Endpoints Demystified

February 28, 2012 By Leave a Comment

A layperson’s guide to the array of desktop and mobile communication devices

Remember when a telephone sat on the desk, didn’t light up, didn’t get carried around, and certainly didn’t talk to the PC sitting right beside it?  If you’re younger than 50, you might not.  In mainstream business environments, digital telephony has been around since the 1980s, mobile workplace phones since the early ‘90s, and IP communications since the mid ‘90s.  It has been a long time since the basic telephone and its cousin the fax machine were the primary means of connecting in the workplace.

Today business users have an impressive range of choice in phones.  In fact, telephones are now so versatile, diverse and smart that they are often called endpoints.  (They don’t like to be mistaken for those soulless, legacy devices that couldn’t do much more than transmit the human voice.)

Facing a new wealth of options in endpoints, how do you make the right choice for yourself?  For employees throughout the office?  For remote or traveling employees?  Here’s a quick look at the first steps to narrowing down the choices.

To what type of business communications system will the endpoints connect?

Where will the endpoints be used?

If the user stays more or less at a desk – whether in a local, remote or home office…
A desktop phone with microphone and speaker (with mute options, headset interface and programmable feature buttons) is the logical choice.

If the user needs to roam around the building…
Choose a wireless handset or mobile phone that uses your wireless LAN or wireless base stations to connect into the central communications system, such as Toshiba IP4000 wireless mobility phones.

If the user travels to other locations outside your company’s phone or data networks…
Choose either: (A) a softphone client (software that empowers a PC to perform the features of a desktop phone), or (B) a network option that enables your smartphone to function as a PBX extension via the office wireless LAN while in the office and via a cellular network out of the office.

Having narrowed down the choice to digital or IP, desktop or mobile, you still have a wide range of choice in features and functionality, to find just the right model at the right price point for each user/role in the organization.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Pure IP for business communications

June 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment

If you are building or expanding your communications system to more fully exploit IP, Toshiba offers you choices:  converged and pure-IP platforms.

Strata CIX has a new sibling.  Toshiba has launched a pure IP business communications system—IPedge—built on open protocols and deployed on an industry-standard Linux server.  IP capabilities you love in Strata CIX are now available in a single server that occupies a mere 1U (less than two inches) of rack space.

Strata CIX isn’t going away.  It is still a great choice for businesses that depend on legacy digital phones as well as IP devices.  In fact, IPedge parallels Strata CIX in many ways:

  • Features and functions work the same.  The behind-the-scenes software of IPedge is all new, but the feature set and user interface are comfortably familiar.  So if you use IPedge at headquarters and Strata CIX at branch offices, all locations will operate much the same.
  • You can use (or reuse) the same endpoints.  IPedge supports the same IP telephones, attendant consoles, PC- or PDA-based softphones, and wireless telephones used with the Strata CIX system—the same features to all devices in all locations.  (You can use third-party SIP phones as well, but with a reduced feature set.  Legacy digital phones can be supported through a networked Strata CIX system or gateway.)
  • Use the same Media Application Server (MAS), if you need it.  Contact center functions run on the same MAS or MicroMAS platform.
  • Support for SIP is right in the box.  Toshiba has certified compatibility with 28 SIP trunk service providers nationwide.  They all work with our Strata CIX systems today and will work with the IPedge systems as well.  No gateway equipment is required.

IPedge improves communication in other ways:

IPedge is built on open industry standards.  Open standards are your assurance that your communications system will support future applications and endpoint devices.  Although we don’t make you get your own server, in theory IPedge software could run on any third-party server that meets the specs.  Moving telecom into the open-protocol IT realm sets the stage for unified management of all voice and data communications.

  • IPedge does more with less.  One 1U IPedge server supports voice mail, unified messaging, feature customization, and the Call Manager application for unified communications.

If you are building or expanding your communications system to more fully capitalize on IP, see what IPedge can do for you.

Filed Under: IPedge, VoIP Tagged With: , , , ,

IP User Mobility – The portable personal profile

May 27, 2011 By Leave a Comment

                                                                                                          

A quick look at the business advantages of IP User Mobility

In a previous post on this blog, we talked about IP User Mobility – the ability to have your identity on the company phone system travel anywhere you want to take it – not tied to a network port, device or physical location.  Anywhere within the reach of an IP connection, on the company network or the Internet.

Sounds okay, you might say, “But I already have mobility, because I have a PDA, cell phone, WiFi-equipped laptop, and I can log into my office voice mail and email from anywhere.”

Yes, but IP User Mobility is more than that.  Features associated with your office extension – such as call forwarding, call park, hunt groups, call tracking for billing purposes, automatic call distribution and messaging – work just the same from any logged-in IP telephony device as they do in the office.

Preferences such as password and login options, user-programmable soft keys, speed-dial numbers and caller ID transfer over to any IP device being used as an IP soft phone.  People trying to reach you no longer have to track separate numbers for your office, home office and mobile phones.

Suppose you are traveling to a branch office in another city and need to use an extension there for the day.  No problem.  Just log that phone out, and enter your extension and password.  This IP telephone now adapts to your profile – becomes yours as far as the communication system knows, until you log out.  You can be as fully productive and accessible as when you are at your desk.

What aspects of your work would benefit from IP User Mobility?  Are you a professional who bills by the hour, who would benefit from unified call tracking?  Are you a contact center agent who needs to be accessible in a hunt group?  Tell us how taking your office phone profile anywhere with you would improve your work.

Filed Under: Uncategorized, VoIP Tagged With: , ,