Telcom Data Blog

The Cook County Board of Commissioners has proposed a new tax of $48 per phone per line year, could increase phone rates  much as 131%! The proposed tax would apply to every phone line – even to every fax line, cell phone and DSL or Broad band line. The new proposed tax would also increase every year at the rate of inflation. This means that in five years, the total tax would be more than $250 per phone! If passed, this tax would hit the pocketbooks of all consumers and businesses in Cook County, IL.

If this tax passes business circuits including integrated voice and data T1and PRI circuits could become more attractive then ever. A T1 or PRI can deliver as many as 24 channels (lines) on a single circuit. The tax would be $4.00. The cost for the typical Chicago area business with 5 lines would go up as much as $1,260.00

Creating a new phone tax – on top of the many federal, state and local taxes that consumers already pay for each phone line – is not the answer. 

For more information on the tax go to http://www.nophonetax.org/about.php

We are excited to be announcing the launch of a new knowledge base. We want to build the biggest and best telecommunications resource on the web.

The goal for our knowledge base is to be able to answer any questions you may have about phone systems, voice mail, paging, headsets, audio and video conferencing, and any other area that we haven’t though of yet. But there is a catch….

WE NEED YOUR HELP!!!

We designed this knowledge base to be POWERED BY YOU! We want this to be your knowledge base so that you can have the information you want.

HOW IS THIS POWERED BY ME?

Well, when you go to our knowledge base at http://www.telcom-data.com/knowledge/index.aspx click on the link that says "Post a Question". This will take you to a page to fill out your information and enter in your question.

Once you click the "Ask Your Question" button your question will be sent to our team right away. In fact, we think it is so important that your question gets answered right away we have developed our own special software that will notify us on our desktops JUST 5 SECONDS after you post the question.

Once we receive the question we will find an answer and post it on the web to be in our knowledge base. If we don’t have an answer to your question we will do everything we can to make sure we find the answer.

WHAT DO I GET OUT OF THIS?

=> You will contributing to the telecommunications industry with vital questions that we may not think about.

=> This is as good as getting FREE TECH SUPPORT. Most of the questions that will posted can be very expensive to get answers for.

=> Here is the best part! The first 100 people who post a question will receive a coupon for 5% on their next order at Telcom-Data.com. Once we approve your question we will send the coupon

You can post a question at

http://www.telcom-data.com/knowledge/post-question.aspx

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OH, WAIT… I should mention that in addition to the FREE COUPON and FREE ANSWERS TO YOUR QUESTION we will give a complimentary consultation on how we can save you up to 30% on your phone bill and how we can help maximize your telecommunications in your business to be more effective and SAVE YOU MONEY!!

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Again, here is the link to for the knowledge base and the link to post a question.

Knowledge Base - http://www.telcom-data.com/knowledge/index.aspx

Post a Question - http://www.telcom-data.com/knowledge/post-question.aspx

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Implementing a telecommuting policy is easier then most businesses realize.

As soon as an owner hears VoIP they are ready to say it’s too expensive but the fact is the cost of VoIP technology is going down. Typically the cost of a VoIP enabled phone system is only 30% higher then traditional phone systems. The per station cost of a VoIP phone system ca range from $ 750.00 per station to $ 1,500.00 per station. To implement a totally IP based phone system there can be additional costs including a network assessment where the integrity of LAN needs to be checked for quality of service (QOS). LANs , routers, switches and even data cabling need to be checked to see if it can handle VoIP.

Other ways to skin a cat. Besides implementing a totally IP solution where every phone has a static IP address there are also Hybrid IP phone systems. Hybrid phone systems can take advantage of both digital and IP technologies. Phones systems like Avaya IP Office and the Toshiba CTX systems can be configured for IP and digital telephones. Using both digital and IP technology can save your company thousands and you won’t need a complete LAN over haul. Another advantage is hybrid systems can use existing CAT 3 or better phone cabling. The front end of the systems are IP enabled and connectivity to remote offices or branch offices can be done VoIP. So you don’t have to have an IP phone on everyone’s desk. At home workers use IP phones to connect back to the office. You end up with a remote worker with the same phone set features as any one with in the office. The hybrid system is redundant. You still have two networks both phone and data that work independent of each other. IP tech types might not dig this but who wants to reboot their phone system?

If you are on a shoe string budget and need VoIP this might interest you. You can add VoIP extension to any phone system!  Multitech a manufacturer of modems also provides VoIP gateways that can connect voip extensions to your existing phone system through either spare analog or spare trunk ports. Of course with any VoIP solution, telecommuters will still need high speed internet access from home. But connectivity is easy and cheap. The cost for a single telecommuter or remote office is only a few hundred dollars. To find out more about implementing telecommuting call Ricardo Trinidad at 800-335-0229.

Telcom & Data can help you save money on your phone maintenance. Using our maintenance service we can save you up to 30% on your phone maintenance.

You can find out how to save in three ways:

1. Fax over a copy of your most recent maintenance bill to 312-432-1168
2. Fill out the Maintenance Quote Request form online.
3. Call us and we can dial in to your phone system and retrieve an inventory. (not available on all phone systems)

See our post on how much Avaya charged a customer for a service call. At Telcom & Data we can assure you that this would never happen.

Telcom & Data is proud to announce the new availability for Minuteman UPS Battery Backups.

Anyone who uses their computer systems for any work purpose should be thinking seriously about getting one. If you consider your time valuable, a UPS can pay for itself the first time the power flickers or goes out.

See our UPS battery backup product line here

Plantronics great M22 trade up program has been extended to January 15, 2008. This trade up allows you to get 3 free M22 amplifiers or a free high quality headset. This amounts to a substantial savings.

Find our more about the trade up program here

Avaya the telecommunications manufacturer out of BASKING RIDGE, N.J. now charges as much as $2,400 for a service call. Avaya charges $600.00 per hour with a 4 hour minimum. With the recent time change many customers requested a technician to come out to up date time on various voice mail and phone systems. Why so much for a service call?

Anybody else experience this problem?

Sonexis has released their new ConferenceManager 8.0 conference bridge. The system comes with a host of new features.

• The ConferenceManager server now runs on Windows 2003 Server; previous releases ran on Windows 2000 only.
• Dual NIC support allows the separation of VOIP audio and web traffic onto independent NICs.
• Administrators can enable persistent Participant PINs, which assigns participants a permanent PIN for every conference for which the option is enabled.
• Conferences can now begin in lecture mode; this option can be set through host preferences, or on a per-conference basis through the scheduling wizards.
• Conference and Tenant administrators may now synchronize user accounts with Active Directory.
• Support added for Windows Vista hosts.
• Support added for Outlook 2007 calendar and address book integration.
• The .vcs attachment sent with conference invitations now includes a 15-minute reminder by default.
• Support added for new time zones.

Find out more about the Sonexis ConferenceManager

These gifts are handpicked from our staff at Telcom & Data. We felt that these gifts would help improve productivity for the ones you love, keep them safe while driving and just overall neat products. Keep checking since we will adding more lists up to Christmas.

Discovery 655 Bluetooth Headset

The perfect gift for the drivers in your life. Keep your loved ones safe with a mobile headset. Focused drivers with two hands available for driving make safer drivers. Buy the gift that gives peace of mind.

Skype USB Phone

Looking for the perfect holiday gift? Look no further, the Polycom Communicator is perfect for the holiday season. Providing hands free crystal clear high quality phone conversations as well as a portable music player, the Skype USB Phone is great for all ages from the professional businessman to the high tech teenager. Get rid of those hard to hear headsets that you constantly jam in your ear and progress to the latest technology in high fidelity wideband voice quality offered by the Polycom Communicator.

Avaya does not want to compete for customers in maintenance services. Any Business Partner caught offering competative maintenance services to customers will be terminated as an Avaya Business Partner. Why doesn’t Avaya want to compete? Because Business Partner and other companies can provide a better level of personalized services that Avaya as a company can’t offer. The one who is losing is the Avaya communication system user. I don’t think Cisco customers have this problem.