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How to Save Money with PRI Phone System Lines

PRI telephone line services offer substantial savings for business phone systems, PBX and VoIP phone systems.

Businesses that have more than a few outside lines should consider PRI trunk lines to connect from your building to the local telephone office. Why? With each individual POTS or (Plain OLD Telephone Service) there are termination and surcharges and taxes. After a few line charges there is a savings to be realized in consolidating individual phone lines into a single T1 line that makes digital lines more cost effective than a collection of analog phone lines.

When should a company consider PRI Service
Any company that has over 4 lines and requires high speed internet access is a very good candidate for an integrated PRI. With only 4 lines there may not be a real cost savings but there are other advantages including highly reliable high speed internet access, Caller ID, time of day routing of 800# and failsafe routing of calls in case of emergency service loss.

There are several flavors of T-1 line services to be aware of. A standard T-1 telephone trunk offers up to 24 individual phone lines all digitized and multiplexed into two pair of copper wires that connect back to the telephone company’s central office. Your phone system can connect to a T1 through an integrated T1 circuit card they maybe available through your phone system or through a router that brings the T1 channels in to your phone system as if they were POTS lines. T1 and PRI integration cards are pretty much a standard option for any new PBX phone system such as Avaya or Nortel and you can likely order a plug-in T-1 card for older systems.

What is PRI?

PRI or Primary Rate Interface is an ISDN equivalent of a T1 circuit and it's part of the ISDN or Integrated Services Digital Network specifications. A regular channelized T-1 line and a T-1 PRI line are pretty much the same animal, with one important difference. PRI lines offer 23 rather than 24 phone lines and use the remaining channel to provide signaling and data. You need a PRI line if you want Caller ID for your phones. For Pri service a PRI module is needed for your PBX or phone system.

Integrated Voice and Data Circuits Provide Both Phone and Internet
Another variation is called T-1 Integrated service. Integrated means that the line carries both telephone calls and Internet data. That's right, you can split a T-1 line so that you can have a dozen outside phone lines plus broadband Internet service coming in on the same line. This is quite a cost saver for most small businesses that need both phone and reliable Internet service. Some of these Integrated services are called dynamic T-1 lines because they automatically assign all the bandwidth not needed for active phone calls to the Internet service. Integrated voice and data circuits represent one of the best values for phone service delivering voice, data and features including Direct In Ward Dial, Caller ID, Dynamic Port Allocation, Fail Safe Routing and many other features on a single inexpensive 4 wire circuit.

What about VoIP phone systems?
VoIP phone systems use IP telephony within the company so that the phones can connect to the IP PBX system using standard Ethernet cabling. Many use the same LAN as the company's computers to save on wiring costs. All the in-house calls go from phone to phone over the network. But outside calls still have to connect or terminate to the PSTN or Public Switched Telephone Network. Most often that interface is within the IP PBX system or voice gateway. The most common phone line interface is the T-1 or T-1 PRI digital phone line, just like conventional PBX systems.

Another option that's not quite as widely deployed is to connect your phones to a VoIP service provider in IP format directly from your network. The service provider takes care of terminating calls to the PSTN. The network connection from your company to the service provider is called a SIP Trunk and is most often a type of T-1 line set up to be unchannelized to transport voice packets.

The New Price Advantage of Digital PRI Lines
You should know that Digital PRI prices are lower now than they've ever been. If you're still using analog phone lines connected to your PBX telephone system, it may well be worth your while to convert to one or more T-1 or T-1 PRI lines. If you already have T-1 service, then you should get a competitive quote to see how much you might save on your next contract.

Do you still have questions about T1s, PRI, or Integrated Voice and Data phone Circuits? Call us at 800-335-0229. Talk it over with our technical consultants and get competitive pricing to compare with your other options? Spend a few minutes and you may save yourself a lot of potential grief and perhaps a lot of money too. Simply fill out the form below to see instant pricing on most services. Or call toll free 1-800-335-0229 to talk to our technical consultants about your business needs and receive customized proposals.

Voice mail and conferencing phone systems have emerged as essential and beneficial communication tools which help all businesses to increase the productivity through improved communications. Even the basic voice mails and conferencing phones are very expensive equipments. Therefore, before making an investment, organizations should do a research and select the equipments which will prove to be most useful for the business.

The first and the foremost thing than an organizations needs to consider before buying phone voice recorders, Voice mail system and conferencing phones for the business is, its plans to expand in the near future. Ignoring the near future plans of expanding may cost the business lot of extra expenditure in upgrading and restructuring the equipments in the next few years. Although it might cost more, it is always better to make one time investment, than making expenditures on upgrading the equipments after every few years.

Given below is a checklist which will help you to choose and buy the best voice mail systems for your business:

Make estimation about how much your business will grow in the next few years. Calculate the number of lines and extensions that your business currently requires and the numbers that it is likely to require in the near future.
Before starting to look out for conferencing phone systems and other equipments, ensure that you have calculated and planned a budget. You should select equipments which will prove highly beneficial for your business, but is within your budget.
Do your own research and check out the different models of phone voice recorders and voice mail systems available in the market, their features and prices. The internet is the best place to collect information about these equipments.
You should go for the systems with the features which are beneficial for your business. There is no use in investing in systems with too many features as it will be expensive, but will be of no use for your business.
After finding the most suitable voice mail system for your organization, compare its prices as offered by different vendors. This will ensure that you are buying the best equipment at the best price.
While selecting a vendor to make your purchase, don't get carried away by the low prices offered by them. Ensure that the equipments that you are buying are of high quality and are purchased from a reliable and reputed vendor.
The internet is definitely the best guide which will help you to choose and buy the perfect voice mails systems for your business and at the best price.

With the usage of video conferencing systems, distance is no more a communication barrier.

Along with business phone systems and other communication equipments, video conferencing equipments have also emerged as efficient and one of the best mediums for long distance communications. These equipments have proven to be highly useful especially for business organizations, which need to organize meetings and seminars with their offshore clients, employees and business associates on a regular basis.

Video conferencing systems facilitate to share audio, as well as, visuals during a conference. Although, video conferencing and video telephony seem to be similar technologies, in reality they are not. Video conferencing allows a group of participants to confer simultaneously over a network, whereas, video telephony facilitates the transfer of video and voice, but only between two individuals.

Video conferencing is one of the latest developed technologies in the field of communication, which can be used effectively for fulfilling a number of objectives. Video conferences can be used for conducting seminars, meetings, training sessions etc and therefore facilitate organizations to get their job done, without the employees having to travel from one place to another. Consequently, like phone voice recorders, video conferencing too facilitates to increase productivity through better communications. Moreover, it also helps organizations to cut on the extra expenses incurred on the traveling and accommodation of employees.

If you have come to know about video conferencing only recently and are planning to buy the best video conferencing systems, then you need to do a bit of research on your part. This will help you buy the right equipments and set them in a proper manner so that video conferencing works in the most beneficial way for your business.

Business phone systems were very expensive when they were first launched in the market and similar were the case of video conferencing equipments. However, gradually people identified the many advantages of video conferencing systems and started to look and demand for cost effective video conferencing solutions. This led to reduction in the prices of video conferencing equipments and services.

Today, a number of video conferencing systems and services are available in the market at competitive prices. With the reduction in prices, these solutions have started to suit the pockets of more and more numbers of businesses. Therefore, now the benefits of video conferencing can be enjoyed by small and medium sized organizations as well, and improve their productivity and growth. But it is essential that high quality equipments and services are purchased for enjoying the maximum benefits.

VOIP telephony , a technology that allows employees to work from home, could be the most important measure a business takes today in preparing for the possibility of an swine flu pandemic. Without this infrastructure in place, death and illness and fear could easily cripple a business' workforce.

According to a Washington Post article from writer David Brown , more than half of U.S. companies think there will be a global flu epidemic in the next two years. Two-thirds think it will seriously disrupt their operations and two-thirds say they aren't prepared.

Is your company prepared? Has anyone been appointed to plan for a pandemic?

Tommy G. Thompson, who heads the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions in Washington, estimates that only one in five U.S. companies "are in good position in terms of being able to react -- and even those are going to have to restructure and improve their plans."

Models have suggested that at least a third of the population is likely to become ill in each wave, with peak absenteeism somewhat higher, about 40 percent of the workforce. Depending on the strain's virulence, 900,000 to 10 million people might be hospitalized, and 200,000 to 2 million might die.

Absenteeism can also be attributed to working moms who need to stay to take care of sick family members.

Given this scenario, the consultants say, companies should expect that an swine flu pandemic will kill some employees, temporarily cripple workforces, and sow confusion and fear, as well as force people to make harrowing decisions between allegiances to work or family. It would make communication difficult, threaten supply chains, and probably interrupt production of goods and delivery of services.

Because of this businesses are encouraged to become a co-leader with government in preparing for an swine flu epidemic, including the implementation of VOIP telephony. Fear is worse than disease, making communication vital. Password-protected Web sites are a good way to communicate with employees. Companies are better than government or medical institutions at rotating fresh people onto crisis-management teams. Fear of lost wages is the single biggest concern when workers are asked to home-quarantine, so companies should have clear policies in advance.

The US Government Department of Health and Human Services suggestions include enhancing communications and information technology infrastructures as needed to support employee telecommuting and remote customer access.

Who can work at home? Who needs IT upgrades in advance to make that possible? Who needs to come in? These are just a few questions needed to be addressed when planning for a pandemic.

VOIP telephony is the technology that can help employees work from home. With more and more households having high speed Internet access in place already, implementing VOIP is inexpensive and easy. Manufacturers such as Avaya offer all-in-one IP Office communication systems that can enable your business to work virtually.

Investing in VOIP telephony can help a business survive an swine flu pandemic. For more information on how a company can plan for business continuity during a pandemic call 800-335-0229 or click here for the Department of Health and Human Services check list.

The environment of the present day market is very competitive and challenging for business organizations, specially, the new and small sized ones. With the different business phone systems available in the market, survival has become easy for these organizations.

An efficient and effective medium of communication is essential for every business organization for increasing its productivity and growing even in the cut throat competition. The small business phone systems available in the market have emerged as one of the best mediums of communications, which help organizations to maintain regular and effective communications with all the clients, employees and business partners, specially the ones located in other parts of the country or world. Therefore, with the help of these systems, organizations can improve their productivity through enhanced communications and succeed in the market.

Although a small business phone system is not equipped with all the latest features like the VoIP phones and the latest conferencing phones, it comes with the basic features which prove helpful and highly beneficial for the small and newly setup businesses.

Telephone technology is being developed and is growing with each passing day. Due to increased number of manufactures and widespread popularity and demand, even the latest business phone systems are offered in prices which can be afforded by several small and medium sized businesses as well. Therefore, the usages of the latest communication equipments are no more restricted to the large organizations alone.

The VoIP phones are the latest phone systems available in the market. These systems are being widely acclaimed by business organizations of all sizes and from different sectors because of the number of benefits which these offer.

VoIP gateways and phone systems facilitate to make voice calls over the internet. Because of the low call costs, VoIP technology has emerged as highly beneficial especially for the large organizations, which need to make hundreds of calls to clients and customers on a daily basis.

No matter whether an organization decides to invest in small business phone systems or in the latest ones, it is important to first identify the business communication requirements and the budget, and then invest in a system accordingly. This will help to ensure that the goals of the organization are met in the best way and within the minimum time period.

You must have many a times heard about VoIP and VoIP gateways. But do you know what these technologies actually are?

To understand what a VoIP gateway is, you first need to understand what VoIP technology is. VoIP is the term used for Voice over Internet Protocol . It refers to the technology which facilitates transmission of voice traffic over internet networks. Internet protocol was originally developed for sharing data. After its immense success, the technology was adapted for sharing voice networking.

More and more number of business organizations have started to use VoIP instead of the traditional PSTN for communicating because it is cheaper and more useful than the other mediums of voice communications. Some of the benefits of using VoIP technology and VoIP phones include:

VoIP facilitates to transmit more than one phone call on a single broadband phone line. Therefore, more telephone lines can be installed by the business at a lower cost.
Like business phone systems, VoIP phones too, have many advanced features such as call forwarding, caller ID, call waiting etc. For these features, the businesses don' t have to pay any extra charges.
VoIP offers unified and secured communications, which can be integrated with other internet based services such as video conferencing, web conferencing etc for enhancing the business communication.
Now let us discuss what VoIP gateways are. Gateways are devices which convert telephony traffic into internet protocol so that data can be transferred over a network. These are generally used in the following two ways:

For converting PSTN to VoIP. A VoIP gateway facilitates to receive and place VoIP calls on a regular telephone network. With the VoIP technology, businesses can make larger volumes of calls at much lower prices.
To connect traditional PBX and other business phone systems to an IP network. A VoIP gateway allows making a call using VoIP technology instead of a regular telephone line. Business can either buy these services from a reputed and reliable VoIP service provider or can route the calls through the internet to reduce the call charges.
VoIP gateways are available in the form of external units and PCI cards. However, most of the business organizations prefer using the external units as their VoIP devices. Every VoIP gateway has a connector for getting connected to the IP network and one or more number of ports for connecting the phones lines to it.

Although desktop video conferencing services have been available in the market for quite sometime now, it has gained a rapid recognition and a wider use only in the recent years. Businesses of all sizes and from almost all the sectors have recognized this form of conferencing as one of the most efficient tools for business communications.

With these services, it is becoming possible for big, as well as, small sized organizations to maximize their productivity and performance and cash in huge profits. Desktop video conferencing, being an effective communication tool, is also helping organizations which have just entered the market, to set up strong base and pillars for the business. With the help of desktop conferencing, organizations can maintain regular and effective communications with their customers, clients and employees located in different places.

So what exactly is a desktop video conference and which conferencing system and equipments are required for conducting such a conference?

A desktop video conference is a form of conferencing which not only facilitates the participants to share information though the white-board and instant messages, but also share the entire desktop along with pictures and videos. Therefore, this form of conferencing is much more interactive and useful than the simple audio conferencing.

Besides using the computer system and video camera, a desktop video conference can be made further more effective with the use of conferencing microphone. If the participants use high quality microphones and speakers, they can share voice messages along with pictures and instant messages.

During times of emergencies, most of the organizations prefer conducting a desktop video conference rather than using their VoIP Phones for making calls. The factors which make desktop conferencing a preferable choice for organizations is the ability to share documents and any type of computer displayed information along with audio and video.

Desktop video conferencing acts like a face to face conference between the participants, although they are located in different destinations. The vast physical distance between the participants, in no way has an adverse effect on the conference. In fact, many big organizations conduct in-house desktop conferences, as it allows the important employees to work on the same project with close coordination.

In the present competitive market, desktop video conferencing is definitely one of the most useful and powerful mediums of business communications, which is not only beneficial for the big organizations, but also for the small and medium sized businesses.

A common belief among the recently set-up businesses and the small size businesses is that, business phone systems are not of any use for them. The misconceptions such as, these phone systems are very costly and do not have feature which are useful for small sized businesses, are the factors creating such kind of belief. However all the above mentioned concerns are not true and these phone systems are as useful and beneficial for the small sized organizations as for the big ones.

There are different kinds of business phone systems available in the market with a wide variety of features. Some of the most common features which are available with almost every kind of phone systems include voicemail, extended voicemail, call forwarding, rollovers etc. However, due to a number of features available with these phone systems, it at times becomes difficult and confusing for a business to decide which features will prove useful for the business and which phone system should they buy.

One of the very first things which an organization needs to consider while buying a business phone is its quality. The avaya phone systems are known as one of the best phone systems available in the market. The other things that an individual needs to consider before buying a phone system is the number of extensions that will be required and the features which will help the organization to improve its business communications and increase its productivity.

However, while evaluating the different features, it will be helpful if you consider the future growth plans of the organization, along with the present requirements. This will help you to plan in advance and also minimize the requirements of investing in another business phone system in the near future.

Some of the features in your Avaya systems which

can prove beneficial for your organization include:
Voicemail - It is the most important feature of phone systems and you need to go for a system which has sufficient number of voicemail extensions.
Call forwarding - With this feature available in your phone system, you can stay in better touch with your customers, as well as, employees even when you are out of office.
Expandable - The business phone system that you buy should be able to accommodate the future needs of your organization through expansion. The VoIP Phones available in the market are considered to be the best option while considering the future growth Should be easy to install and configure.
Besides these features which are useful for small sized organizations, the business phone systems are nowadays available at reasonable prices as well. Therefore, organizations don't have to worry about exceeding their budget.

If your looking for ways to reduce telephone maintenance costs and are shopping for a new provider there are sonme questions that you should be asking before signing a new contract. Here are few questions that are important to ask BEFORE signing any maintenance agreement.

Does the company carry spare parts locally for your system?
Is remote monitoring and testing available for your system?
What is the charge for Moves Adds and Changes not covered under maintenance?
What is the response time for an emergency call?
What is the response time for a non-emergency call?
What is the length of an agreement?
Are there any discounts for additional locations?
What are the hours of operation?
Is there a 24 hour plan available?
Are there any rebates toward a new phone system purchase?
How many phone techs are their available for service?
Is there a phone or parts exchange?
Ask for references.
Telcom & Data provides telephone maintenance and specializes in Avaya and Lucent manufactured phone systems including, Partner, Merlin , Merlin Legend, Merlin Magix, Definity, IP Office and Communications Manager. If your company would like a quote on phone system maintenance click here. http://www.telcom-data.com/phone-maintenance.aspx or call Telcom & Data at 800-335-0229.

Phone system maintenance is crucial to any business that depends on its phones.
Telecommunications drives the economy of most companies from sales to customer service to phone orders. Whether your company is a bricks and mortar company or web based, a solid reliable phone system is the vehicle for communications.

When you think about how important your communications system is to your business, it is easy to see how valuable a Service Agreement for your phone system really is.

A phone system maintenance service agreement is always at work both at your site and behind the senses, so you can concentrate on running your business, benefits include:

· Maximize communications uptime
· Proactive trouble notification
· Errors resolved transparently
· Reduce time to repair
· Peace of mind knowing your system has 24/7 monitoring
· Fixed budget and long term savings
· Free basic phone technical support included
· Complex and customized support available at preferred prices
· Remotely access customers' PBX to perform diagnostics, browse activity logs, and initiate corrective actions to restore optimum operation.
· Preferred customer status

SERVICE CALLS When a field technician has to be dispatched to your location, monitoring data helps them solve problems faster and more effectively. And thanks to intelligence already gathered, if an outside service provider disruption occurs an immediate vendor repair ticket is logged for response or dispatch.

Building Relationship . In the event of a flood, fire, or other unforeseeable disaster, a maintenance service company will maintain vital information on the current system configuration. So you get support from a technician who knows you, your system and your business. Up-to-date paper documentation are maintained and we coordinate contact with service repair to complete repair or restoration.

COST Savings Time, labor and material are included in a service maintenance agreement, which provides significant savings with a manageable budget. Unlimited service calls, without a Service Agreement all visits are billable. Services provided outside of the Service Agreement will be billed at a reduced rate.

To learn more about telephone system maintenance and how your company can benefit please click here.
http://www.telcom-data.com/phone-maintenance.aspx or call 800-335-0229