Voice over IP works great over WiFi like I’ve blogged before. If you’re in an office and need to have Wifi coverage for only a small area, pretty much any WiFi access point (WAP) works. When you start considering covering an entire campus or several acres of property with a signal, you have to have specific equipment in place.

There are many manufacturers that make WAPs that can be configured in a mesh configuration, Aruba, Cisco, Orinoco and Juniper come to mind, but these are all high dollar WAPs. When you’re on a budget, look no further than companies providing devices for small/home business, like D-Link and Netgear. Netgear actually uses technology licensed from Aruba, but I’m not a big fan of Netgear, I’ve had too many bad experiences with their products.

D-Link makes both indoor and outdoor devices that can be used in a variety of configurations including Wireless Distribution System (WDS). -Link’s DWL line of WAPs, specifically DWL-8200AP, DWL-3200AP, DWL-7700AP and DWL-2700AP do a great job of covering your campus in a wireless mesh.

It’s always a good idea to not have too many wireless hops, use hard links via cable whenever possible to keep you latency low. If you need to deploy a large number of WAPs (I’m talking about 500) then it’s always a good idea to go with a company that specializes in this area like Aruba. As the number of WAPs increases, so does the need for a better management solution.

I’ll blog about management solutions and interfaces in another blog.

“Your PBXtra server and all associated hardware will arrive pre-configured and tested from Fonality. Once you have it in hand, your PBXtra server will need to be connected to the Internet via an Ethernet cable. You will also need to configure your PBXtra server to work on your network in accordance with our PBXtra Installation Guide” This will include assigning your PBXtra Server a static IP address, setting up and plugging in your phones, and then entering all of your user information for each phone extension. After that, you will need to configure how you want your PBXtra to handle your incoming calls through the Fonality Web-Admin tool. These last two steps, adding user information for each phone, and configuring your queues and call treatments, will require access to a PC on the internet with a web-browser (You can not use the PBXtra Server itself as it has no web-browser). That’s it! If you have any issues with your installation, our Customer Care Team is just an email or a phone call away! Also, with each PBXtra shipment, we schedule an Installation and Training appointment to ensure that your server is set up correctly, to answer any of your remaining installation questions, and to show you how to use the most common features your new phone system.” This excerpt from Fonality’s website FAQ section would lead you to believe that the PBXtra installation is a very straight forward procedure and the end user can set up a PBXtra up without technical help.

Phone systems are complex and business critical and as with any other phone system PBXtra requires you to thoroughly understand your current infrastructure and business process. I have yet to see a Fonality install where local technical help was not required and end user was able to get the system successfully running. What’s more troubling is the fact that I have seen Fonality systems that were not correctly configured before being shipped to customer site. Lot of times end nodes have been delivered with wrong IP information to connect to a phone system that does not exist.

Before you get excited about ordering a system and setting it up, get technical help, perform an assessment, build your call routing on paper before you even place the order. Find out what kind of routers, firewalls and VPN devices you already have on the network. Find out if your network switches have enough bandwidth to be used for voice, if you have network hubs instead of switches, replace them! If you are replacing your network hubs with switches, look into getting POE (power over Ethernet) switches, so your voice communication keeps working even if there is a power failure. Think about how will people call emergency services if need when the main power is out.

Get a good UPS (uninterruptible power supply) for your phone system, something that can keep the system and end nodes running for couple of hours in case of power blackout. Remember, UPS systems need to be checked every year to make sure they are able to handle the power load.

Proper planning and the right help can make your new phone system installation a positive experience and at times can even give you insight into your processes where they can be improved.

Lets face it, most small businesses won’t be implementing an elaborate voice system comprising of various components like Cisco Unified Communications Manager, Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express, and all the related hardware and additional software.

To ease the implementation for small business and lower the cost while providing more value, Cisco has come out with the UC500 appliance which does not require a Windows Server (it’s stand alone) and can be bundled with a POE Switch, WiFi Access Point and Voice in a nice, tightly integrated package.

It is inevitable, companies will be looking to integrate UC500 with their Exchange 2007 infrastructure. The good news is, UC500 can work with Exchange 2007 UM with some configuration. You have to make sure the UC500 can see the Exchange 2007 server, you have to allow h323 to h323, h323 to sip, sip to h323 and sip to sip. You have to setup dial-peer and define the IP of the Exchange 2007 server. Remember the codec is g711ulaw, and you should be good to go.

The actual configuration can require a little effort but is easliy doable, remember to apply Exchange 2007 SP1 before even trying!

Why would people want VoIP client on a handheld that is already a cell phone? VoIP clients can provide additional enhanced services specific to your organization, lower your per call costs and even provide you with unlimited minutes as long as you have unlimited internet access.

You know I don’t like Skype much, but it has to get it’s due. Skype has a version for Windows PocketPC that works on Windows Mobile. You can download the software for free from here.

Wifive323 is another soft phone for Windows Mobile. Wifive323 is available for download for free but the free version has an annoying beep every 10 seconds. Wifive323 can be downloaded from here.

SJPhone is available for PC or for mobile devices. This means if you use the same client on your PC and your handheld, you won’t need to learn a new interface. SJPhone can be downloaded from here.

Before you go about installing any of these clients, be sure your handheld has enough processing power.

Phone systems based on the venerable Asterisk are prolific in the market. Most companies boast about their phone system being based on Open Source software, but that’s as open as these companies are. When investing in a new phone system, you have to do due diligence if the phone company charges you a license per each device that connects to the system or not.

Most companies are clear and tell prospective customers exactly what they’ll have to pay to add additional nodes to their network, some companies, however, try to hide this fact and call their licenses a maintenance license or support contract.

Call this fee what ever you want, it’s still a license fee per device! Trying to hide this fact will just give you a bunch of angry customers. I’ve encountered many a pissed off customer due to this practice by a well known phone system provider, so when I talk to prospects I lay it out straight, call this fee whatever but in the end, you have to per for each device you want to connect to the phone system and you can’t just get an off the shelf SIP phone and get it connected.

Softphone is a piece of software that you run on your computer. This software performs the functions of a phone set, with the added benefit of upgrading the interface and feature set as you please.

There are several types of softphones available, some free, some cost money and some are open source. Here is a linkto an article I wrote previously about softphones.

If you’ve tested softphones and found that the quality is sometimes not as good as a hard phone then you’re not alone. The simple reason being, hard phones are usually tested with your phone system and use the same codecsas the phone system while softphones are so easy to configure and by default may not have the matching configuration that works best with your PBX.

Some things to look for to improve voice quality are to make sure you use the proper codecs on your softphone, that you’re PC is connected to a switch that supports QoS and that you’re not running other CPU intensive applications that can disrupt the encoding process on the softphone. If you are implement traffic prioritization, then make sure your computer is plugged into a port that prioritizes for voice.

If you’ve worked with VoIP, then you already know the tremendous savings you can enjoy. There are numerous companies, campuses and organizations that have enjoyed tremendous cost savings, boost in productivity and even entered new markets because of this technology.

A huge cost saving and productivity boost can be gained by integrating your CRM system with your phone system. This is especially true, if not a requirement for any call center. Now you can automate processes that you had to perform manually and eliminate procedures that were prone to human error. For example, a customer calls in to a call center, the customer caller ID is logged and matched up with CRM system that automatically pulls up account information. The call center agent types in the details of the call without having to hunt for customer specific information as it’s already on the screen.

Think about the up-sell potential if you can see past order history immediately as you pickup a call from a customer, you can also convert disgruntled customers to loyal ones by taking care of issues they’ve called about in the past. A simple thing like wishing someone a happy birthday can go a long way, only if your phone system is integrated with your CRM system.

Almost all VoIP phone system allow simple integration with CRM systems. These phone systems make calls to the CRM system via simple URL requests, which means integration is easy and you can connect with almost any modern  CRM system. Saleforce.com even allows integration with Skype!

What is the difference between Comcast and any other VoIP phone service? Granted Comcast VoIP is certified in Harris county to carry fire alarm calls, beyond that it really doesn’t matter whether you are using Comcast’s phone service or if you sign up with a third party like Lingo or Vonage.

Out of all of these providers, I’ve found Lingo to provide the best service and best rates, especially for international calls. Keep in mind, your phone service is only going to be as good as your internet service. If you experience latency issues or huge lag times, as many Comcast customers have experienced, then VoIP may not be such a good idea.

Here’s a quick test, if you have a windows machine click Start, Run and type in CMD then press enter. At the prompt, type in “ping www.google.com -n 30″ without the quotes.

Note the column that starts with “time=”. If these times vary too much and are really high like 190ms or higher then VoIP may not be a good idea. If you get any “request timed out”, then again VoIP may not be a good idea.

I switched from Roadrunner (before it became Time Warner and then Comcast) to a Cbeyond BV1 package because of up time issues and response times. The BV1 package comes with a service level agreement so it’s not just a best effort service but a guaranteed service.

For companies that are thinking about deploying Mitel 3300 IP Communication Platform, if you have Exchange 2007, then you might want to consider integrating the two. Like some 3CX the 3300 does not require any gateway for Exchange 2007 integration:

Mitel’s embedded SIP integration eliminates the need for a separate SIP gateway as a go-between from a 3300 ICP SIP connection to an Exchange Server 2007 resulting in support for multiple forms of Unified Communications including voice, email and fax. Mitel can deliver this capability to existing 3300 ICP customers through a software upgrade that simply delivers the SIP server’s (gateway) functionality resulting in reduced complexity, time and cost for our customers. Native support of SIP on the 3300 ICP enables customers to take full advantage of the deployment of open standards and maximize their investment either in a Mitel or a multi-vendor environment that supports an open standards approach.
-Mitel.com

The question on people’s mind considering telephony upgrades is whether a softswitch is better than hardware based switch.

Softswitch is a phone system based on software. The benefits of using only software for such a task are huge, you can upgrade software easily, you make changes on the fly and with abundance of high power low cost x86 machines, you can get the whole thing setup on the cheap!

In the past, PBX companies had to come up with hardware to do the switching, this kept switch prices high and required manufacturer trained people to perform maintenance as interfaces were not as user friendly and the smallest of enhancements required a special card or some piece of hardware.

3CX is a softswitch that runs on top of Windows. You can use Windows XP, 2000 or 2003. It is bundled with Apache web server for admin interface and Postgressql to provide a back end database.

This software has a very small foot print and is a breeze to configure. Unlike some other open source based closed systems,  you can use any off the shelf SIP phone with no license or certificate giving you more flexibility. As stated in my previous post, 3CX integrates very well with Exchange 2007 UM and combine it with a SIPConnect telco connection and you’ve got a scalable, reliable, high performance phone system built using components you can replace from any computer store.