Thinking ahead of a possible disaster ?
One of the common issues today is that a LOT of companies are looking for redundancy and cost effective back up . A great feature to sip is that if you lose your main IP PBX you can automatically switch to another account for calling ! These solutions are not for everyone but those who need to be protected in inclement weather , accidents , power loss and other real life situations today can use by just calling and we can help you sort thru these issues and give you the best possible solution for your business !!
Company A is sold an IP PBX
Maybe 50 phones more or less
Small Call Center and your people make money on the phones ?
A Windows Server running 3CX or an IP PBX like Grandstream or even a Carrier issue and the server or IP PBX goes down ! Technical help is a mile away if you are lucky and not available for a few hours or more !
What do you do ?
Who can you call for immediate assistance ?
Chance are there is nobody to come right over but You can now help yourself to a few solutions that could pay for itself with one major catastrophe !
Are your telephones and network that important today that it costs you a LOT of money if they are down ?
Supposing you just lose your network and your Customers cannot pay ?
First on VOIP telephones there is a window in the physical telephone that sets you up in what we call an account . All SIP Telephone systems use account 1 for the main SIP account . Almost every provider/manufacturer have built in multiple accounts for just this scenario !
Example : IP PBX is set to account 1 in your local office . All calls are supposed to register with your office IP PBX . The way it works is simple : Account 2 can be used for a cloud account / hosted services account for a back up !
Or reverse the issue as in your Hosted system goes down and you need a local IP PBX !
So account 2 would be registered to the hosted IP PBX ! If account one becomes unavailable then the telephones immediately start using account 2 !
Of course there is an added cost for services as setting up an IP PBX and a Hosted account cost money ! But how much is an hour of downtime worth in terms of lost revenue ?
The next issue relates to your network connection via your local Carrier !
Supposing your network goes down ? Pole got hit by a car or bus etc. Terrible weather brought down the wires and you now have no internet and no inbound or outbound calls ! An easy fix for year is wireless 4G ! Cost is around 69.95 a month !
There are many equipment choices out there today to accomodate what is described above !
We use a modem manufacturer - Cradlepoint - Who has a Pretty solid router that comes free with a lot of Carrier choices and with a SIM card to your 4G Carrier and when the lights go out the internet stays up ! You can check with your local provider and see if your router is 4G compatible ! If not then you may want to consider resolving some of these quick tip items to protect you !
Now what about those terminals or necessary computers and the router we mentioned above ? ?
Battery back up for Certain PC's and terminals are rather inexpensive today but the cost is unimportant when you are billing thousands of dollars an hour ! A few Battery back up units for a few must have machines and the network equipment would pay for themselves !
We cannot stress enough for back ups to almost everything we do in businesses that need critical networking and data in order to operate but we try to give the best solutions for a fraction of the price ! Are some over kill ? No not really but you can always add more to the scenario if you feel you need more devices / pc's POS machines servers etc. So make wise decisions and you can implement some pretty rugged back ups to keep you in business when the lights go out or when an accident occurs !
Good luck and please feel free to contact us at anytime to discuss these types of implementations !