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Ethernet is a family of frame-based computer networking technologies for local area networks (LANs). The name comes from the physical concept of the ether. It defines a number of wiring and signaling standards for the Physical Layer of the OSI networking model as well as a common addressing format and Media Access Control at the Data Link Layer.

Ethernet is standardized as IEEE 802.3. The combination of the twisted pair versions of Ethernet for connecting end systems to the network, along with the fiber optic versions for site backbones, is the most widespread wired LAN technology. It has been in use from around 1980[1] to the present, largely replacing competing LAN standards such as token ring, FDDI, and ARCNET.

Benefits of Using Ethernet:

• Ethernet network technologies provide speeds ranging fron 10 mbps to 10 gbps
• Connect multiple locations and conerge voice, video, and data onto one network
• Connect to the public Internet or a private network with native ethernet packets

Ethernet over Copper (EoC) is the result of recent technology which facilitates 10 megabit per second (Mbps) data over copper telephone lines for an extremely reasonable price. EoC is commonly referred to as the “new T1”. EoC provides many advantages over T1. Among these advantages are more bandwidth for less cost per mbps, simpler, less expensive equipment for interfacing with the customer premise equipment, and built-in circuit redundancy.

How is it Delivered: EoC is delivered to the customer premise through five pairs of copper telephone wire. Virtually all businesses have extra pairs running to their building, or can receive them for free. For this reason, EoC is available to all businesses which are within the distance range of EoC.

Limitations of EoC: The major limitation of Ethernet over Copper at this time is distance from the Central Office (CO). To ensure circuit strength and reliability, most providers limit this distance of EoC availability to 11,000 feet. A few providers offer slightly higher distance limitations. However, in general, only customers who are within 11,000 feet of the CO that is lit (with fiber) for Ethernet, can receive 10 mbps Ethernet over Copper. For this reason, EoC is far more available in urban areas and less available for businesses which are located in rural areas.

Other Ethernet Transfer Modes: Ethernet can also be delivered over DS1, DS3 and wirelessly. Ethernet over DS1 (EoDS1) is delivered over 7 DS1 circuits. EoDS1 also provides 10 mbps, but is a little more expensive than EoC because the cost of the DS1 loops must be calculated into the price. The great advantage of EoDS1 over EoC is that EoDS1 can be delivered to far more business locations because EoDS1 has no distance limitation from the CO, other than the loop cost. Generally, the longer the loop, the higher the cost. Ethernet over DS3 (EoDS3) provides ethernet service over DS3 circuits. EoDS3 can provide data transfer at 44, 88, or 100 mbps. Another big advantage of EoDS3 is that on premise routers are far less expensive to purchase, configure and maintain than regular DS3 routers.

EoC Redundancy: Ethernet over Copper has inherent redundant features. As mentioned earlier, EoC is provided over five copper pairs. If one of these pairs goes down, the circuit continues over the remaining pairs that continue to be up.

General Price Comparison for EoC, EoDS1 and Bonded T1: At this point, EoC costs approximately 35% of what the equivalent bandwidth of bonded T1 or Fractional DS3 would cost. Ethernet over Copper averages about $1,200 per month give or take a few. 10 mbps of bonded T1 averages approximately $2,700 give or take a few. EoDS1 costs about 65% of what the equivalent bandwidth of 10 mbps bonded T1 would cost, at an average of about $1,800 per month, depending on the loop length.

EoC Provides Symmetrical Bandwidth: Ethernet bandwidth is symmetrical which means that bandwidth is the same for both upload and download. Also, both upload and download can be used at full bandwidth simultaneously.

EoC Service Level Guarantees: Ethernet provides an extremely stable and reliable circuit which is usually provided with the same service level agreements (SLA’s) offered with other forms of commerical bandwidth such as T1, DS3 and OC circuits.

EoC Compatibile Applications: EoC can facilitate virtually all bandwidth applications and functions such as VoIP, MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching) networking, routine Data Transfer, Video Conferencing, and Point to Point Circuits.

EoC Dynamically Allocated: One of the most popular applications facilitated by EoC is Dynamically Allocated Integrated Voice, SIP (Session Iniatition Protocol), Networking and /or Internet. With QoS (Quality of Service), Dynamic Integrated Voice Internet circuits can meet virtually all of the telecommunication needs of a company, including voice (with near perfect quality), location to location networking, and Internet. With Dynamic Allocation, these services are provided in an extremely efficient manner.

Why is EoC referred to as the New T1? Approximately ten years ago, a business would pay approximately $1,000 for a 1.5 mbps T1 circuit. In those days, a T1 circuit often did a great job of meetin the needs of a small to medium sized business. In present times however, small to medium businesses require must more bandwidth. Bandwidth consuming applications which greatly increase the efficiency of the business are increasingly more common and essential for business success. Ethernet over Copper now meets these needs perfectly, providing about 7 times more bandwidth than a T1 for little more than what the cost of a T1 was 10 years ago.

EoC has free installation: Most telecom providers will install EoC for free with three year term contracts. There are almost never extra build-out costs required for installation of EoC and the equipment, which is usually provided by the provider, doesn’t need any WIC cards.

A wireless local area network (WLAN) links devices via a wireless distribution method (typically spread-spectrum or OFDM) and usually provides a connection through an access point to the wider Internet. Basically a Radio Signal is used rather than cables. This gives users the mobility to move around within a local coverage area and still be connected to the network.

Wireless LANs have become popular in the business place due to ease of installation and the increasing popularity of laptop computers. Public businesses such as coffee shops and malls have begun to offer wireless access to their customers, sometimes for free. Large wireless network projects are being put up in many major cities: New York City, for instance, has begun a pilot program to cover all five boroughs of the city with wireless Internet access

In today’s world everything is so bandwidth intensive.  There are several options to deliver Internet to your business.  Understanding what your needs are, what applications your business are running and how many people are accessing the Internet, TeleConsult Solutions will be able to best provide you your most cost effective options to meet your business needs.

If finding bandwidth for your remotes sites has been difficult, please contact TeleConsult Solutions.    We have had very high success rate of locating Internet to these types of locations.

Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) is a mechanism in high-performance telecommunications networksnetwork protocols. which directs and carries data from one network node to the next. MPLS makes it easy to create “virtual links” between distant nodes.

MPLS, is a highly scalable data networking technology that is less complex than its predecessors.   Businesses can gain more flexibility, less overhead and improved control over network costs.   MPLS makes it easy to re-route traffic priorities on the fly, or add new locations to the network whenever companies need to.

The Benefits of using MPLS are:

• Connect multiple locations and converge voice, video and data onto one network
• QoS (Quality of Service) gives priority to your real-time, mission critical traffic
• Service Level Agreements based on Class of Service
• Fully meshed IP infrastructure securely separated from public Internet traffic
• Use carriers that have nationwide convergance on a secure and private network
• Reduce transit delays and transaction time
• The ability to add new locations quickly
• Enhanced security and disaster recovery

The History of MPLS

MPLS was originally proposed by a group of engineers from Ipsilon Networks, but their “IP Switching” technology, which was defined only to work over ATM, did not achieve market dominance. Cisco Systems, Inc., introduced a related proposal, not restricted to ATM transmission, called “Tag Switching”. It was a Cisco proprietary proposal, and was renamed “Label Switching”. It was handed over to the IETF for open standardization. The IETF work involved proposals from other vendors, and development of a consensus protocol that combined features from several vendors’ work.

One original motivation was to allow the creation of simple high-speed switches, since for a significant length of time it was impossible to forward IP packets entirely in hardware. However, advances in VLSI have made such devices possible. Therefore the advantages of MPLS primarily revolve around the ability to support multiple service models and perform traffic management. MPLS also offers a robust recovery framework[3] that goes beyond the simple protection rings of synchronous optical networking (SONET/SDH).

MPLS over DSL is a recent development that meets two very important needs for businesses that utilize multi-location communication networks.  The first major advantage of MPLS over DSL is that networks that include small one or two person office can now be included in the MPLS network without the cost of more expensive T1 Circuits.   The second advantage is that it can provide a relatively low cost parallel network  which can be used for redundant backup, if the main fiber based network goes down.

Currently, traffic tagging and prioritization with class of service are available only on more costly high-capacity T1 lines with MPLS technology, short for Multi-Protocol Label Switching.  What this means is that enterprise branch offices and remote locations or smaller businesses that cannot justify the expense of a T1 line will be able to buy class of service features at a business DSL price.

A typical DSL connection used as part of a managed, private network costs about $150. Monthly costs for T1 lines range from about $500, depending on distance and geographic area.  This is a great application to add to an existing MPLS infrastructure to replace a outdated Frame at a fraction of what it would cost for a MPLS T1.    MPLS over DSL will utilize a VPN that is configured by the provider to channel into your existing MPLS platform.

Point-to-point telecommunications generally refers to a connection restricted to two endpoints.

A traditional point-to-point data link is a communications medium with exactly two endpoints and no data or packet formatting. The host computers at either end had to take full responsibility for formatting the data transmitted between them. The connection between the computer and the communications medium was generally implemented through an RS-232 interface, or something similar. Computers in close proximity may be connected by wires directly between their interface cards

When connected at a distance, each endpoint would be fitted with a modem to convert analog telecommunications signals into a digital data stream. When the connection used a telecommunications provider, the connections were called a dedicated, leased, or private line. The ARPANET used leased lines to provide point-to-point data links between its packet-switching nodes, which were called Interface Message Processors.

The benefits to using Point to Point are:

• Highest likelihood of secure and accurate communication between points
• Connect two locations together using a dedicated P2P leased line
• Private lines can be provisioned for DS1/T1 lines, DS3/T3 lines, OCN and Ethernet

Benefits and Challenges:  There are three primary benefits which cloud computing promises to enterprise customers.  They can reduce and simplify customers cost structure.  Customers can leverage the elasticity of cloud computing to make your business more agile.  And customers can take advantage of the fact that they have outsourced some of their IT focus and dedicate the resources to activities which improve their core competencies.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)is the simplest of cloud offerings.  It’s an evolution of virtual private server offerings and merely provides a mechanism to take advantage of hardware and other physical resources without any capital investment or physical administrative requirements.  The benefit of services at this level is that there are very few limitations on the consumer.  There may be challenges including (or interfacing with) dedicated hardware but almost any software application can run in an IaaS context.

Platform as a Service (PaaS)  is an infrastructure service offers many benefits to customer who wish to extend or shift their applications into a cloud based environment.  However infrastructure services tend to run on platforms that were designed for desktops and traditional client server environments.  They may now be virtualized but they haven’t been optimized for the cloud.

Cloud platforms act as run-time environment which support a set of programming languages.  Ideally the platform will offer plug-ins into common development environments to facilitate development, testing and deployment. Compared to infrastructure services, PaaS reduces the storage requirements of each application and simplifies the deployment.  The value proposition of PaaS is that it shows benefits over traditional web platforms in terms of geographically distributed collaboration, facilitation of web service aggregation through centralization of code, reduced costs of infrastructure through the pay-as-you-go model and cost reduction through higher-level programming abstractions.

Software as a Service (SaaS) is a model of software deployment over the Internet. With SaaS, a provider service on demand, either through a time subscription or a “pay-as-you-go” model. Also known as “software on demand,” the SaaS model allows vendors to develop, host and operate software for customer use. Rather than purchase the hardware and software to run an application, customers need only a computer or a server to download the application and Internet access to run the software.

SaaS software vendors may host the application on their own web servers or upload the application to the consumer device, disabling it after use or after the on-demand contract expires. While SaaS was widely deployed initially for sales force automation and Customer Relationship Management (CRM), its use has become commonplace by businesses for tasks such as computerized billing, invoicing, human resource management, service desk management, and sales pipeline management, among others, according to a January 2010 Information Week article.

Satellite voice and data communications work primarily the same way as land lines do, however, satellite offers the added advantage of being able to connect to remote locations.  Satellite also has advantages during national emergency situations because the bandwidth does not get bombarded by the general public.

Satellite offers Broadband Internet access, VoIP telephony, Private IP for corporate Intranet,  Multicast data delivery and Multimedia.   Satellite technology offers IPoS Complaint, Adaptive in route Selection, has an extensive suite of services, Field proven, cost effective and scalable from a few to 100,000’s of terminals, Integrated and robust network security with integrated outbound encryption and conditional access, a full set of integrated applications including TCP acceleration, IP Routing and a service level control providing the ability to have multi-level QoS offerings.

You can now connect with other individuals throughout the world as if they were in the next room.  The proper Telepresence connection can bring you together, face to face with your clients, co-workers and partners for much less than the fees associated with physical travel.

Telepresence refers to a set of technologies which allow a person to feel as if they were present, to give the appearance that they were present, or to have an effect, at a location other than their true location.

Telepresence requires that the senses of the user, or users, be provided with such stimuli as to give the feeling of being in that other location. Additionally, the user(s) may be given the ability to affect the remote location. In this case, the user’s position, movements, actions, voice, etc. may be sensed, transmitted and duplicated in the remote location to bring about this effect. Therefore information may be traveling in both directions between the user and the remote location.

We do our job so you can do yours without the hassles and interruptions of service that is common in the workplace with some other video-conferencing systems.  When using a full service video-conferencing provider, you are using the latest and most advanced management software, tools, equipment to monitor and maintain your telepresence system.

Telepresence video-telephony is a higher level of videoconferencing, deploying greater technical sophistication and improved fidelity of both video and audio.  With a 24/7/365 Worldwide NOC support, we have the tools to make HD video conferencing effortless.

Cloud-based Call Center Software solution is designed to significantly enhance the customer experience, boost agent performance and increase profitability.   Call Center Software removes the barriers to contact center excellence by delivering a comprehensive, flexible call center software platform to connect your customers with the right agents on time, every time.   It is virtual, on demand solution, no equipment to buy and no costly set up.

A Cloud based Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) Software Call Center software features include:

• Skill based routing that sends the call to the appropriate agent without unnecessay tranfers and hold time
• A universal contact queue that provides a consistent level of service no matter what contact method is used
• Automatic Call Back that eliminates customer hold time, instead the ACD system calls the customer back when they move to first lace in the queue
• Inbound/outbound call blending balances the call center’s activity level and maximizes productivity by keeping agents engaged when the inbound queue slows down
• Database connectivity provides caller-specific information each time the call is transferred.

A Cloud based Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) empowers your agents with information.   It’s  about leveraging the customer database to deliver a great customer experience.   Some of the benefits are:

• Give the customer the option to check an account balance, look up the status of a trouble ticket, or find the nearest store
• Priority routing means all your customers can dial the same number, but preference can be given to those
   who meet your custom criteria
• Screen Pops save both the customer and the agents time by eliminating time-consuming steps of looking
   up customer information.

A Cloud based Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is an effective way to reduce costs and improve customer satisfaction.    Well designed IVR Software enables your callers to quickly get the results they need, whether it be through self-service or live-agent assistance.

Some of the benefits are:

• Flexible billing model based on call olume, ensuring cost savings when volumes are low
• Delivered via a SaaS model – no hardware to buy, maintain or upgrade
• Create outbound campaigns to generate new sources of revenue
• Create greater efficiency and reduce operational cost in your contact center by utilizing customer service.

Other options: Customer Feedback software, Agent Hiring software, Workforce Management tools and E-Learning solutions.

The TOP 5 Reasons for Outsourcing with a Cloud based Call Center:

1. Pay for what you use:  You get fluid capacity and workforce management, so you can add or remove seats internally or with your outsource as your needs change, without paying a long term penalty for what you don’t use.
2. Create strategic outsourced relationships you can trust:  Develop stronger relationships through real time and near time shared reporting.   This shared, transparent management helps you work as partners to truly enhance your customers experience with your agents and outsourced agents.
3. Improve your customer experience for less:   Enhance agent optimization tools improve your response time and provide a better experience for your agents, outsourced agents and your customers.  Call and customer interactions can be routed anywhere and to anyone.
4. Rapidly meet your future needs without obsolenscence:  As your needs change and grow, you will be able to capitalize on new service and functionality that eliminate any gaps between your systems and your outsourcer’s system.
5. Focus capital and resources on your business bottom line:  Leverage your current call center technology and investments while you move to a more scalable and flexible model with trusted outsourced resources.

An excellent choice for Dedicated Internet Access with high levels of upload and downloads.  Perfect for small to medium sized businesses with heavy Internet traffic but need voice service too.

An Integrated T1 line (Dynamic) has 24 channels (of 64k each) that can be used for either data (Internet connection) or voice. In a Data T1 line all channels are used for data, providing you with a DIA (Dedicated Internet Access) with a speed of 1.554 Mbps. With an Integrated T1 line you can use part of these channels for voice service. This often brings you large savings on your business phone bill. Almost all Integrated T1’s these days are Dynamic T1’s. Whenever a voice channel is not used, it can be used for data (Internet Access). So without any lines in use, you can use the full bandwidth for Internet.    A Voice T1 uses all channels for phone service leaving nothing for data.

Fully Hosted Managed means we’ve got you covered.  Customer decision-making concerning the appropriate instances to use managed telecommunications services traditionally focused on the availability of internal resources, only rarely taking into account business needs and overall cost structures. New approaches now place greater emphasis on the overall benefits and additional flexibility that can be achieved through the selective use of managed telecommunications services. Customers should use providers that can deliver positive ROI, given appropriate IT and business contexts, and that can demonstrate deep, relevant managed services expertise in exactly the technologies and functions of interest. Bloor Research reports that businesses can save up to 40% in telecom expenses with a switch from a conventional system to Hosted PBX.

More companies are turning to an outsourced approach to telecom, choosing Hosted PBX for a number of compelling reasons:

• No up-front costs or large capital investment
• Simplified, turnkey service
• Simple implementation
• Flexible control
• Built-in redundancy
• Robust features
• Disaster recovery
• Custom Softare Integration
• Scalability
• No ongoing maintenance / upgrades
• Continuous support

Phone Systems are a vital piece of every business.  Choosing the right model, identifying which features are needed, comparing the prices, installation and follow up are just some of the services we provide for your phone system.   We offer all types and models from Analog, Digital to IP, ie: ShoreTel, Cisco, Toshiba, Samsung and more.

Across industries, companies of all sizes are embracing Unified Communications-the Integrated delivery of Voice, Data and Video to accomplish four critical goals.

More companies are turning to an outsourced approach to telecom, choosing Hosted PBX for a number of compelling reasons:

• Improve employee productivity by transforming the way people communicate
• Integrate the communication system into business processes
• Deliver communication services with superior reliability and availability
• Reduce capital and operating expenditures

We offer systems that deliver high-performance Pure IP Communications:    We have IP phone systems that delivers breakthrough unified communications solutions that can help you achieve all of these goals and more.   A leading Pure IP solution redefines the traditional phone system to offer:

• Extremely high levels of scalability, reliability and availability that meet the needs of global enterprise, and
  small and medium businesses
• Exceptional ease of installation, management and use
• Accessibility by mobile users, transferring the full productivity of their office environment to their mobile
   phones
• Lower total costs of ownership.

One Network, countless benefits:   A pure IP phone system distributed architecture provides a single image system for business sites spanning any geography.  It’s  the foundation of a Pure IP solution:  Easy to use and maintain, and a catalyst for productivity gains.

A Unified Communications (UC) system offers complete features transparency across your enterprise.  Gone are the days of multiple PBX’s and separate systems for voice-mail, automated attendant and Automatic Call Distribution.  With a UC system, the phone system is distributed, the voice applications are integrated and the management interface is outstanding.

Purpose built for scalability and reliability:   The UC system encompasses phones, switches, and software designed for easy deployment, rapid flexibility and world class IP communications.  Some phone systems incorporate a switch based hardware platform and a distributed architecture makes each switch and site an independent call processor that continues to operate seamlessly in the event of a wide area network (WAN) failure.   Some phones systems have architectured in a way to where all servers can be disconnected from the switches and the phone system will continue to place and receive calls.

POTS stands for Plain Old Telephone Service.  These are regular analog  business phone lines that come into your home or office on traditional copper cable pair.  Features such as Caller ID, Call Waiting, Three-Way Calling, Voice Mail,  etc. can all be added to these types of phone lines.  The easiest way to understand this service is to think of the traditional land lines like you have in your home.

POTS phone lines are usually priced in three different ways.  First are your basic analog phone lines where you pay for each phone call.  Some areas have a local calling area built into the price, and some areas charge for each phone call on a per-minute or per-call basis called measured lines.  The another package includes local and local toll calls.  These are typically calls that are within about 25 miles from your location or Central Office.  Finally, the fastest growing types of POTS lines are the all-inclusive type.  These can give you unlimited local, local toll, and/or long distance.

Deciding which type of phone line is best for you should be left to an expert consulting firm such as TeleConsult Solutions.  We will take a look at your calling patterns and provide recommendations on which lines are best for your unique situation.  We find that people typically over spend on the most expensive all-inclusive lines, when a better option would be to split the long distance services to another carrier that can save companies significant money on a monthly basis.  This decision should be based upon actual usage, and is a calculation that Teleconsult Solutions will provide a Savings Analysis comparing the numbers side by side.
Note that POTS lines are typically best for companies of eight employees or less, and for back-up emergency lines for larger systems.  For larger companies see PRI T1, Integrated T1, VoIP and SIP Trunking for telephony services that are better for larger companies.

Long Distance rides the local line that you purchase from the local carriers…The Picc code that is assigned is the identifier to the LD carriers network that the local hands off to when you push a 1+ to make a Long Distance call.   The rates vary from state to state and there are two Long Distance rates, Interstate and a rate for Intrastate dialing.   It is extremely important to analyze your traffic distribution to determine where your long distance calling patterns are.   At Teleconsult Solutions, we take that information and put it into a Savings Analysis tool and provide you a breakout of your minute usage to determine the exact costs.   Unlimited LD plans sound great but sometimes are not the best option.   Don’t get tricked by a  low Interstate rate because more times, the Intrastate rate is double or even triple the cost of the Interstate rate.    And all the fees need to be considered when comparing on which Long Distance plan is the most cost effective and reliable application.

Each month there are countless customers who are paying fees that they were never made aware of.  Many are charged far too much for long distance calls.   This is especially true for International dialing.   We at Teleconsult Solutions research all aspects of the telecommunication “bill”.  Many times, customers are quoted this low rate and there is no mention of all the fees that drive the costs up.

Toll Free WATS 800 Numbers are a personal or  business toll free number (also referred to as a “800” number) is a service where the person that is calling the Toll Free does not pay the call, rather the business that publishes the Toll Free number pays for the call.   This allows your customers to call you at no cost to them.  This is a cost effective alternative to calling collect or having calling cards. Toll Free numbers start with 800, 888, 877, 866, and soon to be 855.
Toll Free numbers are crucial for businesses that need to extend their reach beyond the region they work.   Affordable and user-friendly, Toll Free numbers can bring in large number of callers and enhance your business and to establish your business presence throughout the nation.

A Toll Free number lets you establish virtual contact centers in any part of the United States.  That means you can operate the business from your own location or any other state in the US.

In the Integrated Service Digital Network (ISDN), there are two levels of service: The Basic Rate Interface (BRI), intended for the home and small enterprise, and the Primary Rate Interface (PRI), for larger users.  Both rates include a number of B-Channels and a D-Channel. Each B-Channel carries data, voice and other services.  The D-Channel carriers control and signaling information.   Primary Rate Interface (PRI) is a switched service delivered OVER a T1 connection . If someone were to say “I want to order a PRI to location X.” What is being requested is a connection to a trunk side module capable of ISDN protocol to a Telco switch delivered to location X via a DS1 rate (T1) circuit.

The Primary Rate Interface channels are carried on a T-Carrier system line (in the US, Canada, and Japan) or an E-carrier line (in other countries) and are typically used by medium to large enterprises.  The 23 (or30) B-Channels can be used flexibly and reassigned when necessary to meet special needs such as video conferences and the capability to have Caller ID Name and Number.   The Primary Rate user is hooked up directly to the telephone company central office.

Originally T1 services were provided by the phone companies as a way to transport 24 analog lines over two twisted pairs of wires.  They never intended on selling dedicated T1 lines to customers.  They were initially just a cost saving method of internal delivery for the phone service.

As technology changed, the PRI T1 has become very popular to businesses.  It is a dynamic circuit that has 23 trunks (lines) and 1 data channel.  PRI T1’s are able to switch the function of each trunk dynamically as phone calls are made which provides considerable flexibility.

There are several aspects to Telecommunication Expense Management (TEM).   What TEM does is collectively have all the Telecom invoices for Wireline and / or Wireless centralized into a platform that the invoices are audited for accuracy each month.  If a discrepancy is discovered, the invoice is flagged and is investigated further to determine if it needs to be submitted to the carrier for dispute.

TEM tracks these discrepancies and the TEM provider does all the management of the invoices.

An evaluation is needed to determine “who, what, where, when and how” regarding a customers Telecom, IT and Accounting Departments.  Not all TEM’s are alike so based on the cust needs, the correct TEM is provided.

TEM has been able to locate inappropriate billing charges and disputed with the carriers which there has been situations where approximately 28 percent of the existing telecom budget was freed up for new investments.   TEM finds money in the customer existing telecom invoices.

What TEM Does:

• Provides a centralized inventory of all the Telecom Expenses, Invoices, History, etc.
• Inventory Audit Management
• Automated Procurement Management
• Mobile Phone Policy Management
• Budget / Forecast
• IRS Compliance

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a general term for a family of transmission technologies for delivery of voice communications over IP networks such as the Internet or other packet-switched networks. Other terms frequently encountered and synonymous with VOIP are IP telephony, Internet telephony, voice over broadband (VoBB), broadband telephony, and broadband phone.

Internet telephony refers to communications services — voice, facsimile, and/or voice-messaging applications — that are transported via the Internet, rather than the public switched telephone network (PSTN). The basic steps involved in originating an Internet telephone call are conversion of the analog voice signal to digital format and compression/translation of the signal into Internet protocol (IP) packets for transmission over the Internet; the process is reversed at the receiving end.[1]

VOIP systems employ session control protocols to control the set-up and tear-down of calls as well as audio codecs which encode speech allowing transmission over an IP network as digital audio via an audio stream. Codec use is varied between different implementations of VOIP (and often a range of codecs are used); some implementations rely on narrowband and compressed speech, while others support high fidelity stereo codecs.

So basically VoIP services convert your voice into a digital signal that travels over the Internet. If you are calling a regular phone number, the signal is converted to a regular telephone signal before it reaches the destination.  VoIP can allow you to make a call directly from your computer, a special VoIP phone or a traditional phone connected to a special adapter.   In addition, wireless “hot spots” in locations such as airports, parks, cafes allow you to connect to the Internet and may enable you to use VoIP service wirelessly.

Protocols that you will want to have on a VoIP application are Class of Service and Quality of Service.  Class of Service or CoS, is the ability to tag IP packets with a priority.  Just like a US Postal Service, mail and packets must have a system that recognizes the tagging or labeling to ensure timely delivery.  Equipment must have the ability to queue lower packets or Quality of Service is not achieved because of repeated packet transmission.

Quality of Service or QoS, is the architecting of the IP network to ensure your Class of Service is recognized throughout the network, and the proper IP packets are delivered where and when they are suppose to be.  Typically, in a converged network, the priority is set to:

1. Voice
2. Video
3. Data

About the Networks – VoIP Public versus Private:

Two networks are used to transmit IP, Public and Private networks.   A public network has little or no controls on the quality of delivery of your IP packets.  Think of it as throwing your mail into a mail bin and having everything stamped “bulk rate”.   A private network is owned and /or controllled by someone who can choose to enable the network with intelligence to sort the packets.  This would be like putting in a system to enable priority, first class, second class, bulk and libary rate mail.  Sometimes this system is referred to as Class of Service.

• Public Network VoIP Transport
• Semi-Public Network VoIP Transport
• Private Network VoIP Transport with QoS

These are the different flavors of VoIP that are very important to understand to determine what VoIP application is right for your business!