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Broadband Telephony

Introduction

These destinations can be in the same office or on other sides of the world connected via the internet. Broadband is the latest method of transmitting the IP rules between destinations and a good analogy is that Broadband is a 3 lane motorway where dial-up connections are like a single track country lane - so Broadband enables you to send more information more quickly. The importance of IP to a business person is the ability to deliver voice calls and data and video simultaneously down one pipe. What is significant is that being able to do this allows us to affordably deliver hosted voice services to customers eliminating the need for expensive on-site PBX equipment.

Hosted Services

Broadband makes it cost effective for the first time for companies to be provided with communication applications that are delivered from a central platform down the lines connected to each of their sites. No longer do companies have to own and maintain their own servers for email systems and switches for telephone systems. IP enables better facilities to be delivered, and in many cases for less than they currently spend on in-house systems.

Enhanced Applications

Mobility

Many jobs require people to work from different offices or from home or on the road. Broadband telephony is increasingly enabling people to deliver sophisticated applications they require to do their jobs, wherever they are at that moment in time. For instance, VNconnect enables users to have the most advanced functionality, associated with the best type of office telephone system, regardless of whether they are working from home, on the mobile or, even, in a hotel room. With only one number on their business card, whichever device they are on at the time, calls are delivered with a whole host of features not available on a mobile or home phone. You do not necessarily need a phone; a headset and microphone plugged in a Laptop or PC can be used to make or receive calls. What is different here, compared with the advent of mobile phones and Blackberrys, is that the functionality that is relevant to each job function is delivered to the person regardless of device. No longer are you a slave to the technology; the technology gives you what you need, wherever you are.

So, to summarise, over the next few years all sizes of businesses will realise that it is no longer necessary to buy and house as many servers and switches. Almost all the applications they need can be piped in - saving money, reducing management overheads and reducing capital expenditure.

Benefits

Specific quantifiable benefits include:

• Cost saving over buying and owning an internal telephone system.
  The direct cost saving of renting a hosted solution has been quantified as anything from 25-50%. An extremely compelling benefit in its own right.
• Enhanced competitiveness for small and medium sized businesses.
  Hosted services delivered over Broadband will level the playing field. For the first time, the same functionality will be affordably available to smaller businesses as well as their larger competitors. This is harder to calculate but experience suggests that the enhanced solution delivered can directly improve the number of calls answered by anything up to 30%
• Real flexibility
  Hosted services can be expanded or contracted as required. As the organisation grows or reduces in size you only have to pay for what you need. Even seasonal changes in requirements can be catered for. With virtually all companies paying for more IT and Telecoms capability than is used in an average week, it has been calculated that the savings from "a pay for what you use model" means a reduction in cost of around 20%.
• No Capex
  No longer do companies have to spend valuable capital on IT and telecoms equipment. All these services can be bought through a rental model. Hosted services are paid for on a true rental basis, which is not lease finance. Either compared with leasing or straight purchase, Hosted services save money (at least 5% per annum).
• Reduced costs of change
  Hosted services will continue to evolve, yet monthly rental prices will stay reasonably flat. No longer will there be the big surprise and extra expense of having to upgrade all the software to the latest version every couple of years - keep paying the monthly rental and the provider will continue to upgrade the platform. This is very difficult to quantify but in the switch world it is safe to say that most vendors require the client to pay for an upgrade on average once every three years which probably costs at least 10% of the original purchase price.


• Focus
  Possibly the greatest benefit, but definitely the hardest to quantify, is the fact that this change will allow all business to effectively outsource the running and maintenance of their IT and telecoms system to a third party (whose expertise it is to run these systems), allowing you to focus on your business.

So what does this all mean for your business?

Well, first and foremost, it will improve your businesses finances. You will spend less on these hosted services than you currently spend on Telecoms overall. There will be less capex and you will have a much better idea of forecasting your technology operating expenditure well into the future, with cost of technology being directly linked to number of employees. By paying on a per user per month basis, your costs will be directly proportional to your staff numbers and can be moved up or down when required. In summary your business will have lower, more controlled and more flexible communication costs.

In addition these hosted services will enable you to compete better, allowing you to focus more on your core competence but also giving you all the tools you need to communicate most effectively with your customers.

And finally, from a management point of view, hosted communication services delivered to your business will mean that the area that many business people say causes the most grief for the least benefit - running internal IT and Telecoms - will be outsourced, allowing much more management time to be focused on motivating and managing staff.

We recognise that you will want to see for yourself how Broadband telephony can work for you, so we are able to offer your business a one month trial of the system (not something a PBX supplier could do) - we are sure you will want to then expand our hosted service to all parts of your business.