Monthly Archives: January 2012

Fax Over IP

January 25, 2012 - Paul Emond

Yes, Fax is still very prevalent in today's modern office.

One thing that I’m very proud of about how we conduct business here at Versature is that we are insanely focused on quality. There have been numerous occasions where competitive pressures or customer requests have made us question how we were doing things, but I’m glad that the long term reliability and supportability of our solutions was always put first. We’d rather turn away business than do a poor job of it.

For example, we still don’t have a reliable cordless phone option that we are 100% comfortable with, so we don’t offer it.  We offer cordless headsets which tie into IP phones instead. Sure, we’d have more luck in retail businesses if we had a cordless phone, and there are many inexpensive options out there .. but the quality and reliability of these solutions is not where we need them to be for a business-class offering, so we made a Continue Reading This Post ...

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Why Hosted VoIP?

January 23, 2012 - Paul Emond

Not just for Websites and CRM any more

You’ve no doubt heard all the talk about cloud-based services.  Moving applications “to the cloud” for cost savings and manageability is all the rage these days.  The first hosted application was probably Website Hosting, which allowed a business to have a reliable online presence 24/7 without the hassle or expense of having their own web server.  As the most mature of the hosted services, Website Hosting enjoys an almost 100% adoption rate by business .. it just doesn’t make sense to host your own website these days.

Over the years, other hosted applications have taken off and matured.  Applications that you’d typically see hosted in the cloud would be Continue Reading This Post ...

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Office Phone System Hacking

January 16, 2012 - Paul Emond

If you're not looking after your PBX, maybe this guy is.

I was getting caught up with the industry news over the weekend when I came across this post from Tom Keating about his Asterisk phone system getting hacked.  Asterisk is an amazing tool for people who want to do anything with telephony .. my CTO calls it the Swiss Army Knife of VoIP products.  Along with all that customization and capability, also comes the possibility for it to be a system administration nightmare.

If you are a small businesses who was sold an on-premise Asterisk system to run your business phone system, it’s important to remember that it needs attention.  It’s not just something that you can stick in the Continue Reading This Post ...

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Auto Attendant Design Tips

January 16, 2012 - Provisioning Team

An Auto Attendant routes calls automatically, similar to the way that a traditional receptionist used to.

One of the most used features of Versature’s Hosted PBX offering is the Auto Attendant, also known as “digital receptionist” and/or “IVR” in some circles.   An Auto Attendant allows callers to be transferred to an extension without a receptionist. When a caller dials your number(s) they will be greeted by a
pre-recorded message prompting them to dial an extension or department.   Once the option is entered the Auto Attendant will route the caller to the desired destination.

Versature’s Auto Attendant has a ton of feature rich options including:

  1. Sub-greetings from the main greeting. Some examples of Continue Reading This Post ...
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Is My Network VoIP Ready?

January 12, 2012 - Paul Emond

We worry about 3 main things when looking at the VoIP-Ready state of a customer’s network :

  1. Packet Loss between customer and proxy.versature.com - This needs to be 0, usually expressed as a percentage (0%).
  2. Latency between customer and proxy.versature.com - This needs to be less than 100ms.
  3. Each concurrent call needs to have 80 kbit/s of bandwidth available (both upstream and downstream).  So, if for example the customer will have 10 concurrent calls up at any one time, there needs to be Continue Reading This Post ...
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Is Your Business Moving in 2012?

January 09, 2012 - Paul Emond

Moving in 2012? Hosted PBX provides numerous advantages.

Versature is planning a move in 2012 to a larger facility, as we are completely out of space (we are even in the process of doing away with the boardroom so that we can fit in 3 more desks).  If you’re like us you’ve already started your planning.  Adding Versature’s Hosted PBX into your pre-move planning will undoubtably save you time and stress. Read on to find out how.

When a business is moving or relocating it often triggers a review of the companies’ phone system, because of one of these factors :

  1. The business is moving to a different area of the city or country and they are told that they can’t keep their phone number.
  2. The business is either growing or contracting, and their Continue Reading This Post ...
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