Unified Communications Archives - Connecticut Communications

Update your unified communications system with zero percent lease

Many organizations find that they need to update their existing communications systems, but lack the Capital budget to do so, or they’re simply apprehensive to make an investment in technology which seems to be ever-changing. However, in our current business climate, the status quo when it comes to technology upgrades quickly leads to reduced productivity, poor customer service and increased cost. For this reason, many leading organizations have moved their technology upgrades from their Capital budget to their Operating budget by leveraging financing.

To replace or not to replace?

Let’s face it, advances in technology are designed to make us more productive and give us the ability to perform more efficiently while enhancing responses to our customer’s needs. That being said, if you’re not leveraging technology to provide better service, you may be at a disadvantage when compared to your competitors.

Technology is changing so rapidly that whatever you acquire today may be obsolete within five years. If you’re wrestling with the dilemma of whether or not upgrading seems worth it, you’re not alone. More and more businesses are reaping all the benefits of new technology while simultaneously hedging against technology obsolescence through a Fair Market Value lease. A Fair Market Value lease option allows your organization to obtain all of the productivity benefits and enhanced customer service capability delivered by today’s Unified Communications, Mobility & Collaboration tools while giving you the ability to retain your hard-earned cash and providing you with the least-cost option to deliver a solid ROI.

A good example of this is NEC Financial Services’ current offering of Fair Market Value leases with rates at or even below zero percent. For many organizations, these rates produce a monthly cost figure on a new solution which often falls well below what the organization is currently spending for maintenance alone. With these figures, finding the elusive ROI becomes easily achievable. Additionally, this financing structure provides all the benefits derived from the use of the new technology without having to worry about ownership and the risks associated with long-term investment in ever-changing technology.

You don’t have to spend money to make money!

If you think you have to expend large amounts of capital just to grow your business, think again. Financing opportunities like the one mentioned above lends other options. Are you wondering how this is possible? Take a look at the following example:

ABC Company has identified that upgrading their outdated PBX provides an opportunity for significant cost savings. But there’s a problem. With no funds left in this year’s Capital budget, their IT Department will pay more for their existing, inefficient infrastructure until funds are available. Not to mention the risks associated with operating an outdated system that exposes the business to equipment failure.

What now?

With the help of NEC Corporation of America, ABC Company performs a cost analysis and determines that by leveraging NEC Financial Services’ 0% Fair Market Value promotional lease, they’re able to obtain the technology they need now at a rate that falls below what they’re currently spending for maintenance alone! Moreover, the improved productivity and enhanced customer service experience they’re able to produce by implementing Unified Communications and Collaboration is helping them to retain and acquire more customers. This makes the new solution a revenue producer rather than a cost burden.

Don’t get stuck in a rut like ABC Company – leverage a technology financing partner who offers the most accommodating (and cost reducing) structure for you. With NEC Financial Services, it’s a win-win with 0% FMV offered for 48 or 60 months on select communications systems. You’ll want to take advantage of this offer quickly. The savings are great but they won’t last. The offer ends August 30, 2013.

For more information and to learn how you can take advantage of a 0% Fair Market Value Lease, call Connecticut Communications at 203.985.1000

Connecticut Communications Newsletter June 2013

Connecticut Communications produces a newsletter each month. The newsletter is an informative piece of information on technology and consists of;

Helpful Technical Information
Phone System Feature or New Product
Phone Set Feature for User

Last month’s newsletter included;

Internet Redundancy
NEC Bluetooth Handset
NEC Auto Set Relocation

The Newsletter is very easy to read and understand. Our readers enjoy learning about new features, how to’s, and saving money. Each month the newsletter gives the reader something different to read, but it’s always informative.

Internet Redundancy

Everyone has an internet circuit. What happens when your internet goes down? You are basically out of business, right? Today, your business relies on the internet now more than ever.

Why not add an inexpensive secondary internet circuit such as AT&T u-verse or DSL? This will give you redundancy, in case your primary internet connection fails. Also, your secondary circuit can actually combine with your primary internet connection to give you more bandwidth.

A dual WAN (wide area network) router will allow you to connect both of your internet circuits. The router can be configured to use the secondary circuit only in a fail-over mode. Or, it can be configured to use the secondary circuit along with the primary to increase your bandwidth. Either way, when one internet circuit fails, the router will automatically switch over to the other circuit. Business can continue, at a slightly slower speed, but at least you’re still in business.

A secondary internet circuit costs about $70 per month and a dual WAN router costs about $750. A small price to pay to keep your business functioning.

Bluetooth Handset Adapter

NEC has a Bluetooth handset that takes the place of a regular corded handset. You can expect to get about a 150′ range from the bluetooth handset, about the same as your cordless phone at home. It has a 20-Character/ 2-Line display, eight (8) programmable function keys for one-touch extensions, and six (6) fixed feature keys. The best part about the Bluetooth adapter is the ability of the user to sync up their existing mobile phone Bluetooth headset with their NEC telephone. Mobile users can leave their Bluetooth earpiece on and sync it up with their NEC phone when in the office and mobile phone when they are out of the office. Or, you can just use it as a cordless phone in the office.

Newsletter July 2013 – NEC VoIP phone system

This month’s newsletter provides a Move Checklist for communications. Learn the sequence of events that will help make your move easier. It might be best to move your existing phone system, or it might make sense to install a new VoIP unified communications system.

Move Checklist

It is said, people move only once in their personal life and once in business because the experience is so painful. Here is a list of items you need to keep in mind when moving your communications.

1) Perform a site survey of your new office to see if you need voice & data cabling. Sometimes you can reuse the existing cabling but sometimes you cannot. As soon as you have the keys to your new space, give us a call and we will give you a free site survey.

2) Do you need to keep your phone number?Some businesses need to keep their phone number at all costs. To some it’s not as important. If you are moving within the same phone exchange, moving your lines is easy. Call your phone provider at least two weeks ahead of time. They will want an exact date that you want your lines moved and time of day, morning or afternoon. Always say morning. They will disconnect you by 8am that day and reconnect you by noon if you choose morning, or by 5pm if you choose afternoon. If you are moving a long distance call away there are a few options that we need to discuss.

3) Order Internet service ahead of time. Have it installed a week or two before you move in. That way you can have your IT person connect the router and get that working before you move in.

4) When you confirm your phone service installation/move of your lines, contact Connecticut Communications to schedule the move of your phone system. On the day of the move, we will come in and disconnect it from your old office and re-install it in your new office.

Connecticut Communications can help you with all of these items. We can cable your new office for phones/fax/credit card/paging system, as well as your computer network. We are agents for all major phone line providers as well as Internet providers so we can place an order to move or add new service. You can do it all yourself or have the experts at Connecticut Communications do it all for you.

We make moving easier for you so you can concentrate on the actual move. In fact, you might even be up for moving again!

Power Outage Due to Lightning

It’s that time of the year where lightning strikes at least once per week. And when lightning strikes, you have power outages. Connecticut Communications installs a UPS ( uninterrupted power supply) on each phone system. If you lose power, the UPS will protect the phone system from power surges and will provide power to the phone system for about 10-30 minutes. After the UPS exhausts its battery life, the phone system will power down. When power is restored, the UPS does not come back up on it’s own.

If you return to your office and your phone system is dead, go to the UPS and press the power button until it clicks back on (press and hold for a few seconds). This will bring the UPS back to life and send power to the phone system. Allow ten minutes for the phone system to boot up completely.

Sometimes the power surge blows out the UPS. In this case, simply bypass the UPS and plug the phone system directly into the wall electrical outlet. Call Connecticut Communications for a replacement UPS. They are free under our Maintenance Agreement.

What’s Different about Star2Star?

They’ve been winning awards for innovation, products, and service since their founding in 2005. Most recently, they were named to the prestigious Inc. 500 list of America’s fastest-growing private companies. They’ve won these accolades for three major reasons:

Superior Technology

They discovered one key thing very early on: Business VoIP users won’t put up with dropped calls or bad voice quality, no matter how much money it saves them. They developed their own unique technology to overcome the limitations of other VoIP products. They call it Blended Architecture™, and it is the cornerstone of everything they do. Blended Architecture allows them to provide a superior, business-class VoIP product at a highly competitive price.

Relentless Reliability & Customer Service

When you switch your phone service to Star2Star, they become your phone company. If something goes wrong – no matter where the problem is – they’ll take care of it, at no charge to you. They also monitor every telephone on their network around the clock. If they spot a problem, they’ll fix it immediately. If the problem is at your office, they’ll send a Connecticut Communications technician out with a replacement part, usually the next day.

Unfortunately, accidents and disasters happen all the time. And when they do, we’re able to keep your phone system working, even if your business suffers a power or Internet outage — or even a complete loss of your business premises.

Substantial Savings

We can save your business a substantial amount of money on your monthly phone bill. And if your business has multiple locations, we can save you even more money using our line pooling feature. Most of our customers see a positive cash flow the very first month they switch to Star2Star. See our Savings page for more details.

Newsletter August 2013

This month’s newsletter showcases NEC’s Unified Communications Desktop software. NEC UC Desktop is software that gets installed on your office PC to allow the user to transfer calls, view phone status, view out of office status, and much more.

Users today want to process calls using their PC, not their telephone. NEC’s UC Desktop gives strong PC users an easy way to handle call processing.

NEC’s UC Desktop

NEC’s UC Desktop Suite delivers integrated unified communications (UC) that enhance an organization’s productivity and collaboration.

It is a scalable, feature-rich solution that simplifies communications management and enables complete mobility. Specifically developed for small to medium size businesses, UC Desktop Suite users become more mobile and efficient.

UC Desktop Suite provides an easy, affordable way for businesses to implement UC functionality throughout their organization. It offers a wide-range of capabilities from managing communications on desktop personal computers (PCs), CRM Integration, Presence, collaboration through a multimedia softphone to placing a complete attendant console right on an operator’s PC.

Simplified Call Management – users simply click easy-to-understand icons on their computer screens for all calling functions
Mobility – offers two ways to stay connected and productive:
- Mobile Presence – through a user’s mobile phone or laptop web-browser, enables ability to change user status; access, search, view status and profile information of all contacts plus simply click a contact to place a call
- UC Web Client – ability to launch UC Desktop Client from anywhere within an Internet browser window and access most available features. (For Internal Server Blade only)
Presence – provides users with real-time status and availability of their colleagues
Instant Messaging – enables users to effectively and efficiently communicate in real-time
CRM Integration – offers businesses seamless application access to leverage and manage their information more efficiently
Quick Messaging – enables users to send a personalized message to one or more colleagues’ PC or multi-line display phone
Integration with UNIVERGE SV8100 Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) – enables users to login as an agent and view real-time queue statistics plus monitor ACD states of other agents
Integration with UNIVERGE VM8000 InMail and UM8000 Voicemail – offers quick access to and easy management of messages directly from the UC Desktop Client
Multimedia Softphone – enables mobility and sharing of real-time information through advanced UC applications such as videoconferencing, Presence, application sharing, whiteboard, chat and file transfer

NEC’s Unified Communications Desktop Suite

10 Reasons Hosted PBX is Best for your Business

Do you purchase a traditional digital phone system for your business, a hybrid phone system, an all IP based phone system, or a hosted PBX? Sometimes it’s not an easy answer as there are many factors to consider. However, here are 10 reasons hosted PBX might be best for your business.

Never a busy signal. With burstable SIP trunks, callers will never receive a busy signal.
DID numbers. DID, or Direct Inward Dial, allows you to have private telephone numbers in addition to your main number. Callers can reach your desk by dialing your personal DID number.
Voice Mail to Email. All your voice messages automatically get sent to your email as a .wav file. Easily play them back through your PC or Smartphone.
PC Attendant/Smartphone. Each user can transfer calls through a PC application or smartphone as shown in this link… StarPhone
Bundled Long Distance. Hosted PBX comes with 600 minutes of long distance each month, per line. Or, get unlimited long distance with seat licenses.
Remote IP Phone. It’s easy to install an IP phone at your house, simply plug it into your internet for connection back to your office.
Maintenance Included. Hosted PBX comes with a full maintenance agreement. All PBX modules and phones are covered with a full hardware warranty, all parts and labor. Free software upgrades too!
Redundacy. Premise based hosted PBX allows for dual WAN ports for redundancy. If one internet circuit goes down, the device uses the second internet circuit automatically.
Power Outage Routing. If you lose power (hurricane season is here) you can simply access your user portal, using your smartphone, to route your calls to individual cell phones, house phones, etc.
Out of Area Telephone Numbers. Hosted PBX allows your company to obtain out of area telephone numbers at no extra charge. Want a New York number? Simply order one. No long distance charges or call forward charges apply.

Click on the Star2Star logo for a detailed architecture of their hosted PBX.

Connecticut Communications offers traditional, hybrid, VoIP and premised based VoIP PBX. Please contact us to discuss the best option for your business.

Newsletter September 2013 NEC InACD

In this month’s newsletter we learn about NEC’s Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) software package called InACD. This feature is available on NEC SV8100 VoIP telephone system.

InACD puts callers into a queue, first in first out.

InACD yields live call reporting on calls in queue for a particular department. Managers, from their PC, can instantly see how many calls are in queue, see the longest wait time, and view what agents are logged in to handle calls.

InACD also produces statistical call reports at the end of day/week/month. Managers can view reports to see how many phone calls each agent takes, what is the average per call length, and much more.

InACD is part of unified communications from NEC and is available on the NEC SV8100 business telephone system. Special NEC lease rates are available.

NEC InACD

ACD – Automatic Call Distribution

If your business receives a lot of calls place them in an ACD queue, NEC will put them in order first in, first out. Callers have the option to leave the queue to dial another extension or leave a voice message for a call back. Boost customer service by reducing the hold time.

The NEC SV8100 ACD MIS real-time display provides a simulated wallboard. It instantly provides both queue threshold and agent information to supervisors via their PCs. Supervisors and authorized agents can use the agent desktop GUI to text message important information to agents or groups. This instant access to information improves agent performance and reduces training time without increasing business costs.

Agents and supervisors can retrieve statistical information from the SV8000 Series ACD by simply pressing a telephone button. When queued callers or caller hold times exceed a pre-determined threshold, the system automatically sends alerts to agents’ and supervisors’ telephone displays.

Supervisors may run reports on agents to see who is performing well and who needs improvement.

To SIP or not to SIP?

Have you ever wondered what all the fuss is about with SIP trunking? Well, for starters, not only can SIP trunking improve communication and collaboration, it can also significantly lower your IT costs – so much so, that some organizations have taken advantage of the savings to justify additional investments in Unified Communications.

Traditionally, an enterprise’s private branch exchange (PBX) is connected to the public-switched telephone network (PSTN) over a “trunk”, which is a hard-wired connection of the enterprise to the rest of the world. Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunking is an alternative to that model, in which third-party Internet telephony service providers (ITSPs) connect the PBX to the Internet and then to the PSTN, allowing communication with fixed and mobile devices worldwide without the hassle of a physical wire trunk.

Why Switch to SIP…THE BOTTOM LINE

Switching to a SIP trunking solution can yield significant communications savings and offer a quick return on investment, especially if your company has multiple locations and often uses international calling.

So what are the benefits of SIP trunking, and how can SIP help your organization? SIP trunking will better utilize your bandwidth because telephony and Internet lines are combined, allowing for optimization based on average consumption rather than peak usage.

nec-unified_communications_-_sip_-_protocol-image

Additionally, call speed is increased because all data, voice, and media is passing through carrier systems as IP traffic rather than analog signals. The risk of implementing new technology is mitigated by using an ITSP, as the ITSP keeps you current with technology updates without recurring costs. By using multiple ITSPs and least cost routing (LCR) to always make the most cost-efficient call, a company can realize substantial savings – especially with regard to international calls. What’s more, SIP reuses HTTP ports so it can be easier for end users to work with. Plus, billing is bundled, making things easier on you, the end-user. These aren’t the only benefits; check out the list below for more.

Benefits of SIP trunking

Reliable delivery of communication applications such as instant messaging (IM), presence tracking, video conferencing and application sharing.
You will no longer need a costly PSTN gateway.
Long-distance charges will be reduced.
Voice, video, and data are combined in a single line.
SIP trunking can be a cost-effective delivery option for external communication.

Connecticut Communications can help you decide if SIP trunking is for you. We can analyze your phone bill and go over the advantages and disadvantages.There’s an ongoing debate questioning the value of SIP trunk costs savings as justification for migrating your PBX. Some believe the value is an overstated reason to migrate, while others point to real cost savings. Which side are you leaning toward?

Newsletter October 2013 – Conference Bridge

This month’s newsletter talks about the NEC Conference Bridge. Do you use a 3rd party conference service? If so, save money with the added convenience of hosting your own conference calls.

The NEC SV8100 VoIP unified communications server has a conference bridge card that connects to your LAN and phone lines. Easily setup conference calls with email notification. Callers can call in when they are ready to join the conference.

The newsletter also talks about changing your company’s main greeting on your automated attendant.

View the Connecticut Communications newsletter to learn about the NEC conference bridge. Host your own conference calls with this easy to use feature.

– Save money, purchase the card and host unlimted conference calls at no extra charge!

– Comes in 8 or 16 user conference capability

– Host mulitiple conferences simultaneously

NEC Conference Bridge

Host your own conference calls

NEC offers a built in conference bridge where you can setup and run your own conference calls. I’m not talking about 2-3 party conferences, I’m referring to a conference bridge where callers call in, enter a PIN number, and are joined together with superb voice quality.

The conference bridge connects to your LAN so administers can easily setup a conference. Invitees are sent an email with the call in information where the user can click to add it to their Outlook calendar.

NEC offers the conference bridge as an 8 or 16 party conference.

Get rid of your monthly 3rd party conference bill. Purchase the NEC conference bridge one time and get unlimited conference calls forever at no additional cost.

Click below for a brochure on the NEC Conference Bridge!

NEC Conference Bridge

Video Surveillance – analog or IP cameras?

More and more companies are installing video surveillance systems. Businesses want to protect their property against thieves and outside cameras are a deterent. And any person foolish enough to commit a crime with video cameras installed will surely be caught. In addition to protecting the business from intruders, video surveillance is also installed inside the office to prevent employee theft and false workmans comp claims. So, the question is not should you install video surveillance, it’s what kind of video surveillance, analog or IP?

Analog: An analog video surveillance system connects analog cameras to a DVR. A DVR is much like the DVR at your home, its an appliance that records video for easy playback. DVRs come in 4-camera, 8-camera, 16-camera or 32-camera configurations. How much video you want to store will decide on the size of the hard drive you purchase for the DVR.

Analog cameras use coax cable to connect back to the DVR. This coax cable can distribute power as well as video so the analog cameras do not need to be plugged into a power source.

Analog cameras are very high quality…about as good as today’s IP cameras. Analog video is not compressed, its sent down the coax cable as is, therefore, the image is not going to be getting any better with advances of technology, but it is still very good. The DVR can be connected to the LAN for easy viewing from a networked PC or smartphone.

Analog video surveillance is still the most cost effective method of installing video surveillance and still represents over 85% of the video surveillance market.

IP: An IP video surveillance system connects IP cameras to an NVR (network video recorder), a server on the network.

ip-dome-video-surveillance-camera-26845-resized

The NVR can handle any number of IP cameras, you simply purchase IP camera licenses for the NVR. As with the analog solution, the size of the hard drive will determine the amount of days you can keep your video.

IP cameras require data cabling (CAT5e or higher) to connect back to the NVR. To supply power to the camera you will need a power over ethernet (POE) managed data switch. Data has a range of 350′ so any IP camera that needs to be installed further than that will require another managed POE data switch in between the NVR and IP camera.

Today, in my opinion, analog and IP camera quality are basically the same. As technology progresses IP cameras will be better than analog.

An IP system is already on the LAN so it also can easily be viewed from networked PCs and smartphones.

Both analog and IP video surveillance systems can work with your business phone system for added security at the entrances. The NEC unified communications systems has a door box that allows visitors at the entrance of a building to press the door box to talk to employees on the phone system. The employee can view the person at the door using their PC which is connected to the video surveillance system. Once they have a positive ID on the person they can choose to press a button on their phone to let the person in.

Price: IP video surveillance systems are typically 30% higher than analog camera systems. If you want a really good video surveillance system at a good value, install an analog system. If you want to preserve the investment for the future because you feel you will need better camera technology later, spend the extra money now and install an IP video surveillance system.