It is short of a miracle people are still paying for telephone calls in the United States of America. CPS had a need to get away from traditional legacy (PSTN) service and moved to something a bit move cutting edge. While investigating the possibilities, we discovered and rediscovered a myriad of possibilities. Among this possibilities are growing number of open source IP PBX and softphones.
At first we thought about a hosted IP PBX. Packet 8 (8X8) offered a simple solution. They were offering free VoIP phones, free shipping and no money down on a one year contract. The service charges would amount to $40 per month for unlimited calling to anywhere in the United States and Canada. We openly discussed this as a solution for two to three days. The problems CPS faced with hosted IP PBX were numerous.
To list a few:
• We could record calls made on the extensions but not listen to them in real-time and the recordings where being hosted on 8X8 servers.
• We could setup ring groups but not call queues.
• They had not dialing solution (dialer).
• We had no conference bridge.
• We had to pay extra for the attendant console.
This turned out to be a deal breaker for us. I highly recommend there services for smaller organization that does not need as much control as we do.
We look at Simple Signal Hosted IP PBX and had much of the same issues as with 8X8.
A few more hours of research brought us to Digium’s door step. Digium’s SwitchVox had all the fancy trappings needed to advance our new business. The licensed and upkeep seemed to be a bit outside our budget. We began looking on Asterisk open source IPPBX which is the foundation for SwitchVox. This was when we made a startling discovery which will change the way we communicate with each other inside the organization and with people outside the organization. Our discovery has been changing the way we conduct business at Communication Price Solution Inc from that day on.
We discovered:
• Free PBX
• Trixbox
• Elastix
We choose to use Elastix and are happy with our choice. We are stilling learning new ways to use this absolutely free IP PBX to enhance our business and taking customer service to new heights. Go to http://www.elastix.org/content/view/15/31/lang,en/ to view the endless list of world class business applications and features which came standard with Elastix.
Tune in on Wed. for a step by step account of our journey into Palosanto’s world of Elastix.
Have you every used any free IP PBX in the pass? Share your experience with us.
Almost like a thief in the night Windstream bought Nuvox formally Florida Digital Network (FDN). The deal reportedly caught most employees by surprise. Below is a quote from a anonymous Nuvox big-wig.
“As you may have heard by now, NuVox has just signed a deal to be acquired by Windstream Corporation. Here at NuVox, most of us are still absorbing the news, but I am confident the transaction is good for our employees, for our customers, and for you, our dealers. Windstream is very focused on growing their enterprise (CLEC) business, and they wanted NuVox’s “know how”. They were very attracted to our product set and our sales distribution channels.”
Windstream reportedly recently inked a deal to move their tech support over to India, keeping with the trend of large cap. tech companies moving support to India. What does this say about the future of the company and quality of tech support? Only time will tell.
For the records CPS found the service and support at Nuvox to have been first rate. We will be watching out for the changes and report them to our customer base. Go Windstream!
Who would have thought we would have to go back to the drawing board and come up with a new version of Internet Protocol (IP). IPv4 seems like it was the answer, then large corporations decided to give us all our own workstation at work. We came up with Network Address Translation (NAT), to combat the need for public IP on private networks. NAT took care of our veracious appetite for IP Addresses for awhile and then came all the web enable mobile devices. Web-enable mobile devices are one question to which NAT could not address. The future of IPv4 is bleak and what does this mean for the avarage end-user? Nothing! That is correct. The changes between IPv4 and IPv6 will not require any action from the end-users. The changes will impact how the manufactures produce devices. So what do you think, do we really need it?
BellSouth (Southeast): Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, & Florida
There are those of us who are die-hard Bellsouth fans and thought it was a mistake for Bellsouth to merge with AT&T. There are those who thinks Bellsouth should have bought AT&T. No merger is without its share of complications but this one seems to drag on. AT&T and Bellsouth still operates as if they are two different entities where billing and other services are concern. We cannot explain the grief this practice has caused us in our customer service department here at CPS. Perhaps one day both companies will become fully integrated. We dream of the day am ILEC T1 data circuit can be provisioned in 30 days. We dream of the day when the Bellsouth Legacy billing will automatically stop if the customer chooses to buy an AT&T domestic calling plan. You would think a customer cannot be billed twice for the same long distance usage. Think again!
A Verizon Network router failure today caused an outage in the northeast area. According to Verizon the outage was caused by the failure of a card in a New York City router, which left the router in a hung state. The failure happened between 3:15 p.m. and 3:50 p.m. Eastern Standard time.
Verizon seemed to have taken the router offline and traffic recovered. Verizon spokes person stated that the outage seem to have only impacted the NYC area however he was reticent to make an estimate on the number of customer affected. The outage seem to have impaired users of DSL, FiOS and leased lines.
Metro E Promo Launched – Special Pricing Available through Oct 31st! 20093 Year Terms – No Integrated Circuits10M – internet only – $975 MRC – previously $1,399 MRCAvailable Markets: Atlanta, Jacksonville, Miami/Ft. Lauderdale/WPB, and Orlando10M – internet only –$1,387 MRC – previously $1,757 MRC
Available Markets: Asheville, Birmingham, Charlotte, Charleston, Columbia, Greensboro, Greenville, Kansas City, Knoxville, Louisville, , Nashville, Savannah, and St. Louis
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Kansas City Sale!
We have some outstanding promotional prices available in many areas of Chiefland! Contact your CPS ACCOUNT Managers, for details and a quote TODAY!VoxIP with up to 24 lines and a Full Dynamic T1 of Internet is now available for as low as $375!!!!VoxIP with up to 8 lines and a Full Dynamic T1 of Internet is now available for as low as $325!!!!Full Data T1s as low as $325!!!!!!!!!!!!
Twenty four suicides in a year and a half. Some blame it on the working conditions at France Telecom a once public telecom giant who is now a private corperation. The union is calling for a suicide tax to be levy againsted the globalized telecom giant. Are they crazy? Do they make sense? Weigh in on the topic by clicking the link to read the article and leave your comment on our blog.
