If you’re looking to grow your business, consider serving micro-enterprises with 1-20 employees. According to the Census Bureau’s Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs, firms with between 1-20 employees made up 89% of all U.S. firms in 2016. While this has traditionally been an underserved market when it comes to VoIP telecommunications, more and more equipment manufacturers are offering products tailored to their needs. In this article, we review some cutting-edge devices that are ideal for micro-enterprises.

Topics: Customer Service, SIP Phones, IP PBX, Business Telephone System, VoIP, Grandstream, Yealink, Trends, Mobility (including remote work), Headsets, Leasing, Videoconferencing, Conferencing, Android, Product Review, Business Strategy, Bluetooth, Yeastar, Avaya

Enterprises with multiple sites have a variety of options when it comes to their IP telephony infrastructure. Which setup will best meet their needs depends on the answers to questions such as:

• Where should the call processing take place?
• Where should calls to the PSTN exit the network?
• Where should incoming calls connect to the corporate network?

These decisions depend on the nature of the underlying network infrastructure that will carry the IP telephony services, as well as other considerations such as the location of the remote sites, the dial plan, and cost.

In this article, we discuss the centralized call processing model and how to avoid common complications with its deployment.

Topics: IP PBX, Business Telephone System, VoIP, Network Design, Gateway

Article contributed by Yeastar*

Thought you knew Yeastar's Cloud PBX well? We are sure there are some useful features you have yet to discover. Below are 10 sweet features of the Yeastar Cloud PBX that might not be on your radar. Learn more about Yeastar's Cloud PBX (and stay for lunch) next July 24 in Austin, Texas. Dealers who attend are eligible for three months of Free Yeastar Cloud PBX! Click here to register. 

Topics: IP PBX, Product Review, Cloud, Yeastar

By Dorothy Murach, Marketing Manager at Grandstream Networks*

The on-premise vs. hosted IP PBX battle continues. Which to choose? Each IP PBX option comes with its own characteristics and benefits, and the key is to determine which works best for your business’s unique needs. While it may seem that everything is moving to the cloud, hosted IP PBX options are not right for everyone. I’ll help you navigate through the details of each to see which IP PBX is the right choice for you.

Topics: IP PBX, Business Telephone System, VoIP, SIP, Grandstream, Cloud

As unwanted and unexpected as they are, crises do happen, and being unprepared only makes them worse. In a 2017 PwC survey, 65 percent of respondents reported experiencing at least one crisis in the past four years. Despite their prevalence, a 2013 study by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer found that more than 40% of respondents had no type of plan in place for dealing with a crisis.

Regardless of your customer’s current state of readiness, you can help them improve their security measures and crisis response even more with applications that run on their data network. And, if they have an on-premise IP PBX, they already have an arsenal of tools available in their existing system.

Topics: IP PBX, Business Telephone System, VoIP, Total Voice Solution, Software Integration, Productivity, Home Security, Surveillance

Product review

Topics: IP PBX, Business Telephone System, VoIP, SIP, Grandstream, Business Continuity, Product Review, Business Strategy

One of the most common matters we discuss with customers on our support calls is network security – specifically, how to lock down SIP Trunks, IP PBXs, SIP phones, and routers from hacking. Here we review different ways hackers can break into your voice network and the steps you can take to secure your system.

Topics: SIP Phones, IP PBX, SIP, Network Security, Routers

If you have customers that have not yet migrated to VoIP and are thinking about making the switch, this would be a great time to do it. According to the FCC, VoIP telephone subscriptions in the U.S. have been growing at a compound annual growth rate of 10% since 2013, and retail switch access has been declining by 11% annually during the same period. At that rate, VoIP subscribers now outnumber switched access customers, and ISDN connections are quickly sliding into obsolescence. SIP trunking is becoming the standard for PSTN connectivity.

To ensure a smooth transition, start by helping your customers answer these four basic questions to set them up for success.

Topics: IP PBX, Business Telephone System, VoIP, Trends, Business Continuity, Business Strategy

Almost 90% of businesses in the United States have fewer than 20 employees, according to the United States Census Bureau. To get VoIP service, companies of this size typically use a hosted VoIP service rather than having an on-premise IP PBX. With Epygi Technologies, however, the on-premise solution becomes cost-effective, even for a micro-business with a single employee. How does Epygi do it? We had a chance to ask Mario Cuello, CEO of Epygi Technologies, about what makes them unique in their ability to deliver robust, feature-rich systems at such accessible prices.

Topics: IP PBX, Business Telephone System, VoIP, Product Review

AstriCon, the longest-running event devoted to the Asterisk open-source communications framework, celebrated its 14^th year in Orlando last week. Todd Baca and Mark Parker were there at the TeleDynamics booth speaking with Asterisk experts and telephone systems professionals.

According to the Asterisk website, more than a million communications systems in over 170 countries are based on Asterisk, and “almost the entire Fortune 1000 list of customers” use Asterisk. So, if you are in the telecommunications business, you need to know about Asterisk!

 

Topics: Customer Service, IP PBX, Business Telephone System, SIP, Events