Interesting article on Verizon and their cell phone customers - extra charges for data usage issues lead to refunds!!
Check it out here on MSNBC.com
We specialize in helping companies both large and small immediately reduce their telecom costs. With years of telecommunications consulting experience and a proven track record we can help you reduce your telecom costs, GUARANTEED!
Monday, October 4, 2010
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
NetAccess Corp is rolling out Parsippany II on October 1st
One Stop Solution http://www.osstelco.com is pleased to announce that NetAccess corp is nearing completion on their new 50,000 square foot Tier IV data center located in Parsippany, New Jersey. Parsippany II is the most capable and most efficient data center in the Northeast with power densities of 20kW per cabinet and a PUE of sub 1.2.
This new state-of-the-art data center allows Net Access to offer flexible solutions to meet the ever-expanding IT infrastructure requirements.
Highlights:
• Supporting tomorrow’s density today with up to 20,000 watts per cabinet
• Customers can fully utilize their cabinet, even with dense blade technology
• Metered power – pay for only what power is consumed
• Purpose-built single floor, single tenant building
• 2 (N+1) power available from physically separate power rooms
• 100 percent uptime SLA
• Dark fiber connectivity to major carrier hotels
• Customer office suites and shared conference rooms available
• Onsite 24x7 network operations center (NOC)
• Multi-tier security with two-stage biometrics and reinforced man traps
• Local and remote video surveillance
• Efficiency – PUE of sub 1.2
This additional data center will allow us to not only provide space for new clients, but also enable existing clients to leverage this environment for expansion or D/R purposes.
Parsippany II has a go-live date of October 1st, 2010.
Please contact us today to schedule your tour!
631-846-1154 julrich@osstelco.com
This new state-of-the-art data center allows Net Access to offer flexible solutions to meet the ever-expanding IT infrastructure requirements.
Highlights:
• Supporting tomorrow’s density today with up to 20,000 watts per cabinet
• Customers can fully utilize their cabinet, even with dense blade technology
• Metered power – pay for only what power is consumed
• Purpose-built single floor, single tenant building
• 2 (N+1) power available from physically separate power rooms
• 100 percent uptime SLA
• Dark fiber connectivity to major carrier hotels
• Customer office suites and shared conference rooms available
• Onsite 24x7 network operations center (NOC)
• Multi-tier security with two-stage biometrics and reinforced man traps
• Local and remote video surveillance
• Efficiency – PUE of sub 1.2
This additional data center will allow us to not only provide space for new clients, but also enable existing clients to leverage this environment for expansion or D/R purposes.
Parsippany II has a go-live date of October 1st, 2010.
Please contact us today to schedule your tour!
631-846-1154 julrich@osstelco.com
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Friday, August 27, 2010
Hosted PBX versus PBX On-Premises: Pros and Cons
There are many factors in choosing whether you want to have an external host for your PBX or bring it in-house. Which choice is right for you?
There are many serious considerations for any organization moving away from its existing phone system, likely to be based on the regular phone network and an expensive Centrex system to a new system based around IP telephony. A key decision is the right PBX system to choose and how to integrate that into existing organization IT and business practices while still planning for the future.
For some organizations, key functionality and features are going to drive the decision and these will in turn drive many of the other potential decisions. But in a majority of cases the features and functionality on offer will exceed current planning and practices so dramatically that other more basic operational issues will come to the fore.
The most critical of these from the point of view of implementation and future growth is whether to have a PBX system physically on your organization's premises and under your control or whether to have a PBX hosted externally by a service provider. For a few organizations this decision will stem from a fundamental philosophy of the business - outsourcing all functions that are not directly germane to the core business.
However, IP telephony and VoIP are new technologies with great potential and their benefits and future directions are not clearly understood yet by those in the field, let alone their customers. The factors that come into play are cost, future expansion, control, flexibility, range of features and options, and implementation.
We'll take a look at the pros and cons of hosted versus on-premise solutions in each case:
Cost
In the long run this is more of a wash than you might expect. It is obvious from the outset that the initial and setup costs for a hosted solution will be lower than for an on-premises solution. But it isn't necessarily so clear where long term operating costs end up taking the overall cost equation. The variables that come into play include the lifetime of equipment, how rapidly technological change will outdate existing equipment and the ease-of-use and flexibility of the solution in question.
Hosted IP-PBX
Pros: Lower setup cost, no maintenance costs
Cons: Potentially higher ongoing service provider costs
On-premise IP-PBX
Pros: Potentially lower ongoing costs, no risk of fee increases
Cons: Higher setup costs, unknown long-term maintenance costs
Future Expansion
The potential for future expansion is more a matter of control and timeframe than of locking yourself into some kind of limitation. Both on-premise and hosted IP-PBX solutions leave you room for expansion and growth. Both will incur higher costs along with growth at a rate that should reduce your overall per-seat cost but will still mean a higher total bill. Both have the potential for allowing big jumps in future expansion. The difference is that with a hosted provider you eliminate some of the risk and difficulty but at the cost of a potentially longer turn-around time and possibly losing some flexibility.
Hosted IP-PBX
Pros: Your provider shoulders all the risk, work and complexity
Cons: Your provider may not be able to make changes as quickly as you could yourself and may not be able to precisely match your needs.
On-premise IP-PBX
Pros: You have complete control and flexibility - you can even switch solutions or mix-and-match.
Cons: Every expansion increases the complexity you have to manage yourself.
Control
Control is a tricky issue and really what is at the heart of a decision between a hosted or on-premise solution in terms of strategy. Some organizations prefer to keep control as much as possible internally, even at the cost of added cost, work and complexity. Other organizations want to outsource as much as possible to keep internal focus on core business - even if that decision ends up costing them more. While this decision would seem to be a clear win for an on-premise solution, in fact several hosted providers do supply enough flexibility in terms of services that many organizations would be satisfied that they had enough control.
Hosted IP-PBX
Pros: Paradoxically, by giving up control you may be able to see the forest better rather than the trees.
Cons: Let's face reality - your service provider has the actual control - you don't.
On-premise IP-PBX
Pros: You really do have control over every detail. An easy-to-use solution with careful management will give you a solution that matches your needs better than anything else can.
Cons: You have control - now you have to exercise it...
Flexibility
While there are differences for an organization between a hosted and on-premise solution in this regard, they are more to do with timing. Any reputable hosted solution will be prepared to work with you to add the features you need and require and will also be prepared to become more flexible as market needs arise. But there is disadvantage for someone using the hosted solution. It will always be a common solution for all the provider's customers and it will take the service provider longer to implement it than you could do yourself with an on-premise solution.
Hosted IP-PBX
Pros: Service provider may have more resources to implement a solution you could not afford to do just for yourself.
Cons: Slowness to adapt and reluctance to adapt for a single customer.
On-premise IP-PBX
Pros: You can do what you want with your equipment - the ultimate flexibility.
Cons: You may not have enough resources to do complex, expensive or difficult things where a service provider might be able to do them for its hundreds of customers more easily.
Range of Features/Options
The same issues arise with features and options as they do with flexibility - if you own the solution you will always have the ability to add more features and options - for a price. But spreading the cost across thousands of customers makes it easier for a large provider to add features at a lower cost. While true, however, this is a smokescreen in this case. The actual individual solution matters far more in this area than specifically whether it is a hosted or on-premise solution. Your business has a required set of features, a desired set of features, a nice-to-have set of features and you don't care about the rest. If the solution offers it, that will outweigh whether it is hosted or on-premise.
Hosted IP-PBX
Pros: Only one thing matters - does it have the feature set you want.
Cons: Ditto
On-premise IP-PBX
Pros: Only one thing matters - does it have the feature set you want.
Cons: Ditto
Implementation
This is one of the areas where hosted versus on-premise makes a huge difference. There is no doubt that a hosted IP-PBX service ought to be cheaper, easier and possibly quicker to implement. You will have to weigh that against the on-premise slight advantage in control, options and flexibility. There is one other scenario where implementation will matter a lot - if you aren't certain about what you future needs are likely to be then a hosted solution starts to look more attractive. You'll just have to be careful about what your contract may or may not lock you into.
Hosted IP-PBX
Pros: Cheaper, quicker and easier
Cons: None
On-premise IP-PBX
Pros: You will know your system's capabilities a lot better than if you didn't implement it yourself.
Cons: Cost, speed and difficulty
By now you will have gathered that this discussion is mostly relevant in the small to medium business space - say up to a few hundred users. More than that and you should seriously consider if need to step up to enterprise class on-premise PBX system with high-level support and SLAs from a reputable manufacturer. But even in that space, hosted can be a good interim solution if you can arrange a short term contract while you take the time to evaluate, test and design a robust long-term on premise solution.
For the small business market, the smaller your business, the more likely that a hosted solution is right for you, but there are exceptions. An organization that is changing rapidly, has a high turnover or that can't afford the evaluation and management overhead of picking a customer premise system is still going to find a hosted solution a good fit.
And in contrast, a business that needs tight control and flexibility and for whom an integrated telephony solution is a mission critical business application is going to want to have a solution they own and operate on their premises in order to truly deliver for its employees and customers.
There are many serious considerations for any organization moving away from its existing phone system, likely to be based on the regular phone network and an expensive Centrex system to a new system based around IP telephony. A key decision is the right PBX system to choose and how to integrate that into existing organization IT and business practices while still planning for the future.
For some organizations, key functionality and features are going to drive the decision and these will in turn drive many of the other potential decisions. But in a majority of cases the features and functionality on offer will exceed current planning and practices so dramatically that other more basic operational issues will come to the fore.
The most critical of these from the point of view of implementation and future growth is whether to have a PBX system physically on your organization's premises and under your control or whether to have a PBX hosted externally by a service provider. For a few organizations this decision will stem from a fundamental philosophy of the business - outsourcing all functions that are not directly germane to the core business.
However, IP telephony and VoIP are new technologies with great potential and their benefits and future directions are not clearly understood yet by those in the field, let alone their customers. The factors that come into play are cost, future expansion, control, flexibility, range of features and options, and implementation.
We'll take a look at the pros and cons of hosted versus on-premise solutions in each case:
Cost
In the long run this is more of a wash than you might expect. It is obvious from the outset that the initial and setup costs for a hosted solution will be lower than for an on-premises solution. But it isn't necessarily so clear where long term operating costs end up taking the overall cost equation. The variables that come into play include the lifetime of equipment, how rapidly technological change will outdate existing equipment and the ease-of-use and flexibility of the solution in question.
Hosted IP-PBX
Pros: Lower setup cost, no maintenance costs
Cons: Potentially higher ongoing service provider costs
On-premise IP-PBX
Pros: Potentially lower ongoing costs, no risk of fee increases
Cons: Higher setup costs, unknown long-term maintenance costs
Future Expansion
The potential for future expansion is more a matter of control and timeframe than of locking yourself into some kind of limitation. Both on-premise and hosted IP-PBX solutions leave you room for expansion and growth. Both will incur higher costs along with growth at a rate that should reduce your overall per-seat cost but will still mean a higher total bill. Both have the potential for allowing big jumps in future expansion. The difference is that with a hosted provider you eliminate some of the risk and difficulty but at the cost of a potentially longer turn-around time and possibly losing some flexibility.
Hosted IP-PBX
Pros: Your provider shoulders all the risk, work and complexity
Cons: Your provider may not be able to make changes as quickly as you could yourself and may not be able to precisely match your needs.
On-premise IP-PBX
Pros: You have complete control and flexibility - you can even switch solutions or mix-and-match.
Cons: Every expansion increases the complexity you have to manage yourself.
Control
Control is a tricky issue and really what is at the heart of a decision between a hosted or on-premise solution in terms of strategy. Some organizations prefer to keep control as much as possible internally, even at the cost of added cost, work and complexity. Other organizations want to outsource as much as possible to keep internal focus on core business - even if that decision ends up costing them more. While this decision would seem to be a clear win for an on-premise solution, in fact several hosted providers do supply enough flexibility in terms of services that many organizations would be satisfied that they had enough control.
Hosted IP-PBX
Pros: Paradoxically, by giving up control you may be able to see the forest better rather than the trees.
Cons: Let's face reality - your service provider has the actual control - you don't.
On-premise IP-PBX
Pros: You really do have control over every detail. An easy-to-use solution with careful management will give you a solution that matches your needs better than anything else can.
Cons: You have control - now you have to exercise it...
Flexibility
While there are differences for an organization between a hosted and on-premise solution in this regard, they are more to do with timing. Any reputable hosted solution will be prepared to work with you to add the features you need and require and will also be prepared to become more flexible as market needs arise. But there is disadvantage for someone using the hosted solution. It will always be a common solution for all the provider's customers and it will take the service provider longer to implement it than you could do yourself with an on-premise solution.
Hosted IP-PBX
Pros: Service provider may have more resources to implement a solution you could not afford to do just for yourself.
Cons: Slowness to adapt and reluctance to adapt for a single customer.
On-premise IP-PBX
Pros: You can do what you want with your equipment - the ultimate flexibility.
Cons: You may not have enough resources to do complex, expensive or difficult things where a service provider might be able to do them for its hundreds of customers more easily.
Range of Features/Options
The same issues arise with features and options as they do with flexibility - if you own the solution you will always have the ability to add more features and options - for a price. But spreading the cost across thousands of customers makes it easier for a large provider to add features at a lower cost. While true, however, this is a smokescreen in this case. The actual individual solution matters far more in this area than specifically whether it is a hosted or on-premise solution. Your business has a required set of features, a desired set of features, a nice-to-have set of features and you don't care about the rest. If the solution offers it, that will outweigh whether it is hosted or on-premise.
Hosted IP-PBX
Pros: Only one thing matters - does it have the feature set you want.
Cons: Ditto
On-premise IP-PBX
Pros: Only one thing matters - does it have the feature set you want.
Cons: Ditto
Implementation
This is one of the areas where hosted versus on-premise makes a huge difference. There is no doubt that a hosted IP-PBX service ought to be cheaper, easier and possibly quicker to implement. You will have to weigh that against the on-premise slight advantage in control, options and flexibility. There is one other scenario where implementation will matter a lot - if you aren't certain about what you future needs are likely to be then a hosted solution starts to look more attractive. You'll just have to be careful about what your contract may or may not lock you into.
Hosted IP-PBX
Pros: Cheaper, quicker and easier
Cons: None
On-premise IP-PBX
Pros: You will know your system's capabilities a lot better than if you didn't implement it yourself.
Cons: Cost, speed and difficulty
By now you will have gathered that this discussion is mostly relevant in the small to medium business space - say up to a few hundred users. More than that and you should seriously consider if need to step up to enterprise class on-premise PBX system with high-level support and SLAs from a reputable manufacturer. But even in that space, hosted can be a good interim solution if you can arrange a short term contract while you take the time to evaluate, test and design a robust long-term on premise solution.
For the small business market, the smaller your business, the more likely that a hosted solution is right for you, but there are exceptions. An organization that is changing rapidly, has a high turnover or that can't afford the evaluation and management overhead of picking a customer premise system is still going to find a hosted solution a good fit.
And in contrast, a business that needs tight control and flexibility and for whom an integrated telephony solution is a mission critical business application is going to want to have a solution they own and operate on their premises in order to truly deliver for its employees and customers.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Do you need a CENTREX setup for your company?
Centrex is a business telephone system offered from the local central office on a subscription basis. It delivers a set of PBX-like features to individual desks with internal and PSTN access for all the features, functions and applications that a business customer needs. An important benefit of Centrex is that it is a leased or rented service, meaning it is fully outsourced. Service is provided through the Central Office and the customer does not need to invest in capital equipment or worry about maintenance, power, growth, capacity, and/or changes to configuration.
Read more on our website by clicking here
Read more on our website by clicking here
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Why Co-locate your Data Center?
More and more companies are no longer building their own data centers, but are leasing data center space from professional providers. As a result, Co-location Providers are expanding their capacity to meet the increasing demand for half and full cabinets as well as cages with free standing racks in state of the art environments.
This demand is due to the reluctance of executive, financial and IT staff to commit the capital resources required for building the facilities, and acquiring the infrastructure, necessary for a data center. This commitment is expanded by the continuing need to keep the data center current as the requirements for HVAC and power change with the evolution of technology and is further expanded by ever increasing utility costs and the desire of corporations to reduce their carbon footprint (Green Computing). The initial cost and incomplete depreciation of a data center can leave a corporation tethered to a dinosaur.
Compounding the lack of available capital for data center development, the supply of data-center space that resulted from the dot com bust is no longer available. Thus, there is no ready supply of data center space and therefore there is a requirement to consider solution providers.
Internet data center demand is expected to continue to outpace supply through at least 2013, according to Tier 1 Research.
While some data center investments such as those that that reduce operating costs (virtualization projects, private cloud infrastructures) are being funded, there is a general reluctance to take on debt in a time when income and profit margins are tight. Therefore the desirable option for many organizations is to lease with the resulting increase in demand for hosted data center space that is being used for options ranging from use as a temporary facilities until the economy permits the construction of their own facilities, to using collocated space for the all or part of data center operations, to using the space for a backup/disaster recovery site.
This flexibility of function has greatly increased the acceptance of co-located data facilities and thus increased the demand for them and the increased acceptance may well become a permanent cultural change in Information Technology Operations as corporations decide they like the lack of capital commitment combined with professional facilities management that provides continuous environmental updates and the ability to rapidly reconfigure to achieve the maximum benefits from technological changes.
In addition, co-located data center facilities offer a variety of support services from basic technical support to full hands on hosting which can reduce the workload of organizational IT resources. Moreover co-located facilities offer a variety of terms from month-to-month through 1, 2 and 3 year leases to enable tenants to precisely control their costs.
Further, tenants in collocation centers have discovered operational benefits that build on their initial financial considerations. They have credited their facilities occupancy with reducing interconnection and network costs while obtaining network redundancy, reduced network costs and improved provisioning times through their access to multiple services providers at the same location.
The benefits of locating data center operations in a facility that is not only currently certified to be state of the art, but is constantly maintained and enhanced to remain state of the art unlike corporate data centers which frequently are static or which evolve slowly due to capital constraints combined with the fact that such a location requires a minimal capital investment and provides incremental operational benefits present a powerful incentive for organizations to utilize co-located environments in an increasingly space constrained world.
This demand is due to the reluctance of executive, financial and IT staff to commit the capital resources required for building the facilities, and acquiring the infrastructure, necessary for a data center. This commitment is expanded by the continuing need to keep the data center current as the requirements for HVAC and power change with the evolution of technology and is further expanded by ever increasing utility costs and the desire of corporations to reduce their carbon footprint (Green Computing). The initial cost and incomplete depreciation of a data center can leave a corporation tethered to a dinosaur.
Compounding the lack of available capital for data center development, the supply of data-center space that resulted from the dot com bust is no longer available. Thus, there is no ready supply of data center space and therefore there is a requirement to consider solution providers.
Internet data center demand is expected to continue to outpace supply through at least 2013, according to Tier 1 Research.
While some data center investments such as those that that reduce operating costs (virtualization projects, private cloud infrastructures) are being funded, there is a general reluctance to take on debt in a time when income and profit margins are tight. Therefore the desirable option for many organizations is to lease with the resulting increase in demand for hosted data center space that is being used for options ranging from use as a temporary facilities until the economy permits the construction of their own facilities, to using collocated space for the all or part of data center operations, to using the space for a backup/disaster recovery site.
This flexibility of function has greatly increased the acceptance of co-located data facilities and thus increased the demand for them and the increased acceptance may well become a permanent cultural change in Information Technology Operations as corporations decide they like the lack of capital commitment combined with professional facilities management that provides continuous environmental updates and the ability to rapidly reconfigure to achieve the maximum benefits from technological changes.
In addition, co-located data center facilities offer a variety of support services from basic technical support to full hands on hosting which can reduce the workload of organizational IT resources. Moreover co-located facilities offer a variety of terms from month-to-month through 1, 2 and 3 year leases to enable tenants to precisely control their costs.
Further, tenants in collocation centers have discovered operational benefits that build on their initial financial considerations. They have credited their facilities occupancy with reducing interconnection and network costs while obtaining network redundancy, reduced network costs and improved provisioning times through their access to multiple services providers at the same location.
The benefits of locating data center operations in a facility that is not only currently certified to be state of the art, but is constantly maintained and enhanced to remain state of the art unlike corporate data centers which frequently are static or which evolve slowly due to capital constraints combined with the fact that such a location requires a minimal capital investment and provides incremental operational benefits present a powerful incentive for organizations to utilize co-located environments in an increasingly space constrained world.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
One Stop Solution Telemanagement Products - Basic Business Lines
Basic Business Lines, often called “Plain Old Telephone Service” (POTS) lines, provide basic access service and supply a single voice-grade communication channel for single line telephones, key telephone systems, modems and other devices that need to access the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). Business Lines offer consistent naming, functionality, standard and optional feature sets and convenient feature packages across all markets.
Basic Business Lines provide small, medium and large customers with low cost, flexible telephone service. How they use the lines will depend on the size of the company and their own specific needs. The most basic of voice services, Business Lines can be used by the smallest of customers to provide access for voice or dial-up data/Internet connectivity; large or enterprise customers will use them to set up branch offices with key systems or as emergency back-up lines for PBX, fax, modem or credit-card authorization machines.
Consistent naming, functionality and features across all markets
Quick set-up
Low costs and competitive prices
Don’t require any technical expertise
Robust optional features and convenient feature packages
Combined single invoice
Standard features
As well as a full range of local and long distance applications, Basic Business Lines support these standard features:
Touchtone
Directory Listing
911 Access
Optional Features
These features are available to all Basic Business Line customers for an additional monthly charge:
Anonymous Call Rejection
Automatic Call Back
Automatic Line (Hotline)
Automatic Recall
Call Forward Don’t Answer Ring Select (Subscriber Programmable Ringing)
Call Forwarding of Call Waiting Calls
Call Waiting with Cancel Call Waiting
Caller ID – Number Only
Caller ID per Line Blocking
Distinctive Ringing/Call Waiting
Circular Hunting
Message Waiting Indication–Audible*
Message Waiting Indication–Visual *
Remote Access to Call Forwarding
Selective Call Acceptance
Selective Call Forwarding
Selective Call Rejection
Simultaneous Ring (SimRing)
Speed Calling 30
3-Way Calling
Call Forward Variable
Call Forward Busy
Sequential Hunt
Call Transfer
Caller ID – Name and Number
Call Forward Don’t Answer
For More Information Please Call: 1-866-OSS-TELCO
Company Needs
Basic Business Lines provide small, medium and large customers with low cost, flexible telephone service. How they use the lines will depend on the size of the company and their own specific needs. The most basic of voice services, Business Lines can be used by the smallest of customers to provide access for voice or dial-up data/Internet connectivity; large or enterprise customers will use them to set up branch offices with key systems or as emergency back-up lines for PBX, fax, modem or credit-card authorization machines.
Business Line Companies may:
- Want basic, low-cost PSTN access for voice, fax, modem and/or other equipment
- Want to complement a PBX or Key System with a low-cost option for fax and modem connectivity
- Have locations with a limited number of phone lines
- Not require the features or functionality of a PBX/Hybrid phone system
- Need a back-up for existing lines.
Consistent naming, functionality and features across all markets
Quick set-up
Low costs and competitive prices
Don’t require any technical expertise
Robust optional features and convenient feature packages
Combined single invoice
Standard features
As well as a full range of local and long distance applications, Basic Business Lines support these standard features:
Touchtone
Directory Listing
911 Access
Optional Features
These features are available to all Basic Business Line customers for an additional monthly charge:
Anonymous Call Rejection
Automatic Call Back
Automatic Line (Hotline)
Automatic Recall
Call Forward Don’t Answer Ring Select (Subscriber Programmable Ringing)
Call Forwarding of Call Waiting Calls
Call Waiting with Cancel Call Waiting
Caller ID – Number Only
Caller ID per Line Blocking
Distinctive Ringing/Call Waiting
Circular Hunting
Message Waiting Indication–Audible*
Message Waiting Indication–Visual *
Remote Access to Call Forwarding
Selective Call Acceptance
Selective Call Forwarding
Selective Call Rejection
Simultaneous Ring (SimRing)
Speed Calling 30
3-Way Calling
Call Forward Variable
Call Forward Busy
Sequential Hunt
Call Transfer
Caller ID – Name and Number
Call Forward Don’t Answer
For More Information Please Call: 1-866-OSS-TELCO
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