Solutions - Business Voice
Whether you have 5 or 500 employees, ThruTech has the right voice,
data, or convergent (voice and data) communications solution to meet the
unique needs of your business.
When compared with data networking, telephony seems like a technology
as ancient as papyrus; which is probably part of the reason we all depend
on this familiar tool so heavily.
At ThruTech we understand that you need a highly reliable, easy-to-use
telephone system for your small office or branch office. We
represent vendors provide conventional PBX and key systems; however,
because of the ThruTech expertise in data
networking, we should be your first call if you are looking for a
convergent voice platform such as a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)
infrastructure.
Benefits of Convergent (e.g. VoIP) Solutions
Telephony was invented over 120 years ago by Alexander Bell; in
essence, most systems still use the same switched approach today!
Convergent Solutions are radically superior to the Old World technology
but these advances sometimes require new thinking to understand why.
Here's a summary of the benefits with more detailed explanations below:
Cost reduction
Under this bullet point alone fall dozens of reasons that the economics of
convergent solutions are surprisingly superior to the conventional systems
of days past. Here are some of the most obvious ways a convergent
system will save your business time and money:
Toll-Bypass - If your company has multiple locations odds are
you spend a great deal of your telephony budget and resources just
trying to talk to each other. Using a pre-existing virtual private
network or, in some cases, even the Internet*, you can communicate with
these locations at NO ADDITIONAL COST, simply by dialing your internal
extensions.
Think of it this way: it doesn’t cost any more for you to browse a
website on the East coast than it does on the West; if your voice
communications are over Internet Protocol (IP), should you pay more to
call one location versus the other?
No more Move/Add/Change charges (or hassles) - For the small
business, simply moving a phone extension as an employee moves from one
office to the other can be a big deal. Often this requires a
"truck roll" (and associated charges) and nationally averages a charge
of over $250 which doesn't include lost productivity.
Think of it this way: it isn't such a monumental task to move a
laptop from one room to the other; in fact, the laptop doesn't know or
care where it is plugged into the network just as long as it can get a
unique IP address. When you move an IP phone, it works exactly the
same way: unplug it from one wall jack, and plug it into another.
Within 30 seconds of plugging it in, the phone will be ready to accept
calls on the same extension as it did before you unplugged it.
What's more, there is no distinction between "Data Jack" and "Voice
Jack", no color codes, just Jacks! Plug computers and telephones
into the same wall jacks without concern, you can even "daisy chain" or
plug your computer into your telephone (which is plugged into the jack)
and reduce the required wiring by half!
Open Solutions - For years, computer makers such as Sun
Microsystems have extolled the virtues of "Open Systems." What do
they mean, how does this apply to phones, why do you care?
Think of it this way: If you buy a network switch (or hub) from
3com, you don't have to worry whether or not your laptop from HP will
work when plugged into it; or your desktop from Compaq, or your network
router from Cisco Systems. This is because, in the data networking
world, all of the vendors support open standards such as Ethernet
(standards such as IEEE 802.3). However, what do you think will
happen if you try to plug a telephone into your system that wasn't made
by the same company that made your PBX? Historically, telephony
has been controlled by large companies with proprietary technologies.
Which is exactly why business handsets are so expensive compared with
STANDARD home systems.
Convergent voice solutions are based on standards such as Ethernet and
the Internet Protocol suite, which is why they bring the promise of
increased competition among vendors and flexibility of choice for
the end-user.
To learn about the many more reasons a convergent system can save
your business money, contact us now;
ThruTech specialist will be happy to discuss this exciting technology
with you as part of a FREE consultation.
Consolidation and
simplification
An integrated voice/data network allows more standardization and reduces
total equipment needs. As mentioned above, there is no distinction
between voice jacks and data jacks; on the other end of the wiring in
those jacks it's the same story. It used to be that the voice wire
plugged into a PBX or key system and data wire plugged into a switch.
All of these wires simply plug into one data switch and seamlessly
co-exist.
Advanced Applications
The long run benefits of VoIP include support for multimedia and
multiservice applications, something which today's telephone system can't
compete with. |
