Let us look at the advantages of using VoIP:

Cost savings

Virtually every business can appreciate the cost savings offered by VoIP. There is a limit to the number of phone lines that can be installed, and if your business frequently makes long-distance calls, the costs quickly add up. With VoIP, you only pay for the monthly fees from your ISP, whereas traditional phone lines typically charge for each minute of call time.

Worldwide Access 

More and more businesses are realizing the advantages of allowing employees to work from home in exchange for smaller office spaces, lower utility bills, and other benefits. VoIP permits workers to remotely use the voice, fax, and information administrations of your office using your intranet.

Flexibility in the Network 

One of the advantages that VoIP offers to your IT team is that the underlying network does not need to adhere to a particular technology layout. This means that you can build your network on top of your existing ethernet, SONET, ATM, or WiFi.

Accelerated Technologies are proud to offer cloud-hosted PBX, IP phones, and cloud-based VOIP business phone systems to businesses in Port St. Lucie, West Palm Beach, Wellington, Stuart, and FL areas. We provide you with seamless digital services that transform your business phone systems and provide you with solutions that are both cost-effective and efficient regardless of whether you have five employees or fifty by putting your needs first. Contact us at 561-427-0600.

The Avaya IP Office 500 is designed for small and medium sized businesses and offers the latest technologies at a cost effective price. This system combines voice, data, VOIP, integrated messaging and server telephony capabilities that meet the requirements and needs of small to medium sized operations.

You might think that all this high-tech stuff must be difficult to learn and will require a lot of complicated configuration, staff training and a steep learning curve. But that is not so. In fact the Avaya IP Office Partner Version works straight out the box and is perfect for small businesses and home offices. This system requires no programming or setting up – it is as simple as plug and play. The Avaya office partner also comes with some handy features such as caller id, quick dial, dial by name, auto answer, conferencing as well as integrated voicemail.

If you are looking for a phone solution, Avaya has the products for you. From desk phones that keep everyone connected to media stations that enable you to integrate your smart phone with desktop communications. Avaya offers the widest range and selection of desk phones, digital phones, wireless phones and communication solutions.

So whether you need an effective but easy to use phone solution for your home office or a more integrated phone network for your medium sized business, speak to the experts at  Accelerated Technologies about the right Avaya solution for you.

Look for a sophisticated but affordable phone system, such as a hosted PBX service, that will ask callers to “Press one for sales, two for support, or enter your party’s extension,” but can route them anywhere you want. This can place small business in the big leagues, and give the impression that the business is much larger than it may actually be.

You can be up and running with a fully functioning hosted and virtual phone system in minutes. As long as there is a number to be reached on, a hosted phone system can typically be set up to forward calls without complications.

The correct management of wires will make the difference from a challenging project, and a fast and simple project. Furthermore, properly designed and implemented cable management represents a level of professionalism to clients and customers that offers much more than just a convenient method to track individual cabling runs.

Along with cabling management, another important dilemma that effects the quality of rack-mounted systems is rack cooling. Effective cooling is the best method to safeguard costly components and ensure that the entire system functions correctly over the lifetime of the installation.

Find out the answers to these common questions and learn more than you ever thought you could about your business productivity with CASH Call Accounting Reports!

Call Accelerated Technologies to setup an online webinar & see how this telecom management tool can help you navigate through today’s many common issues within every business!

Avaya has the answer: the Avaya IP Office communications system. It’s designed with the communications capabilities you need to sell more and deliver the personal service that builds customer loyalty. And by streamlining communications, it will lower your overhead.

One-number reachability: In real estate, accessibility is everything. Avaya takes accessibility to a new level by taking all the guesswork out of knowing which number to use. With Avaya IP Office, everyone gives out just one number-your agency’s main number-and IP Office automatically forwards calls to the agent’s mobile, home, or other phone. There’s no need to give out personal numbers. Agents can screen out unimportant calls and have voice messages and/or faxes automatically routed to their mobile device as e-mail. Because, all phone contact goes through your main office number, it builds the image of your agency and provides more customer control.

Instant conference calls: When a deal is on the line and time is at a premium, IP Office makes it easy to connect all the parties using its built-in conference bridge. Agents can instantly set up a conference call anytime, anywhere using any phone. Because IP Office provides two 64-port conference bridges, your agency can have multiple conference calls simultaneously. This is not only convenient-it’s a money-saver: it eliminates the fees you pay to outside conferencing services. In addition to the audio call, you can broadcast documents (i.e., web pages, photos of new listings).

Simple call handling: Handling your day-to-day call volume quickly, accurately and cost-effectively is critical to creating the kind of customer experience that drives repeat business and word-of-mouth. Avaya IP Office will help make it happen by delivering
• Call routing capabilities designed to minimize hold times.
• Point-and click call management that gives your call handlers an on-screen interface to see what agents are available and where, and also easily checking listings and other data.
• The ability for your IP Office system to instantly recognize repeat customers -providing the personal touch that drives repeat business.

Sharing call handling resources: If you have multiple offices, Avaya IP Office makes it easy to pool call handling resources to enable shorter hold times and more qualified agents handling the calls. Also share your messaging system and company directory across locations.

Home agents: Because the Avaya solution is an IP-based system, agents can work from any location-including their own homes-with all the call handling capabilities they need, and still be centrally managed. It’s a cost-effective way to take advantage of qualified people for short periods of time.

Making it easy to get information: Communications is best when it’s fast and simple. With Avaya IP Office you can easily implement automated services to circulate information quickly: set up a distribution list for voice mails and e-mails that alerts all agents to new listings, price reductions, important announcements, etc.

Simple, low cost administration: IP Office takes the hassle out of reconfiguring your communications system to keep up with staff changes or to add or relocate phones and other devices. If a member of your staff leaves, or you want to set up communications on another device or in another location (including a home office), just plug in and power on-IP Office automatically reads the IP address of the device. If you have multiple locations,you can also easily manage all systems from a single Windows-based interface (no travel costs).

Flexible Options For Your Agency

Essential Edition
“I just need basic communications.” Help keep your costs down and get all the essential call handling capabilities- IP Office Essential Edition is the perfect communications starter kit for your agency.
What’s Included: All the “must haves” your agency needs (call routing, Caller ID, hold/ conference/transfer, voice mail) plus a great selection of Avaya phones. When you are ready, move up to the
Preferred Edition.

Preferred Edition
“I want to make my agents more responsive and professional.” Get the communications capabilities that will give your agency a competitive edge… as well as the built-in capacity you need to keep growing. What’s Included: Ten times more call handling and voice messaging capacity than Essential Edition plus automated service prompts (wait time, new listings, etc.) as well as call recording for keeping tabs on how well customers are being handled on the phone.

Advanced Edition
“Give me the tools to serve customers more effectively.” For realtors who take customer service seriously and want to be the best. You get everything in the Preferred Edition plus powerful tools for managing your sales/service center. What’s Included: Automated self-service options-for providing directions, information on listings and more. Automated service alerts that let you know when service thresholds (i.e., wait times, calls on hold) have been exceeded. Advanced call recording options you can use to identify problems and quickly address them.

Actually, the main difference boils down to reliability. If you need dependable internet speed on a regular basis, a T1 may well be a great solution. If you don’t require reliability, then DSL may very well be acceptable for you.

A T1 is a dedicated internet connection which reliably delivers 1.5 Mbps (broadband) speed – and is also guaranteed to be that fast via the T1 carrier (through an SLA). Virtually all T-1s from Tier 1 providers are under an SLA and MTTR (mean time to respond/repair) agreement – in case the carrier doesn’t resolve your problem, they’ll be confronted with a loss of revenue – which motivates people to do their job! Standard SLAs offer 99.9% up-time, or 2 hours of downtime per month, and other carriers go to 99.99% or 99.999% up-time on their T-1 service. Consequently, your $300 /month is actually buying you peace of mind and also a guaranteed speed. This may become important if you host your own website, download/upload a lot of large files, or use your internet connection for Voice-over-IP. Typically, when Accelerated Technologies sells VoIP service to a business, we look for a minimum of T1 speed and reliability.

On the flip side, DSL can provide you with speed (some claim, up to 20 Mbps) – however you never really know exactly what speed you are going to get. The reason why? Because you essentially share your bandwidth with other customers who are on the same line as you are. As a general rule, the cheaper the price of the DSL, the more people you share the bandwidth with (DSL providers drive cost down by putting more and more subscribers on a single connection – this is called oversubscription and it is a widespread practice among low-cost ISPs boasting cheap and fast DSL). So, if you can live with your broadband speed being variable, then the low-cost of DSL might be for you. For example, if you are only doing e-mail and normal web surfing for your business, DSL might be fine.

There are a few other differences, like upload speed or where your office is located related to your carrier’s network (DSL might be really slow if you are too far away, for example, so you might have to go with T1). But, basically, your decision comes down to how reliable you need your broadband Internet connection to be. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions.

Internet Service is a vehicle that enables consumers to access the internet, worldwide web, go online or whatever term you prefer. It allows the you to communicate, research, access applications and obtain music and movies. It also allows for communications via instant messaging, email and social networking.

Once you actually sign up for internet service, you may discover that it is too slow for what you want to do on the web. Depending on what type of connection you have, music, messages and videos might take a long time to show up in your email inbox or other portal like iTunes.

It is worth considering what kind of internet service you want. You want to make sure it matches your needs. Following are the types of internet services currently available:

Dial-Up: This means that your internet service will have to be procured by dialing a phone number. A common source of this type of internet access is America Online (AOL). For about $12 a month, you can get on the internet. However, you will be unable to use the phone line that you are using for the hook-up. Also, the speeds to download music, for instance, can be slow.

DSL Broadband: DSL also uses a phone line but it splits it between phone and data (so you can use the phone simultaneously with the internet). To do this, the local phone lines have to be equipped with specially made copper wires in order to receive the DSL internet signals. In general, DSL is limited to areas that where the phone wires are already equipped with the copper sires. As a result, in some older cities and rural areas, DSL is not available.

Cable Broadband: Your internet service can also be received through your cable company. The way this works is via your cable modem. When you input your ethernet cable in the modem, your computer will receive an internet signal. To provide access for multiple computers in your home, you can also purchase a router that will accept several computers while the main connection is between the router and the cable modem.

You can also obtain a wireless connection. This means you can go anywhere in your home and be connected to the internet.

Satellite: Satellite internet service   works by hooking up a satellite dish that is pointed to an unobstructed Southern sky. Then you connect the dish to the modem. The modem is installed in your home. The internet service signal is actually provided between the dish and what are called low orbit satellites flying above the earth. The signal may not be as reliable as the others and may also be susceptible to storms.

Satellite is mainly used in rural areas where cabling or wiring has not or will not occur.

Wireless: While you can obtain wireless internet in your homes via internet service providers, you can also access it in public places (it is called WIFI). They are found in cafes, airports, hotels and an increasing number or food establishments. It is not everywhere, but you can generally find it when you travel.

Which Internet Service Do Need?

That depends on your usage. For example, if you are just going to occasionally surf the web and do email, a dial up service might be good enough. If you are going to be receiving music files, photos and large attachments, the faster DSL or cable may be better.

In general, faster is better (and in some cases, cheaper). You might find yourself twiddling your thumbs or tying up your phone line while waiting for large file downloads.

As a comparison, consider the following download speeds. Download is where you have received a file and want to play or see it on your computer. This could be music, photos or large documents.
•Download speed for dial-up is about 56 Kbps (Kbps means kilobit per second)
•Download speed for DSL is about 768 Kbps
•Download speed for Cable is about 4 Mbps (Megabits per second- more than kilobits)

There are even faster internet service connections on the way. Fiber optics, for example, offers download speeds of up to 10 Mbps. Some cable companies are laying fiber optic lines to provide faster service for their customers.

Also, with the availability of more wireless channels, wireless download speeds could become very, very fast in the future.

Costs of IP phones may vary by hundreds of dollars. If you have multiple phones to purchase, sensible shopping will bring your business exponential savings.

To make the most effective investment-for now and the years ahead-answer 7 important questions:

1. Is HD voice important? High-definition voice is clearer than older VoIP technologies (and traditional landline voice) because it delivers at least twice the sound range (about 7 kHz). It’s now a standard feature in business-class IP phones, including the affordable Cisco SPA 300 Series and 500 Series IP phones. HD voice quality is especially important for international, technical, or long conversations; conference calls; and speakerphone use.

2. How many lines are needed? Where will the phone be used? You’ll likely need eight or more lines for the front desk or a group assistant. A single-line phone may be ideal for backroom and warehouse locations; the new Cisco SPA 301 is a basic one-line phone priced under $100. IP phones connect to your data network through Ethernet cabling or Wi-Fi; some also receive power over Ethernet (PoE). Wi-Fi support is a must-have for mobile users who need the phone while moving around your site.

3. What will the phone need to do? Like other phones, IP phones offer features such as speakerphone, caller ID, call forwarding, and conferencing. But unlike cellular or traditional phones, some IP phone models can also:
•Operate seamlessly between cellular and VoIP services: Answer calls (and continue conversations) that originated on a smartphone, connect through Bluetooth, and import your smartphone address book.
•Unify all your messages-voicemail, email, and faxes-into one inbox, so that you can retrieve and respond faster and more easily.
•Increase the productivity of employees by enabling them to use the web and XML documents directly on their phone.
•Give employees access to information on your data network, such as customer records, order status, and schedules. Some IP phones can monitor video from your IP surveillance cameras, play MP3s, and display digital photos.

4. Are the features easy to use? They must be intuitive. The keypad should be easy to touch, the button lights and display screen (monochrome or color) easy to see.

5. What VoIP system will you use now? In the future? These answers have the biggest financial impact. No IP phone is compatible with all VoIP systems, due primarily to differences in their VoIP protocols. The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is the most widespread. Cisco IP phones support both SIP and the Smart Phone Control Protocol (SPCP) to help ensure interoperability in both modes. The VoIP system options are:
•A hosted VoIP or Centrex service that you contract from a service provider
•An onsite VoIP system, such as a Cisco Unified Communications 500 Series solution, that you own or lease

6. What security do your phones require? Encryption of voice, password protection for signaling and configuration data, and Wi-Fi security features protect against unauthorized use. An embedded virtual private network (VPN) client on your remote users’ IP phone allows them to securely connect to your network and make calls over the Internet.

7. What technical support will you need? IP phones that are designed to interoperate with one another and your VoIP system should be the easiest to set up, move, upgrade, and manage. Review the warranty, and know what free and paid support is provided. Cisco provides a full range of technical support specifically for small businesses, including an online community and call center, as well as value-added resellers with VoIP expertise.

We have lots of communications options available to us today, but the paradox is that we are sometimes harder to reach than ever. Unified Communications (UC) is designed to solve that problem. Instead of having your office phone, mobile, e-mail, IM etc. all separate, UC gets them working together. UC can be as simple and convenient as having all your incoming calls ring simultaneously on your office phone and mobile. But UC call also be much more sophisticated, letting you see the ‘presence’ of key contacts so you know if they are available and how best to reach them.

Avaya’s Small Business Unified Communications For Dummiesis filled with tips and insights on how you can use UC in your small business. What makes this book really helpful is that it’s not just about the technology itself (in fact, it’s specifically written for a nontechnical audience) but it’s more about what the impact of UC can be on your business in terms of lower overhead, more sales, better customer service, and more productivity. Click here for the PDF