one-number service that will locate you no matter which device you may be using at the moment. You can choose to prioritize some callers over others and even send some directly to voicemail. Click-to-dial will ring your phone first and then dial the party you want. Contacts are always available on whatever device you are using.

Now CommPortal is available as an app that works on multiple platforms so that you have your PBX with you at all times. Other apps are also available. Two of these are the “Call Me” button and the QuickDial Accelerator.

Call Me buttons make it easy to connect instantly to customers. You install this button on your Web pages or email signature. When the customer clicks on the button, they are prompted to enter their phone number. You phone rings immediately so you can capitalize on opportunities that may disappear in a few minutes.

The complement to Call Me buttons is the QuickDial Accelerator. This cool app lets you initiate a call right from your browser window. Simply highlight any phone number you want to call and the system will place the call for you. No more trying to wrangle two screens at once or risk dialing the wrong number.

Why are we seeing the appearance of telephone system apps at this time? It coincides with the move to cloud hosted PBX systems. The traditional PBX is all about switching calls between desk phones in the office and connecting to outside trunk lines when you need to make a call outside the company. This was cutting edge technology at one time. No more. Today’s telephony is all about unified communications and computer telephone integration. What we’d like to have in a business phone system was difficult to impossible to do previously and expensive to do now using the old school technologies.

Many companies that dream of having the latest business phone features choke when they see the price tag on the latest sophisticated IP PBX systems. They also worry about the day when their present PBX runs out of capacity or becomes unmaintainable and they have to face the music on capital investment. What they may not realize is that all of these issues can be easily avoided by employing cloud hosted PBX services.

Hosted PBX means that instead of buying and maintaining your own in-house PBX system, you pay for use of a much larger and likely more sophisticated PBX operated by a service provider. The service provider has the investment and expertise to support many clients. Economy of scale means that this approach is often less expensive than doing it yourself, even without the capital investment.

Are you dissatisfied with your current business phone system but unsure what to do next? If so, get more information about Cloud Hosted IP PBX solutions and compare with your other alternatives.

Samsung Galaxy S III Supports Verizon 4G LTE

If you are looking for a powerful smartphone that embraces the latest technology for features and speed, look no further than the Samsung Galaxy S III for Verizon Wireless. The Galaxy series has always led the way in innovation, with this model continuing the tradition.

The Galaxy S III is an android smartphone running the Google Operating System 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich.” It sports a 4.8 in. HD Super AMOLED display with 1280 x 720 pixels to make text, video and everything else on the screen look crisp, vibrant and rich. The curved display helps to minimize screen scratches even when placed face-down.

But is it fast? You know it is. The processor is a 1.5 GHz dual-core with expandable memory capacity up to 64 GB. It supports Verizon’s 3G and 4G networks so that you’ll have broadband almost everywhere. The 4G standard is LTE, the fastest wireless network standard available. In non-4G areas, the data download speed falls back to EV-DO Rev A 3G speeds, which was state of the art until recently. Don’t bogart all that bandwidth. Share your 3G/4G connection with up to 10 WiFi-enabled devices.

The camera capability of the Samsung Galaxy S III is also impressive. You have two cameras on-board. The primary rear facing camera features 8 Megapixels with zero shutter-lag, a burst shot for rapidly snapping 20 pictures in burst shot mode to capture the fast moving action, and the ability to record HD video and shoot still photos at the same time. The front facing camera is 1.9 Megapixels for nice clear video conferencing. The new Share Shot feature lets you share all the photos you snap at an event instantly with friends nearby. You don’t even need WiFi connection. Want to check a video while doing something else? Pop up Play puts your video in a small picture-in-picture window that you can view while multi-tasking.

Speaking of video chat, Video Chat-Google+ Hangouts lets you join a hangout video chat with up to 9 other participants.

A new technology Samsung introduced in the Galaxy S III is called “S Beam.” It’s a combination of NFC (Near Field Communications) and WiFi Direct.

NFC is meant to establish communication links over very short distances. It is most often associated with digital wallet applications that let you use your smartphone in place of cash or a credit card. As more merchants equip their POS (Point of Sales) terminals with NFC, you may be able to leave your physical wallet at home and use your smartphone to buy just about anything.

WiFi Direct establishes a WiFi link without the need for a WiFi router or access point to act as intermediary. WiFi Direct has a longer range than NFC and can transfer large files at high speeds.

What Samsung is using S Beam for is sharing photos and other files between two phones without going through any setup gymnastics. You simply put the two phones back to back and tap the file you want to share. The person with the other phone accepts the transfer and the file is copied from your phone to theirs. How fast does this occur? Using WiFi Direct, the Samsung Galaxy S III can achieve speeds up to 300 Mbps.

Are you ready for an upgrade or a totally new phone? Do you want to get the latest technology at a discounted price? If so, check out the Samsung Galaxy S III Blue for Verizon Wireless. Many other models are also available at great deals.

Send Fax From Email On Your Computer or Smartphone

Remember the fax machines of yore? Yes, the ones with the rolls of thermal paper. Those fax messages always had kind of a funny feel to them and the nasty habit of fading over time. So, the thing to do was take your incoming fax messages and copy them onto plain paper with a laser printer. Then go wash your hands to get rid of that icky feeling.

Fax has come a long way since its early roots. Thermal paper has gone the way of photostatic copies. Even the ubiquitous business fax machine is now an endangered species. What’s replacing it? Electronic transmission and storage in the cloud, of course.

The thing to do now is send and receive fax messages via email. At first glance, this seems like one step too many. Since email can send and receive messages just fine on its own, what do you need fax for?

Fax messaging is still a staple of many business processes. The term “fax” is short for “facsimile.” A facsimile means an exact copy of something. Think of fax machines as copiers that are hooked together over a telecommunications link. Whatever you load into one machine comes out as a copy on the other.

This is the value of fax messages. It’s a way of sending copies of business documents with original signatures and hand written notations across long distances. Fax was originally implemented as a replacement for messenger services and overnight mail. An exact copy of the original document has more business value than a message about what is in the document.

Many businesses still have and will keep their stand-alone fax machines. Home office users and smaller operations may use an “all-in-one” printer that doubles as a copier and fax machine. What about when you are away from the office? You can’t haul that beast in the back seat of the car, can you? The traditional workaround has been to visit an office supply store or other business that offers fax service to send or receive a message. Now you can skip all that and use your smartphone or laptop computer.

Yes, it is possible to cram a fax machine into your iPhone or Android smartphone. Well, in the form of an app, anyway. How does it do the scanning? With your phone’s camera. You simply take pictures of your document pages and then send them to the fax number of your choice. You can create a cover sheet right on the phone if you need one. At the other end, the document copy comes rolling out of the office fax machine with no one the wiser that you’ve done it all on your smartphone.

You can also receive fax messages on your smartphone. In fact, with any computer and a broadband connection you can both send and receive faxes from the office, the coffee shop or wherever you happen to be. You send faxes as email attachments. You also receive faxes as email attachments. The person or company sending you the fax dials a local or toll free phone number that is just for your faxes. Their machine sends out the fax message and you receive it as an email attachment.

Would you like the freedom and versatility of doing your business faxing via the Internet? If so, then you’ll be interested in a free 30 day trial of paperless faxing by email. The software you’ll need for your computers is free to download. Be sure to also get the smartphone app for the ultimate in mobile faxing.

Recycle Your Cell Phones and Electronics For Cash

How many old cell phones, digital cameras, MP3 players, tablets, game consoles and e-readers do you have laying around? I’ll bet it’s more than one. Some people have half a dozen or more cell phones stuck in a desk drawer because they just don’t know what to do with them. How about converting this unwanted technology to cash? You can do that now. It’s quick and easy to sell cell phones and other electronics for quick cash online.

What makes this really easy is a service called uSell that gets you cash for your unwanted electronic gadgets. You may have heard of or seen companies that offer to recycle your stuff for free or make you a cash offer if they happen to want your make or model. This is a similar idea, but with multiple buyers.

You know those travel services that mash up multiple airlines, hotels, and rental car offers so that you can find the best deal? This is something like that. What you do is enter the make and model of your cell phone or other device and then check the boxes on what condition it is in and what accessories you still have. Then click the “find top cash offers” button. Almost instantly, you’ll be presented with one or more offers to buy your phone. These are from a variety of companies in the business of buying, refurbishing and recycling used electronic devices.

I gave the system a try by entering a digital camera that returned one offer. An Apple iPad 32 GB WiFi came back with 7 separate offers. The top offer can be twice or more the lowest offer, confirming the benefit of having more than one vendor to chose from. Sure, you can do a lot of searching yourself, visit a lot of sites, enter a lot of data or even try selling your device through auctions or classified ads. That’s going to take awhile. This took a matter of seconds. Really, the system is so fast that I had the offers as soon as I clicked the button.

It gets even better. Your next move is to pick one of the buyers so you can sell your phone. You’ll probably go immediately to the highest offer, but it makes sense to do a little due diligence and check out reviews of that company from other uSell users who’ve recently dealt with them. This is all provided for you, so it’s still quick and easy.

Ah, but what does it cost for shipping? Shipping is always extra, right? Nope. Shipping is free. You fill out a form and the buyer will send you a free shipping kit that includes a prepaid shipping label and often a box, too. Put your item inside and send it on its way.

What happens next is that your device is received by the buyer and inspected & tested to confirm that it matches your assessment. If so, you’ll get a quick payment, typically by check or PayPal depending on what you prefer. This is typically a week or two, not forever and a day. To get to this point you have invested, what, an hour tops?

Compare this with other methods of selling or disposing of your old electronics. It’s getting to be that you’ll get in trouble with the law if you simply throw electronics in the trash. So, you have to haul it somewhere that accepts such items and do it during their business hours. What do you get for all that trouble? A satisfying feeling, perhaps, but no cash.

Wouldn’t you rather get paid as well as clean out all that old electronics? Of course. Cash is always the most satisfying of all. So, wouldn’t this be a good time to fish through those desk drawers, boxes in the closet, basement or garage? Don’t reject items that are damaged or missing accessories. There may still be a market for them. Enter the make and model number and see if you can get an offer before you give up on that junker.

Mobile Wireless 3G Broadband

Most of us are now broadband dependent. We really can’t function if we can’t get connected to the Internet. That’s meant a wireline solution for the home and office and whatever on the go.

Whatever? Wireless standards are all over the map. LAN technology has long settled on 10/100 Ethernet with Gigabit Ethernet the emerging standard that's backwards compatible with earlier 10/100 standards. For wireless, the one common thread is WiFi. Nearly every wireless device can now communicate on a WiFi 802.11 b/g/n network. That would be great if you could connect to WiFi everywhere you go. Unfortunately, that’s far from the case.

One solution is to use a WiFi router at home or in the office and then go out in search of WiFi hotspots all over town. We hang out in our favorite restaurants and coffee shops to be able to connect our computing devices. In-between we simply go without.

The only nationwide wireless broadband network available is the cellular phone network. Cell phone towers were originally erected to provide a cordless mobile phone telephone service. It wasn’t long before the cell phone channels were doing double duty. Some were still assigned to carry phone conversations. Others were set up to transport Internet data. The latest technology is 4G. It’s fast and reliable, but it is still in the process of deployment. Can you get 4G? Maybe, maybe not. It depends on where you are. The established standard is 3G wireless. it’s available just about everywhere and gives you the same bandwidth performance as a basic DSL service. In many cases, it works as well as the T1 line at the office.

Many people have 3G wireless plans on their smartphones. That’s an excellent way to always have broadband with you. Some plans are set up for tethering. You can share your 3G mobile wireless broadband with several other devices using WiFi. In essence, you become the WiFi hotspot everywhere you need one.

That’s great if you happen to have a 3G smartphone with a tethering options. But what if you don’t? Is it possible to have 3G connectivity to your laptop, notebook, tablet or e-reader?

You bet it is. What you need is known as a wireless modem aircard. This is the radio set that connects to the cellular network. How does it connect to your device? There are two methods. For laptop computers, a broadband USB modem just plugs into an open USB connector. This device looks like one of those memory “dongles.” In this case, the primary function is wireless connectivity. It may do double duty if it also has a Micro-SD slot so that you can plug in a memory card up to 32 GB. That way you only need to carry one device for both file storage and wireless connectivity.

A more universal solution is MiFi mobile hotspot. This is a device about the size of a deck of cards that has a wireless modem aircard, battery and WiFi card all built-in. What it does is connect the 3G cellular wireless network to your device using WiFi. There are no wires involved. You can support up to 4 WiFi enabled devices from your MiFi anywhere you can get a cellular signal.

How much does it cost to get mobile wireless 3G broadband? DataJack has plans starting at under $10 for 200 MB. That’s pretty light duty for email and some Web browsing. If you need more, pick a 500 MB, 1GB or 5GB plan. They’ve got a chart to help you pick the right size wireless plan. The 200 MB plan is good for some 800 Web pages or 20,000 emails a month. The big 5GB plan will cover 20,000 Web Pages or 500,000 emails a month. These are just estimates, of course. Downloading music, video or apps will burn through those MB faster than general Web browsing or email activity.

If you go to a cell phone store to buy 3G wireless, they’ll hand you a 2 year contract to sign. Buy your plan through DataJack and you’ll have nationwide coverage (check the map to be sure your area is covered) with no contact, no termination fees and no activation fee. if you decide you don’t really need it anymore, you aren’t stuck for months or years paying through the nose.

By the way, another great use for one of these 3G wireless services is backup for your desktop computer. How big of a disaster is it if your Cable or DSL goes out while you are in the middle of something important? With a wireless option, you can keep working on the Internet during outages plus have mobile capability the rest of the time.

Does this sound like the service you’ve been wanting but didn’t know was available? Learn more, check coverage and order your DataJack Mobile Wireless 3G Broadband service now.

Hosted Voice Goes Mobile

There’s a major migration in progress right now. Can you guess what it is? If you answered “to the cloud,” you’d be right, of course. If you answered “PBX to the cloud,” you’d have read my mind. Companies are abandoning their PBX telephone systems in favor of cloud communications systems. You may know these as hosted PBX or hosted VoIP. Now, that also includes mobile.

Megapath’s Hosted Voice Mobile gives you the ability to have one-number VoIP calling from your desk phone, desktop computer or smartphone. The key is the one-number capability. Do you have one of those business cards with half a dozen different phone numbers? I’ll bet that confuses your customers and prospects. Hey, what are you supposed to do. You can’t be in the office all the time. Sometimes you are at your desk, sometimes you are out and about, the rest of the time you are at home. If a really important call comes in you aren’t about to quibble that you are “off duty” at home.

Legacy approaches to solving this problem include having a calling service that will try to locate you, carrying a pager (very legacy), remembering to forward to your phones, one by one, when you make a move, having a secretary take messages for you and leave them on your desk or just relying on voice mail that you check all the time. None of these approaches has been ideal, but they sure beat missing a critical communication.

This is where cloud technology shines. Location doesn’t mean a thing to the cloud, because it covers all locations. With cloud services you can be anywhere and access your account in the cloud using whatever compatible device you happen to have handy. With Hosted Voice Mobile, you use an easy-to-manage Web portal that controls call routing using a single VoIP number. That’s right. You hand out one number and know that you’ll get calls to that number no matter where you happen to be.

Hosted PBX systems relieve you of the responsibility to maintain a small telephone switching system in your back room. This function moves to a much larger platform at your cloud service provider. All you have in-house are IP phones, a voice gateway that delivers telephone services, plus your mobile smartphones. The hosted system contains the functionality for such features as Find Me / Follow Me and Visual Voicemail. Now that includes your smartphone as well as your desk phone.

Megapath goes beyond some of the basic hosted PBX services to include features like HD voice for crystal clear call quality, free domestic calling that includes long distance and the ability to replicate key telephone systems.

What’s a key system? If you have a phone system that has individual buttons for all the outside phone lines, you have a key system. Key phones have lights next to each line switch so you know when the line is busy. If you want to make an outgoing call, you select an unused line. If you want to join a conversation in progress, you push the button for that line and you are conferenced in.

PBX telephone systems differ from key systems in that the PBX manages the outside lines. You don’t have the ability to pick a line and probably don’t even know how many lines there are. They are placed in a pool and assigned as needed. That’s when an incoming call comes into the system, or someone requests an outside line by dialing a number, usually “9.”

Are you feeling constrained by the limitations of your present phone system or are experiencing outages that are time consuming and expensive? Before you get a loan to buy yet another in-house phone system, check out the options available with one of the newer hosted VoIP systems. You’ll avoid large capital investments, pay per seat per month, and gain valuable features such as mobile integration that you don’t have now. Compare competitive cloud hosted communications systems with what you have now and see what you’ve been missing.

RAZR Reincarnation

When the original Motorola RAZR smartphone appeared on the market, it caused quite a stir. You might say it was the iPhone of its time. When cell phones were chunky little flip blobs or hefty candy bars, the RAZR boasted the thinest profile at the time. It was an amazing half-inch thick. How could they possibly get all that technology in that also revolutionary aircraft aluminum case?

Now there’s a new RAZR phone with far more advanced technology and it’s even thinner, measuring a scant 0.3 inches or 7.1 mm. Instead of machined aluminum, the case is now laser-cut KEVLAR with Corning Gorilla Glass to protect the screen. There’s even a splash guard coating to shield the electronics from water attacks, just in case you are partial to Pina Coladas and getting caught in the rain. Meet the DROID RAZR by Motorola for Verizon Wireless.

What else is new in the RAZR technology upgrade? First of all, network connectivity. This is a 4G LTE Smartphone. That means blazing speed, more like a home or office Internet connection than what you’d expect from the cellular networks. If you wander out of 4G coverage, the RAZR will revert to 3G. You can choose to connect to a WiFi hotspot or be the hotspot. Share your 4G LTE Internet connection with up to 8 other WiFi enabled devices. On 3G, it supports 5 WiFi devices.

There’s a speedy 1.2 GHz dual core processor inside, with 1 GB of RAM. Storage memory is 16 GB on board with support for up to 32 GB on plug-in cards. It runs Google’s Android OS 2.3 Gingerbread operating system with the Motorola Application Platform. Your hardwired interface connections include a micro USB port and a micro HDMI-1080p port that can be run in mirror mode to your HDTV or monitor.

The DROID RAZR screen is a 4.3 inch Super AMOLED advanced display that serves up hyper-vibrant colors and smooth action for movies and TV shows. You can stream from Netflix or download those movies from the Android Market. Another cool feature is MotoCast, a free app that lets you securely access files that are stored on your desktop computer. No need to upload to a third-party cloud. You can stream from where your media already exists.

That high resolution display is matched to an 8 Megapixel rear facing camera that can record 1080p HD video. Don’t worry about being a little shaky as you capture images. The DROID RAZR has image stabilization included to smooth out the scenes. The audio that accompanies the video has selectable modes that include stereo, wind reduction, concert and more. There’s a dual mic system onboard so that you can take calls even in noisy environments and still be heard clearly. A second camera faces front for video conferencing. This one has 1.3 Megapixels, which used to be a good spec for the main camera. Time marches on. You can capture 720p HD video with the front facing imager.

Here’s your chance to get this advanced personal and business phone at a special online price. Don’t plunk down too much green at a carrier store or big-box retailer until you check out the Special Deal on DROID RAZR by Motorola for Verizon Wireless. Clearly, it’s time to upgrade to a much sharper razor phone.

Note: Photo of DROID RAZR side view is shown for effect and is not to actual size.

Is Mobility Killing Your Company?

Everything was fine when just a handful of execs had company cell phones. It made sense to keep them connected at all times for the good of the business. Then a funny thing happened. What worked for the C-level execs also worked for the VPs and the directors and the department managers. Finally, somebody did a trade study and soon everyone had a company issued smartphone. Productivity went through the roof, right?

Well, certainly there is a lot more interaction among team members and faster response to customers and sales prospects. But, oh, the expense of it all. Since this was a phased-in process, each location cut its own deal with its own preferred provider. Even if one carrier is predominant, there are hundreds of contracts with hundreds of bills. Sadly, some of these bill are routinely paid each month while the phones sit uncharged and unused in empty desks. Hey, people come and go. Who has time to stay on top of all this?

Certainly, you don’t. Your business isn’t optimizing wireless accounts. It’s keeping your own operation afloat. That doesn’t mean the situation is hopeless. Why don’t you turn over the entire load of hundreds of phones, their contracts and their bills to a company that specializes in wireless cost control? It’ll be out of your hair and you are almost guaranteed to save money in the process.

The first step is getting a free, no-obligation analysis of your accounts. The company that does this, Advantix Solutions, will go over a few months or more of detailed wireless bills with a fine tooth comb. They know what to look for and how to keep an eye on the big picture. Are some of these resources going to waste? Are there ways to consolidate contracts and bills? They don’t do this by hand, the way your harried managers probably do when they have time. They use proprietary analysis software to crunch the numbers and make accurate recommendations for cost savings. You’ll need to have anywhere from hundreds to thousands of cell phones to make this work efficiently, but work it will.

You’ll get a detailed report in 7 to 10 business days. It will outline where the problem areas are and what the opportunities are to optimize your wireless costs. What you probably don’t realize is that every provider has both published and hidden rate plans. You may well be on the wrong ones for how you use your devices. A few changes here and there and, suddenly, you are paying less for the same benefit.

OK, how much are you going to save and what’s this going to cost? Would you be shocked to know that the average Advantix clients saves over 29% on their monthly wireless bills? That’s without having to change service providers and reduce usage. Here comes another shock. Advantix gets paid out of the savings they create. In other words, they get paid and you get paid. Your expenses don’t go up, they go down.

That’s just the start of the good times. Advantix will also take the management headache of administering those wireless phones off your back. They’ll expedite support and trouble ticket resolution for all your employees. They’ll also raise accountability standards for every location to lower your costs. Need to order new phones, replace old, lost or stolen phones, get accessories, activate new services, change rate plans or user names, or cancel lines of service? Advantix has a dedicated support staff for that. They know what they’re doing and they’re good at it because that is all they do.

Mobility is no longer a two-edged sword when you have the proper support to make it work optimally. It’s pretty hard to go wrong when the cost of this service comes out of the savings you didn’t even know were available. Can you really say no to having your expenses go down? I didn’t think so. Before you do anything else, lock in a cost savings for your company right now by requesting a free, no obligation analysis of your wireless accounts. Get that ball rolling, and you’re already ahead for the day.

How To Reduce Your Business Wireless Costs

Are you suspicious that you may be spending a lot more on business mobile wireless services than you should be? It’s for a good reason. You most likely are. How much? Somewhere between 25 and 35%. Now, how would you like to capture that savings for your company?

I thought you would, so here’s the secret to doing just that. What you need to do is gather up all your wireless bills, go through them with a fine tooth comb to identify which plans are being used optimally and which have services going to waste, look for billing errors, find devices without any use and eliminate them, identify voice and data overages and figure out how to adjust those plans, consolidate vendors, and make sure you identify all unpublished plans and discount programs that are available for your business.

What? Do all that and still get your job done? Why, you’d need to hire a wireless expert for all that analysis and change activity. Oh, you could assign each employee the job of managing their smartphone and other wireless devices, but that’s pretty much hit and miss. They won’t spend much time on it and probably don’t know what to do next. Plus, how can you get economy of scale with everybody going in a different direction?

Obviously, you can’t make much progress without the sufficient expertise, time, and knowledge of all the products and services and their pricing that you could be taking advantage of. Fortunately, you don’t need to be an expert or hire an expert employee. You just need to bring in some expert help.

The service you are looking for is Advantix. Their specialty is telecom analysis and management, both for wireline and wireless services. Analyzing wireline phone bills is something many consulting firms do. But how many are up to speed on wireless to the point where they can expect to cut your expenses by up to a third or more?

The wireless monster has sneaked up on most businesses. They think of it as having a few cell phones around for key employees. In reality, they are spending thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars a year... one phone at a time.

Avantix takes a comprehensive approach to optimizing your wireless business services. They’ll collect and analyze all your wireless expenses for billing errors, unused and underused services, overage situations, missed opportunities for business plan discounts, and opportunities to consolidate carriers for major savings. They’ll even go to bat for you to prepare the RFPs, evaluate competing proposals, and negotiate the contracts.

Do you really think that you are up enough on the wireless industry to know how to find every discount or opportunity for savings? Probably not, unless that’s your main business. Why not get a risk-free, no-obligation wireless analysis from Advantix and see what they can do without increasing your workload? The savings can be substantial, even eye-popping.

Fixed Mobile Convergence Includes Android and iPhone

When we think of network convergence, it is generally in terms of engineering the LAN, MAN and WAN to support voice, video and data. Network convergence is at the heart of the productivity and cost savings offered by enterprise VoIP solutions. Even so, there is still one piece missing. That’s the mobile phone. This is where FMC or Fixed Mobile Convergence comes into play.

The idea behind FMC is that cell phones, especially smartphones, are now so ubiquitous that they have to be included in the corporate communications structure or there will be a big hole in the system. It’s especially true for sales people, field engineers, and anyone else who spends a significant amount of time out of the office and away from the desk phone. It’s also true, perhaps unfortunately, that we’re in a 24/7 world where important calls may come in at any time.

Some employees handle this situation with workarounds, such as setting up the office phone to forward to their cell phone when they leave the office. That’s fine when they remember. If not, voice mail becomes the communications method of last resort. Wouldn’t it make more sense to have the office phone system extended to include your mobile phone?

Smoothstone IP Communications thinks so and is now making their Mobile Connect app available to both Android and iPhone using customers. What Mobile Connect does integrate your smartphone into the enterprise communications platform. You then have one number, your work number, that rings on both your desk phone and your cell phone. When you place an outgoing call, the Caller ID reflects your work number, not your personal mobile number. Other calling features include access to the company directory, low cost international calling, 4-digit on-net dialing, visual voice mail and one-touch access to listen to and manipulate voice mail messages.

There are also advanced features from Smoothstone’s VoiceMAXX system that carry over to Mobile Connect. These include call recording and centralized call detail reporting.

VoiceMAXX is Smoothstone’s cloud based PBX telephone system. It relieves businesses of the need to invest in and maintain an on-premises PBX system, yet has the flexibility to integrate with and extend an existing PBX.

Cloud hosted PBX is a pay-as-you go proposition that easily scales to include more users as needed. With a cloud solution, you don’t have to over-provision your system to allow for growth. You simply buy more capacity as you need it. You also don’t have the agony of a “fork lift upgrade” that involves ripping out your old PBX and replacing it with a new one of higher capacity, more modern design or more features. All of those capital investment, installation, upgrades and daily maintenance tasks are taken care of by the cloud service provider. You just concentrate on those things that advance the business you are in.

Is your existing business telephone system creaking at the seams, or are you ready for the higher productivity that comes from advanced features such as fixed mobile convergence? If so, learn more and get pricing for cloud hosted PBX telephone services scaled to match the needs of your business, be it small, medium or enterprise level.

A Plethora of Free Android Phones

Christmas is just not Christmas without the phones you love. The true love of smartphone aficionados this year is the Android phone. But, can you really afford to give an Android to a loved one or yourself? You sure can when that Android is free.

Free is a big deal in the world of smartphones. These phones are the cutting edge of technology and have cutting edge prices to match. It’s not unusual to see a price tag of $500 or $600 attached to the latest models. These are computer prices. Come to think of it, a smartphone, particularly an Android smartphone, is as much a computer as it is a telephone. They run on 3G and 4G wireless networks with enough bandwidth to do the sort of things most people use a desktop or laptop computer for. That includes Web browsing, social networking, email and watching videos.

If you think about it, five or six hundred dollars isn’t that extravagant for a fully functioning computer, but why shell out when you can get your choice of Android phone for free? Save your money for a new tablet computer or something else completely. The trick to getting our phone without paying for it is to order it online with a new service plan. You need a cellular service plan anyway, regardless of what phone you pick. The plans carry exactly the same monthly cost whether you buy them in a carrier store, a big box electronics retailer, or through a high volume online retailer. So, why not be smart about where you make the purchase and get a free smartphone in the process?

Let’s take a look at what’s available in the way of free Android phones as of this writing. The selection changes all the time, but there are always lots of models to choose from.

You’ve hear of the DROID INCREDIBLE? It’s an Android 2.2 phone from HTC for Verizon Wireless. This phone is widely discussed and desired. It has an advanced 8 Megapixel digital camera with a 2x power LED flash. The processor is a screaming fast 1 GHz Snapdragon with 8 GB of internal Flash memory. It comes with the HTC Sense user interface that organizes all of your incoming texts, emails, tweets and Facebook messages by sender. You could pay the retail price of $550 to get this incredible INCREDIBLE or you can get yours free when you sign up for a new Verizon Wireless account online.

How about the popular Motorola DEVOUR in silver? It’s a $500 Android smartphone that you can get also get for free with new Verizon Wireless service. This one features a slide-out full QWERTY keyboard in a durable shell. The MOTOBLUR user interface syncs all your messages, status updates and contacts to your customizable homescreens. Your favorite Google apps come preloaded and include Google Maps, GTalk, Gmail, YouTUbe, Latitude and more.

Other popular Android phones available for free right now include the T-Mobile myTouch 4G, LG Optimus T, DROID X by Motorola, Samsung Intercept in gray steel or satin pink, HTC Aria for AT&T, LG Ally, DROID 2, LG Vortex in black or violet, Motorola BACKFLIP, Bravo, CHARM, Citrus, CLIQ, Cliq XT, Flip Out, Flipside, Captivate and Fascinate. That’s a lot of models just from Motorola. The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 for AT&T and T-Mobile Comet are also free.

Do you think that one of these free Android phones might be just what you are looking for this year? Well, don’t wait too long. You want to get yours delivered in time for the holidays and before supplies inevitably run out. Learn more and check out all the free Android special offers, plus an amazing array of other cell phones and high-end Android phones at deep discounts.

It’s Free Phones Time For The Holidays

We’re right on the cusp of the official start to the holiday season, with a mad dash through the stores beginning the day after Thanksgiving. Before you get caught up in the hoopla and wind up spending a bundle on smartphones you fall in love with, why not take a breath and see if you can get those same phones for free?

How do you do that? What you need is a specialized search engine. It’s designed to find only those cell phones that are free to you when you order them with new service. You’ll find that search engine at Cell Phone Plan Finder.



Are there really more than a few obsolete phone models being given away? Hey, you be the judge. At this writing I count 23 wireless phones of all makes and models available at no charge. The majority of these are smartphones and the rest are current technology cell phones. Let’s take a look at these offerings.

The first two on the list are the BlackBerry Curve and BlackBerry Bold for AT&T. If you like that carrier, you can also get the Motorola BACKFLIP with MOTOBLUR, the Samsung Eternity II, The Samsung Strive in black and purple, and the Samsung Rugby II, to name a few.

If Verizon is more your choice, you’ll be able to pick up the BlackBerry Storm2, BlackBerry Tour, LG Ally, Motorola DEVOUR and Verizon Wireless Salute.

How about T-Mobile? Yes, you can get the Motorola Cliq XT with MOTOBLUR, the Nokia 2720 or Samsung T249, all for free.

Sprint has the Samsung M240 in silver or the Samsung M360 as their free offering.

Oh, you didn’t see the “FREE” sign on these phones when you took your whirlwind tour of the cell phone and big box stores? That’s because you have to know where to shop to get the really good deals. I’d suggest that you take few minutes right now to check out the free cell phones available at Cell Phone Plan Finder.

Is that all the phones that are available at a huge discount? No, just the free ones. There are dozens more available at deep discounts to their retail prices and even the special offers you find in the newspaper. Why not check out the phone available for your favorite carrier or browse the complete selection at Cell Phone Plan Finder.