June 29, 2010

NEC integrates Unified Communications on Mobile and Desktop Phones

Filed under: Unified Communications, VoIP in the Workplace — admin @ 5:12 pm

NEC Unified Solutions have this week released today two new unified communications (UC) solutions – Business ConneCT Mobile Client and XML Terminal Client, The new applications increase and improve the functionality and capabilities of NEC’s communications servers to smart phones and desktop terminals.

Primarily aimed at contact centre environments, Mobile Client and XML Terminal Client are designed to pull together multiple tasks into one fully integrated and affordable solution for all NEC’s existing and future communications platforms.

BCT Mobile Client can greatly boost business productivity by integrating mobile smartphone users with the organisation infrastructure. As mobile calls are routed through the office telephone system, companies can save on mobile phone costs as well as reaping the benefits that come with mobile devices becoming true office extensions , allowing organisations to communicate more efficiently, thus increasing productivity.

Standard services that come with BCT Mobile Client include access to a corporate directory, presence notification, and unique contact numbers and voicemail boxes for each mobile employee.

BCT Mobile Client has been built to be compatible with all modern, popular mobile smartphone operating systems and browsers including iPhones, Android, Windows Mobile smartphones.

As far as desktop ip telephones go, the BCT Mobile Client can function on NEC’s DT700 range of desktop phones including the DT710 Economy, DT730 Enhanced and the DT750 Sophisticated terminals ensuring that all employees can be integrated into the same network regardless of location.

For more information, read the press release from NEC here.

March 18, 2010

UK Government to adopt VoIP

Filed under: VoIP in the Workplace — Tags: , — admin @ 3:00 pm

According to a new report by In-Stat, Governments are looking to adopt VoIP as a solution to communication issues.

It seems that 48% of those polled had used VoIP as a way of communicating at least once.

Within the Government the integration of VoIP is key – it has to be available for all and the different features and capabilities need to be explored. It is quite a mammoth task as far as integration and instruction are concerned. The savings to the Government are also important but more so within sectors like Education.

The relative cost effectiveness of VoIP and ease of integration makes the technology very attractive. The wide range of functions also means that any company can deploy the use of VoIP in the workplace.

With the UK Government looking to focus on IT as a way of making savings, we can expect large growth in VoIP popularity over the next few years.

February 19, 2010

VoIP Report: 1 Billion Mobile Workers by the end of 2010

Filed under: Unified Communications, VoIP, VoIP in the Workplace — Tags: — admin @ 12:09 pm

A recent report by US technology analyst firm IDC, has highlighted the fact that due to the growth and accessibility of VoIP Communications, by the end of 2010 there will be 1 billion people working from mobile locations.

Actual predictions of the report state that by the end of 2013, the figure will rise to 1.2 billion – over than a third of the world’s current workforce. The majority of the growth will come from the Asian/Pacific economies where interest in VoIP and Unified Communications (UC) is particularly strong.

The report goes on to make some interesting predictions for the future including,

  • the U.S. while not having the the greatest growth or greatest volume of workers over the next 4 years, will have the highest concentration of mobile workers with 75% of the U.S. workforce being mobile by 2013.
  • Western Europe’s mobile workforce growing by 6% to surpass the U.S. workforce with 129.5 million mobile workers compared to the 119.7 milion in the US.
  • Japan will reach the sustainable limit of it’s ability make workers mobile by 2013 – 49.3 million workers will be mobile.

These figures are quite staggering when put into the context of the VoIP industry as it is now and is a healthy recommendation for any company looking to invest in VoIP telephone systems for their company.

The report has been put together as 5 year forecast of the mobile worker population covering office-based, non-office-based, and home-based workers.

To read the full press release and report, visit the IDC website here

July 23, 2009

VoIP to help tackle Swine Flu Pandemic

Filed under: VoIP in the Workplace — Tags: , , , — admin @ 4:22 pm

VoIP could be used to tackle the swine flu pandemic. Small businesses are being urged to put contingency plans in place for dealing with the possibility of an accelerated spread in the virus.

Swine flu is in the headlines every day, with more cases being reported up and down the country and it seems as if some firms have been looking into ways that people can work around the virus.

Many small firms are ill prepared for the devastation to employee numbers that swine flu will cause and so small businesses are being urged to look into their options.

Those affected by the virus are usually able to work and therefore enabling them to work from home and communicate with other team members and clients will allow businesses to virtually carry on as normal.

VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) solutions will allow employees to work remotely whilst in quarantine and small companies to continue running, even if the majority of the staff have been affected by the swine flu virus.

June 13, 2009

Alcatel-Lucent launches new Secure VoIP Solution

Filed under: VoIP in the Workplace — Tags: , , — admin @ 11:50 am

Last month Alcatel-Lucent launched a new secure VoIP solution. The new secure VoIP technology, is designed to protect medium and large sized firms from attacks on IP networks, whilst maintaining the quality of service.

The new offering from Alcatel-Lucent combines their firewall technology – VPN Firewall Brick – with their telephony platform.

The new secure VoIP solution boasts firewall technology developed by Bell Labs and was originally created to safeguard the US Government’s classified networks.

With the vulnerabilities posed to VoIP networks growing and that fact that the majority of VoIP networks are deployed by communications teams and not an experienced IT teams, the need to ensure that communication solutions are secure by default is becoming more necessary. VoIP can really benefit a business by reducing communication costs, but it has to be secure in order to really be a truly profitable investment.

The Alcatel-Lucent VoIP solution works by dynamically pin-holing, which basically means that only once a call has been set up, is it assigned a port. Traditional firewall solutions are not VoIP aware and therefore, several ports are often open during the call, threatening the security of both voice and data.

This new and exciting technology from Alcatel-Lucent will ensure that businesses can use VoIP, safe in the knowledge that their business is protected, at the same time as saving them money.

April 21, 2009

VoIP gets ready to fight its corner

Filed under: Hosted IP Platform, VoIP, VoIP in the Workplace — Tags: , — admin @ 1:38 pm

According to a recent article published on Multichannel News, the issue with integrating VoIP technology isn’t that people don’t understand the benefits, but that they are loathe to undertake such a big job.

Kristine Faulkner, Cox Business vice president of product development explained that “nobody wakes up and says ‘I am going to change all the phones in my business,’”. The issue that people face when switching to VoIP services is not that they don’t understand the benefits or why they should look to VoIP networks to streamline their business communications, but the fact that it can be a daunting task. Companies become complacent and adopt a ‘better the devil you know’ attitude.

Regardless of how these companies feel about the overhaul of their telephone systems, VoIP is where the commercial market is headed and a lot of a businesses will be dragged kicking and screaming into the new age of communications.

As cable companies widen their rollouts of hosted IP services, there will be more and more options available to businesses. Although, VoIP services for businesses are still in the early stages, it is very much the way that business-class technology is going to be heading.

For more information on this, go to the Multichannel News article.

April 20, 2009

The Top VoIP Conference Phones

Filed under: VoIP in the Workplace, voip phones — Tags: — admin @ 12:43 pm

Over the past few months a number of new IP conference phones have hit the market, giving you more choice.

For many this has been an utter delight, whereas some of you have mentioned some confusion over which conference phones are really pressing all of the right buttons.

Having recently read an article by Garrett Smith for VoIP Supply our thoughts on what really makes a great conference phone have been confirmed, although we have a few favourites of our own.

This is our current top 4:

Polycom IP 6000
Polycom has always been at the top of its game and this particular model comes with a microphone picking up your conversation, up to 12 foot away – a 20% greater range than previous generations. 14Khz for high-fidelity calls and strong, robust SIP software making advanced call handling and security a piece of cake.

Avaya 4690 IP
This stylish Avaya conference phone comes with a whole host of features including support for SNMP, DHCP client and a manually configurable IP address. As the phone technology moves forward you also have the option to upgrade and download new software – so that your phone moves with you and the times.

Polycom SoundStation IP 7000
Like the Polycom IP6000, the IP7000 has a huge microphone range, but this time we are looking at around 20 foot. Again, strong, robust with the most advanced SIP software in the industry. It speaks for itself.

Polycom Nortel IP2033 Conference Phone
This conference phone offers you a full duplex, hands free conference phone – ideal for your desktop.

Compare our list with Garrett’s

April 16, 2009

VoIP Security and how to do it yourself

Filed under: VoIP, VoIP in the Workplace — Tags: , — admin @ 12:34 pm

VoIP technology is predicted to surpass even the large telecoms and may even close the gap on third world communications, improving the way that we communicate with the rest of the world.

VoIP is quickly becoming the way that a lot of businesses are preferring to do business and many believe that in time VoIP will become the standard way of telecommunications.

What has to be considered is the threat to security that VoIP could open you to.

Like other types of data networks, VoIP is susceptible to the usual attacks like viruses, spam, phishing, Dos attacks, lost and stolen data, toll fraud (when someone uses your network to make toll or long distance calls at your expense) and eavesdropping. The risks to your company security are many, but there are some things that you can do now to help protect yourself against attacks of this kind.

1. Keep your network away from the Internet
2. Make sure that you update patches regularly
3. Equip your system with firewalls
4. Restrict VoIP data to one VLAN (Virtual Local Area Network)
5. Keep track of your traffic and watch for any suspicious patterns
6. Lock down VoIP Servers
7. Multiple layers of encryption to deter
8. Build in redundancy into VoIP networks

Currently, the VoIP industry itself has not introduced measurements to protect businesses from VoIP fraud and attacks, but these points will help you to cover yourself and your communications.

March 1, 2009

Avaya teams up with with mobile company DiVitas Networks

Filed under: VoIP, VoIP in the Workplace — Tags: — admin @ 1:37 pm

Avaya announced a foray in the mobile market with news that they will team up with DiVitas Networks to form a mobile UC partnership.

The new partnership is bound to prove fruitful for both parties considering the market share that Avaya have in the VoIP Systems industry, and the weight and reputation of DiVitas’ solution.

Doug Mohney’s article for Fiercevoip.com explains that DiVitas Networks’ solution is now integrated with Avaya Communications Manager and Avaya Modular Messaging to offer a dual-mode solution for mobile employees who wish to move seamlessly between campus-based wireless networks and cellular networks.

With support available for both Symbian and Windows Mobile based dual-mode handsets, DiVitas’s client provides the interface for the sending and receiving of calls through Avaya’s communications network. Key features of the Avaya/DiVitas solution include one number reach, mid-call management, presence availability, and access to corporate directories. In addition, integration with Avaya Modular Messaging enables users to visually retrieve their Avaya voice mail with the DiVitas client interface through a single voicemail box.

Transportation company, CSX Corporation have been used as the working case study for the new venture. Wishing to reduce it’s cellular pooled minutes and communicate time-critical information more efficiently, CSX decided to get dump the existing multiple handsets used by dispatchers in favour of Nokia e71 dual-mode handsets. This also allowed them to extend coverage to remote areas that have no cellular networks but do have WiFi networks available.

The increased use of Wi-FI meant savings on cellular costs as well as the benefit of having mobile workers continuously reachable on their desk phone number.

DiVitas originally joined Avaya’s DevConnect program in 2007 and was upgraded to Platinum Status in 2008, so it came as no suprise that Avaya selected DiVitas as its preferred dual-mode mobile UC solution.

February 25, 2009

VoIP can be used for self-service

Filed under: VoIP in the Workplace — admin @ 11:38 am

Companies be more productive and efficient by using VoIP in a self-service capacity to help , according to an article on iHotDesk.com.

“Firms must remember that VoIP as a technology allows them to do more with less” says Greg Anderson, global general manager for the Goldmine solution at FrontRange Solutions.

The suggestion is that by integrating a VoIP system into the exisiting communications network, a telephony system can be turned into a self-help service and free up help-desk operatives from everyday enquiries such as password reminders and account unlocking.

In his article for IT World, Anderson goes on to say “The same increase in productivity and customer satisfaction applies in other areas of business operations, such as human resources, where routine queries about leave or payroll issues can be serviced by voice-enabled self-help technologies,”.

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