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Zultys, Inc., our technical partner for 500 Premises, announced yesterday that Business Solutions Magazine has named the Zultys MX250 IP PBX and ZIP 57i CT SIP phone as recipients of the 2010 Best Channel Products Award.

The Award is the result of surveys and voting conducted among some 1,416 telecommunications systems resellers.

“We are very pleased to have our IP PBX and Unified Communications products recognized by the reseller community with this Best Channel Products 2010 award,” said Neil Lichtman, CEO of Zultys. “We continuously endeavor to innovate and add new capabilities to our products. When your customers praise your product, as they have done here, that is the greatest compliment a company can receive. This recognition is very rewarding.”

Business Solutions Magazine teamed up with Penn State University to conduct a comprehensive survey of their reseller subscribers about the companies and products in the business VoIP industry. The resellers were asked to rate the nominated products in five categories:

• Richness Of Features/Functionality: Does the product meet your customers’ functionality needs? Is it easily configurable? Is it easily customizable (i.e. scalable and flexible)?
• Product Reliability/Durability: Does the product meet your quality needs? Do you frequently need to fix the product? Is it durable enough to withstand regular usage?
• Ease Of Integration: Is it easily integrated with other products — new or existing?
• Ease Of Upgrade: Is it easily upgradeable to meet your customers’ needs and technology changes?
• VAR’s Ability To Service: Is the product easy for you to service?

This survey collected 16,656 votes from 1,416 unique reseller subscribers, and resulted not only in favorable votes and award recognition for Zultys, but a large number of supporting statements, including:

“It is far and away the most complete VoIP single-server system in the market; the simplest to install and maintain. Zultys’ real advantage may be its’ super responsive management and engineering team. Feature enhancement requests and bug fixes are handled with far more speed and precision than any other manufacturer that we’ve done business with.”

“The Zultys MX250 IP Solution is by far the most flexible, easy to use product in the market place. We have trialed many of the leading brands, and nothing comes close! Our customers absolutely love the system, so much so that a couple of weeks ago we received a totally unsolicited, unexpected email from one of our customers saying just 4 words: ‘I LOVE MY PHONES.’”

“The Zultys MX250 has to be the simplest IP PBX to deploy and maintain for small to mid-size business. It is a stable, feature-rich asset that can simplify and improve the communications of a business with so much ease that it’s almost scary. The product works, and it works well!”

The Zultys MX250 IP PBX and ZIP 57i CT SIP Phone are part of a family of end-to-end Unified Communications solutions that help companies reduce costs, increase productivity and improve customer service. Zultys’ products include full-featured IP PBXs, SIP Phones, Unified Communications tools and mobility applications, Call Center solutions, and Web Conferencing and Collaboration systems.

For further information, visit the 500 Premises section of our website. Alternatively, if you have any questions then call us on 0845 0000 500, or alternatively fill in our Contact Form.

20th September sees Work Wise Week 2010 including National Work from Home Day (24th). This week aims to highlight the significant benefits to employers, their employees and those self-employed for adopting a smarter working policy.

While no one argues that there are tangible advantages to working at home for both employees and businesses – UK organizations, especially within the SME market, are slow to adopt these policies, perhaps because home working has traditionally involved ‘back office’ tasks such as report writing, documentation or filing and where home workers are seen as mostly ‘off-line’.

There are many recognised advantages to the business including: reduced accommodation and energy costs making the business greener, increased productivity and employee retention, decreased level of employee sickness. Allowing an employee to home work with flexible hours also allows that business to tap into a new resource of skilled workers that they would not have had access to, for example working executive mothers.

BT, an early adopter of flexible working, says that UK’s smaller businesses recognise that flexible working policies can positively impact on their organisation, with 65% citing staff motivation and 50% increased productivity as key reasons to adopt them.

There are benefits to the employee as well; such as greater flexibility of working hours, reduced cost and stress of commute and a better work / life balance.

So where does VoIP fit in?

Advances in technology more recently, including the increase of low cost broadband connectivity with increasing speeds and reliability, access to email and internet and cloud computing has meant that fully functional home working is a real possibility even to remote communities.

This, in turn with the adoption of VoIP by businesses, means that home workers can function as front-line staff as if they were in the office, no longer constrained to back-office tasks. As far as other team members and clients alike are concerned, home workers may as well be sat at an office desk.

When working from home an employee’s IP phone (or softphone) is the equivalent of a fully functional office extension.

The benefits being that the home worker can:

• Show their ‘presence’ and see the presence of all their colleagues
• Transfer calls to appropriate colleagues or hunt groups
• Have access to company directories
• Divert their phone
• Set up appropriate ‘follow-me’ rules
• Still be part of the office hunt groups
• Instant message colleagues
• Incur no additional call costs, with calls to and from the office being free of charge – even if ‘home working’ whilst on holiday abroad!

In fact the home worker should feel no different to being sat behind the desk in the office – except they the peace of their home environment and have saved themselves time and money in travel and save their employers office space, business rates and energy costs.

VoIP solutions for small businesses

500 offer two types of VoIP solutions. 500 Premises is our premises-based solution, meaning a business owns the IP PBX system.

The second solution is our 500 Hosted, for businesses that prefer to outsource telephony requirements, instead only paying for their telephony on a ‘per user, per month’ basis rather than the capital outlay. Either function perfectly for home working.

There are advantages to both and the best solution is determined by the requirements of an individual business. 500 is always able to advise.

Work smarter…

Work Wise Week 2010 represents an ideal opportunity to explore how your business can boost productivity and efficiency during these financially challenging times, by implementing smarter working practices.

VoIP takes these work practices a step further, ensuring every home worker is an integrated member of the organisation. Technology is no longer a barrier for flexible home working; it is the enabler of it. It is the time for employers to take the initiative.

If you have any questions or need further information then call us on 0845 0000 500, or alternatively fill in our Contact Form.

With the increased uptake of business VoIP, many businesses are turning to SIP (Session Internet Protocol) trunking to reduce their costs further. SIP trunks allow a business to replace expensive fixed lines, such as PSTN and ISDN, with an internet-based SIP trunking service. This means reduced fixed line rental costs and reduced call charge tariffs.

If SIP trunking is new to your business, it might also be worth reading our other article ‘Have you considered SIP Trunking?’, which outlines in detail the benefits of SIP Trunking.

There are many telecoms providers offering SIP trunking at various prices and packages. For a business looking to purchase SIP trunking there are certain things that the business needs to be aware of to ensure that they get the right solution.

PBX Compatibility

Most modern IP or IP enabled PBX telephone systems support SIP ‘out of the box’ and older PBX systems pre-2007/8 can function with SIP Trunks (requiring an additional SIP-ISDN ‘SIP gateway’ device).

Most IP PBX systems are certified interoperable with SIP trunks. However, it is important to check that the SIP Trunk provider has performed compatibility testing with your particular PBX system and is aware of any issues between its SIP trunking service and your PBX system.

Concurrent Calls

What is the maximum number of concurrent calls that your business makes?

Not all businesses know the answer to this question as the systems they use cannot provide this level of information. For example, an ISDN30 service will allow up to 30 concurrent calls. If the businesses grew and needed to make additional concurrent calls then a second ISDN30 may be required. This is where traditional telephony becomes expensive, due to the fixed cost of line rental – and call charges typically 35% higher than VoIP (for example when compared to BT Standard Business rates).

The benefit of moving to SIP trunking is its flexibility; increased concurrent calls do not lead to a significant increase in charges, instead SIP trunking allows single channel increments with the maximum number of channels only dictated by bandwidth. Do bear in mind that some SIP trunk providers charge per concurrent call – but leading SIP trunk providers do not.

Bandwidth

SIP trunking can use any IP network. Most modestly sized businesses tend to use ADSL broadband. ADSL is ‘asymmetric’ and therefore has download speed much greater than upload speed: e.g.: an 8.0 Mbps download may offer only 800.0 Kbps upload speed.

A telephone call requires symmetry and so when placing calls via an ADSL service the upload speed that is key; the bottleneck for VoIP calls comes with the much lower upload speed on ADSL services. So, the more upload bandwidth available, the more concurrent calls that can be made.

It is always wise to buy a fast business grade ADSL service, ensuring that it has a low contention ratio.

Factors affecting the potential ADSL services that an ISP can offer your business:

• The type of ADSL service that your local telephone exchange supports. The majority of exchanges in the UK do now offer the higher specification ADSL2+ service; those that don’t will offer the ADSL or ADSL Max instead.
• Distance from the business location to the connected telephone exchange. The greater the distance then the greater the degradation of service. This leads to lower bandwidth availability.
• Type of CODEC being used. The G.711 codec is a higher quality codec than the G.729 for example, the former consuming approximately 90Kbps, the later approximately 40Kbps.
• If your business has heavy internet usage and makes a high number of concurrent calls then it would be advisable to separate voice calls from the data calls (in fact, we always advocate this). Again focusing on the more modestly sized business, this is would typically be achieved using two ADSL lines (or cable services); a further benefit here is that one line can be configured to be an automatic back -up for the second.

Service Levels

Businesses are well advised to check the levels of service available to them in terms of the SIP trunk solution being recommended and with the associated ADSL connectivity. Some businesses prefer to buy both from one provider, others prefer the flexibility of separate providers.

Changing to SIP

Changing to a SIP Trunk service is a straightforward task: and we can provide a range of delivery networks ranging from high quality business grade dual DSL services to leased lines, all of which can provide the necessary QoS required.

We can discuss your options and potentially activate a SIP Trunk service within days so that your business can benefit from reduced costs as soon as possible. Please call us on 0845 0000 500, or alternatively fill in our Contact Form.

BroadSoft®, our technology partner for our 500 Hosted VoIP product was recently named the winner in the Telecommunications Category for TechAmerica Foundation American Technology Awards.

BroadSoft, the leading global provider of IP-based communications services to the telecommunications industry, announced that it has been named the winner in the Telecommunications category for the American Technology Awards, which bestows the only “Best Of” awards that recognize all technology products and services for the technology industry. The award was attributed to BroadSoft’s Consumer Experience, a service that provides telecommunications subscribers with new capabilities and functionality, allowing them to communicate anytime, anywhere and from any device. Nominations for The American Technology Awards, “The Termans,” were vetted by industry experts and technology companies. These awards have been named after Frederick Terman, who is widely credited as being the father of Silicon Valley.

“BroadSoft is proud to be named winner of the Terman Award in the Telecommunications category,” said Michael Tessler, BroadSoft president and CEO. “We have been providing innovative business and consumer communications solutions for more than 12 years, transforming the ways people connect, communicate, and collaborate, and it’s an honor for everyone at BroadSoft to have our achievements recognized by TechAmerica Foundation.”

“We had many nominations for these prestigious awards, and we congratulate BroadSoft for their winning achievement,” said Phil Bond, chairman, TechAmerica Foundation. “TechAmerica Foundation is excited to highlight BroadSoft as it continues to influence technology development in telecommunications throughout the rest of the world.”

The winners were announced on June 16 at TechAmerica Foundation’s Eighth Annual Technology and Government Dinner which has been a premier Washington, D.C. networking event bringing hundreds of industry, congressional and government leaders together at one venue to celebrate the partnership between industry and government.

The full press release is available from the BroadSoft website.

If you have any questions or would like to find out more about 500 Hosted, then call us on 0845 0000 500, or alternatively fill in our Contact Form.

Zultys, Inc., our technical partner for 500 Premises, announced this week that Technology Marketing Corporation has named the Zultys end-to-end Unified Communications solution for the SMB and Enterprise markets as a recipient of the 2010 Next Generation Network Leadership Award presented by its publication, NGN Magazine.

“We are continually innovating and adding new capabilities and benefits to our Unified Communications solutions for the SMB and Enterprise markets. Our iConnected mobile UC application for the iPhone, MXmobile for the BlackBerry and other real-time mobility solutions are just some examples of our continuing development in this area. We are very pleased to have been recognized by NGN Magazine with the Next Generation Network Leadership Award,” said Neil Lichtman, CEO of Zultys. “Zultys’ family of IP PBXs and Unified Communications solutions elegantly weave multiple capabilities into a single system to help companies reduce costs, increase productivity and improve customer service.”

“Zultys has been recognized for their exceptional work in advancing NGN services and technologies. The Zultys family of Unified Communications solutions has proven its exceptional quality and its innovation has contributed to the transformation of the industry,” stated Rich Tehrani, CEO, TMC. “Congratulations to the entire team at Zultys and I look forward to more innovations in the coming year.”

For further information, visit the 500 Premises section of our website. Alternatively, if you have any questions then call us on 0845 0000 500, or alternatively fill in our Contact Form.

On the 1st April 2010, Ofcom published proposals which will make it cheaper to call mobile phones from landlines. The consultation proposes slashing mobile termination rates, which are the wholesale charges that operators make to connect calls to each others’ networks. Ofcom last set its termination rates in 2007, and under the new plans, these wholesale rates would fall from around 4.3p per minute today (operator ’3′ charges 4.6p), to fall to 2.5p next year, 1.5p in 2012/13, 0.9p the next year, and just 0.5p per minute in 2014/15. This would lead to cheaper calls to mobiles for the 32.7 million UK homes and businesses with a landline. Ofcom said it expects fixed-line operators such as BT to pass the saving onto consumers. Mobile phone users will probably not see any benefit, though. These terminations charges will not affect mobile to mobile charges.

The way that consumers use mobile devices has also changed, with the greater take up of smart phones. As well as calls and texts, mobiles as being used to send emails and connect to the internet. Ofcom figures show that the volume of data traffic over mobile networks has increased by 200% over the last year.

The proposals, Ofcom are proposing will also mean that both landline and mobile operators have more flexibility in designing competitive call packages, promoting competition for the benefit of consumers. Today there are many smaller communications providers including mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs), VOIP (voice over IP) providers as well as the four mobile operators with national mobile networks (3UK, O2, Vodafone and the merged Orange/T-Mobile).

Lastly according to Ofcom, 2010 will be the year that there will be more calls from mobiles than landlines. Currently, 0800 numbers are free from landlines but charged at 20p per minute from mobile phones. The trend for companies is to move to 03 numbers. Deemed as ‘UK-wide’ numbers they are treated the same as 01 and 02 numbers. These are generally included within the minutes of prepaid plans of the top four mobile operators, though do check with your operator. For example, calls to Jersey, Guernsey, and Isle of Man mobile telephone numbers are chargeable. As there is an increase in mobile usage this can only mean the decline in the use of 0800 numbers.

The Wholesale Mobile Call Termination Review (second Consultation) is available to view.

If you have any questions then call us on 0845 0000 500, or alternatively fill in our Contact Form.

Zultys, Inc., a leading provider of Unified Communications and VoIP Business Phone Systems since 2001, announced that Technology Marketing Corporation has named the Zultys end-to-end Unified Communications solution for SMBs and Enterprises as a recipient of its 2009 Unified Communications magazine Product of the Year Award.

“We’re continually innovating and adding new features and benefits to our Unified Communications solutions for SMBs and Enterprise firms. We’re very pleased to have this recognized by TMC with the Unified Communications 2009 Product of the Year Award,” said Neil Lichtman, CEO of Zultys. “Zultys’ family of IP PBXs and Unified Communications solutions weaves multiple capabilities across many communications areas into a single system to help companies cut costs, boost productivity and tap new business opportunities.”

“UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS is proud to grant Zultys the Unified Communications 2009 Product of the Year Award for their MX250 and MX30 IP PBXs and Unified Communications software family. Zultys has proven its commitment to quality and excellence while addressing real needs in the marketplace,” said Rich Tehrani, CEO, TMC. “We’re happy to recognize and honor Zultys for their development of IP communications technology. We look forward to more innovative solutions from them in the future.”

If you have any questions then call us on 0845 0000 500, or alternatively fill in our Contact Form.

Zultys Inc., our Premises-based IP Telephony provider for SMB and enterprises, and Quarta Mobile, Inc., an innovator of applications and services based on the Apple platform and devices, announced recently the new Zultys iConnected™ Unified Communications client for the iPhone.

The iConnected application provides real-time connectivity and integration with Zultys Unified Communications systems for iPhone users. iConnected delivers a complete Unified Communications experience to mobile workers allowing them to stay fully connected to their entire company and provides critical productivity-enhancing tools like presence, displayed visual voice mail, internal extension dialing, corporate directory access, and conducting IM sessions and emails right from the corporate directory.

“The convergence trend is clear and demand for UC mobility is on the rise, especially as mobile devices like the iPhone become more ubiquitous. That’s why Zultys is committed to delivering anywhere, anytime Unified Communications,” said Neil Lichtman, CEO, Zultys. “iConnected provides real-time, deep connectivity for iPhone users into their corporate system and is a cost effective way for companies of all sizes to go mobile and ensure that their workers remain in touch and connected, no matter where they are.”

iConnected enables: Real-time mobile presence which allows you to see the status and availability of others in the company Single number contact and extension Corporate directory and PBX access from the iPhone Integration with the internal iPhone address book Real time call alerts and IM alerts The ability to launch email and IM sessions from the corporate address book Displayed visual voice mail Access to Call Handling Rules

iConnected seamlessly connects people across their entire organization – whether on the road, remote, or in a corporate office — into a single seamless communications network. The new mobile application allows people to see which of their co-workers are online and available, and the best way to reach them. This “anytime, anywhere connectivity” will make it faster and easier for them to stay in contact with colleagues and customers, boosting productivity, revenues, and cutting costs.

Zultys provides robust support for mobile and remote workers. It’s unique mobility support features include iConnected for the iPhone, MXmobile for BlackBerry devices, MXconnect which enables ANY phone (including a standard home phone) to be integrated into a Zultys Unified Communications system, Find Me/Follow Me for remote and mobile workers, as well as Twinning and more. With Zultys you can always remain connected to your corporate system, regardless of location.

Further Information

iConnected License Required: Please note you will need to purchase Zultys iConnected Licensing prior to activation for production systems. Part Number: 90-82002 iConnected-Mobile UC license-Apple

MX requirements: MX must be running v.5.2.17 or greater. Currently, 5.2.17 requires patch 5025 prior to running. Download the Patch and the iConnected Release Notes on the Zultys Knowledge Base System (KBS) at http://kbs.zultys.com. NOTE: For Zultys Demo MX’s, MXmobile licenses will work for iConnected.

How to Download: iConnected is available at AppStore and anybody can download and install it. It may only be activated with a valid iConnected User License. Installation takes three steps. You must have ITunes installed on your PC or Mac, or access the AppStore from your iPhone:

1. Open iConnected page in iTunes App Store: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/iconnected/id362204839?mt=8
2. Click to “Free App” for download.
3. Connect iPhone and start synchronization (please make sure that synchronization for applications is enabled).

If you have any questions or would like to find out more about Zultys iConnected™, then call us on 0845 0000 500, or alternatively fill in our Contact Form.

Zultys Inc., our technical partner for 500 Premises, announced today that the award-winning MXIE™ Unified Communications client has been certified as “Compatible with Windows 7” by Microsoft and has earned the Windows 7 logo. The MXIE desktop client inte­grates and manages all of your communications functions. It lets you see the presence status of oth­ers in your company, send emails, control all your phone calls via desktop phones or a softphone, send and receive faxes, send secure Instant Messages and voice messages, use Visual Voicemail, launch a collaborative MXmeeting™ web conference session, and much more – all with a single mouse click.

“We know there’s incredible interest in the Enterprise sector for deploying Windows 7. By working with Microsoft as a Certified Microsoft Partner, Zultys’ Unified Communications solutions are ready to support the ramp-up in Windows 7 deployments we expect to see this year,” said Vladimir Movshovich, CTO of Zultys. “We are confident that Zultys’ family of IP PBX and Unified Communications products and solutions will provide companies the advanced Unified Communications features they need across Windows 7 to increase productivity, improve customer service and grow profitability.”

MXIE now supports users on 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP, as well as all other major operating systems for desktops and laptops.

If you have any questions or would like to find out more, then call us on 0845 0000 500, or alternatively fill in our Contact Form.

Zultys Inc. announced recently that Technology Marketing Corporation’s (TMC®) INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine has named the Zultys end-to-end Unified Communications solution for SMBs and Enterprises as a recipient of its 2009 Product of the Year Award.

“We’re honored to be recognized by Internet Telephony magazine with the 2009 Product of the Year Award for the Zultys Unified Communications solution that’s providing companies worldwide with a competitive edge,” said Neil Lichtman, CEO of Zultys. “We understand the communications needs of businesses. That’s why we continue to develop innovative solutions for our MX250 and MX30 IP PBX Unified Communications platforms that allow businesses to be more productive, reduce costs and improve customer service. Our most recent software releases have added MXmobile™ which allows users to be connected on their BlackBerry as if they were at their desk, and MXconnect™ which let companies seamlessly integrate teleworkers into their UC system.”

“INTERNET TELEPHONY is proud to grant Zultys the 2009 Product of the Year Award for their MX250 and MX30 IP PBXs and Unified Communications software family. Zultys has proven its commitment to quality and excellence while addressing real needs in the marketplace,” said Rich Tehrani, CEO, TMC. “We’re happy to recognize and honor Zultys for their development of IP communications technology. We look forward to more innovative solutions from them in the future.”