Phi Data is in the business of providing and supporting telephone systems for small to medium size businesses wether they be traditional or VoIP enabled. That said we recognise that this model of voice communications is in flux at the moment and we will see change in the future. In the main the model employed for VoIP telephone systems is almost the same as your old telephone analogue/digital system. I believe this will end (or at least reduce). Take note, applications are going mobile, applications are available anywhere. There is a big push to deliver SaaS (Software as a Service) to all businesses. With the likes of Google Docs, Office 365, Dropbox, Salesforce, etc. providing all you need to get your business up and running with minimum cost, it is clear that you can also use Hosted VoIP as TaaS (Telephony as a Service). The problem is that there are many obstacles that can prevent Hosted VoIP working reliably. Unless you have control of all the networking elements, you can be fairly sure that your hosted VoIP solution will not produce the magical 5 9′s (99.999%)reliability achieved by an onsite telephone system. There are just too many devices and processes in place to prevent it working reliably. 1. Does your computer network provide the enviroment required for hosted VoIP? Your network switch needs to provide priority and/or a seperate VLAN to the VoIP handsets/Software. Probably the biggest spanner in the works could be wether your router can adequately reserve enough bandwidth for VoIP traffic to flow unhindered to and from your network. If your network switch does not support PoE (Power over Ethernet), you may require additional mains sockets for the required power adators for the phone. 2.The Network outside of your control Most SMB’s have a standard broadband connections to the internet. This may suffice for your Hosted VoIP service, but you have to remember that you are on a shared connection and the actions of others can affect the quality of calls. In the main you will have 50 people business/individuals sharing your broadband connection (contention ratio). Ideally you want the connection to yourself or reduce the number of others sharing it. 20:1 is a start, 5:1 is good and 1:1 is the aim. Obviously reducing the contentions ratio cost money. Your broadband speed will also define the success of your hosted VoIP. If you are at the far reaches of your local BT exchange I suspect you will have difficulty implementing Hosted VoIP. In addition if the quality of the BT cable entering you building is poor, you may struggle. I would usually recommend a minimum of 4mb download and 1 mb upload speeds for your broadband. Just as important to speed is latency (the time it takes for data to get to where it is going). The maximum in theory is 150ms. I subscribe to 80ms maximum. you can do a quick test using http://pingtest.net. Ultimately the best thing you can do is select a broadband provider whose network is optimised for VoIP only. 3. Selecting your hosted VoIP provider This is a little bugbear for me. My only real suggestion is to select a provider who has the technical ability to build thier platform without relying on external contractors. This means that they will always know exactly what is broken immediately should something happen. There are plenty of hosted PBX’s built by consultants. Make sure the exact features required by you can be provided by the VoIP provider. Make sure you find a provider who is willing to advise you (or your IT chappie) on how to set up your network correctly to optimise the experience you have with them. It is strange times that sees the acceptability of inferior voice communications quality to your ol’e BT line, while we have the technology to provide a superior service in VoIP AKPC_IDS += "95,";Popularity: 18% [?] Read More →
Hoax virus calls Just had my first hoax virus call. The caller said he was caller on behave of Microsoft and that they have identified vulnerabilities on my computer. Being in telecoms I found it strange that the call was from El Salvador(+503xxxx) but the caller had an Indian/Pakistani accent. I decided to play along with their game. Please whatever you do, If this happens hang up on the call and absolutely do not turn on your computer and follow their instructions. 1. They asked to go to my computer so that they can show me the virus. I replied OK ,but which computer is the virus on. 2. He replied all the computers. I asked was the virus on the computers at work or home. 3. He then asked for me to go to any computer again and go to a website I did so with my mobile phone (knowing full well that the website would contain viruses only for a PC). 4. He asked if I could see the viruses on screen I said no 5. Are you sure you are at the right website I said yes 6.Call Ends. Please be careful out there. There are bad people out there trying to relieve you of your money. Detailed Hoax description The bogus callers attempt to trick those they call into going to their computers and opening a website, ostensibly as part of the procedure for fixing the supposed virus. However, once on this website, they will be tricked into downloading and installing Trojans and other malware that can allow criminals access to the compromised computer and harvest personal and financial information. The victim may also be tricked into parting with credit card details, ostensibly in order to purchase software supposedly needed to “fix” the computer problem. AKPC_IDS += "92,";Popularity: 27% [?] Read More →
I’ll put my hands up we have a vested interest in recommending AVG anti-virus tools to PC users, but I also have to give best advice and sometimes this comes into conflict with our commercial side of our business. One such conflict is the much talked of ‘what is the best anti-virus product. In most cases I am happy to recommend AVG, but if you want a free anti-virus product, I would consider Microsoft Security Essentials There is one limitation (in our opinion) in that it does not scan emails, but if you use one of the better email services (google, yahoo, etc) the emails have already been scanned for viruses. It just seems to us that as a free anti-virus product MSE seems to be more integrated into the windows operating system. Our comparison test seems to indicate that it has less impact on the system resources, when doing a full scan and is less intrusive than the other anti-virus products available. Bullet points 1. Microsoft Security Essentials is one of the simplest and easiest to use anti-malware tools around. 2. It’s quick, unobtrusive and works without slowing your PC down. 3. Malware is caught quickly, and the default actions work well for most users. 4. It’s a small download, and keeps itself up to date, 5. and above all, it’s free – with no need to register or re-register. Caveats Make sure your emails are scanned for viruses before you recieve them on your PC Make sure you set a daily scan when the PC is on. Give it a go AKPC_IDS += "89,";Popularity: 16% [?] Read More →
I would just like to remind business owners of their responsibilities when allowing employees to use the internet. I recommend any business owner to protect themselves as much as possible from the indiscretions of their employees, when they give them access to the internet at the office. I would usually advise any company to produce an ‘IT acceptable usage policy’, so that there is an agreement between you the business owner and your employees as to what is deemed appropriate usage of the internet and emails. This would usually be deemed you first line of defence should the authorities come looking for someone at the office who has spent an inordinate amount of time downloading illegal software and films or has sent inappropriate emails. Now that BT have been ordered to block links to certain sites it could well be the slippery slope for businesses to do the same. BT as the facilitator of providing internet access has been ordered to block these sites. What about your business as the facilitator to your employees? I am sure that if BT has lost this case, you would more than likely lose the case as well. What next? I will now have to recommend to our clients that as well as providing an ‘IT acceptable usage policy’ to your employees, you will also need to employ some technology to deter your employees being able to access such sites and filter outgoing emails If you need a template for an ‘IT acceptable usage policy’ give us a shout www.phi.co.uk AKPC_IDS += "86,";Popularity: 13% [?] Read More →
Am I missing something here? I thought telephones were a tool for communication. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, SMS, etc are all great at helping people be more socialable and helps businesses create a more personal connection with people interested in their products. AKPC_IDS += "84,";Popularity: 95% [?] Read More →
I have been with my current mobile phone provider for years and have served me well, but when I have occasion to travel to London via train, I am incommunicado for the whole trip. AKPC_IDS += "82,";Popularity: 2% [?] Read More →
Banbury Internet radio, kindly invited me onto the Banbury business show for an IT related discussion. So we had a chat about the topic of the day, Phone Hacking. AKPC_IDS += "77,";Popularity: 1% [?] Read More →
Need to start biggin’ Phi up a bit more. We are just to polite when it comes to business. AKPC_IDS += "72,";Popularity: 2% [?] Read More →
Is you current telecom provider adopting a ‘penny wise pound foolish’ attitude towards your company? I have seen plenty of examples recently, where some of the bigger telecom line providers are offering thier ever so great make calls for up to an hour for 10p (25p for mobile calls) capped. Do you have an hour to waste on each telephone call? The average length of call is 3.15 minutes and 1.81 minutes for mobile calls. These company’s would have you believe they are doing you a wonderful favour by helping you save some extra pennies per call. but when you do the math, they are still charging you more or less the same as they did before. Believe it or not you can still make a 1 sec mobile call and have it cost you 11.5p with a popular provider. With all that in mind you should review your phone bills every 6 months and apply the following. Make sure you have access to itemised billing (free of charge). Check a 3 minute individual landline call and see how much it costs you. If it is more than 6p, it’s time to give Phi a call. Total up the minutes you have used and divide them between the number of calls made. If the result is less than 5 minutes, it’s time to give Phi a call. If you are one of those on these wonderful deals, ask accounts to compare bills before and after this great deal. If you have not saved at least 25%, it’s time to give Phi a call. If you feel that your phone bill is excessive, it’s time to give Phi a call. Phi Data 03333 440884 AKPC_IDS += "65,";Popularity: 57% [?] Read More →
Cloud services are all the rage at the moment. All the big players are at it in one form or another. Google Apps, Microsoft Office 365, Yahoo Mail, Dropbox, etc all provide a cloud service at one level our another. So we have a convenient way to access documents, emails, photos, videos, files, but what happens if something goes wrong. Now I know all the proponents of Cloud computing will testify that the level of security and data protection will ensure that your data is totally safe and I am sure they have confidence in their systems. But should you have total confidence cloud computing. You need to way up the convenience of using cloud computing and the implications of how you would be affected should your cloud computing application not be available for a length of time or worst still your data/files are totally lost in the ether. I would suggest to you, simply remember what happened to the Sony Playstation Network, Google mail missing emails and other high profile outages. I myself fell victim to this by relying on a high profile mobile service to provide my personal email address. The email address I was using was only known to my family and closest friends. The provider announced that the service is to be taken over by another provider. It then transpires that the new provider was not able to incorporate my email address and I would lose all emails. The mistake I made was not using a normal email app to download my emails to my PC and thus all emails were lost and contacts were no longer available. If your data/files are important, keep them close to you and back them up, because no one else will protect them as much as you will. AKPC_IDS += "61,";Popularity: 11% [?] Read More →
