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Phantom Fax Machines

Thursday, 28 May 2009 00:37

Every once in a while, and very consistently, we get a service call out for a problem that is blamed on the office fax machine. The business gets complaints from callers indicating that their calls are being answered by the fax machine.

Employees try to call-in, and agree that some times calls to their main phone line gets answered by "their" fax machine.

Unfortunately, the very first reaction is to put a call in to the phone service provider to check out the lines. Seems to be a simple cross connection issue.

"How can the fax machine answer the calls when we have a separate fax line?"

But the phone company technician checks the phone lines at site, right up to the demarcation point, and confirms that the lines are not crossed. And even if they have a policy that explicitly states that they would be charging the customer if there is no fault from their end, in this situation they may not know why its happening and cannot lay the blame on customer premise equipment.

There is a sure-shot charge if they call the interconnect/PBX service company no matter what!

Anyways... the problem remains, and there is even more frustration. In fact, now the calls are getting dropped after the first ring quite frequently.

Customers who are having hunting lines or over-lines, do not see this problem unless callers bring it to their attention. Simply because when the call gets dropped the first time, callers tend to ignore this, and call back immediately, and this time the call rings on Line 2, which works fine.

The problem is always with the First Call coming in on Line 1.

Any guesses...?

Give up? OK.

Its not your office fax machine that answers the calls. In fact it is not even another phantom fax machine. It is the Alarm Panel!

Your Alarm Monitoring company has connected their equipment to Line 1.

Normally this Alarm Panel is using Line 1 to send out an alarm signal if there is a break in. It is also set to answer to a call after about 8-10 rings from the Alarm company in case they need to get access to the Alarm Panel for remote programming/ reset etc.

To put it in simple words, the alarm panel has malfunctioned and is answering calls after the first ring. The remote access device in the alarm panel is a modem and that's why the caller hears fax like tones.

You will be surprised to know that sometimes it takes at least 2 visits from the phone company tech who will not know anything and walk out in 10 minutes, and 3 visits by different technicians from the PBX/Interconnect service provider to get the right technician who is experienced enough to tell you this!

Don't Buy VOIP Just For the Hype

Thursday, 28 May 2009 00:34

New businesses, like yours, which are in the growth mode and are looking to invest money in a professional business phone system having intercom, paging, music-on-hold, speed dialing, multi-line capability, voice-mail boxes, auto-attendant, customized company greetings and so on.

Your business is attracting new customers, phone lines are constantly busy, you need to add more lines from the telephone company, you need to shed off your old two-line phones for a full featured phone system.

It will be surprising to note what some small business owners think that by getting a multi-line business phone system, they will automatically get the hunting features allowing them to receive more calls.

If Line 1 is busy, it will automatically go to Line 2 , Line 3 , Line 4 and so on. They do not realize that a business phone system only extends the functionality of your 2 Line or 4 Line phone.

If you have a 2 Line or 4 Line phone, you also need 2 or 4 Lines from the phone company to have multi-line call hunting.

A business phone system will NOT magically give you unlimited lines with hunting capability. You will still need to order as many lines from your friendly neighborhood phone company.

What are the key features that drive you to choose an IP PBX System and not the traditional phone system?

Here are a few :
- Why, it's VOIP! Voice over internet technology.
- It's state-of-the-art technology, the latest and the greatest
- VOIP means Free Long Distance, free calling, lower bills.
- The IP PBX phone system is in expensive
- VOIP phone lines are cheap
- I can set it up myself. It connects into the same network as my computers. No additional cabling required.
- I can program the system myself with easy web interface and menu selection
- the system has unlimited expansion capability. No more expensive upgrades. Just buy new handsets/phones and hook them up.
- I can move my phone around and swap with other phones in the office easily, and make admin changes to users and mailboxes
- I can take my phone out of the office and simply connect it to any internet connection across the world and use it as if I was still in the office. Wow, I can be a remote worker. Telecommute.

That's a great feature list. No doubt.

Now lets look closely at each one of them...

Residential VOIP phone service may be cheap when you calculate the cost of all the features bundled into one low price. But when it comes to business VOIP, I beg to differ. Consider this, a good business VOIP service will cost you between $22.95 - $32.95 per month. If you need more than 3 channels for simultaneous outgoing calls ( called multi-line or hunt group in traditional telephony terms ) you may as well opt for a dedicated broadband access which will cost you around $59.95 a month ...remember this is a business account and you will pay a premium for the better grade of service and support.

Taking the lowest figures you will end up spending $128.8 for a 3 channel VOIP trunk. And this works out to minimum $43 per line. Compare this with your friendly neighborhood landline provider with the features that both offer and then make an informed decision.

And talking about features...what features do you really need for any business multiline? If you are going to invest in a business pbx system, then all you need is Caller ID display and Voicemail service. Thats all!

Don't buy VOIP just because of the hype. Remember, when you buy VOIP, you are also relying on the broadband service provider. Whereas, in case of landlines, there is a direct copper wire circuit connecting you directly and exclusively to the telephone company's switching network.

And there are deals being offered by landline providers, to match those offered by VOIP service providers.

VOIP offers convenience and maybe long distance savings (if you do call internationally), but if you are looking for reliability and call quality which is consistent each and every time you want to take that call and if each calling customer means CASH for your business, then I would recommend hurting your ego, rather than your business.

I was totally surprised when a client showed me an offer from a major landline provider offering 4 Lines, with Call display and voice mail features WITH internet access thrown in, all for $165 per month.

Buying VOIP Phones is not the same as buying a VOIP PBX. The two are mutually exclusive. Watch out for my article discussing more on that.

Who Killed the VoIP Revolution?

Thursday, 28 May 2009 00:32

“VoIP is dead,” Skype General Manager of Voice and Video Jonathan Christensen declared at an industry conference a few weeks ago. He spoke figuratively, of course, but he may well have been right. While Voice-Over-Internet Protocol proponents had long promised a decade of creative destruction, they themselves appear to have become the victims.

So what happened? What clipped the wings of so many VoIP hopefuls ?

Excerpted from and article by Ian Andrew Bell

http://gigaom.com/2008/11/02/who-killed-the-voip-revolution/

Here are some interested comments on that article...

I stated many times that VoIP is now “telephony” (I already said this during VON 2006). “Normal” people don’t care of what’s behind the scenes, just want to make phone calls. And Skype is a powerful application to communicate with each other, call it VoIP or XYZ, people don’t really care. When you watch a TV channel do you care what kind of technology is used to make it available to you? -luca Filigheddu

Yep Luca is correct, Having been selling voip to the enterprise market since late 90’s. 99% of endusers don’t care even 1% what the technology is, Just that it works. And it has to be as simple as plugging a normal phone into a Pots line. Some have got it that simple and they also dont even call it voip, They will be the survivors. Ones who make the big deal on the technology will whither and die. -Ian

I also think you can’t forget that many VOIP companies do not own the last mile to the customer. Combine this with the fact that the customer expects their VOIP line to sound exactly like a copper wire line. When it doesn’t, then they believe it’s the VOIP companies fault and leave. This leaves the provider in a difficult situation with attrition since they rely completely on the customer’s internet connection. These internet connections can fluctuate based time of day, or the wind pattern.-Marakush

As pointed out above, customers want solutions that work and are better (and in some cases cheaper) than the TDM/digital switches they use. Which is why they keep on buying Nortel, Avaya, Cisco, etc, because they work. Interoperability in this market is almost never a real requirement, particularly because the standards are constantly evolving and deploying a SIP system is still not as easy as plugging an analog phone into an RJ-11 socket. - Alex

“VOIP” as a technology is no more or less dead than “TCP/IP” is dead. It is getting embedded throughout. There used to be a time where companies were able to make money selling TCP/IP stacks too. It is an “incremental” technology over an TCP/IP framework and will be sold the same way. No wonder then that the usual suspects are the leaders in selling VOIP equipment and services as well.

Cost of long distance have been dropping anyway, down to a penny per minute in bulk, and the cost savings as part of an overall budget of a person or company are minuscule. I have a land line today and it works just fine - not something I lose sleep over. Yes, I save $15/mo, say with Vonage, than an all you can eat plan with AT&T - but as part of my overall spending on rent and salaries and so on - that is not the first place I look at to save some money.

As an enterprise, if it is easy to move to VOIP, I will go for it but if it requires me to do a massive transition and/or a forklift upgrade then I wont see any payback for 2-3 years compared to my already paid for legacy PBX infrastructure.

The best case for VOIP as a replacement technology is in (1) Greenfield deployments - people making choices for new deployments now and (2) Upgrades - companies who are due for retiring old equipment. Some speculate that this happens every 7-8 years and after the Y2K replacements it is overdue. However, with the current economy every one is going to be looking to stretch out their capital investments as long as they can.

So as a pure replacement strategy, VOIP is in for a tough time.

However, the true value of VOIP is as part of a unified communication strategy that is integrated with business processes that are communication dependent (customer support, work flow etc). There it is doing well, just not as visible to a lay caller.-Ernest Nova

VOIP is everywhere - you just don’t see it. The telcos have widely appropriated the technological evolution to lower their costs and therefore deprive the new entrants of a massive cost advantage. Now with the IMS architecture, we are finally seeing the telcos make IP based services the core of their infrastructure… We were talking about it ten years ago (myself as a naïve starry eyed beginner consultant…) and it is now about to become reality. IMS will let the telcos use VOIP to match the feature set of services in the open world and supplement them with proprietary network-related capabilities that will set the apart. With the mobile network as a barrier to entry, the strong are only growing stronger.-Jean-Marc Liotier

And last but not the least...

Offering stuff free on the internet may just well prove to be the original sin, as we are seeing with the impending doom of journalism.-Amish

Beware of AUTO-RENEWALS of phone line contracts.

Thursday, 28 May 2009 00:31

Its great to go to work and help a client with a problem and know that I need to write about this so that at least all those who read this post, are aware of the games being played in this business, and are better prepared.

ILECS or Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier Service or traditional phone line providers have had it good for a while now. We all know the ridiculous fees, charges, penalties etc etc.

The promotions to lure clients into 3 and 5 year contracts with "great deals". With the increasing competition, they are feeling the heat now. And it hurts them to have customers cancel services and sign up with someone else offering better deals. Especially with VOIP Lines.

Can you imagine getting voicemail, call forwarding, conference, call waiting AND....Call Display at no addtional charges !!!

Most business customers who have signed in to a 3 or 5 year contract with their phone service providers, should bear in mind that there is an AUTO-RENEW clause in the contract, which means, the contract gets automatically renewed at the end of the current period, which means, that the contract is perpetual unless the customer calls in to cancel.

I am sure everybody knows what the penalties are to cancel a phone line contract midway. And try arguing with their customer service...good luck! Moral of the story: Keep a record and reminder on the expiry date and make it a point to call in 2 months ahead of time to cancel the renewal.

You will see fine print on your invoices just prior to the contract expiry date to casually "inform" you on the auto-renewal. I dont think they bother mailing out any additional notices. Why would they??

So if you have gone ahead and spent precious time and effort to switch over service, along with upgrading to a new state-of-the-art phone system. Then please check with your phone line provider on the status of your current contract.

And don't be surprised.

Most businesses dont even care to keep track of the phone line contracts. Just keep paying those monthly bills. That's all !

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