Today, we had a number of customers who contacted us because they were unable to make or receive any calls.  This was due to a significant localized dialtone outage (the dialtone provider shall remain nameless in this post, as I would consider their service good in general and I have no desire to draw negative attention to them).  Even though our own business was affected by the service outage, we were able to remain operational.  I’ll let you know how in a bit.

Unfortunately, anyone can be affected by dialtone outages, even companies like ours that sell telephone systems, since everyone is at the mercy of the dialtone provider to provide service.  I thought I would post a couple of tips on minimizing your risk of having dialtone issues, signs that you may be having dialtone trouble (as opposed to phone equipment trouble), and how to recover as well as you can if you ever do find yourself in the middle of an outage.

First, let’s talk minimizing risk.  The best way to do this is to have redundant dialtone.  The fact that nearly all businesses have multiple lines is a good start.  Many small businesses have analog phone lines, also known as 1FB lines or POTS lines (POTS stands for “Plain Old Telephone Service”; I’ll post on the different types of dialtone soon in a separate post)  With this type of service, it used to be that if you had a service issue, it would usually be only a line or two that was down, often not your main line, and you could hobble by until the dialtone provider was able to find and fix the issue.

These days, many analog lines are delivered digitally to the premises, even if broken down into an analog signal at the customer premises, and one of the nasty effects of having a digital line go down is that they ALL will go down simultaneously.  For this reason, it might not be a bad idea to have a line or two with a separate dialtone provider.  Be careful, though: many dialtone providers in the Phoenix area do not have their own equipment, but instead resell the service of another provider; thus, even if you get lines from two different providers, they might all still be provided by the same company and may still all go down in the event of a service interruption.  If you go this route, make sure that each dialtone provider has their own Central Office and equipment serving your address.

More and more companies are opting these days to feed digital lines directly into their phone systems to give their business certain feature advantages (again, this will be discussed in more detail in a separate post).  One option available to companies that have digital lines such as a standard T1 or a PRI-ISDN circuit is to also get a separate analog line for their main phone number.  This is what we have done in our office.  Thanks to a feature from our dialtone provider called Variable Call Forward, we are able to call forward the analog line to our PRI circuit.  If the PRI circuit ever goes down (and it has), we can turn off the call forwarding on our main line without having to go through our dialtone provider, and calls will begin ringing in instantly on the analog line.  We have a second analog line that calls can roll to if the first line is busy.

Some dialtone providers have automatic failover features, such as automatically detecting when a call cannot go through and re-routing the call to a different phone number of your choosing.  This seems to be more common with the VOIP-based dialtone services, but some of the traditional dialtone providers do as well.  If your provider offers this, you’ll want to set this up in advance, before you are experiencing trouble.

How can you tell whether the trouble you’re having is dialtone-related or related to the phone equipment on-site?  Generally, if your phones appear normal otherwise (i.e. the displays on the office phones are still working, and you can intercom from one phone to another within the office), you have a dialtone issue and should call your dialtone provider; you can ask them to temporarily forward your main number to another outside number while they work on the trouble.  If some phones in your office can access a specific outside line, but other phones cannot, you’ll want to give us a call (if you’re an existing customer of ours, of course).  Aside from this, it should be noted that most often, if you are unable to make a phone call to an outside number or receive a phone call from an outside number, it’s a dialtone provider issue.  Why?  With miles of cable between your premises and the Central Office, multiple splices in the cable, aging cable, multiple pieces of equipment at the Central Office, and the fact that a given call will usually travel through multiple Central offices, it’s more complex on their end, and more things can go wrong.  Having indicated that, if you’re a customer of ours, having trouble, and aren’t sure who to turn to, we’d be happy for you to call us and we can get you pointed in the right direction.

Even with our redundant dialtone setup here at Telco, we found ourselves in a rare quandary today when neither our primary nor backup dialtone was working.  In this case, ESI Cellular Management came to the rescue!  ESI Cellular Management is another tool available exclusively to owners of any ESI Communications Server phone system.  In our case, we had our dialtone provider forward our main line to one of our cell phones, and thanks to the ESI Cellular Management technology, we were able to have those calls ring on several of our ESI desk phones, and answer them, transfer the call from one phone to another, transfer to any individual’s voicemail, and more!  If you haven’t yet read about ESI Cellular Management, you can check out my previous post on ESI Cellular Management here.  It’s just another way that ESI and Telco set themselves apart from the crowd.

Voice over IP, or VoIP, has come a long way since the early days.  Back then, VoIP phones in general weren’t at all tolerant of network issues, nor were networks as good at prioritizing VoIP traffic to ensure quality.  QoS, or Quality of Service, a term used to indicate network traffic prioritization, was nonexistent on service provider networks.  And most IP phones out there were difficult to set up, could not be easily moved from site to site, and had very few features.

What a difference a product generation or two makes.  Not only are IP phone makers getting smarter and more capable in their offerings, but service providers are offering more bandwidth and many are routing VoIP traffic more intelligently.  Sure, things still aren’t perfect, but for the first time, business VoIP phones are truly useful.

ESI (the manufacturer whose phone systems we sell) was an early entrant in the VoIP market (they were the first, in fact, to be able to network 100 phone systems together via IP), and their experience has shown.  Unlike others in the market, they have for a long time offered the same feature set on their IP phones as their regular digital key phones (and believe me, they have a rich feature set).  On ESI’s Remote Feature Phone II, which is compatible with any IP-enabled Communications Server phone system, you’ll truly be able to participate as if you were sitting in the office.

ESI IP Feature Phone II (backlit)

ESI’s Remote Feature Phone II, while retaining the same form factor as its predecessor (which we like), has improved some things under the hood.  For example, it has become much more tolerant of network issues.  Not that there was anything wrong with the prior iteration, but the newer version is a bit like a car having better shocks on a bumpy road.  Of course, you’ll want to make sure that your network connection is as good as it can be, but much of the time we don’t need to do any special router configuration at the remote site for the user to have a good experience.

One thing that the Remote Feature Phone II also integrated was the ability to “plug & play” at virtually any site where there is a broadband connection.  In the prior generation, you would set up the phone and not move it, because it would generally take about an hour to get the phone operating wherever it was.  Not here–wherever you plug the Feature Phone II in, it begins communicating with the main phone cabinet right away, and connects automatically.

Another change ESI made was switching its codec to G.726 (a codec is the compression algorithm used to save Internet bandwidth).  I think this was a brilliant move; most other IP phones seem to be using G.729 or G.729a, which has a higher compression rate, and the higher voice quality of G.726 is noticeable.  While G.726 does use more bandwidth than G.729, it’s still much less than G.711, which is uncompressed.  Besides, provider bandwidth is increasing more all the time, and the 80K or so the phone requires (which includes voice in both directions, plus overhead for lighting buttons, updating the phone display, etc.) is very, very small compared to what standard cable modem connections provide around here (generally about 2Mbps upstream and 10Mbps or so downstream).

One thing I appreciate about ESI’s IP phones is that they don’t skimp on buttons.  I can’t believe that most manufacturers are getting away with putting only a few buttons on their IP phones (presumably to save on manufacturing costs?).  Sure, many of them try to compensate by having a larger screen and/or navigation buttons, but I have always found navigating this way to be cumbersome.  There is truly no substitute for having all the buttons you need for line appearances, station buttons, and feature keys.  I also note that ESI’s phones have tri-colored buttons; most competitors’ lighted buttons are either a single color, or in some cases, two colors.

Regarding features, I haven’t really delved into that in this post.  Features and ease-of-use are ESI’s strong suit, and their phones are truly a pleasure to use.  You can check out our web site to find out more on ESI products in general, or poke around in the other posts on this blog.

Yesterday, the announcement that Nortel Networks Corp., North America’s biggest telephone equipment maker, filed for bankruptcy protection sent ripples through the telecom world.  It is a sign of the times we live in that even large, well-known and well-respected companies can be so affected by troubles in the economy.

But not all is a sea of chaos.  There are companies that have managed to be stable, even thrive, in this atmosphere, and I’d like to highlight one of them, our phone manufacturer of choice: ESI (Estech Systems, Inc.).

It’s true that ESI is less well-known than some of the other players in the market. But they have been quietly innovating for decades, and have some of the best products on the market.

And ESI is debt-free.  Quite an achievement for a company in the telecom industry, or indeed, any industry.  ESI is a U.S.-based company doing $50 million+ in revenue per year, and growing.  They have consistently grown in sales year over year, and have been profitable every year of their existence.  How many corporations can say that about themselves?

ESI products are used by such companies as:

• Coca-Cola
• Hertz
• Chase Bank
• Holiday Inn
• Century 21 Realtors
• Blockbuster Video
• Best Buy
• Office Depot
• Hampton Inn
• Advantage Rent-a-Car
• Farm Bureau Insurance
• And more

There’s a reason that practically everyone that comes to know ESI’s products, loves them.  There’s a special atmosphere at ESI that fosters cooperation and innovation.  And, because ESI is a privately-owned company and is not beholden to shareholders, venture capitalists, or other outside investors, it can (and does) make decisions based on the best long-term strategy, rather than what looks good to investors in the short term.  And it shows in their products.

I have been following the progress of ESI for a number of years, and it seems they are beginning to really come into their own.  I have no doubt that ESI is poised to capture significant market share in the years to come.  At any rate, they are here to stay–and we are proud to have them as our manufacturer of choice.

A short video about ESI.

Maintenance and service agreements: you see them everywhere, in one form or another, offered on products from cars, to computers, to home stereo systems, to (yes!) telephone systems.  I thought I’d cover Telco Ltd.’s maintenance program, and describe why it stands apart from the crowd–and even do a little bragging.

Most such programs out there are essentially extended warranties: they cover the equipment you’ve bought for a certain extended period of time (usually ranging from one or two years, in the case of electronic equipment, to 5 years or so for vehicles), and either cover the parts only, or parts and labor.  In every case I have seen, this is a fixed period after which, if it breaks, you’re paying full price for repairs.  Telco Ltd.’s maintenance program covers all parts and on-site labor for as long as you’re on the program, with no fixed termination (all we ask is that you stay on the program for one year, after which it’s month-to-month and you’re free to cancel at any time).

What do I mean by no fixed termination?  Put simply, your equipment is covered for as long as you want it to be.  It’s not that you can’t be cancelled (after all, we have to protect ourselves in case a manufacturer goes out of business, parts are no longer available on the market, etc.), it’s just that we never have cancelled anyone (except in cases of non-payment of the monthly dues).  This is great peace of mind for those customers who want their phone system to serve them for many years, without assuming the increased risk of disrepair (and costly bills) that comes with an aging system.  What a lot of people forget, especially over time, is that, aside from the phones themselves, there is other equipment that can cost thousands of dollars if it breaks: CPU cards, line and station cards, voicemail, etc.  This is equipment that is often “out of sight, out of mind.”

Our maintenance plan has some other nice features that make it an especially good value.  For example, most programming changes on the systems we sell can be accomplished remotely, and there is no charge for any number of programming changes.  There is also no charge for telephone support under the program.  Here are some other things that you can expect when you have a phone system provided by us and you’re enrolled in our program:

• Discounted on-site work for non-warranty work like moves and other changes (warranty work is always no-charge)
• On-site hourly rates that never increase
• Free software upgrades
• Free backups
• Free on-site training sessions (up to 2 per year)
• Free wire and jack maintenance
• 10% discount on any new equipment
• Faster response times
• And more!

One would assume that we charge an arm and a leg for this type of coverage.  But this assumption would be wrong.  Compared to the price of the equipment, the monthly amount is small and reasonable, and compares to what many companies charge for just the warranty portion of their service agreements.  Something that is also noteworthy is that, unlike with competitors’ programs, the amount you pay on a monthly basis does not increase year-over-year as your system ages unless, of course, you add equipment to your system (there is a discount for the first year, though, to account for the fact that the equipment has a manufacturer’s warranty on it).

The above point bears emphasis, because with every insurance or warranty program I have seen out there, the amount a company charges is related to its assessment of risk based on the age (and even service history) of the equipment.  With Telco’s maintenance program, the monthly amount does not increase year-over-year as the equipment ages.  It also does not increase based on your service history, so if you’ve had bad luck and have had to have a bunch of equipment replaced, you don’t have to worry about your rates increasing.  Here is a note I got recently from a satisfied customer who is on our maintenance program:

Dear Stephen,

I believe that the maintenance program that Telco Ltd. offers is the best in the industry, at a very reasonable price.  It should be no surprise that we have actually closed sales based on our maintenance program.  I have explained our program to other phone system vendors over the years, and the reaction has always been something along the lines of, “But I could never make money with that!  You really should re-think offering so many benefits–you could get away with much less.”

Maybe we could.  Maybe we’re crazy, who knows?  But as long as our customers see the value we provide, we will continue to offer the best maintenance program in the industry.

The new year is here!  We at Telco Ltd. would like to wish you all a warm and prosperous new year.

With the shifting of the calendar, so too have our sales promotions.  “Out with the old, in with the new,” as they say.  We have several great deals we’ve cooked up, and are pleased to offer details on them here.  As with all of our sales promotions, these are limited to those companies located in the Phoenix metro area (if you’re outside the Phoenix area, you can still find an ESI reseller near you).

Have you ever needed to know what call volume is for certain extensions, departments or phone lines?  Get a list of long distance activity without waiting for your next phone bill to arrive?  Determine who in your organization makes the longest calls, most expensive calls, or most personal calls?  If you answered yes to any of these questions, you might want to take a serious look at Call Accounting software.

Call accounting software is software that’s typically installed on one computer in your organization, and as inbound or outbound calls are completed, captures certain call details from your phone system.  Typically, the information gathered includes the date and time of the call, the extension that participated in the call, the line the call was on, duration of the call, whether it was inbound or outbound, and either the Caller ID (on inbound calls, if you have Caller ID from your dialtone provider), or the phone number dialed (on outbound calls).

What’s great about call accounting software is that, rather than just collecting call data for you to sift through, you can run several different types of reports on that data to quickly find what you’re looking for.  For example, say you want information on all calls made by a specific extension on a certain day last week.  This is easily done with call accounting software.  If you’re more interested in, say, the 10 longest calls from today, you can get that also.  The types of reports available vary depending on the brand of call accounting software you buy and its features, and to a certain extent, the phone system model you own.

Report example

With call accounting, you can get information on calls that your dialtone provider is not privy to (for example, which extension made or received a call); at any rate, most dialtone providers report on long distance calls only.  With call accounting software, you get information on all long distance and local calls, and you don’t have to wait a few weeks to get the information (in fact, the call accounting software is usually updated instantly on the completion of each call, so your data is practically real-time).  If you have more than one manager who needs to generate and view call reports, most call accounting packages have an option of a multi-seat license; if you think you may need this, it’s best to ask upfront so you make sure you’re getting what you need.

At the end of the day, it’s all about efficiency and controlling costs.  Call accounting software is a great way to determine whether your employees are being used to their capacities (or overwhelmed, or avoiding using the phone altogether), determine whether you need more lines, find out whether unauthorized calls are taking place and by whom, and more.  The one-time charge you pay for the software is a drop in the bucket compared with the money you’ll save on an ongoing basis by clearly understanding (and being able to react intelligently to) call activity in your organization.