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Do I need to replace my existing phone system to use your services? |
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NO! We can work with your existing technology to either enhance it or at least save you money! CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO ON UPGRADES |
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If I use your service, does that mean I have to change my phone number? |
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NO! All of your number can stay exactly as they are, even your 800 number. |
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What services do you provide? |
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PBX-Change is just part of our family. We have divisions that offer phone service, internet connections, hardware and web hosting. That means you can consolidate bills for your web hosting, email, phones systems, local calling, long distance and internet connection. We are not "partnered" with other companies to provide this service, these are all provided by one of our divisions. You have one number to call when you need help, and one bill to pay every month. |
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What is IP Centrex/Hosted Communication Services? |
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The PBXChange Communications Suite allows service providers to offer a new set of “managed telephony services” such as Hosted PBX and IP Centrex and other advanced services. These features are not only delivered to a customer’s phone, but can be individually configured by the user through a web-based interface. The user can personalize his/her business phone, according to working habits and preferences, by client or customer and by calling priorities. |
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Why would an end user subscribe to this? What is the end user value proposition? |
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This service allows small and medium-sized businesses and multi-site enterprises to gain control over communications expenses and management hassles associated with PBXs and IP/PBXs by migrating to an outsourced solution hosted by the Service Provider. It has all of the same features and functions of traditional phone systems as well as advanced features found in newer systems. However the hosted solution is easier to use plus it improves productivity for internal and mobile employees. This hosted IP-Centrex offering promotes capital expense savings and on-going cost savings due to browser-based Moves, Adds, and Changes, on-net calling between offices, and bundled applications that businesses usually purchase separately like voicemail, conferencing and unified messaging. |
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How does this type of solution differ from other Internet-based call management solutions on the market? |
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This solution is hosted in a carrier-grade network, not the Internet. The applications were built with a browser- based model in mind, making it easy for the service provider and the customers to administer, manage and update their features (such as speed dial keys, phone templates and moves, adds and changes) as if it’s their own system. Other web-based portals, such as those offered by Vonage, are simply PC-based solutions with a web-enabled front-end for making calls over the Internet. |
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Tell me more about Microsoft Outlook Integration. Does it allow for contact synchronization? What if the customer does not want to host all of the contact data? How can I stop that? |
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The Microsoft Outlook option will allow users to choose which contacts should be synchronized and contacts can be characterized as Personal Contacts, or Company Contacts. Currently, the company directory will be hosted in the network. Each individual user is not required, nor do they need to, synchronize their personal contacts with the network. But remember, this data is secure, and cannot be viewed by other users because of the way the database is administered and secured. Remember, this system, including the data, looks like a PBX to your customer, but it is hosted in the network. |
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What versions of Outlook does the service work with? |
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The Microsoft Outlook option works with both Outlook 2000 and Outlook XP. |
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What is the voicemail solution for this product offer? |
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This product has been pre-tested and integrates with leading third-party voicemail vendors such as IP Unity an IPeria to provide a best-of-breed solution. |
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What is the difference between the voicemail and Unified Messaging? |
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There are two options for messaging: 1) the standard hosted voicemail solution accessed verbally though your phone keys as most systems work today, or 2) a Unified Messaging solution. With the Unified Messaging option, your customer can access their voice messages through their email, and send voice messages through email. They can ‘see’ who called them and listen to their voice messages through a headset on their PC, right from Outlook. |
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What about conferencing? |
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The base service has up to 4-way ad-hoc conferencing from the phone itself. With a display phone, the conference can be set up with the soft keys on the display, and parties can be easily added (or dropped) from an ad hoc conference. For scheduled conferencing, Broadvox has integrated with leading third-party conferencing vendors and the service includes a number of additional features that allow you to invite attendees from your contact directory, attach presentation, schedule calls, and a ‘standing’ conference line (set up by the administrator) for ad-hoc conference calls. |
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Who manages this service? |
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Once the service is ordered, the technical and/or office contact designated within the company will be sent details (via email) to set up the service for the company. The Administrator’s Portal was designed so “anyone” in a company could be responsible for making moves, adds and changes. Training requirements are minimal compared to the traditional certified training courses required for premises-based solutions. Administrators will have their own Management Web Portal, separate from their own Personalized Web Portal (for their own phone), which will allow them to perform moves, adds, changes to any user, update their company directory, administer hunt groups and even optional ACD groups, and more. You get all the features and functionality of an in-house PBX or Key System without the hassles of managing a physical piece of equipment. The web-based Administrator’s Portal allows, the administrator to manage a remote office, or work on changes from any location where they have access to an Internet connection. This remote administration capability is easier and more intuitive to use than that of any PBX (or IP-PBX) on the market.
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What about redundancy and fail-over capabilities? |
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The service is engineered to be as reliable as any other carrier-grade network product. Since all of the data is stored in the network, the data itself is secured. The system has been tested to meet a 99.999% (5-9’s) reliability requirement. |
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What happens to the voice quality when several users are using their phones, and several other users try to do large data transfers? |
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The customer and service provider should determine the correct bandwidth requirements of each location based on the number of employees, as well as an evaluation of the customer’s LAN. Based on the assessment and customer requirements, the system will be provisioned and installed to ensure voice quality, and the number of users and/or data being transmitted shouldn’t have an effect on voice quality. |
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So what about QoS? Is a service provider able to guarantee that a user’s voice quality won't degrade when the network or Internet is busy? |
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With voice quality, traffic is managed on a per-customer basis. In addition, the service is transmitted over a managed IP network, not the Internet. This network is engineered for voice traffic only. If the Internet is busy, it will affect only the response time of user portals, which are not needed in order to use phones and make calls. |
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What do customers need? |
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Customers complete a qualification / provisioning checklist to determine what specifically is needed, including selecting the most appropriate service packages for the business. Once this is done, the customer may simply need new phones, -or may require additional cabling, a router and/or an expanded access circuit and phones. |
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What phones are supported? Is any additional equipment necessary to attach those phones to the service? |
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The service will work with a host of IP phones including Cisco, AAstra and Polycom. If the customer has a Toshiba DK Key system, their phones may also work with the solution, as well as Nortel system. Any analog phone can be converted to an IP phones by means of an adapter. |
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What about Security? Couldn’t someone ‘hack into’ my customer’s network? |
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The hosted communications servers are fully secured in the network ensuring that only authorized end users and network servers can access the system. Third party products, when integrated with the service, offer extensive security on the network side ensuring that customers or third-party IP networks are managed accordingly. |
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What if a company has a firewall? How would it work? What about other security aspects of your solution? |
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There are multiple approaches to delivering IP telephony while keeping your firewall intact. The solution operates outside of the firewall, and/or can utilize a Network Address Translation device (NAT), which only allows voice calls to the specific IP addresses through the firewall. |
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In case of failure of any component, is there any impact on service? |
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In the event of a failure, the impact on service is very limited if at all perceptible. The system was designed to isolate failures from the users, so any calls “in progress” will remain “up” in the event of a failure. There is extensive network monitoring to ensure that any local failures (phones, LANs, etc.) are minimized when failures occur. If there is a power outage at the customer site, calls can be instantly re directed by accessing the Administrator’s Portal and re-routing calls to another telephone number. |
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What types of reports are available to the business to manage this service? |
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The Administrator’s Portal provides the users with a report that allows them to view each phone number and the services assigned and provisioned to that phone number. Every time a change is made to an account, adding or deleting numbers and features, the report is automatically updated and can be viewed from any Internet connection. Additional reports are also available. |
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Who do I call for Service Issues? |
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The Customer will have access to live Technical Support 24/7/365. |
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What is done with 800 Service? |
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Customers will be able to keep their existing 800 services. It will be treated as another DID number on the hosted service. |
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What about customers who need call accounting codes and billing codes? |
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The Service has the ability for customers to assign as many codes as they like, based on users, projects, clients, etc. At the end of the billing cycle, these calls can be separated out by account/billing code, so customers know where these calls are to be charged. |
