BUSINESS PHONE NEWS

Can a Wide Area Network Aggregate Cable, 4G & DSL? Yes (with our WAN Optimization Toolkit & Buyers Guide)

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email

When it comes to getting the very most bandwidth for the very least amount of money business owners ask, "If a coax cable broadband internet connection works just fine at my home, why can't I use coax cable on my business wide area network or WAN"?"

Why indeed?!

The business-class phone companies will all answer this customer question with, "Cable's just a 'best effort' consumer grade product that you can't trust for business applications..."

Other times the phone companies will just fall on the ground and beg, "No! Please don't go cable!"

Well chiding and begging aside, if patching together cheap internet connections can be done using cable, 4G/LTE, DSL and fiber - shouldn't it be tried by cost conscious business owners?

Absolutely!

Sometimes it works great and sometimes it doesn't work very well at all. It all kind of depends on what kind of business applications you're running over your WAN and how sensitive the applications are to network speed and latency.

 

Where Does One Start?  The Yellow Pages or our WAN Toolkit & Buyers Guide

"Aggregated WANs" have been successfully created by many businesses looking for an inexpensive backup or an alternative to expensive MPLS networks.

Creating one simply requires a great deal of patience and labor as doing it successfully requires successfully interfacing with dozens of different Internet service providers or "ISPs" depending on how many different locations your business has and in what part of the country they are located in.

 

How Much Do You Do Yourself?

A lot, a little or none. Again, depending on your tolerance for dealing with all the ISPs you way want to engage the services of a professional WAN independent sales partner, aggregator, reseller or integrator.

If you type "WAN optimization" or "WAN aggregation" into your favorite search engine you'll be amazed at how many vendors you can find that want to help you with this sort of WAN aggregation project. Many solve the problem with people. Others solve the problem with better "secret sauce".

Let us give you some free advise.

We're in the business of helping business owners and IT decision makers navigate the murky WAN optimization vendors. Whether you want a gold-plated MPLS network or just something that works but at the least possible price - we can direct you to the vendors that can help.

That's what we do. Please give us a call.

Feeling Lucky Installing a Do-it-Yourself Phone System? How about one that requires no installation (or luck)?

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email

Just because Leprechaun season is fast approaching doesn't mean tiny men with golden promises should be put in charge of choosing your next business phone system.

But I know it's tempting...

If you check out the video below you might be left with the impression that the most difficult part of installing a business phone system is getting the phone system's key service unit out of all the bubble wrap it's shipped in.

While bubble wrap can certainly be a problem, the bigger problem for small business owners is thinking that their next phone system is not more complicated to choose then their last phone system was to choose.

 

Does Your Current Cell Phone Look Like the One You Owned Five Years Ago?

The cell phone you owned five years ago made phone calls and had all your contacts on speed dial. The "smart phone" in your pocket now has all your business contact phone numbers AND access to all your business software applications that you can't possibly live without.

If you couldn't conduct business with the cell phone you had five years ago, why do you think you can do business with the same office phone system technology that you purchased for your office ten years ago?  You can't. You'd be better off only doing business with your smart phone then trying to conduct any sort of office business on an "old-school" phone system.

 

How Do You Find an Office Phone System That Works as Well as Your Smart Phone?

Step one is to seriously consider an office phone system that has all it's "smarts" in the cloud - just like your smart phone.

The small business phone system in the video below is "old-school" because it requires a key service unit or KSU be mounted somewhere on your business property and then connected to all your desk phones and dial-tone. The only problem for this design is that all your employees are now required to be in your office for this to work

What if you have more than one office?  What if your employees are always on the move? What if, like your smart phone, you need your office phone to interact with other business applications like GPS or voice recognition?  

 

You Can Afford a "Smart" Phone System IF The "Smarts" are IN THE CLOUD

You don't own the GPS technology in your smart phone that helps navigate your from one business appointment to another - you just rent it on a monthly basis as part of your cell phone bill.  It's a good thing that you don't own it because you likely couldn't afford it and you don't have the room for the computer that makes it work.

It's OK to rent the "business smarts" that your company needs to stay connected.

In today's ever evolving business environment it's difficult to be able to predict how many employees you'll need in one office or another or if the people you'll need will even be working out of an office.

 

Call Us to Explore the Modern Hosted Cloud Phone System Solutions

Just as do-it-yourself old-fashioned "box" phone systems come in hundreds of sizes and styles, so do the more modern "cloud hosted" phone systems. 

Some are based on proprietary Broadsoft technology and others are based on Metaswitch. Still others are designed on "open" Asterisk software and are reported to be cheaper but less secure to hacking. Which is a safe option for your business?

Call us and let us know what's important about the way your business will be doing business over the next couple years. As independent business technology sales partners we're experts at matching you with the vendor or combination of vendors best suited to your business vision AND your budget.

 

This Might Be the Best Business Phone System Solution For You if ...

In all fairness to the fellow in this video, this is a perfectly reasonable business phone system solution for single location businesses that have just a few employees and the way they "do business" is very old-school (and they do not expect that to ever change).

 

 

Are You Limited to Only Using Reps that can Work in Your Contact Center? No...

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email

The "Great Recession" that began in 2008 resulted in over eight million people loosing their jobs. Many of these people were skilled white collar employees with great phone skills.

As of this year it's reported that only half of the jobs lost since 2008 have been replaced and most have not been replaced by the same high-quality jobs that were lost.

What does this mean for business owners looking to expand but find themselves limited by employable prospects in their immediate geography?

 

Get High Quality Contact Center Reps with a Cloud Contact Center

As you can see from the SafeSoft Solutions video below, a cloud-based contact center that can handle both inbound and outbound call center campaigns require your contact center employees have nothing more than a headset, a computer and an internet connection - anywhere in the world.

If you don't even have a call center now because you don't have qualified employees in your immediate geography, now you can create a call center to generate more sales without investing in a new phone system or expanding your own office to accomodate more "butts in seats".

 

Call Us to Determine Which Cloud Contact Center Vendor is Right for Your Business

SafeSoft is just one of hundreds of "cloud vendors" like Five9, Avaya, TelStar Hosted Services, YTel and others that will promise your business incredible returns for almost no money up front.  Unfortunately your time conducting trials is still worth quite a bit of money so it's important to start your cloud contact center trials with the vendor that's best suited to your unique business environment.

Call us to help sort through all the different vendors. We're independent and we're experienced with all the cloud vendors that want your business. We'll help analyze your specific requirements and then match you to one vendor or a combination of vendors that can deliver what they promise.

 

One Example of Many Cloud Contact Center Solutions

 

Bullets, Barns and Bandwidth (Prepare your business for the next asteroid)

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email

So let's say you're an interstellar asteroid bent on doing whatever is required to interrupt the non-stop internet broadcasting of cute kitten videos from the planet Earth.

What do you aim for? One of the communications satellites spinning around the Earth (kind of like hitting a bullet with a bullet) or do aim for the Earth (kind of like hitting a barn).

I'm not sure asteroids actually give wanton destruction of internet kitten videos this much thought, but if they did, I'm betting that they aim for the barn over the bullet.

 

Do What Today to Avoid Bandwidth Interruption Tomorrow? Think Satellites & Cloud

Whether it's a "Superstorm Sandy", a 150-foot asteroid named DA12 or just 30-inches of snow falling on a Monday morning, it's obvious that both Mother Nature and Divine providence don't really care whether our phones work, our employees can get to work or if our internet is connected. But you do.

As a business owner or a telecom and technology systems manager, your job is to keep your employees productive and connected no matter where they are stuck.  To do this you need to move your data and applications to "the cloud" and be able to get an internet connection from a satellite.

Since most disasters that a business can plan for are regional in nature, it's best to plan NOT TO HAVE all your critical business data and applications in just one region.  

Watch the CenturyLink video below for a short tutorial of how "the cloud" puts your business critical data and applications into hardened, dispersed and secure data centers around the country and immune to a disaster that affects just one region of the country.

But what's the point of having your data and applications survive if you can't connect to them?  That's where a business continuity Internet connection for a company like X2nSat comes in. Even large regional disasters don't take out orbiting satellites.

 

Call Us Today to Get a Business Continuity Plan Customized for Your Business

CenturyLink and X2nSat are just two of dozens of business continuity and disaster backup telecom and technology vendors that an independent technology sales partner can integrate into a solution that's customized for your business.

Which combination of vendors is right for you?  Call us and let us help you pick the right ones. 

 

How the Cloud Protects Your Business Data & Applications