Author: matt

Like many things in life, when choosing the right Ericsson-LG telephony system for your business, size matters.

Since the introduction of the eMG80 range into the portfolio just before Christmas, the team at Pragma (the sole distributors for Ericsson-LG telephony in the UK) are now able to once again offer the market a strong, simple and sensible choice of Ericsson – LG solutions.

The range has, as standard, features that include: ACD and 10 levels of skills based routing (with real time position and queue announcement), auto attendant, voice-mail with choice of individual or group voice-mail boxes,  voice-mail to email,  call recording and UC options that include laptop soft-phone and mobile integration into the telephony system.

With such an array of technology options to suit your connectivity preferences and communications requirements, irrespective of business size, we feel that with the new Ericsson – LG range there is a solution for the telephony needs of the small to mid-market business user.

What is more the future looks very positive in terms of product development. We can expect to see Lync integration by mid-year, with Presence, Instant Messenger, address book click to dial and highlight to dial, plus CTI integration.

So all in all the Ericsson – LG position in the small to mid-market range is clearly going from strength to strength, but which solution is the one for your business?

At entry level there is the impressive eMG80:

Ideal for companies who:

• Have a requirement for between 2 and 50 extensions
• Has no CAT 5 cabling in place
• The majority of your extensions are digital or Single Line Telephones
• Less than 16 IP extensions or SIP trunks in total
• See a requirement for no more than 4 DECT base stations
• Yet desires a fully featured and flexible hybrid solution

However for businesses that require more from their telephony there is also the iPECS range.

Ideal for businesses that:

• Require a fully featured and expandable IP centric solution
• Have a site layout that would benefit from a distributed architecture
• Will require greater than 50 extensions
• The majority of which are IP
• With 16+ SIP trunks and/or IP extensions
• Has CAT 5 in place or plans to run CAT 5 cabling in

 What is more, the team have also pulled together some eye catching starter bundles for customers looking for their first telephone system, or a cost effect replacement of what they might already have, utilising the new eMG80 range:.

Helpful Starter Kits:

eMG80 Bundle – BUN9A – at an impressive RRP of just £1320

• Main system (KSUA)
• 4x analogue lines
• 7x hybrid extension ports (analogue or digital)
• 1x digital extension port
• 2 port Voicemail with 1hr storage time
• Auto Attendant
• 2x VOIP channels (for remote workers, SIP trunks or networking)
• 2 slots to add expansion cards
• 2x iPECS Communicator licenses (app for Apple or Android devices)
• 2x Phontage Deluxe softphones
• 1x LDP-9030D handset
• 5x LDP-9008D handset

eMG80 Bundle – BUN9B – at an RRP of just £1450.

• Main system (KSUI)
• 1x BRIU2 card (provides 2x ISDN2)
• 7x hybrid extension ports (analogue or digital)
• 1x digital extension port
• 2 port Voicemail with 1hr storage time
• Auto Attendant
• 2x VOIP channels (for remote workers, SIP trunks or networking)
• 2 slots to add expansion cards
• 2x iPECS Communicator licenses (app for Apple or Android devices)
• 2x Phontage Deluxe softphones
• 1x LDP-9030D handset
• 5x LDP-9008D handset

 And the starter bundles do not end there, with an equally interesting and cost effective range for those requiring the wider coverage and benefits of the iPECS solution.

Want to find out more…?

We’ve been hearing about Unified Communications (UC) for what seems like years now. Yet despite rising adoption and noteworthy successes in the Enterprise space, why has it not taken off with small to mid-sized businesses?

Success in the larger Enterprise space has been driven in part because suppliers and resellers discovered that larger businesses could afford it, had the skill sets to drive it, the resource to assess and realise the productivity benefits. However, the market has evolved and product accessibility has matured. UC products now scale down as well as up, enabling both small and medium businesses to join the revolution. So why the slow take up?

When talking to an established smaller business the challenge often lies in legacy. Small to Medium sized Enterprises have often started up with simple lower costs systems that offer little or no UC functionality or upgrade opportunity. However, is that alone a good reason to miss out on the massive productivity benefits that UC can bring to a business, be it small, medium or large?

Perhaps it is perceived high cost of entry that is a key factor? However, when it comes to cost nothing could be further from the truth. The availability of cloud and hosted offerings, along with the wide availability of good bandwidth access options, has made UC affordable for SME and Mid-Market businesses, both in the office and on the move via smartphones and tablets.

So how do we open the door to UC when met with a business sitting behind its ‘dial tone’ communication habits? The art lies in helping key decision makers to understand that some newer technologies are not as complicated as they might think? Indeed they often use these technologies themselves as consumers! For example Hosted IP Telephony could amusingly be described as ‘Skype on Steroids’. Hosted IPT offers the mobility and affordability that consumers enjoy with Skype, but with the added security, reliability and flexibility that today’s businesses demand. What is more, with the benefits of on-line video guides, canned demonstrations and even free user trials it has never been easier to help business owners and Directors to better understand first hand the look and feel of UC products and solutions.

Still unconvinced, it would appear that the key lies in delivering a case for the Return on Investment (ROI) that can be achieved in a market where many find it easier to simply pick up their land-line phone than use a UC application on a laptop or smartphone. SME’s generally become interested in technology only when investment in it will reduce their costs or improve their competitive advantage in some way. Gaining interest can be achieved by the demonstration of a generic ROI, followed up by the ability to demonstrate a specific ROI relevant to the particular business area that the business is engaged in. For example, a single telephone number and a single voice-mail box achieved via the twinning of a mobile telephone to a business desk phone can deliver contact-ability and time savings to the increasingly busy Estate Agent. Add a mobile client to the smartphone and we also achieve significant call cost reduction and integrated management call data. Suddenly, for the Estate Agent, a conversation around what UC can do for their business becomes very interesting.

Many small businesses, (including Estate Agents) currently use the Avaya IP Office for their core telephony, but how many have also deployed Avaya’s One X solution, which could simply and cost effectively deliver the above and more?

One of the great things about UC is that it can be a complex or as simple as you wish. From the simplicity of linking a desk phone to a mobile telephone through a single number, UC can scale right up to a full suite of collaboration and communications tools. A more complex UC solution can for example incorporate mobile integration, Instant Messaging, Presence to the desktop and the mobile, call recording, call management, video, web collaboration and even CRM integration. However, does every company require web collaboration and video calling? Obviously not!

Perhaps the real answer lies in understanding the business need and delivering a solution or service that solves the problem or adds clear demonstrable value to an existing process. We can hear today’s small and medium sized businesses saying “what is in this for me”?  So the big question each business needs to ask or be asked is, “will UC reduce business costs or deliver a competitive advantage for me?”

If the answer is yes then the door is already ajar and the case for how Unified Communications can deliver, be it simple or more complex, is there to be made.

Whilst trialling the Gamma Horizon laptop soft client we decided to take a look at what other remote worker options this cloud-telephony solution might offer and we came across functionality called “Remote Office”.

Remote Office allows you to use your home phone, your mobile or even a hotel phone as your business phone. By using the Click-to-dial functionality on your user portal on your laptop, you can make phone calls from your chosen device (eg your home phone / hotel phone) and have them billed to your company. What is more you can enable return calls to come back to your chosen remote office phone.

Needless to say we were impressed and eager to give it a try.

We located the Gamma Horizon “Remote Office” function on the toolbar of the ‘Horizon’ user portal.

It is here that you enter the telephone number that you plan to use as your base or remote office number – in our case our home telephone number. And Activate.

You are now ready to start making calls. Back you go into the Dashboard tab on the toolbar

And there on the right hand side is your click-to-dial dashboard – which includes a directory into which your contacts can be loaded & located, and a free dial box that enables to free load or cut and paste in the number that you wish to dial.

We then clicked the ‘dial’ button and hey presto our home telephone rang, we answered, it dialed out and our outbound call was connected. So, what are the benefits that we could perceive in Gamma Horizon Remote Office:

• It enables regular and occasional home workers to work from home without the need for a company mobile or VPN phone
• Overcomes problems with home mobile phone coverage for those with a business mobile
• Enables any billing to be directed to the employer as opposed to becoming an expense reclaim for the user.
• You can assign a new ddi to your portal and present this as your outbound number when calling
  • This provides the user with home telephone number privacy as it is not presented
  • It means the outbound call does not need to go out as ‘number withheld’
  • You can manage the direction of return calls to your ‘new ddi’
    • Including when not working – directed to company switchboard or covering buddy for example
  • Returned calls can be directed to a dedicated voice mailbox for out of hours calls
    • These calls can be delivered as voicemail to email .wav attachments for ease of management
  • Companies can secure sequential and local ddi’s for brand consistency and reinforcement

In conclusion, the Remote Office functionality, especially when combined with a dedicated outbound ‘business’ ddi, offers simple to use, secure, discreet and cost effective functionality for home workers.

It can also potentially be sold as part of an entry strategy in environments where existing telephony solutions are locked in, the Remote Office functionality being just one part of the much wider Horizon Cloud-telephony solution.

Adaptable for small, mid-market and larger enterprise companies alike, we feel that this solution has the potential to deliver in all markets.

The trial continues at pace and the team at Evoke Telecom continue to see exciting results from the Gamma Horizon hosted trial.

To recap, we are linking mobility devices, ie a HTC One Android OS mobile telephone and a laptop for ‘out of the office’ working.

When we left off from the last update we had successfully set up the laptop soft client and were successfully making calls over enterprise Wi Fi.

Next step was to test the solution from a home working environment, over in this case the BT Infinity home broadband connection at one of the teams home offices and the results were:-

• The laptop automatically loaded the Horizon Soft Client and was ready to work immediately the laptop was loaded and ready for the days work
• Outbound calls were immediately connected with no requirement for server or settings changes of any type
• Inbound calls came through immediately to the laptop client – and simultaneously (via the twinning functionality) to the HTC One mobile device
• Rejected or none answered calls diverted to voicemail
• HOWEVER, although the voice quality from the other party was crisp and clear, no delay, jitter etc – the quality of voice from the laptop was at best muffled. We concluded that this could possibly be due to the low grade headphones being used and would be retested with enterprise grade headphones.

We then tested from a remote location over public BT Openzone Wi Fi.

Once again the experience was as per the home working environment with immediate soft client load up and the ability to make and receive twinned calls. The quality of call was also similar to that experienced in the home worker trial and would also need to be retested using enterprise grade headphones.

We also plan next to see if we can set up our voice mailbox notifications for ‘visual voicemail’ and also/or for delivery of voice messages to an email inbox as a .wav or mp3 file.

Next update to follow soon ……

It has been a busy week as we have driven our Gamma Horizon hosted telephony and mobility trial forwards.  Key developments have been around the enablement of both the laptop and the mobile phone to utilise the capabilities of the solution.

First task was to get fully trained and accredited on both the full Gamma Horizon cloud/hosted platform capability and then more specifically on the features and functionality of the mobility enabler that is the laptop soft client. Once secured we then loaded the soft client down onto a laptop and started to set up call routing and diversions.

Successfully set up and in place so far are:

• Multi number divert inbound to both a mobile telephone (android) and a laptop receiving endpoint
• With simultaneous ringing of both mobile and laptop softphone via twinning
• Diversion on busy or no answer to a single voice mailbox
• Outbound CLI presentation (from the laptop only at this stage) of a single designated local number being 01509 278278
• All tested over Wi Fi on the corporate LAN

Next stage is to test same over private / home Wi Fi, which we will do this week. We will then stress test under diverse inbound and outbound scenarios to see what efficiencies and flexibility  we can derive from this solution.

And of course we will update you as we go along – via the evoke telecom blog.

With continuing developments in features and functionality both in telephony platforms and mobile platforms, the team at Evoke are currently setting up a trial to put a mobile and hosted combination through its paces.

We shall be connecting a series of key inbound numbers through Gamma’s ‘Horizon’ hosted telephony platform and delivering calls to some of our mobility end points, namely the mobile telephone and the laptop soft phone.

The key elements that we are looking to evaluate will include:-

• Delivery of simultaneous calls via twinning to both mobile telephones and laptops.
• To be able to set these into hunt groups to enable maximum call answering efficiency.
• To receive a ‘visual voicemail’ (an email with the voice message attached) into our business email inboxes as MP3 or .wav files.
• To be able to control and vary the outbound telephone number that we present when dialling outwards and returning calls (eg if we receive a call on our mobiles from our 01509278278 line we want to be able to call back from our mobile telephones showing 01509 278278 to that customer so that they immediately recognise and answer that incoming call).
• Finally, we want to be able to manage and control it all whilst on the move, via a mobile application on our android device, a laptop application and finally via web interface whist we are out and about doing our day to day business.

The trial will run through January to March, with us demonstrating to customers as the system beds in through the quarter.

Needless to say, we will keep everyone updated via the blog.