Category Archives: networking

NEC Adds 9.5″ SV9100 Chassis For Small Business Clients

NEC recently added the smaller 9.5″ SV9100 phone system chassis, matching it’s predecessor, the 9.5″ SV8100 cabinet for small business customers.

NEC SV9100 9.5 inch chassis

Compact NEC SV9100 9.5″ Chassis for Small Business

Telephone Magic Inc. has been installing these smaller chassis SV9100 systems for a few months now and the verdict is in… WE LOVE IT! The 9.5″ chassis offers small businesses a cost-effective way to get the high end features of the award winning NEC SV9100 platform.

While the SV9100 is based on the solid foundation of the SV8100 platform, it has a much more powerful processor. It does away with the need for the PZ-VM21 Voice Mail card holder and the PZ-ME50-US Expanded Memory card, The InMail voice mail packake is now stored on a micro SD card which clicks right into a slot on the main control card (GCD-CP10). Like the SV8100, this system is hybrid in nature. It handles both digital and IP phones, has the capability to network between sites and add SIP trunks as bandwidth grows and QoS become more stable.

NEC UT880 tablet tepehone

The UT880 combines the ease of a touchscreen tablet and a familiar telephone keypad!

Customers are RAVING about the new UT880 Tablet Phone which combines the look and feel of a tablet with a standard telephone handset interface. This phone terminal combines touchscreen capabilities with a familiar phone keypad and video options – it is simply breathtaking!

NEC’s UT880 Universal Client is a multiline telephone application that emulates an NEC 32-line DESI-less telephone, comes standard in the SV9100’s user licensing packages. The interface of the UT880 Universal Client is designed to improve the overall user experience, while remaining intuitive—with no extensive training needed. You can see at-a-glance if you have new voice or instant message notifications, missed calls, meetings and new emails plus it provides access to all of the standard system features.

The UT880 and NEC's SV9100 create a powerful combination of innovation and user features!

The UT880 and NEC’s SV9100 create a powerful combination of innovation and user features!

Additionally, the UT880 enables access to the UC Suite Client – corporate directory, presence, instant messaging, unified messaging and call control – right on your desktop phone.

When NEC first release the SV9100 they created the UNIVERGE SV9100S and SV9100E Communications Servers. While they are both robust, feature-rich, Unified Communications enabled systems that are ideal for small and medium-sized businesses, the added introduction of the 9.5″ chassis offers the smallest of business clients to take advantage of the powerful SV9100 platform. Each server is designed to help solve today’s communications challenges and is built with your migration path in mind, so you can scale your communications as your business grows.

Because it is so future friendly and upgraded by frequent software improvements, NEC's SV9100 is likely the LAST communication system your business will ever purchase!

Because it is so future friendly and upgraded by frequent software improvements, NEC’s SV9100 is likely the LAST communication system your business will ever purchase!

The one thing we love about NEC’s SV9100 is that it is likely the last communication system your business will purchase. Unlike previous “in the box” phone systems that had a certain amount of set features that became antiquated and redundant over time, the SV9100 is future friendly – it’s a server that will regularly be improved going forward via software updates. As new features are invented and brought to market they will become available to your business team as you keep your SV9100 current with the latest Software Assurance,

The SV9100 also comes with a simplified user-licensing structure, which allows you to only pay for what your business needs, as you need it. Gone are the days of paying for 40 voice mail boxes when all you needed was six! Gone are the days of having to buy voice mail ports to be able to handle more calls. This system is provisioned for sixteen ports that will handle as many or as few calls as necessary. The SV9100 also easily integrates with your existing NEC technology.

In short, we are VERY impressed with the SV9100 communication system, and our initial experience with it tells us you will never regret a move to this platform. It is built on a solid foundation and will grow in just about any way you wish as your business changes and expands.

Everyone Seems to be “Hung up on VoIP”

It is AMAZING how many of our clients are all about “Don’t we need VoIP phones?” and “Don’t we need to get cheap VoIP truncks?” and “Aren’t SIP trunks cheaper?”.
Well, to answer ALL these questions… “YES”… under the right circumstances. Not everyone NEEDS more expensive IP phones. That’s right, I said it. I would LOVE to sell you more expensive endpoints and, WOW, I would REALLY LOVE to invoice you to rewire your entire building for Ethernet phone extensions, but, to be honest, YOU DON’T NEED THEM! (darn)…

You heard me. MOST small to medium sized businesses do NOT require IP phones. More importantly, their site Internet access will not SUPPORT loads of VoIP traffic with SIP trunks or phones either!

Most small businesses, EVEN WITH MULTIPLE BRANCHES, can take advantage of less expensive digital terminals and STILL utilize SIP trunks to save money by connecting their hybrid phone systems, such as the NEC SV8100 telephone system via IP daughter boards, such as the IPLB32 – opening a VPN tunnel between the sites where phone calls can be transferred back and forth. Again, this can be done with DIGITAL phones because the SYSTEMS are tied together with VoIP technology!

Before YOU make the mistake of spending an arm load of dough to buy fancy IP phones and swithces that, OMG, don’t work with your limited Internet bandwidth (ouch! YES, there’s the site limitation!) – call someone who REALLY knows their stuff that takes ALL of the environmental and carrier service capabilities into consideration before selling you what you THINK You need. It’s that simple.

Hey, don’t get us wrong – we LOVE the BUZZ words – they sell a TON of new equipment. But don’t sell yourself short and get a huge disappointment when you find out your new phones do not even work. Listen to a professional that can save you loads of money and aggravation by not only listening to what you want, but telling you EXACTLY what you NEED based on your requirements and local site capabilities.

Businesses Have Their Own Private Social Network!

Most people probably don’t realize that long before the explosion of Social Networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and LinkedIn (for business networking) every business to some extent already had their OWN social network – their business phone system.

Indeed, the business phone system links together everyone in a business and allows for communication between all members of this “community” via intercom. Furthermore, every time a speed dial number to a client or supplier is added to the business phone system, this private and very much unique social network grows by extension. As with a Facebook type social network, each of these added contacts to a phone system directory has their own set of unique contacts (both internally and externally), that may or may not eventually impact your own phone system network.

When you think of your business phone system in these terms you really start to understand the true importance of this key component of business equipment. Whether it be an IP capable system such as the Avaya IP Office phone platform or a more basic line such as the Nortel Norstar phone system, As your “social” network grows so does your business!

Enjoy your day and take full advantage of YOUR private business social network. 😉

Telephone Magic goes Facebook…

For everyone following our Social Networking experiment, here is our company Facebook listing:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Niagara-Falls-ON/Telephone-Magic-Inc/101953135681

My personal listing, including some photos of my son, dog, boat, oh yes and even me:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000070211007&ref=profile

As per my profile:
“The grasp of social networking has taken a turn for the worse… it dragged me in too!”

Telephone Magic is now "LinkedIn"

Both our company profile and my personal profile are now up and running on the business social networking site “LinkedIn”.

Our company profile can be found at:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/norstarphonesavayaphonesystem

My personal profile is located here:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/businessphones

My personal profile home page name matches my Twitter home page. Follow me on Twitter here:
http://twitter.com/Business_Phones

Have a great 4th of July weekend everyone!

The Social Networking Phenomenon

Well I must admit to being somewhat taken aback here. This whole social networking thing is an Internet explosion of often highly interesting and/or voyeuristic content from millions (billions?) of everyday people like you and I. I thought the Facebook craze was amazing but in my opinion Twitter has taken everything to the next level with “What are you doing?” – LOL!

I never thought the day would come when you could literally jump into someone’s back pocket (virtually ANYONE’s) but it has come to pass. Is it scary? Hmmmm…. maybe a little, but it is also AMAZING by it’s nature, offering updates of people’s thoughts and activities though a web GUI or even more importantly (from a telecommunications standpoint) via your mobile phone.

People are literally offering up their thoughts on a myriad of topics (literally anything qualifies as content here!) and others around the world are connecting to and following that content on an on-going basis. Now you CAN control WHO follows your Twitter feed (if you wanted to create a private network) but what’s the fun in that? Don’t we all want to feel like we matter? Well at Twitter, you have a forum to become important (or at lease interesting) to as many people as you can attract via your “content”.

It’s a crazy world we live in… (and now I have to go buy a BlackBerry!) 😉