Every day you gather more information that is critical to the success of your business. Sales and customer service people compile new customer contact information, inventory is managed, quotes are generated and sales information is tallied.
Tying all of your office computer equipment together in a network gives you the opportunity to
A faster office is a more productive office right? That means, because you wish your computer equipment to operate at the speed of light, that Cat6 cable is the only way to go – or is it?
Just because you are making upgrades to faster equipment office wide, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll have to invest in Cat6 cable. It’s true that Cat6 has twice the bandwidth of Cat5 and that it is far superior in performance than either Cat5 or Cat5e. Cat6 is also capable of transferring data at a much faster rate, but in most regular office applications Cat5e is more than capable of handling the required workload.
Your new computers, internet service and office communication system may be much faster than the one that you are replacing, but that’s not the only thing to consider when selecting a networking cable. If you aren’t transferring exceedingly large amounts of data or operating virtual PCs, Cat6 cable may be much more cable than you need and cost much more money than you need to spend.
I decided to research Voice Over IP (VOIP) phone for my business. It felt like the industry had reached a point where voice quality, features and price made it a smart choice. I was also very frustrated about my phone bill from Verizon. They were charging me for calls to Annapolis and when I called to ask them about it they gave me some double-talk about Latas or Stratas. I told the operator to "get real". Do they really expect businesses to pay a premium for in-state calls? OK. We aren't in Maryland. But Annapolis is only 45 minutes away. I guess they feel like they might have an advantage with call quality or service. Or maybe they think people want to work with a big name company.
Well, I decided to call on my old friend, Allen Kadis of EMC. Allen has a lot of experience with VOIP and small businesses. He immediately recommended Vocalocity. So, I did some more research and they received good reviews for service and price. I also learned that there is a bit of a price war going on in the VOIP phone industry. It seems that there might be too many players for the market. And VOIP phone companies just handle the phone traffic and do not make their own phones. So, you buy industry standard phones and pick your carrier. It is a very competitive industry.
So, I chose Vocalocity and got my phones in the mail in about 2 days. I was very excited because I would have a phone that I could take anywhere and that had auto-attendant and other great business features. Actually, it seems to have all of the features of a standard business phone system. I plugged it in and it worked. I was very impressed. But then I started experiencing some problems with the service. I found that about 1 out of every 5 calls would lead to the caller not being able to hear my voice. So, I called in to Customer Service and was told that I might need an adjustment to my firewall settings.
The technician worked remotely and eventually gave up. She told me to get a technician on-site to make the changes. I called back a few days later and was told that my firewall was too old and would not work at all. So, I removed the firewall. Well, that just made my phone worse. That made it so that the phone once and disconnect. I called in again to Vocalocity and was told that my router was also too old and that it was incompatible with VOIP.
So, I ordered a new D-Link Router for $45 (including shipping) and plugged it in. That made my VOIP phone die. I had "No Service" on the phones. No dial tone. No ringing. Nothing. When I called into Customer Service they told me to get Verizon (my Internet Service Provide) to "bridge my router". So, I called Verizon and I spent about an hour working with them to change the settings in my modem and my new router. I was told by Vocalocity that this would be the last step. But after the bridging process I still had "No Service" on all of my phones. Grrrrrrr.
Now this was my 3rd day without a business phone. All of our calls were being forwarded to my cell phone. I called Customer Support and Jack Jackson spent about 45 minutes gettings the phones corrected to communicate with our new "bridged router". Jack was very helpful, knowledgeable and patient. And he got our phone system working.
The lesson I would like to share with you is this.
Switch to VOIP. You will save a lot of money and you will get MORE features than you have now. And the sound quality is excellent. But before committing to a VOIP phone system, make sure you tell them the make and model of your router, firewall and modem at your office. Otherwise, you might have 2 or 3 days of no office phone! The other consideration is to make sure that you have enough Internet speed. Check your speed at Speedtest.net. How much speed you will need will depend on the number of phones at your office.
I highly recommend Vocalocity. They ultimately did help me find and fix all of the problems. And I now have a really great VOIP phone system that is packed with lots of great business features. So, if you want to make the switch, give them a call at 1-877-862-2562 and tell them that Progressive Office referred them to you.
Feel free to comment or to contact us if you need help.
I have a question. Can you imagine an iPhone App for your business? Do you deliver a product or service? Do you have a product or service at your business that brings clients to your office? Progressive Office is looking to develop a way to create low-cost, custom iPhone Apps.
For many years, direct network connections were considered the {{ideal,best,most effective}} service to hotel guests but this has changed as High-Speed Internet Access (HSIA) is becoming a {{standard,expected,typical}} amenity rather than a direct cable connection into the network. But as Wireless Networking is becoming more common, a device called a Wireless Access Point is becoming the standard network communication device enabling HSIA for guests.
I met with the General Manager of a Holiday Inn in Northern Virginia. She manages a 200-unit building in Arlington, Virginia, an affluent suburb of Washington, DC. Her property provides rooms and facilities to handle meetings and conferences for vacationers and business travelers. She told me that she is trying to get wireless access installed into her building because she is losing business and wasting money.
She said that her hotel is providing free Internet access but her competition is providing free wireless access. Clients and management prefer wireless because it is much easier to manage and access. Clients don't like having to plug in a cable and having to make changes to their network settings to enable network access. Management does not like having to deal with multiple failure points in managing the hundreds of routers spread throughout the building. There is one in each room.
So, they have a lot of complaints about Internet access. It is not convenient. Sometimes clients don't even have a patch cable. So, the problems are overwhelming for both sides. Additionally, they have Meeting and Conference Rooms that are not hard-wired. So, every time they schedule a Conference for a business client they also have to pay their Internet Service Provider (ISP) to extend a bundle of network cables into the Meeting and Conference Rooms. As you can imagine, this is a hassle and a large financial expense. It cuts into their profit margins. And it is also a major inconvenience for both the staff and the customers.
We have presented a proposal to install network cabling and I expect to get approval in the coming weeks. It will save them time, money and reduce their efforts in providing reliable and fast Internet to their clients. I will update this posting as things progress.
Laser printers are the most expensive type of printer in terms of running costs, due to the cost of the toner cartridges. But the cost per page for black and white printing is usually less than for inkjet printers.
The toner is the same type of toner used in photocopiers. And laser printers emulate the final stage of what a photocopier does by using a statically charged drum to attach toner to the paper. No liquid ink is used. The powdered toner is statically stuck to the paper when it passes over the rollers, and is then very quickly heated to fuse it to the page. The laser market is predominantly black and white, as nearly all businesses use the technology to produce cost-effective printouts. Laser printers ability to produce crisp, exact quality for text makes it the best choice for printing most corporate documents.
Laser printers are now quite capable in printing graphics as well. But for clear, color printing, color laser printers are ideal. And as their prices continue to decline, they are becoming more popular. But, again as with color inkjet printing, the cost per page goesup dramatically with color laser printers because they use 3 or 4 toner cartridges.
The primary market for color laser remains companies who are looking toLaser printers ability to produce crisp, exact quality for text makes it the best choice for printing most corporate documents. (the quality of a well-done color laser printout is really something to behold), and professional reprographics companies. But further price competition is making color laser a viable option for home users.
The myth that Microsoft has created is that the Windows operating system needs to keep getting bigger and more functional. With each new release the OS grows bigger with new applications, new graphic interface designs and new utilities. But if you take a look at the cell phone industry, you can see that the PC and the cell phone are converging.
The new cell phones from Blackberry, Apple and Plam are meant to do much more than make phone calls, send and receive messages, and browse the Web. It's a platform, like a PC, that's designed to run a wide variety of sophisticated third-party programs, or apps, from social-networking gateways to games to business tools.
Would you consider using the cell phone you had in 2000? Think about it. Back in 2000, the early models of the Treo were hot products and by today standards they are very inadequate.
As for me, I am still using Word 2000 and even if you have the more current version, I doubt that there are any features in it that are compelling. Microsoft has a stranglehold on the PC industry. They dominate the operating system and the applications market. They don't have any formidable competitors. Test yourself. Who is Microsoft's biggest business software competition? It isn't Google because Google is giving away their Google Apps. It isn't Apple because Apple is a hardware manufacturer. They don't develop business applications that compete with Office.
This happened to me. I had an employee and he had a cell phone. Even though I warned him that he had limited minutes, he abused the privilege and he started using the phone for HOURS every day. He racked up a huge cell phone bill that topped out at over $900 for one month.
I called Sprint and I told them my story and they were willing to forgive some of the charges. But I got into a serious discussion with the service representative regarding their pricing policy. They charge $.40 a minute if I exceed my monthly limit. I understand and feel that is excessive but I accept the pricing. It is part of the agreement.