BaldwinTel

A Cheap Cloud Phone Solution for Small Professional Office Locations? Panasonic says "Yes" but we say "Maybe"

By Dan Baldwin

For over 10-years, hosted VoIP providers (initially Vonage & 8x8) have been telling small businesses that "the cloud" (their broadband DSL or cable Internet connection) can host their phone service so they can abandon their expensive local phone company lines and save money.

The idea was fine when it was first proclaimed, but the actual phone equipment that small offices needed to work "with the cloud" did not have all the features required like intercom, music on hold, cordless handsets, etc.

 

Panasonic's "Office Cloud Phones" to the Rescue?

For years Panasonic has been a phone equipment champion for small businesses. The phones are pretty inexpensive, fairly easy to install and easy to

How Seasonal and Burstable Phone Systems Lower Phone Bills Up to 25% for Businesses with Uneven Phone Usage

By Dan Baldwin

Owners of Southern California multi-location businesses with uneven phone usage are often forced to buy a business phone system that's bigger than they really need AND buy more phone lines then they will consistently use.

Some businesses like amusement parks or ski resorts are only really busy for half a year at a time. Other "swing-shift" type businesses like restaurants are only busy for a couple hours a day.

In the past, uneven usage businesses like these had no choice but to "phone up" for their busiest peaks and then simply pay for equipment and services they were not using during the off times.

Well no more. 

Modern phone systems that are "powered by" hosted VoIP and/or SIP trunk technology are able to ramp capacity up and down on fairly short notice. This enables seasonal businesses like amusement parks and ski resorts to put unused phones into virtual hibernation during the off season.

Other bursty businesses like restaurants with peak call times several times a day can buy fewer phone lines than the really need if their phone service provider will allow them to "burst up" and give them extra phone line capacity during their busy hours.

 

GLOBALINX to the Rescue!

One modern phone company that is helping uneven usage businesses is GLOBALINX.  

Click here or the image below to view a short webinar about how GLOBALINX's seasonal and burstable phone solutions are custom designed to save uneven usage businesses up to 25% on their annual phone charges.

Need to Separate Your Phone Numbers From Your Phone Lines & Answer Calls Anywhere? SIP Does That

By Dan Baldwin

Would the sales for your southern California based multi-location business increase if your best employees could be put on the phone with your best prospects regardless of where your employee was or where the prospect was calling from?

Now you can do this!

Thanks to "SIP trunking" technology which can go on practically any existing business office phone system, you can literally separate your phone numbers from their physical phone lines so your inbound calls can be answered anywhere by your best employees regardless of geography.

 

It's Like the Best "Call Forwarding" of All Time (Without the High Cost)

In past years you could use "remote call forwarding" or RCF services to get one phone number to ring in a different location but it was terribly expensive.

Businesses have also employed byzantine networks of toll free 800 numbers to get calls where they needed to be answered but this was also very expensive.

With SIP trunking technology applied to your existing phone system (or multiple phone systems), you are basically allowed to treat all of your phone systems like they were a single phone system.  

As well, SIP kind of makes all your phone numbers around the world seem like they are coming into a single distribution center and then routed out to be answered by your very best employee no matter where he or she was - in an office, at home or in their car.

 

How Would Your Rework Your Business Phone System With This Sort of Power?

Give us a call!

No matter how old your existing phone systems are at your multiple offices, this "number rerouting" SIP technology is available to help your business increase profits today.

As professional telecom agents and business phone and data network consultants, it's our job to make your phones work better whether you can afford a new phone system or not.

We can be helping you tomorrow if you call us today.

 

Which SIP Trunking Service Providers Do We Use & Recommend?

You can't swing a dead cat in a full circle at any business mixer these days without hitting three SIP salespersons. As business phone brokers we have access to those three SIP phone networks and a dozen others. With SIP these days it seems like anyone with a computer in their garage and an Internet connection can start their own SIP phone company.

Giving Up on VoIP Phone Service Because of Outages? Try the Provider That Never Goes Down

By Dan Baldwin

Our Southern California based multi-location business phone system customers often refer other business owners they know to us who are having the worse time with their phone service because their VoIP phone carrier has a service outage every other month for an hour or even a day which brings their business to a complete stand still.

When we ask about which carrier they use that keeps going down we learn it's either a "no name" provider that's just getting into the VoIP and SIP phone service business or it's one of the big incumbent carriers that are in the process of converting their old "TDM" (time division multiplex AKA old copper phone line) customers over to VoIP and SIP.

 

How Can VoIP Phone Outages be Eliminated?  Ask These 5 Questions...

Start by interviewing IP phone service providers that have never experienced an outage - like BandTel.

During the interview of all prospective business VoIP/SIP/IP phone service providers, ask the following five questions:

1. Can you please show us a diagram of your existing IP phone network identifying any single points of future failure?

2. How has your IP network changed since it's inception & how many outages have you experienced?

3. How does your network redundancy design and failure rate compare to your three closest competitors?

4. Speaking only in terms of network outage prevention, why is your network significantly better than your competitor's networks?

5. If we experience a working hours outage of more than 30 minutes can we get out of our agreement?

If you can't get direct, understandable answers to these questions then you're not speaking with an IP phone provider that's worried enough about your business.

 

We Don't See Our Customers as "VoIP Lab Rats"

The existing incumbent local phone companies are not switching their business customers to VoIP, SIP and other IP phone service technologies because they want their customers to have a "fantastic new business phone experience".

They're switching their existing customers to IP because it's cheaper for them to maintain a switched IP phone network with "soft switches" than to keep upgrading and maintaining their older (and generally more reliable) existing TDM phone network infrastructure. 

Many of these carriers will send out only the smallest notice suggesting how, "Because we love our customers so much we're upgrading the network - at no expense to you!"

What they should be broadcasting is a more honest message like, "Hold on to your seats my unfortunate lab rat customers, this is going to be a very bumpy ride and not all of you are going to survive!"

Why the Toughest IT Directors Like BandTel for Business Phone System SIP Trunking Solutions

By Dan Baldwin

Many of our Southern California based multi-location business customers ask us how they can get the upgraded "VoIP features" in their old PBX business phone systems like "voice mail in my email", "simultaneous ring", "work-at-home", etc. without having to "fork lift out" all the old phone systems in their multiple locations and buying all new IP-PBX phone systems.

For a couple of years now the answer to this inquiry has been "SIP Trunks". As many business end-user IT directors have learned, SIP trunking is an IP (Internet protocol) solution that uses a "black box" to connect an older analogue PBX business phone system to a broadband public or private business Internet connection.

"But who's SIP trunk black box to use and why?" is the main question asked by discerning IT directors. Just saying that a SIP trunk provider has a black box doesn't mean the solution works. Inside every IT director is the critic who says, "I think you should be more explicit here..." quoting the famous cartoonist Sydney Harris.

(Very few IT directors keep their jobs by accepting "and then a miracle occurs".)

Looking to Eliminate Phone Lines by Plugging Your Cable Internet Into Your Old PBX Phone System? Call Us!

By Dan Baldwin

In today's economy, many Southern California based multi-location business owners and decision makers find themselves either trying to expand without a lot of cash or trying to downsize to save more cash. Whether due to expansion of contraction though, every monthly overhead item gets a thorough "scrubbing" especially nettlesome invoices like business phone line bills, broadband cable Internet bills and the like.

When looking at separate phone line & Internet bills, many business owners ask, "What happened to making phone calls over the Internet? Why am I paying separately for business phone lines and business Internet service? Can't I get rid of my phone lines?"

 

You Can Cancel Your Business Phone Lines to Save Money ...

If you look at your normal business phone service bill from the telephone company you'll see that you're paying for three separate services:

1. Phone calls,   2. Phone numbers, and 3. Phone lines.

Those of you who have already tried VoIP phone calling at home using Vonage, Skype, magicJack or some similar residential grade "alternate phone service" know that you can easily substitute your phone line with a broadband Internet connection. Phone numbers and phone calls do not have to go over phone lines as they're "transport medium agnostic."

If you pick apart your business phone service invoice from your local phone company you'll see that the "phone line" part makes up the majority of the costs. You're paying for the "phone line pipes" all the time whether they're being used for phone calls or not.

The actual phone call usage portion of most phone bills and the hidden cost to "rent the phone number" for the month are really very small. This can be plainly seen on successive phone bills when a month of heavy calling is about the same as a month with very few calls.  

When it comes to your classic phone company phone bill - you're "paying for the pipes". This alone is not bad except you're also paying separately for your broadband Internet connection. It's time to "double up" and dump the cost of your phone lines if you can swing it.

Is it Hard, Legal (or Safe) to Connect My Phone System to My Business Cable Internet?

No, it's not hard. Yes, it's legal (confirm this with your cable company). Yes, it's safe - if you do it with a business "SIP Trunking" provider that has turned this new business phone service practice into an art form.

If you've connected a magicJack at home you already know how "hard" the connection process is. Instead of plugging your home phone into the phone line jack on the wall you plug it into the magicJack device and then plug the magicJack device into a USB port on your computer. The software on the magicJack device then connects your regular home phone to "real dial tone" using the Internet connection plugged into your computer.

After about a minute after connecting the magicJack you pick up the receiver on your phone and make a normal phone call. Incoming calls make the phone ring just like before.

Now of course magicJack is only residential quality so you don't want to use it for businesses calls. It actually works fine for business calls (I used my magicJack for business calls for about a month) until someone uses the Internet connection to watch a Netflix movie or swap vacation photos with friends on Facebook.