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Month: May 2017

Hosted-PBX

Hosted -PBX

Hosted-PBX or cloud-hosted phone systems, I believe, are the way of the future.

The reasons for my statement is pretty simple really it comes down to the three basic premise
of Capital, Cost and maintenance. You save on everyone.

There is little or no upfront costs with a phone system unless you wish to purchase or upgrade handsets and even then it is limited. You do need basic cabling to each handset and back to your internet connection but there it can stop.

This means that you pay a monthly amount that covers all the hardware you need, and a cost that is quite low.

The cost of operation is generally about half what the average consumer is currently paying with bundles that include Local, national and calls to mobile. This really helps in budgeting and monthly expenditure with no great surprises with large bills.

A large burden in the past has been those telephone tech call-outs every time you need a basic change.
Call out fee, an hourly rate in the hundreds is a cost you can eliminate altogether.

Most services on a hosted-PBX are changed from a dashboard or a call to your hosting company in Australia that is done live.

Where is the downside to this?

You must use VOIP access and perhaps you have heard bad reviews from the past. Well, two things apply here, because of the NBN you have no choice but to change to VOIP access at some time in the near future. Because speeds have generally increased this problem has been eliminated. The hosting providers have also improved and now you get a seamless service.

What do you do with your old system and handsets? Sell them on Ebay because they will fall in price as demand is no longer there. Second-hand systems did have a buying public sometimes just for the cards but that is rapidly declining. Anything over a few years old is outdated already so make your mind up soon.

You can combine Voice and data on one NBN channel or even have two services where large data download is required. Data does compromise Voice but saying that voice uses little space. As an example on an NBN 25 plan, you could run about 20 consecutive voice calls without compromising quality. Most small businesses stay around maximum calls at one time of say 3-4 calls at a time taking up less than 20% of the channel use.

The other point with the NBN is you can up your speed to cover issues at any time.

The NBN has changed.

The NBN has changed our thinking on both voice and data and it is well worth familiarising yourself on the changes. I have reported on this here.

No capital, save monthly and limited or no IT cost really puts this in the bag.
A hosted-PBX is your future so do it now whilst competition is active and prices are great.

Peter Hanley

1800116116

May 31, 2017
NBN savings

NBN savings are easy to make with new opportunities available to any business, this short article by Peter Hanley explains it with examples.

The NBN is an opportunity for you to save

How am I qualified to be guiding you in the telephone industry?

Perhaps my 30-odd years being in the front of the industry gives me some right of passage

In addition, I have bought and sold many telephone systems and ran a large service team to fix the many problems you have along the way.
I have seen the hourly rate for a Telecoms Tech go from about $60 an hour up to $180 an hour in some places.
The cost of hardware has remained at the least consistent in most areas to almost doubling with Cisco and other international suppliers.

Now you don’t need a Crystal ball to tell you something is wrong in this industry.

Prices and service have been held for far too long and we needed a change.
A big change that would provide you with the buying power to match the falling prices you have to contend with.

Our Federal Government understood we were lagging behind the rest of the world in the internet area and that dramatic changes needed to be made. Along came the National broadband network (NBN) with an aim to give us world-standard internet speeds and capacity.

The NBN target also included the need to replace the old copper wire telephone network.
This had served us well for many years when maintenance costs were becoming prohibitive.
They would now supply a fibre and wireless service to meet world standards.

NBN Co(tm) established a truly national network that would provide voice traffic and data on one link. This would be repaid by the consumers over a planned period.

Good idea but the best-laid plans come unstuck.
It was deemed far too long a time to build and came with a huge cost blowout. Therefore they scaled down the plan to meet consumer expectations in a shorter period.

The NBN is now rolling out across Australia.

Up until the time the NBN arrived your internet was shared with the landline.
This was with only modest speeds available except of course at very high prices.
Any voice traffic suffered from the degradation of quality by data collision.
Data takes the bandwidth from voice.
Early attempts at carrying voice traffic to a cloud-based phone system were met with a lot of criticism. They suffered low voice quality with a hollow sound that wavered in and out.

Most noteworthy is the fact that these early adopters managed to overcome the problems. They establish a platform that would provide a first-rate solution when and at such time as capacity was available.

It’s a new era.

Ta-Da, drum roll, what was once a low-performing network now lets you choose a speed to suit your needs. Avoiding or at least minimising data collision..12Mbps, 25Mbps,50Mbps and 100Mbps.

A recent report by ABC News stated the average Australian speed at about 8.8 Mbps.

What benefits are there in Hosted / cloud-based phone systems that would draw you to them and turn you into a happy user?

First of all, there is no capital outlay for a great big box of intrigue that sits on a wall somewhere in your building.

Choose from just one handset to hundreds and in multiple offices when required.

Your business will share a big box that resides in the cloud or more specifically in a rack with a hosting provider but in the cloud is a more trendy term so we stay with that.

You can even get handsets supplied in a low-cost package reducing any capital expenditure down to a minimum.

In addition, you can choose from basic handsets right through to reception consoles and conference phones for minimal cash outlay.
Monthly payments should also be completely deductible ( seek your own advice) and annual planning a breeze in controlling costs.

No more calling a Tech out to make those simple changes, no more call-out fees, changes should all be made life online by either in-house personnel or an appointed support centre.

Packaged phone calls.

The other large expenditure has been telephone lines and calls, a product where the carriers have closely guarded their margins. Carriers could only buy access from Telstra who controlled many of the prices and maintained them at a level to suit shareholders and not consumers.

Not anymore, lines are included in The NBN package and calls have plummeted to a new low.

A call package at the bottom of the scale would currently cost you between $90 and $140 a month for Local, national and calls to mobile. Lots more without a bundle if you make the calls.

A hosted package that I am marketing, chosen for all the good reasons is $39.95. This is for a line a handset and calls to local, national and mobile in Australia.

NBN savings that is a deal

Now that’s what I call a deal.

So, answer this simple question,” why would you outlay capital when you can spread the cost over time and get a better deal”. It is, without a doubt your future.

In conclusion, the NBN will be really good for you and Australia. Yes, it is a scaled-down product and has some early problems but the end result will provide a more efficient and cheaper network. And, by the way, it’s all we have so you have little choice.

My prediction is that hosted systems will leave the old wall-mounted phone system gathering dust and lose all value over a short time. The uptake of hosted phone systems is gaining great traction with a myriad of suppliers. You should still how ever choose carefully.

Peter Hanley

1800116116

Free consultation available

May 27, 2017
engin nbn options
Engin NBN options

Engin NBN options

Many companies in Australia are offering a hosted phone system including Engin NBN options.

Engin is owned and operated by the M2 group, a large telecommunications carrier that joined and renamed as Vocus. They include Amcom NBN, Nextgen, dodo and several other entities. Vocus are probably the fourth biggest carrier in Australia and like all take over entities suffer from service lag when trying to amalgamate the many purchases into one group.

Engin NBN is the low-cost provider of the group concentrating on the business area.

Hosted phone systems

Hosted phone systems have many providers and like any business, there are the good ones and the
not so good ones.

I have had contact with many of these and formulated a checklist that I would use to select a carrier.

That checklist would include at least the following items.
- Price. This is the first on the list but last in the criteria of selection. Why? Probably because sometimes you get what you pay for. I suggest you look for a fair price, not necessarily the cheapest.
- Size. The second on the list but again I caution against picking on size. The marketing bucks of the big four do generate a level of interest that may not be tied to delivery. I have had as much, if not more issues with the larger entities.
- Features. Do a plan for your business and the features you require then check that they can be supplied with your carrier of choice.
- Bundled options. This is important hence we need to elaborate more on this.a) While Local and National calls are included in most bundles make sure than Mobile are as wellb) Calls to 1300/1800 numbers at a fixed rate. Some will charge on a timed basis.c) Your telephone number, line fee and handsets can all be included in the one bundle.
  d) You will pay less with a term contract as the carrier gets a return over the period. I believe it is also in your interest because you make a decision and forget it. You are not going into hours of debating a better plan every time someone makes an offer.
- Customer service. This is number one on the list. Australian call centres rock, trying to speak Indian or Thai sometimes comes with a lack of understanding and creates issues.
- Access to a dashboard application for live changes.
- On-hold, call forwarding, conferencing are a few of the features you will also need.
  
  What to do now?
- I run a business in the Telecoms area so I have a good understanding of the needs of small business. As a result, it has taken me some time to select a carrier that met the list of demands that I consider important.
In conclusion, I do not hold criticism over any of the carriers in the market, and there are many but I do suggest that you choose wisely. As a result, my suggestion on a great pick is available at Fig-Solutions my site as a portal to a product that will meet or achieve any demand you have.

Peter Hanley

1800 116116
May 26, 2017
Cloud hosted phone systems
Cloud hosted phone systems.

Can you have a cloud-hosted phone system?

The answer is a yes, definitely so and it will be normal in a few years.

In Australia, with the NBN roll-out, all telephone calls will need to be over the internet
as we do away with the fixed copper network. So basically you are forced into a cloud environment.

The question should be how do you connect to the cloud for telephone calls?

The current situation is that you share your telephone network with the internet. On your incoming line, you have a splitter that separates the two services and share a common line.
Both have an equal opportunity at bandwidth.

In the new NBN system, you have

you have an internet (or data) connection and share with voice. Data has precedence over voice so over using data effects Voice.

The good news is that you can have a lot more bandwidth and speed to compensate.

Now you have a great understanding of this subject let’s look at Phone systems.

Old style phone systems need an analogue adapter into a modem or router and into the system.

Newer phone systems will need a digital card and connect using VOIP

Others may use a SIP connection using adaptors.

Or Use a phone system in the cloud and all you need on site is handsets.

Don’t get to hung up on this, if the phone system is more than about 8 years old ditch it.

The same will apply if your upgrade is too expensive to re-card the system.

Now the choice is down to two.
1. a current system VOIP compatible from a leading manufacturer. Purchase hardware, have it
  installed and ongoing maintenance by Tech call out.
2. A cloud-based system. Pay a flat monthly fee that includes handsets, maintenance and most calls with all the updates done by you.
Pretty unfair choice.

Phone systems will be a thing of the past within a few years as the growth of hosted systems take over the market

The NBN allows sufficient bandwidth to run both for any business up to say 5 handsets. For larger organisations, we sometimes recommend two services one for data and one for voice remembering that Data is king and can affect Voice.

Want to know more

Give us a call on 1800116116 or fill out below and we will call you.

Peter Hanley
May 24, 2017
Is your phone system NBN ready

IS YOUR PHONE SYSTEM NBN READY?

by Greg Lipschitz
on 23 May, 2017

With the rollout of the NBN progressing at a much faster rate since the Government announced the NBN Multi-Technology Mix, the disconnection of standard telephone services such as PSTN and ISDN will now be complete by 2022.

Is your phone system NBN ready? Many businesses are being caught out with the NBN rollout finding out after the fact that their current analogue phone system, key telephone system or traditional pabx is not NBN compatible.

With the arrival of the NBN, your business will need to move from traditional PSTN and ISDN telephone services to IP or SIP telephone services.

Summit has designed a number of ways to make the migration to an NBN Compatible Telephone System as painless as possible. We have an expert team who will work with you to Project Manage your move to an NBN Ready Phone System.

Hosted Telephone System

The easiest way to get an NBN Compatible Telephone Service is using a Hosted Phone System, Hosted PBX or Cloud PBX. With a Hosted PBX, the only equipment required in your business is an Internet Connection and the Phone Handsets on the desk. The Phone System lives in the cloud inside Summit’s Secure Datacenters. FlexPBX from Summit Internet offers you phone bill certainty with Unlimited Standard Local, National and Mobile calls for just $39.95 per user, per month.

PSTN or ISDN Gateway

If you want to keep your existing phone systems, such as NEC Xen, NEC Topaz, NEC SV8100, LG Aria, Nortel BCM, Commander Phone System, Siemens PABX, Avaya IP Office, LG IPECS, Samsung PABX, Mitel, Alcatel PABX, Hybrex Phone System or Panasonic PBX, then you will need a PSTN or ISDN Gateway.

A PSTN or ISDN gateway allows you to connect your traditional phone system to the Summit IP Voice Network to be NBN ready.

Summit Internet offers a range of PSTN and ISDN gateways for Voice over IP Telephony on the NBN and works closely with a number of Traditional Phone System Technicals to install and configure your phone system to be ready for the NBN.

Don’t get caught out and be cut off. Speak to us now to move on to a NBN ready phone solution.

Peter Hanley

1800 116 116

May 23, 2017
Is the NBN growing

Is the NBN growing

I am often asked is the NBN growing and the answer is yes very quickly.

The target during the peak is a new connection every three seconds.

The NBN weekly progress report is available here. This report by the NBN is quite comprehensive if you search topics.

It was also reported during the week that in select areas they had begun turning off phone access to those that had not gone NBN.
I believe a bit of enthusiastic reporting but none the less.

You will be given ample warning, so heed the warning and act

This will eventually happen to every area as they allow an eighteen month period of transfer starting from the available date.

Connections are running at about 30,000 a week so they are moving on rapidly with the roll out.

One thing I consistently push is that doing this in a rush has consequences. I have told the story how I called Telstra and they asked me to call another provider because they were too busy.

Furthermore, not all providers are considered equal and like in real life cheap is not always good.
One critical component is customer service and you only need read a whirlpool forum to get yourself into a knot.

You have several critical decisions to make.
What speed and what volume.
How to connect your telephone access.
What telephone call package will you employ?
Is a hosted phone system for you?

As in any new decision seek the help of experts.

Peter Hanley 1800 116 116 home

May 20, 2017
Is the NBN cheaper?

Is the NBN cheaper?

Cheaper than what, you may well ask?

The first thing to clear up is that the NBN co is a wholesale carrier and only selected resellers buy from them. They market to the re-sellers on a volume-based transaction.

We the customer then buy from a re-seller or a re-seller of the re-seller for our supply.

The top three generally known re-sellers are Telstra, Optus and possibly Vocus group a third. There are many others that come in this area, some are common names, some not so.

The NBN is designed with a range of price points depending on download speed and the amount of data required so you get what you pay for, or should do.

Furthermore, the NBN must carry your Voice traffic into the future. No more old copper network where we paid about $35 a month for each line we used.

When looking at costs you should share like with like but if you are like most of us you have been hanging for extra speed and you will go up a level.

NBN is not the only broadband medium for carrying data, you have fibre, ethernet, wireless and variants of that but as most of us will go to the NBN I will concentrate there.

Your NBN channel can be data, voice or a combination of both depending on need. Importantly it must be remembered that Data effects voice so thereby hides a dilemma.

To make life easy a 25 mg NBN channel should carry 3 or so voice lines and leave ample for normal trading data. It will be faster than the old ISDN2+ ( like double) and no voice degradation.

So a majority of you can almost stop reading, but wait there is more.

We need to consider how to pay for the Voice traffic.
Around $16 should get you a couple of voice channels and then pay, say $0.10 a call for local and National calls and about $0.18 a minute for Calls to mobile.
If you compare say Telstra land line costs this is about half what was available. Pay a little more for your data (at twice the speed) but save a heap on call costs, you are in front.

Unlimited packages are also available. In fact, for $40.00 a month, you get all those calls plus the line plus a new handset if you have a look at the hosted packages.

Is the NBN cheaper? The answer is that It can be very much so and with a better service.

The trick is in getting good upfront advice. There are also many options away from the big spenders that will provide a better service and price.

When do you move to the NBN?

As soon as possible because it takes time and eventually you have no choice.

Don’t wait to the last minute it will complicate your change potentially damaging your business.

Peter Hanley

Fig-solutions.net

1800116116

Is the NBN cheaper?

May 18, 2017
Should I wait to move to the NBN
Should I wait to move to the NBN?

The answer to this question “Should I wait to move to the NBN’ is a pretty solid NO.

No, you say, you just want to get my business now!

Well, let me just explain a few things to you that might assist the process.
1. You have to move sometime, the copper network is going and not coming back.
2. The NBN model you have may not be the best model but it is all you have.
3. In early 2017 nearly half of all homes and businesses can access NBN
4. This is growing at about 30.000 a day new connects.
5. On my figures, all but the hard ones will be complete in12/18 months
6. You have only 18 months to move from the day of connection of the NBN to your location.
7. Moving is not overnight, it can take weeks.
8. Planning is even longer it can take months
9. If you don’t move you lose your telephone numbers
10. Moving under pressure is a scene to be avoided at all costs.
An example.

Example; NBN was delivered to my home address recently. I rang Telstra to inquire and was told they were fully booked, please seek another provider or come back in several months.

What to do now?

All providers will have their hands full in peak times and if you have a preferred provider

they may not be able to accommodate you, furthermore, this may happen several times as the ticking clock gets louder.

As all phones must go to the NBN because the copper is going, you have no choice but to move.

NBN don’t move you, it is done by one of a hundred plus service providers that do the work.

In addition, some are a lot better than others so do not limit your choice.

Now your old phone system.

As a result of moving to the NBN, you now need to decide on what to do with your phone system.

Old phone systems, pre- digital systems probably should be thrown away. They can be connected but it is really clunky.

Can your digital system be upgraded with an interface card to use VOIP or SIP connections to the network?

What call plans can you have, pay per call or a package.? All packages are not created equal so chose carefully.

Is it better to go to a hosted system, little capital outlay and fully inclusive account?

In conclusion on should I wait to move to the NBN

In conclusion, you should be able to see the amount of planning that is required and the time it will take to achieve all this without Network delays.

Let me help you with this.

Peter Hanley

fig-solutions

1800 116 116

Should I wait to move to the NBN?
May 13, 2017
TIO complaints on NBN

TIO complaints on NBN are reportedly growing at a great rate so should you be scared to venture over to the Dark side?

TIO COMPLAINTS ON NBN

In a recent report, it was stated that;

“The TIO received almost 66,000 complaints from Australian consumers and businesses unable to resolve problems with service providers between July and December 2016, up from just 49,000 complaints during the same period in 2015.( link)

Now that’s a lot of complaints or issues that have not been resolved to the satisfaction of the customer.
It should be remembered that the growth of the NBN far outstripped the rate of increase of the complaints so the real figures are distorted. The headline should perhaps be “Complains Go down on NBN”

TIO complaints on the NBN down.

It matters not, 66.000 is still a lot of complaints but let’s look further.

Of all the complaints 86.7% were from residential customers and only 13% from business entities.

So mums and dads were kicking up a storm because their life had changed, holy moly we are in trouble.

Let’s look at the type of complaints and what took the top spot?

I am absolutely blown away with the top two results, although perhaps having had to deal in this area maybe I should have guessed the answer being so obvious and I am so annoyed that our industry can put up with this.

What did we complain about?

CUSTOMER SERVICE was the number one complaint, can you believe it, the easiest thing to get right and we blew it by a long way.

How much of this can be attributed to overseas call centres and difficulties on understanding problems?

Billing was the next issue, how hard can it be, yes you can make mistakes or errors but they are fixed well before you need to make a complaint to the TIO.
Next came Faults and complaint handling which should be fixed early. Yes, there will be faults, that is nothing new but how the industry handle them is another thing.

So Customer service and fault handling were a majority percentage of the problem, maybe we need some communications lessons to bring this down.

What did the authorities have to say?

NBN chief customer officer John Simon said: “the percentage of NBN customers complaining about services had dropped compared to the first half of last year, but there was still room to improve.”

Even the industry ombudsman said:

” Ms Jones said the number of households connected to the NBN had also doubled in that time and complaints were no longer growing at the same rate.”

“The complaints about (NBN) services are not keeping pace with the rate of connections, so that’s a good sign,” she said.

So that’s the good news, they are getting better and would need to be with over 30,000 new connections every week.

Of the 66,000 odd complaints, we need to back out 23,000 mobile complaints leaving about 32.000 between the internet and fixed lines. A figure still too high. ( 24,000 internet and 18,000 fixed lines)

What are the big issues?

One of the big issues with TIO complaints on NBN is speed and not getting what you pay for because of location or other factors.
We have lived with a speed issue for many years on the Internet so this is not new. The difference is you can now do something about it.
With ADSL 2 as an example what you received was the best effort and I for one could never achieve over about 8 MB download of a promised 12 MB. I had no options, now with the NBN, you can go up or down to suit your need or your price.

The headline I believe was sensational, designed to show or alarm the consumers about the new system, one that we have to live with.

I believe another contributing factor is that consumers are led to the TIO far too early in the conversation. If you have a problem you are urged to ring the ombudsman and let them sort it out when some meaningful dialogue with your carrier can fix the issue.

In conclusion, we must remember we are all going to the NBN so get over it. It may not be the best system, in fact, a watered-down version of the original plan at that but it is all we have got.

For those that are interested, I did provide an extensive report available at www.fig-solutions.net

Peter Hanley

Fig-solutions.net

1800 116 116 TIO complaints on NBN

all figures extracted from TIO here

May 12, 2017
Going to the NBN

Going to the NBN can be an experience but will it be good or bad?

First of all, on Going to the NBN, it is a fixed entity that comes with certain characteristics and regimes and nothing can change them.

Where the problem comes in is the hundreds of resellers that are tasked to act as resellers to the service.
Furthermore, in some cases, you may go through several levels of resellers with the product offering.

Pricing will vary with product and marketing clout.
Those spending the most on marketing wanting to reclaim the expenditure.

Telstra, just like Optus and both the M2 and TPG group are demanding a share of the market with a long-term payback.

What appears to be the case is that they are not getting the returns they require and this will have an eventual impact of some kind.

We should separate the home and business market because they are quite different. Homeowners are quite willing to roll over to the marketing tactics and sign with one of the large players.

This is probably a result of marketing tactics when the letterbox is stuffed with offers and threats of losing your service if you don’t act now.

Business is different going to the NBN

Business is a bit different when going to the NBN, we have multiple users and many products often based on more than one carrier.
The original phone line contract that we have had from day dot plus a broadband network, emails and maybe even some backup.

Changing is a tad more complicated so we often just shelve it for later, but my friends later may just be now.

You must move your phone plan to an NBN plan within about 18 months of the network coming to you. NBN have started turning off copper networks so plan now on going to the NBN.

It is interesting, NBN came to my home address and I needed some details about the network.
I rang Telstra using my home number as that was the only way they would talk to me.
The nice lady answered my question and the said: ” Telstra are too busy at the moment I suggest you go to one of the other resellers”. I kid you not.

My point is that when everyone is in a panic it will be congested therefore act early.

You should use one NBN service for your voice traffic if you need more than a couple of calls at a time.
Your voice traffic is important and data takes precedence.
I have a great article with all the ideas at www.fig-solutions.net
that gives all the options on your phone system and things to look for. We will explain VOIP, SIP Digital connections a whole subject on its own.

And then comes Data.

Next is data, Here you have a few choices but probably the cheapest is NBN because you can pay for what you get.
Chose your speed and data quantity based on needs. There are many other choices Like Fibre, Terrestrial etc to suit a greater need.

If you have a data feed on your fixed telephone lines then you must change to another method. Telephone lines as we know them will disappear. Note, that is lines, not numbers. You will be able to move or port your numbers to the new network.

Your telephone lines as you know them will disappear. Note that is lines, not numbers. You will be able to move or port your numbers to the new network.

One last issue to be addressed by you is fax lines, These will not work on the Data lines so you will need to make alternate choices.

New fax services with Fax to Email and Email to fax now provide a cheaper and more efficient service to run your faxes.

Similarly, with Security systems, many of these won’t work on data lines so an alternative method must be found. Considerable effort has been made in this area so check with your security company first

And in conclusion, EFTPOS if on your telephone lines won’t work on Data. Most are now going wireless so think of upgrading.

There is a bundle of information around and I hope these few ideas can help in your planning.

Peter Hanley

www.fig-solutions.net

select@westnet.com.au

May 10, 2017