RSS feedsNo matter what shape, size or type of company you are running, one piece of equipment is essential: the telephone. But this vital communications tool costs many small businesses more than necessary because they do not consider all the options.
‘At the small end of the market, where there are up to ten extensions on desks, many businesses are using multiple single lines and the costs they incur can be considerable,’ says Matt Irving, marketing manager at consultancy Opus Telecom.
Reducing lines and utilising digital (ISDN) services can cut the telecoms bill, exploit a wider selection of features, and provide room for future telephony growth, without the need to spend more. ‘The reduced telecoms spend can offset the cost of new hardware,’ Irving suggests.
Until recently, the telecoms industry largely ignored the bottom end of the market, despite it being the largest sector. But advances in technology have helped to reduce system prices and expand the range of features even at the entry level. Now, almost any business looking for a telephone system will go through a similar selection process: considering a myriad of available systems and features and deciding which offers the best match for the business today, plus the most potential for future growth.
Spoiled or bewildered
But comparing computer telephony integration with a private branch exchange, grappling with voicemail, hunt groups, and cost centre billing, trying to figure out the difference between ISDN2 and ISDN30, or contemplating the possibilities of Voice over IP (VoIP) or internet telephony (see box), can leave you feeling at best spoiled for choice and at worst completely bewildered.
The main producers of phone systems include Alcatel, Nortel, Panasonic, Samsung, Siemens and Toshiba, with Aastra and Avaya leading the way on IP systems. Each supplier offers a selection of systems aimed at users with a range of needs in terms of the number of extensions and types of feature required; some are more scalable than others, and some more sophisticated than others.
Take Nortel. Its BCM50 telephone system offers a small business setup for organisations with 12 to 40 users. It can support 44 traditional handsets and 32 IP (internet) handsets simultaneously, so it’s compatible with both. It’s also compatible with both ISDN2 and ISDN30, so it shouldn’t become obsolete any time soon. Nortel’s more costly and sophisticated BCM200 and BCM400 offer many of the same features, as well as accommodating more extensions and enabling greater simultaneous use of some features.
All the systems in Nortel’s Business Communications Manager range also come with an integral applications server that provides voicemail, unified messaging, fax to desktop and even a small call centre.
But what you get as part of the ‘basic’ package depends on where you buy the system. BT offers a variety of telephone systems, including some from Nortel. The BT package for the BCM50 includes voice messaging (with auto-attendant) as standard, plus two system feature phones from around £1,000, while some suppliers of the BCM50 charge for voicemail on a per user basis.
Like those from other major suppliers, the latest telephone systems in the Nortel range are ‘hybrids’, capable of supporting traditional telephony and VoIP. In the first quarter of 2007, hybrids accounted for 63% of PBX shipments worldwide, so even if you don’t want to use internet telephony at the moment, you shouldn’t have any trouble finding a PBX (a private branch exchange or the kit you need in order to handle your own phones in house) that will be ready to make the switch when you are.
All the major suppliers offer a range of systems designed to meet various needs, and you will need to consider a selection of them if you are to find the best for your business. ‘Telephone systems come in all shapes and sizes,’ says Irving, ‘and the complexity of the specifications and requirements can vary greatly.’ As can the cost. You can buy a telephone system for as little as £500, plus the cost of phones, but you could just as easily spend thousands. So where do you begin?
If researching the options yourself seems too much like hard work, you could use the services of a specialist. BT is always an option, but there are plenty of others, such as Extel, Opus, PMC Telecom the list could be almost endless. But don’t expect the process to be easy, no matter how you decide to approach it, because choosing a telecoms system can be heavy going for even the most technically aware shopper.
There are a number of reasons for this. There are a lot of telephone systems to choose from and even more suppliers to consider, and the technology is anything but simple. It’s also evolving at a rapid rate.
‘Six or seven years ago most small businesses were still using dedicated analogue lines,’ says Irving. But things have moved on. Most small, medium and large companies are using ISDN as their primary voice network, but ISDN is already being referred to as a ‘legacy’ technology just as analogue was a few years ago, Irving explains. ‘VoIP is becoming quite a favourite for small businesses from a cost perspective,’ he adds. If you’re planning to buy a telephone system some time soon, you clearly want to think twice about saddling your business with an analogue PBX. But protecting your system from short-term obsolescence isn’t as simple as choosing between ISDN or IP telephony, or opting for a hybrid.
You will also need to consider the different possibilities offered by ISDN2e and ISDN30. The former will only allow up to eight lines on the same number, while ISDN30 has a minimum of eight and a maximum of 30.
Now a word or two about ISDN. ISDN2 is also sometimes called Basic Rate ISDN. It consists of two channels, so you can make two calls at once and connect up to eight channels. It’s what lots of companies opt for if they have a small switch or PBX.
ISND2e is very similar, but it complies with European standards and will allow devices made in various parts of the EU to work on a network. ISDN30, sometimes called Primary Rate ISDN, offers more capacity. It’s got 30 channels (so supports up to 30 callers simultaneously). All these ISDN options support voice and data traffic.
If you don’t want to be blinded with science, you have two options: place your trust in a specialist supplier, cross your fingers and hope they won’t take you to the cleaners; or arm yourself with an understanding of your business needs and how the telecoms industry can meet them.
Tick the boxes
Start by considering your basic business needs. Will all staff need a phone on their desk? Will they all be corded phones or will some staff use cordless handsets? Do all those phones need voicemail? Will any staff be using mobiles or Blackberry-type devices? Do you want employees or business contacts to be able to dial in remotely? Will staff always be available to answer the phone?
If you want to convey a professional image, auto-attendant, voicemail and call hunt are probably essential. With auto-attendant you can leave messages for business and non-business hours, route incoming calls to the right employees and make sure that important callers are dealt with. Organisations with a lot of incoming fax traffic may also want the system to detect any incoming fax calls and automatically route them to the fax machine. Despite the advantages of voicemail, you don’t necessarily want it to be the default when an employee is not available. With call hunt, if one employee doesn’t answer the phone, the call will be forwarded to another person, rather than going directly to voicemail.
Focus on what you want the system to help your business achieve, then make a list of features you consider essential. You can then approach specialists for quotes, or gather information on some of the systems offered by the main suppliers, identify the ones that meet your needs, then make your decision on the basis of the various packages and costs on offer. It’s your call.
Internet options
Voice over IP allows you to use your internet connection to make free or cheap local and international phone calls. It does this by turning the analogue audio signals that can be heard over the phone line into digital data that can be transmitted online.
Strictly speaking, there is a difference between VoIP (pronounced ‘voyp’) and IP internet telephony (also called IP telephony). VoIP refers only to voice traffic, while internet telephony has a wider definition. Despite this, the terms VoIP, internet telephony and IP telephony tend to be interchangeable and refer to any and all combinations of voice and data traffic that move over the internet. Until recently stability and security issues meant that only the big and the brave went for IP telephony, but the widespread availability of broadband and our growing familiarity with all things internet, are making it a real possibility for all organisations and it can offer commercial, operational and cost benefits.
As well as reducing the cost of calls, IP telephony can be more flexible than traditional systems, making it easier and cheaper to add and remove users and rearrange services. It also creates a single control point for network management and improves the audit ability of communications by making phone calls searchable (just like emails).
Many of the features offered by VoIP can improve communications and service provision and enhance productivity. Unified communications mean that emails, voicemails and faxes are all delivered to one inbox, and voice messages can be converted to text and emails and vice versa.
Click-to-call dialling enables users to point and click the number they want to connect to through their onscreen phonebook and makes it easier to handle and forward calls to other users and sites. Speech recognition streamlines calls. Self-initiated videoconferencing means that VoIP users can plug their phones into an IP network wherever they are and start conferencing.
Lesley Meall is a freelance business and technology journalist
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