Getting Past The PRI: Bring Your Own QOS

The next phase of EtherSpeak’s SIP Trunking for ShoreTel, Microsoft OCS / Lync, Cisco, Allworx, Zultys and others customers is about providing options for Quality of Service delivered, without complexity, to enterprise Wide Area Network customers. An Enterprise wide-area-network solution that makes sense, is standards based, solid service level agreements and now may be delivered as a heterogeneous solution.

With EtherSpeak, the SIP provider and MPLS provider can now be bridged between different carrier MPLS networks. Although customers want great savings, they also demand flexibility and reliability – with contract based (SLA) assurances that the call goes through reliably, securely and in the highest quality manner as possible. EtherSpeak now provides connectivity options either via customer purchase of an EtherSpeak / Level 3 based MPLS network – or simply by adding EtherSpeak’s major SIP gateways as a site on an existing Tier 1 MPLS network from providers like Verizon / MCI; AT&T; ACC Business and Paetec (some restrictions and limitations may apply).

What is Quality of Service? Taken from Wikipedia, “In the field of computer networking and other packet-switched telecommunication networks, the traffic engineering term quality of service (QoS) refers to resource reservation control mechanisms rather than the achieved service quality. Quality of service is the ability to provide different priority to different applications, users, or data flows, or to guarantee a certain level of performance to a data flow. For example, a required bit rate, delay, jitter, packet dropping probability and/or bit error rate may be guaranteed. Quality of service guarantees are important if the network capacity is insufficient, especially for real-time streaming multimedia applications such as voice over IP, online games and IP-TV, since these often require fixed bit rate and are delay sensitive, and in networks where the capacity is a limited resource, for example in cellular data communication”.

EtherSpeak's Bring Your Own QOS...

What makes our approach different? You can buy an EtherSpeak / Level 3 Communications powered MPLS network. You may also simply add EtherSpeak SIP Points of Presence to your existing (tier one) MPLS network. Simply add our data center sites by contacting your existing carrier and adding (one or more) of our SIP sites to your customer MPLS network primarily for sending and receiving SIP based SDP and RTP traffic. We will “plug” into your customer network from one of major data center locations that are geographically dispersed. Never has there been such a capability for providing customers next generation voice, fax and video origination and termination with such vendor agnostic approach.

Our MPLS provides a unique mix of core services:
1) Private wide area network with quality / class of service guarantees
2) Availability of Internet injected over MPLS
3) Capability for effectively eliminating the need for PRI, POTs and Fax lines throughout your multi-site enterprise enabling huge savings; enhanced security (MPLS is encrypted); Everything you need for high-quality voice by moving to SIP with QOS.

If you are interested in more information, give us a call at (703) 221-9999 and we will schedule a webinar to discuss your needs and help you calculate the savings for moving your voice, fax and video traffic to EtherSpeak’s nimble, reliable and diverse SIP network powered by Level 3 Communications.

Sincerely,

Neil Darling
EtherSpeak

What if we all reduced our spend by $40 per fax machine?

Would that save jobs in our economy?
September, 1 2010
Vol 1, Issue 9

Greetings:

I think saving and cutting senseless expense is certainly a corporate priority – and to some, even a civic responsibility.

According to the “Internet” and answers.google.com, worldwide there’s about 100 million fax machines in use. Additionally, the experts on the “Internet” estimate that 90% of businesses have (at a minimum) one fax machine plugged into a phone line.

What’s that factoid mean to us at EtherSpeak? Well, if EtherSpeak strives to cut $40 per month from everyone’s fax bill – we would be saving the world $4 Billion per month. Just doing our part! So, If everyone in the world would just sign up for our iEtherFax service, we’ll get started (please pass this email around to get us started if you don’t mind)!

Accordingly, I’d like to think if everyone would make it a priority to cut the senseless fax expense in their domain – it might be one “easy” way that we free-up that money for more sensible things.

On the lighter side, there is an excitement in the air for saving money, cutting back, squeezing a little tighter, and just doing more with less. It’s not what we like to do – it’s just what has to be done.
So, when would saving money be exciting? The answer is simple: When savings is found in unexpected places – it’s fun to find it!

Do you know how much you organization may be wasting on faxing each month? Some of our small to mid-size customers have savings approaching over $10,000 / month by streamlining their fax expense with the help of iEtherFax’s cloud based offerings.

iEtherFax is the most cost-effective, open-standards based solution for fax line replacement on the market today. Need a fax machine line replaced – just $12.95; Want to add a fax to email for your sales team today – only $12.95; Want to fax invoices from your accounting server – yep, still $12.95.
Savings is the key to the squeeze: Need to reduce your fax operating expense by 60% to 80% without spending thousands? Just call us at (866) Ether-IP today.

Is it difficult to implement? No. No consultant will visit. In fact, we may have you up and running as fast as it takes you to open the box, plug in the power, the fax machine cord and the Ethernet cable. That’s right, zero end-user configuration – when the green light comes on – you are ready to send and receive faxes over almost ANY Internet connection. Open-standards never worked so well together (SIP, T.38 & SSL)! We ABSOLUTELY guarantee your satisfaction with how this service performs – not happy, simply return it to us within 30-days for a full refund.

Wait, it get’s better, when you elect to leverage EtherSpeak’s Premier SIP voice bundle – we’ll throw the fax in – no more per page limits! The bundle provides combined voice and fax minutes billed in 6-second increments with local number availability throughout most of the USA, Canada and large portions of the United Kingdom! Bundles provide from 50 to 150 simultaneous call and fax paths and from 5,000 to 100,000 minute fax / voice minute bundles. Best part, they start at only $99 per month.

Now is the time to get the fax for savings – the iEtherFax!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fax-Over-IP: Now Coming to a City Near You (Reliable, Secure and Cheap)

The next generation in fax technology is here. Introducing EtherSpeak’s newly enhanced iEtherFax, an industry first in reliable, secure and affordable fax technology.

iEtherFax provides an easy, effective and (some might say) dirt-cheap way to connect your team while almost eliminating your expense for fax. Imagine one solution for fax machines, fax-to-email; fax-to-server all in one secure, reliable and cost-effective communications-as-a-service offering from EtherSpeak, the industry leader in standards-based IP communications solutions.

Service is available in the USA, Canada and the UK. Call us today to check on the availability of service in your area, state or province. Want a quick overview of the most exciting fax cloud offering available?
Go to

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Why Combining SIP Voice and Fax Is Going to Save Customers BIG!

The promise of unified communications is value. Value through making process alignment easier; value through savings on your monthly expense; value through enhancing the customer experience, with combining the investment in your new unified communications technology and all the nifty features UC brings, in a seamless way.

Fortunately, fax-over-IP is still a key component of how we communicate with our customers and suppliers. If you have yet to discover how affordable, secure and reliable fax-over-IP can be for your organization – without regard for your old, or new UC / phone system – please sign-up for a no-obligation iEtherFax trial!
We guarantee you will be thrilled that you did. In fact, our fax machine integration maybe completed within 60 seconds from the time you open the box.

After all, signing up is the first-step to savings.

Click to Order a New iEtherFax No-obligation Trial

Call Us at
866-ETHER-IP

As you can tell, we are very excited about the value of SIP. I encourage you to find out what all the excitement is about. Call us, write us, come visit us at our next event, but learn where the savings are – just get the fax!

Sincerely,

Neil Darling
EtherSpeak
(866) Ether-IP / (866) 384-3747

Hostifying IP PBX? The Advantages and Challenges of Evolving to Recurring Revenue Solutions

Some of our most innovative EtherSpeak resellers have begun to leverage EtherSpeak SIP for enabling a new “recurring” revenue stream – IP PBX Hosting. Not sure if you thought about offering a hosted version of what you are authorized to sell – but if you decide to do it – a good communications-as-a-service provider can help you overcome some significant hurdles to get the new line of business running.

It typically goes like this: Customer is reluctant to buy the new phone system because they got killed in the past on some of the hidden costs like annual maintenance; network upgrades; monthly move-adds-change fees and possibly maintaining overhead for tech staff qualified to manage the new Unified Communications system.

So, the reseller says “OK, this time around, I won’t sell you our new (insert your brand here – ShoreTel, Cisco, Zultys, Vertical, NEC, etc.) system Mr. Customer – I will rent it to you.” Customer nods, “In return, you pay me a fixed or variable price per seat for a defined term – usually one to three years.” Customer likes it (he doesn’t have to buy nearly as much), and the reseller closes the deal, sells / rents the customer some IP handsets and other network gear necessary to run the solution properly – and everyone is happy! But wait, then the reseller considers a few things on the way home – he/she just took responsibility for the customer’s communications – soup to nuts! Nice job man, don’t be shy, you just stepped up to the world of recurring revenue! Take this advice however, “Just take care to prepare!” You must deliver a good solution, comply with the rules, while controlling costs – so you make a profit each and every month.

So, maybe you know all that already. But, did you know that partnering with a communications-as-a-service provider (like EtherSpeak) helps you overcome some challenges with developing a hosted business model?. A SIP communications-as-a-service provider can provide the following:

1. Access to the world of telephone numbers for inbound calls – and availability of the connecting to the world for outbound calling
2. Excellent advice on delivering quality of service and more appropriate and good “Quality of Experience” or QOE from the user perspective. If the calls stink, you are sunk.
3. Access to a private label billing system because maintaining a professional brand is very important
4. Along the same lines – using the providers investment in systems, process and technology to maintain compliance with Lawful Wiretaps (CALEA) and providing for regulatory compliance with 911 and taxing authorities.
5. Most importantly, find a partner that enables you to sell the system that you know and love “as-a-service” (which is “code” for monthly managed services revenue for telecommunications Value-Added-Resellers).

So, if you are considering how to develop a new recurring revenue stream, consider “hostifying” your product and partner up with you communications-as-a-service provider. Then work together to provide an excellent and profitable service for your customers benefit.

Neil Darling
EtherSpeak

Hey IP Phone Manufacturers – What Have You Done For Us Lately?

I was speaking with a customer the other day and he was asking me my opinion of “this SIP based IP Phone handset vs. that SIP based IP Phone handset” and I realized after seven years of selling the devices, they haven’t changed all that much. By and large, the biggest expense for customers moving to VoIP is the cost of the handset. Models from Polycom, Aastra, Snom, Grandstream, ShoreTel, Zultys and Cisco look very different – but they all comply with the SIP standard for core functions like Hold, Park, Transfer and Three-way calling features. Some proprietary handsets do some neat stuff – but that stuff doesn’t hold a candle to what an iPhone or Blackberry can do now with their implementation of useful business and personal applications.

What I think is lacking is that these devices are essentially Linux endpoints capable of doing so much more. Why can’t I program my DVR; turn the lights off and on at the house; or glance at calls in queue at my call center? Most models incorporate a micro-browser – some come with color screens – but not a one of them can help me record the last episode of “24” on my DVR since I am running late at work (again).

What exactly is a customer getting for that ~$100 to ~$700 unit price other than different look, ergonomic plastic and pixel density? On the other side of things, the iPhone and Blackberry (or “typical” smart phone) are the main business tool used by most knowledge workers. I would wager that for many of us – we do more minutes on our cell phone for business use than on our expensive IP Phone. For purposes of my blog, let’s define a a “knowledge worker” as an individual who works in front of an Internet connected computer. Perhaps a bluetooth enabled speaker, bound to my iPhone will enable those mobile phones to totally usurp the role of the expensive black plastic box taking up space on my desktop. What if knowledge workers foresake the tethered IP Phone and accept the cell / smart phone instead?

Personally, I use my iPhone for the majority of my phone calls in my normal day at the office. The reason is that our Unified Communications solution allows me to do that. Since Unified Communications has enabled me to use the iPhone to essentially replace the majority of my usage on my office Aastra handset – I am growing to like the standardization of using my iPhone for everything. I do use the Aastra for the speakerphone – but overwhelmingly I am using my iPhone and it’s applications to aid me through my business day and my personal day (I love playing Zynga when no one is looking).

Further, I blogged recently about Magic Jack’s introduction of the residential Femtocell (http://tinyurl.com/yk8kl7e). Well, AT&T recently announced their own offering. The AT&T version of the Femtocell (or Microcell) essentially supplants 3G cell and data connectivity from the local cell tower to a small access point like device in my office (according to AT&T (http://tinyurl.com/lbwweh). When you walk out of range, you are back on the cell tower. The cost will be about $150.00) and routes AT&T cell and data usage over my existing broadband for a nominal cost (for up to 10 handsets). Calls routed this way cost me a flat rate $20 per month. This effectively limits using up “air-time” for those employees who want to use the cell phone for personal reasons while away from the office – and my forthcoming mandate in making them use the cell phone while within the office – and not using their precious personally paid minutes.

So what is next for the IP Phone? Should we start considering eliminating the IP Phone from the bill of materials when quoting a solution to a customer and relegate the use of the IP Phone to lower-end models for the desktop – or specialty models for the conference room? Perhaps an iPhone or Blackberry IP PBX in the cloud may supplant the requirement for an IP phone for most Unified Communication solutions. More on that later…

For now however, I think the value of the IP Phone is lacking and may no longer hold the place it once did when I began this career around IP voice and video some time ago. It is increasingly difficult to justify the one-time expense now (in this economy) that most are standardized for SIP. They all pretty much do the same thing.

What say you IP Phone manufacturers? Are you losing your value and utility within an open-standards based Unified Communications environment? I think the answer is a definite maybe. If you have an opinion, I’d love to hear it!

Neil Darling
EtherSpeak
http://www.ietherspeak.com
703-221-9999

Lotus / ShoreTel / EtherSpeak Has Big News for Small Business UC

Small Business Unified Communications – That is Truly Unified

Don’t know if you’ve heard – but IBM, ShoreTel and EtherSpeak are up to something BIG for small business UC.

IBM Lotus Foundations, ShoreTel and EtherSpeak / iEtherFax Will be at Lotusphere next week showcasing a nifty solution – A Small Business Server that Beats the Pants off of Microsoft Small Business Server – and provide some simplicity when looking at Microsoft OCS R2.

IBM has a small business server called Lotus Foundations Start. Start is a Linux box that is an all-in-one package that is by design easy to configure. It provides DNS, DHCP, LDAP, Email, IM, Shared directories and is capable of running Windows Virtual machines – in this case ShoreTel Director (running on a VM). So, if you add a new user – they automatically have an email account, an IM account and a ShoreTel extension. No muss – no fuss.

ShoreTel and IBM have been working the better part of year to extend the development of the Lotus Sametime as the front end for ShoreTel Director. That is complete.

Where EtherSpeak comes in is we provide voice and fax connectivity out of the box. Where we have access to 95% of the numbers in the USA and 80% of CAN and provide connectivity to the PSTN via our Business-Telephone-Lines-Over-the-Internet through our integration of SIP to ShoreTel without the need for a 3rd party box like an Ingate firewall or Adtran ATA.

What this means to you – this means that there finally is a solution to those small business deals that you can’t win because the cost was too much. A customer buys from you the IBM Lotus Foundations Server, selects an option for ShoreTel Director; buys handsets and selects EtherSpeak’s SureTrunk service for voice and fax trunks at point-of-sale. The box arrives and the reseller takes a few hours to put the phones into place – but all the heavy config is already completed. We also provide native fax machine connectivity and the option for email to fax / fax to email.

Nice right? What do you think about this development?

More info: sbwire.com

So, Is Your SIP Provider a Cloud Provider?

At EtherSpeak we talk of cloud formation for the communities we support for business-telephone-lines-over-the-Internet, or our SIP trunks. Now we’re a good provider of voice, fax and video trunking services – but the point of this blog is to discuss why we’re a cloud provider and others may not be based on their lack of normalization at the customer edge. The premise being: All SIP providers are not necessarily a “cloud-service-provider”.

Cloud computing is not a new concept – but an evolution of the “software-as-a-service” business model (best represented by Salesforce.com). Cloud computing differentiates from other types of computing models, namely Grid-Computing; Utility-Computing; and Autonomic-Computing.

Cloud computing is defined as a subscription, where a customer does not buy any equipment, rather they connect to the cloud via what equipment they have in place already (eg standard firewall).

Apple Computer has a feature built-in to the Snow Leopard OS and the Apple X-Server that enables Grid-Computing – where based on the super-computer and virtual-computer model that efficiently distributes the load for complex computational tasks Using this feature, a X-Serve customer can make use of distributed computer power of networked nodes on a just-in-time basis. For example, my Mac at home (connected to X-Serve) has a feature where complex production of a multi-media presentation can be distributed to access and utilize the computing power of the remotely networked MAC nodes toward the production of a Podcast production or other multi-media deliverable..

Utility computing provides (like an electric utility) where tenant leverage a community of servers or applications and only use (and pay) what they need and when they need it. Autonomic Computing (not all that relevant here) is essentially computers capable of self-management.

Cloud-Computing users typically avoid capital expenditure when they pay a provider only for what, when, and how much they use. There are start-up fees – typically a customer may use existing infrastructure to connect to the cloud service provider. Cloud-computing also provides a solution for the heterogeneous mix of technology on a customer premise AND it most-likely relies on industry agreed open-standards to inter-operate and move the customer data from cloud to cloud. This means a cloud-provider must be able to take in all types of data – from all types of environments and “normalize” or standardize the data so that it may be passed to other cloud providers – and “de-normalize”, or put the data back into a proprietary format so that the customer may leverage the cloud despite having a proprietary system on their local-area-network or wide-area-network.

We support native SIP trunk connectivity for ShoreTel, Microsoft, Zultys and Asterisk. ShoreTel and Microsoft for example have proprietary solutions for providing Unified Communications solutions. Both are well-known, well-rated an like within their respective communities. However, Microsoft interfaces to SIP providers using TCP based connections – not UDP like most if not all SIP trunks that are available in the market. ShoreTel, as a very robust MGCP based solution, must utilize a cloud provider to normalize SIP to bridge between MGCP to SIP to MGCP. Interfacing to industry open-standard SIP connections is difficult unless the provider can provide a bridge from MGCP to Session Initiation Protocol or SIP. In both these examples, to be a provider in the Microsoft community, a provider like EtherSpeak sits in the core of the network and moves real-time policy enforcement; routing, control, monitoring and interoperability out of the individual PBXs and into a common SOA-based session layer. EtherSpeak’s SOA interfaces eliminate direct point-to-point communications between the clients and servers, making it much easier for organizations to reduce costs further through vendor consolidation and PBX centralization.

As you consider your next SIP provider, explore whether they can provide normalization features. This capability will make interaction with the cloud-service-provider a key part of reducing the operating expense of your business now – and well into the future. If they don’t have this capability – you will have no choice but to wait for solution to integrate from your PBX manufacturer to be able fully leverage the cloud for services like voice, fax-over-ip, inter-site video, enterprise IM federation and other useful services for your business.

Sincerely,

Neil Darling
EtherSpeak

So, Google isn’t a phone company?

So my Dad – an astute (and happily retired) entrepreneur in his own right – only calls me regarding EtherSpeak business when he thinks there is something “serious” I need to consider. The last time he called me with such concern – he said “Kid, have you seen this thing called Magic Jack?”. Since we are not a residential provider – I told him not too worry. Well, this time he called and said “Kid, Google is moving in to your space. Pack up the kids…” or something to that effect.

You just can’t ignore the early-warning radar provided courtesy of my Dad, so after reading Ryan Singel’s Wired.com post “Google poised to become your next phone company” I thought I would throw my two cents into the ring.

Since founding EtherSpeak as an Internet Telephony Service Provider seven years ago, and working to develop niche markets within ShoreTel, Microsoft, Asterisk and Zultys, we have had our share of challenges developing our market niche. But we’re small in comparison. Some of these basic hurdles may be being overlooked by my gigantic friends at Google. So, just a few observations:

1) Google is bypassing the Public Switched Telephone Network or PSTN. When they restricted routes to a free conferencing service (that costs everyone involved) – they obviously showed the weakness of their plan – you can’t avoid the PSTN entirely. If you want to have something for Google Voice that is beyond just geeky and nifty – you are going to need to connect to the PSTN and deal with the associated costs of connecting point one to point two. For example, consumers depend on e911 – and the government depends on CALEA in working to keeping us all safe from the evil-doers. Both are those items come with the realization that you have to connect to the PSTN and subscribe to some of the red-tape and expense to ensure a uniformity in service delivery from a customer perspective.

2) I am stumped, why is this better than Skype? Oh yes, it is better than Skype (or Magic Jack) because you are not limited to initiating the connection via a computer. It connects via the PSTN to wireless, or fixed line providers as the call initiated first with an inbound call. Confusing, a little. To make an outbound call, you tell Google to call you first – when you pick up the phone – they dial the call to whom you wanted – and they sit in the middle. Sounds like it uses the PSTN to me.

3) What happens if originators (wireless or fixed line providers) begin to refuse calls from the Google network? Google requires that an inbound call be made to a home phone, or mobile phone before the outbound session is connected (or terminated). What if the “old-school” wireline and wireless and VoIP carriers start blocking calls from Google? That’d be headache – but if they aren’t subscribing to the rules of the PSTN road – well they aren’t a carrier. If your not a carrier then your calls may not have any protection from those who don’t want the traffic. Interesting challenge.

So for now, we’ll just wait and see if Google can change all the rules. It’s going to be fun to watch and maybe we will all benefit as a result. In any event, my Dad is watching their every move.

– Neil Darling
EtherSpeak Communications