Mark Dalby

The Advantages Of Seeking An Open Source Solution Provider

Open source development simply means that many related developers collaboratively produce software for free distribution, improvement, and use for anyone willing to abide by the software license. Software licenses are those such as the GNU general public license or GPL, or the lesser general public license or LGPL. Commercial software, however, is developed by programmers that are employed by a company for the purpose of creating something that will be sold and whose code is protected through several intellectual property mechanisms, like a patent or a copyright, which makes that code inaccessible to the buyer.

The open source model allows for better and more improved software because it encourages more innovation. The developers are given the freedom to contribute to open projects in order to gain a reputation among their peers. There are also some developers who gain money through donations from users or through support or training contracts. An Open source solution provider has much lower costs and this model is ideal for startups and home users.

The most important advantages of an open source solution provider would be the cost, its security, and the flexibility. Open source solutions, along with their source codes which are available for public scrutiny, are much more secure than commercial software solutions, whose codes are not published and cannot be viewed.  Developers can find weaknesses in the code and fix them. Majority of open source software have large and active communities behind their development which makes them much more reliable, more efficient, and more secure than commercial software. Anything developed and shared as open source will be put under the care of open source customization making it more viable for improvement.

These solutions are much more flexible for the customer over commercial software because the software can be examined by an open source solution provider and some slight changes or alterations can be made to the code to effect the changes necessary for the behavior of the system desired by the customer. This will allow a technically savvy customer to potentially identify any kind of problem within the system and ask for help from open source customization teams to deal with these problems in the system to make them much more suitable for the customer.

Fixes for bugs and other solutions come in a greater variety of sources. They can come about through community effort and distributed through channels like discussion groups. These fixes are refined and improved by the community if the initial fixes by an open source solution provider are not adequate.

OpenOffice.org, and Linux are examples of the most famous and used solutions. They are widely used and are very well known for their stability when compared with Microsoft products. There are a lot of commercial firms that market free solutions and generate a profit from support. One example of such a firm is Trixbox. This is an IP PBX with the community edition distributed for free. There is also a professional edition that has more features and support that is provided but it comes with a fee.

Wikipedia utilizes the mediawiki that was developed by the Wikimedia foundation. This foundation is running a large encyclopedia that relies on donations to survive with volunteer developers who work for free. Even Facebook uses the same development model for its development. The PHP server side scripting is used and their site is hosted on Apache web server on a Linux server. Ever since the Internet had come along, open source web development programs along with open source customization has been getting more popular. Everybody wants a virtual presence and this triggered an open source development program that is created and managed by the public.

The web development industry is known to be the fastest developing industry today. It is accessible from anywhere in the world and those who are looking to develop a website of their own are looking towards open source development programs and an open source solution provider. It is also known that some opensource web applications that are developed by web development companies along with offshore software development companies, quite similar to some commercial applications, have a tendency to die out quite quickly. A typical scenario would have an open source solution provider losing interest and giving up on some projects.

This leads to these products not gaining any attention from open source customization and eventually becomes forgotten. It is most commonly offshore outsourcing companies that receive these complaints that often concern support issues. Online bugs hamper these applications and the buyer of such an application would be forced to contact the developer for support. When the vendor is unavailable, the buyer will usually have to look for another open source solution provider and have them get rid of any bugs in the defective software. Regardless of such mishaps, an open source solution provider will always be sought after so long as they have a solid reputation.

Uses of Online Transaction History

All the transactions that take place between your organisation and Numbertalk are recorded on the online transaction history of eConsole. You may have added telephone numers to your account, so the connection fee is recorded. The monthly service plan charges are generated on the 1st of every month, so those charges are recorded on the online transactions. The call credit units purchased so that chargeable calls can be routed and also the annual renewal fees charged on the 12th month anniversary of each number that you have purchased are also recorded on the online transaction history.

Even those transactions that do not have a fee attached to them, such as the creation or deletion of hunt groups, queues, mail boxes, feature codes and other features on the call management system.

Each transaction will have a date and time associated with it, description of the nature of the transaction, the username of the person who conducted the transaction and the total cost of each transaction.

Case Study 1

Blowplast Engineering plc has an 0800 number on the Performance Plan. They pay a connection fee, service plan fee and annual renewal fee. They also purchased call credit units so that chargeable calls can be routed to them. They pay by using a Visa Debit Card which they have registered with the eConsole. Suppose somebody from Blowplast Engineering wants a full breakup of all the payments that they have made to Numbertalk, all they need to do is login to eConsole, and search for reports on transactions from the desired start date to end date. The search results will show a detailed breakdown of all the charges and also provides information on which staff ordered the transactions.

Case Study 2

Eric is a plumber who transacts his business by using an 0844 number. Eric initially answered all the calls himself by routing the calls to his mobile phone. However, as his business expands he is unable to handle the call volume and hires a call answering service. He creates a Hunt Group for the call answering service to answer all calls and unanswered calls go straight to the voice to email mailbox. A customer disputes that his voicemail was unanswered. Eric checks the transaction history on the particular date that the customer claims he left the voice mail, finds that the Hunt Group was created two days earlier, thus resolving the dispute. Online Transaction History is available on all service plans.

Dial-In Call Management without Internet

Customers can reroute their telephone numers by logging into the eConsole call management system. This is done through the Internet. But what about those times when the numers need to be rerouted but there is no Internet access? The users can then dial an eConsole access number that will take them to a menu system which allows rerouting of calls just by punching in numers from the keypad. Even a new custom announcement can be recorded using this number.

To have access to the eConsole call management system using the telephone, a pass code must be set up in the eConsole page of the number. This pass code must then be entered via the telephone when you opt to dial in. this precaution is necessary to prevent unauthorised users from changing the call routing over the telephone.

Dial in call management can be used to changing the routing for 0800 numers , 0844 numers or 0845 numers . What you need to do is to enter the 08 number followed by the hash key. Then you will be prompted to enter the pass code that is saved in the user page, again followed by a hash key. You will then be presented with options to change the destination number or to record a new custom announcement message.

Dial In Call Management Case Study

John is having a tough day. Nothing seems to be going right. First it was his washing machine that broke down and flooded the kitchen floor. He could leave for office only at 11:00. On the way, he receives a call from his sister who has to hurry for a doctor’s appointment, but her front lock is broken. She requests John’s help to look after the house for the couple of hours it will take her to get to the doctor and back. After all this, John reaches his work place only at 3:00. As the saying goes, if something can go wrong it will. And true to the saying, John’s PBX system is down due to a power failure and there is no access to the Internet.

How does John manage this eventful day? By using the dial in call management facility, John switches all his incoming calls from the office number to his home landline while he takes care of the flooded kitchen floor. Then he routes the calls to his mobile phone while he is on the move and his sister’s landline. Till the power is restored at work, he again routes the calls to his mobile, thus ensuring that none of his business calls were missed.

Dial In Call Management is available with Numbertalk.

Contact Numberatalk to learn more about
0845 numers , premium rate numers , freephone numers and 0330 numers

Using eConsole

eConsole is the call management system that can be used to access and manage your Numbertalk subscriptions. Every subscriber has a username and a password that can be used to login to eConsole and access call management features. Actions such as creation of Hunt Groups, deletion of IVR menu options etc. can be tracked on eConsole on each individual user account. There are three different statuses that a particular user account can have — Messages Only status, User status and Administrator status.

In the Messages Only status, access is limited only to voice mails and fax messages that are stored in the system. User accounts with a User status can access all the inbound voice mails and fax messages. In addition to that, they can also view as well as edit Hunt Groups and Queues. The Administrator status has the highest level of privileges. User accounts with Administrator status can not only view and access all the available features, but they can also edit or modify them.

A user name and password will be created the moment an account is registered. It is a good idea to use a single email address for all the usernames. This will allow the password reminder mechanism on the Numbertalk website as well as eConsole to send reminders to this main email address. Choose an email address that you regularly use because if you forget the password for any of the user accounts that were created for you, the password reminder will be sent only to the registered email address. It cannot and will not be given over the phone. The email address can also be changed to a new one if you submit a written request on company head letter pad advising us of the change. This extra precaution is to ensure your safety and to prevent unauthorised users from changing the main email address and accessing all the user account passwords.

Each service plan has a fixed number of user accounts that can be allocated. On a Connect Service Plan, a maximum of 1 user account can be created. On a Freedom Service Plan, it is 2 users and on the Performance Plan there is absolutely no limit on the number of users that can be allocated.

To learn more about eConsole or to avail services such as
0845 numers , 0800 numers , 0844 numers , premium rate numers , freephone numers and 0330 numers contact Numbertalk.

SugarCRM integration for Asterisk/Elastix/FreePBX/Trixbox taps your incoming and outgoing calls?

Today each and every company believes in providing great customer service to their clients and consumers. MNC and other businesses providing customer services needs to ensure whether their executives are attending the calls properly. Most of the online businesses depend on telesales or customer support. It is one of the most popular method of increasing sales for a company or customer satisfaction. In such cases, it is required for a company to have a full proof communication system through which they can track the calls made by their representatives and also aid themselves through recorded call logs in case of any discrepancy.

SugarCRM integration for Asterisk/Elastix/FreePBX/Trixbox is one such software that will solve all your tele-tracking needs. The software is designed to trace the calls made by your executive and record them completely. How does SugarCRM integration for Asterisk/Elastix/FreePBX/Trixbox taps your incoming and outgoing calls? Today each and every company believes in providing great customer service to their clients and consumers. MNC and other businesses providing customer services needs to ensure whether their executives are attending the calls properly.

Most of the online businesses depend on telesales or customer support. It is one of the most popular method of increasing sales for a company or customer satisfaction. In such cases, it is required for a company to have a full proof communication system through which they can track the calls made by their representatives and also aid themselves through recorded call logs in case of any discrepancy. SugarCRM integration for Asterisk/Elastix/FreePBX/Trixbox is one such software that will solve all your tele-tracking needs. The software is designed to trace the calls made by your executive and record them completely. The software has an easy to use web interface.

It comes with a very comprehensive User Admin Guide can be downloaded from the site of a developer. All the important features have tabs for quick access at the top of the screen. There is an option to export the data enclosed within components to a Comma Separated Value file.

The Sugar CRM integration for Asterisk/Elastix/FreePBX/Trixbox consists of two modules for each party. One module is for Elastix/FreePBX and the second one for SugarCRM. Both these modules are “upgrade safe” so SugarCRM updates or studio changes will have no affect on SugarCRM integration. Also the Asterisk/Elastix/FreePBX/Trixbox module can be installed by standard module installer and will only affect the dial plan .

How does SugarCRM integration for Asterisk/Elastix/FreePBX/Trixbox work?

When inbound call arrives, the VOIP system connects to SugarCRM and searches for the phone number. Also at this point SugarCRM creates a “Call” record for this call. If the phone number is assigned to a Contact/Lead/Account the associated name will be returned to VOIP and will alter the CALLERID(name) so the name of caller will be displayed on users soft phone. Also the “Call” record will be related to corresponding Contact/Lead/Account in SugarCRM so you will also have a clear history of previous actions for that contact.

When users dials out, a new call, “Call” record will be created in the SugarCRM . Also the “Call” record will be associated and updated to corresponding Contact/Lead/Account . When the call is ended or not answered the “Call” record in SugarCRM will be updated with corespondig details. These settings help you control the outgoing and incoming calls at your office. There are plenty of other features as well that you can enjoy with SugarCRM integration for Asterisk/Elastix/FreePBX/Trixbox software.

BT and Cisco Deliver on Cloud Vision With Launch of Pioneering Hosted Unified Communications Service

SAN JOSE, CA–(Marketwire – December 9, 2009) –  BT and Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) announced today they have deepened their longstanding collaboration by a breakthrough in unified communications (UC), with the launch of a global “cloud” based IPT solution from BT’s Onevoice UCC portfolio. Together, the two companies are launching a scalable, business-grade, global hosted IP Telephony service, which allows businesses to dramatically reduce upfront investment costs whilst accelerating the adoption of UC on a global scale. BT is engaging closely with Cisco Services to build the underlying virtualised infrastructure for service delivery.

The hosted IP telephony service represents the world’s first global offering based on Cisco® Hosted UC services as the platform for collaborative voice communications. It allows businesses to bring converged voice, mobile and data services to every desktop in their organisation, using BT and Cisco’s cloud computing-based technologies. Companies that are tightly managing their capital expenditure will be able to take a first step into converged communications by consuming their IP telephony, voicemail, conferencing and unified messaging technologies on a utility-based, per-user pricing model.

Available now in the UK, the hosted IPT service from BT will also be available to businesses in the United States and EMEA in 2010 followed by Asia Pacific. Businesses will be able to benefit from having all their UC needs hosted over BT’s next generation 21CN global platform and secure data centres. Coupled with BT’s Onevoice services, BT can rapidly deploy services to both large and small sites, offering significant call savings as well as operational predictability.

Chris Barnard, European Telecommunications and Networking Research Director at analyst firm IDC, said: “The current macroeconomic climate favours hosted IP telephony. The service is based on an operating expenditure model and offers the flexibility, low risk, and cost control now required by companies facing an uncertain future.”

One BT customer, which has already been using the service in the UK, is the National Health Service’s national broadband network, N3.

N3 connects more than 1.3 million UK health sector employees and is using BT Hosted IPT technology, which it calls N3 Hosted Voice Services, to provide free on-network calls and considerably cheaper mobile phone connections between medical sites.

Dr. Inderjit Marok, Practice head at Rotton Park Medical Centre in Birmingham, said: “N3 Hosted Voice Service has enabled us to make considerable savings, which pretty much offsets the cost of renting the required IP phones. So we have an all-new system at no extra cost, while we are saving around 20 per cent against our previous call bills.”

Neil Sutton, vice president, global portfolio, BT Global Services, said: “Businesses today typically have multiple, fragmented, disparate IT and telephony infrastructures that restrict effective communication. BT and Cisco’s collaboration on this innovative, cloud-based unified communications system will help businesses reduce capital expenditure in this difficult time, while giving them the ability to introduce productivity enhancing tools.”

Chris Dedicoat, president of Cisco Europe, said: “Cisco and BT are deepening our established collaboration today to introduce a truly transformational unified communications solution delivered through the cloud at a compelling price point. We believe this new hosted offering will help accelerate our combined ability to bring the benefits of unified communications to more customers globally.”

For further information
Enquiries about this news release should be made to the BT Group Newsroom on its 24-hour number: 020 7356 5369. From outside the UK dial + 44 20 7356 5369. All news releases can be accessed at our web site: http://www.btplc.com/News

Notes to editors:
The breakthrough BT Hosted IPT service delivers a range of features, advantages and benefits, including:

Businesses will be able to free up valuable IT resources to focus on strategic business priorities, whilst retaining the ability to quickly switch-on new productivity-enhancing collaborative communications technologies, such as application sharing, messaging and conferencing. The hosted service handles the upgrades, maintenance and investment costs associated with managing IP telephony and other information technology in-house. BT is also able to blend hosted IP telephony with existing legacy and IP voice infrastructures, allowing customers to benefit from significant cost savings immediately, whilst maximising their existing telephony investments. The service provides business-grade call quality delivered over BT’s world leading Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) network and will enable businesses to securely and predictably resource their fixed and flexible workforce with the latest collaboration tools. BT Hosted IPT uses the Cisco Unified Communications system of products that unify voice, video, data, and mobile applications on fixed and mobile networks. BT Hosted IPT also offers a feature-rich Web portal for companies to manage their communications estate and handle day-to-day administrative tasks. The web portal also helps IT teams to reconfigure users’ phones, set up phones for new members of staff and manage name and number displays. Extension mobility features mean that hot desk users in businesses can log in at any phone and have their full profile and settings available, anywhere in the world. Companies will only have to deal with one supplier, one bill and one helpdesk when managing their telephony and unified communications needs.

Video: Nick Earle, SVP, Cisco Services, European Markets, discusses the collaboration with BT. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sule-cne0pc.

About BT
BT is one of the world’s leading providers of communications solutions and services operating in 170 countries. Its principal activities include the provision of networked IT services globally; local, national and international telecommunications services to our customers for use at home, at work and on the move; broadband and internet products and services and converged fixed/mobile products and services. BT consists principally of four lines of business: BT Global Services, Openreach, BT Retail and BT Wholesale.

In the year ended 31 March 2009, BT Group’s revenue was £21,390 million.

British Telecommunications plc (BT) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BT Group plc and encompasses virtually all businesses and assets of the BT Group. BT Group plc is listed on stock exchanges in London and New York. For more information, visit www.bt.com/aboutbt

About Cisco
Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Information about Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, please go to http://newsroom.cisco.com.

Cisco, the Cisco logo and Cisco Systems are registered trademarks or trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and certain other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company. This document is Cisco Public Information.

For direct RSS Feeds of all Cisco news, please visit “News@Cisco” at the following link:

http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/rss.html

Asterisk VoIP And Their Cost Saving Benefits

Asterisk telephone systems (PBXs) use voice over IP (voip) and ISDN for making telephone calls. The most common method is using Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) which is the international standard for inter-vendor phone system communication. Asterisk voip telephone calls are typically transported over the internet to reduce cost using a SIP trunk. SIP trunks offer significant cost-savings for businesses, eliminating the need for local PSTN gateways, costly ISDN BRIs (Basic Rate Interfaces) or PRIs (Primary Rate Interfaces). The SIP trunk has multiple voice channels within it rather like a traditional ISDN service although the number of channels within a trunk can be much higher than an ISDN service and much cheaper. SIP trunks use voip to carry the voice streams over the internet, bypassing the local public switched telephone network and hence reducing the cost of the call.

Typically a SIP trunk is set up using a broadband internet connection and the number of lines is limited by the bandwidth available and the type of compression used. A configuration is put into the PBX to tell it where the host is, the type of compression to use, security authentication method and various other settings. The quality of the asterisk voip phone call is maintained in various ways depending on the PBX owner’s budget however for business asterisk voip , uncompressed voip (G.711 codec) is a good recommendation for most. This ensures that the call quality is always excellent using low latency, low hop count networks, but do ensure your provider is partnered with the best Tier1 carriers. When assessing your Asterisk voip SIP trunk provider, a good service should look something like this:

1. Data centre located in Telecity in London which is part of the London Internet Exchange (LINX).

2. Staff that can assist customers in designing their network to optimise voice quality by separating voice and data traffic, using uncompressed voice and choosing quality networking equipment (e.g. Cisco).

3. A provider whose network has no single point of failure and who partners with more than one Tier1 service provides for call termination and internet services, so that SIP Trunk services have built in redundancy even in the event of a major BT backbone problem.

One of the other major benefits of using SIP trunks for asterisk voip is portability. Once a phone number has been assigned to the trunk, you are then able to then “port” or move the phone number to another service provider. Furthermore moving the SIP trunk itself is simply a case of moving the broadband connection to another location which is relatively straightforward compared with an ISDN relocation where the chance of a prolonged outage is higher. Using SIP trunking, if you decide to move offices, you can take your BT telephone number with you using a porting service. For example, if you are located in London with a 0208 or 0207 number, and move to Birmingham, you can take your BT telephone number/s with you.

SIP trunks can also be used to connect asterisk voip phone systems together and take advantage of free calls between them. This configuration is often used to connect offices together within a business so that it can offer free inter-office calling and internal calling. The business can also take advantage of other features like conferencing, virtual hunt groups and inbound call handling.

With good providers of SIP trunks for your asterisk voip phone system you should be able to handle the whole process from provisioning to billing online with activation possible instantly 24 X 7 X 365 through an online self-provisioning portal.

Look out for providers offering a trial service so that you can test the voice quality by making some calls . Setting up a SIP trunk is very easy compared with a traditional, proprietary telephone system, and a good provider will provide you with technical support and may sometimes provide you with a working configuration for your telephone system if it has tested its Asterisk voip service previously. Some common systems that this is likely to apply to are Asterisk, Trixbox, Elastix, FreePBX, Vicidial and Atcom.