Sep 27, 2012 | Blog, Data Communications, Voice Communications, VoIP
In this post I talked about the death of the land line. Sure, land lines will be available for years to come, but the tide is clearly shifting. Many companies are eager to transition to cost-saving, Internet-based telephony services but are unsure how to get off of...
Sep 21, 2012 | Blog, Cabling, Data Communications, Leviton, Voice Communications
In Part I of this series, I covered the basics of copper cabling for voice and data. In Part II, I covered copper cable categories, certification and ratings. Part III discussed optical fiber. All of this information now provides the foundation for us to learn about...
Sep 19, 2012 | Blog, Cabling, Data Communications, Voice Communications
In Part I of this series, I covered the basics of copper cabling for voice and data. In Part II, I covered copper cable categories, certification and ratings. Now, it is time to talk about optical fiber or, as some people call it, “fiber optics”. Pros and...
Sep 18, 2012 | Blog, Phone Systems, Telecom Industry, Uncategorized, Voice Communications, VoIP
Distributed call centers have been a dream of small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) for a very long time. But every time a solution appears, it seems to end up being more hype than reality. SMBs need distributed call centers to compete with larger enterprises....
Sep 12, 2012 | Blog, Data Communications, Uncategorized, Voice Communications, VoIP
Get Ready for Voice on Your Network It used to be that voice had its own network, separate from data. Companies built a separate infrastructure for voice that included voice-grade cable, terminal blocks and jacks connecting a dedicated voice server (PBX) to dedicated...
Sep 11, 2012 | Blog, PBX Technology, Toll Fraud, Voice Communications, VoIP
In Part I, we learned how phone hackers target voice mail systems to steal and resell long distance minutes to countries with costly per-minute charges. But there are other targets for the hacker in today’s business communication infrastructure. Right on Target...
Sep 2, 2012 | Call Recording, Voice Communications
Many businesses, including SMBs, find it beneficial to record phone calls. Among many other benefits, recorded calls can help provide liability protection and can assist with dispute resolution. Customer Service departments can use recorded calls for training and...
Aug 30, 2012 | Blog, Data Communications, LAN Switching, Network Applications, Phone Systems, Routing / Firewalls, Voice Communications, VoIP
Many small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are transitioning to Voice-over-IP (VoIP) phone systems, either hosted or self-hosted (IPPBX). When preparing your SMB local area network (LAN) for VoIP, there are three main areas you need to focus on: your Internet...
Aug 23, 2012 | Blog, Cabling, Data Communications, Leviton, Voice Communications
In Part I of this series, I discussed the basics of low-voltage copper cabling for voice and data. Now I want to go into more detail about UTP, how it is categorized, certified and rated. In Part III, we will go into optical fiber for communications cabling and in...
Aug 23, 2012 | Blog, Cabling, Data Communications, Voice Communications
The world of low-voltage cabling for voice and data can seem rather dark and mysterious for the uninitiated. With this series of posts, I hope to shed some light on the dark art. In Part I (this post), I will cover the basics of copper cabling for voice and data. In...
Aug 20, 2012 | Data Communications, Hosted Fax, Voice Communications, VoIP
The Arcane Machine If you set out to build a fax machine, you would combine a really poor quality scanner with an obsolete analog modem. You would build it to accommodate only monochrome images and you’d have it print those images out with such poor resolution...
Aug 17, 2012 | Blog, Data Communications, PBX Technology, Phone Systems, Voice Communications
Managing a VoIP phone system requires a different set of tools and skills than you needed for TDM systems. Likewise, having voice running over your data network requires new tools to have visibility into what havoc these new protocols may be wreaking on your LAN or...
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