Lines and Broadband

for home, as part of every broadband connection, for fax, as backup. You currently have to rent a phone line to have broadband. You can opt for higher service response times for these lines and it is pretty well insane not to opt for a 20 hour fix service level for lines that carry broadband connections.

ISDN2e digital lines

for small phone systems and data connections in certain circumstances. You get ISDN2 in pairs – ie 2 connections – just for confusion they are called channels) in each line. ISDN gets good service level gurantees and is very reliable. Openreach (BT’s engineering arm) come running when ISDN lines go down and the engineers can’t see what’s happened using remote diagnostics.

ISDN2 adds two new dimensions:

Firstly, the quality is amazing!

Secondly, you can have many more phone numbers than lines – it’s all software – very boring. This means each person in an office and each department can have a direct number, and as many calls can be taken at the same time as you have lines, but if you only get a few calls at a time you won’t have to give a fresh line to each person. If more than one call comes in on a main number, as long as there is a free line, the call will get through.

ISDN30 digital lines

for businesses with more than 8 lines this is an effective product for the long term. A highly reliable product with fantastic service levels built in makes the product ideal for business continuity.

Like ISDN2 numbers and lines don’t have to match. The minimum number of lines with an ISDN30 connection is 8.

YOU SHOULD ALSO BE LOOKING AT VOICE OVER IP (VoIP) LINES IF YOU HAVE ISDN30 FOR LOWER LINE RENTAL AND CALL CHARGES. TALK TO US TODAY TO HELP YOU DECIDE WHAT’S BEST FOR YOU!

Voice over IP Lines (VoIP) Back to Top

We do it, we love it, we supply it, we support it. VoIP is the future, here now and applicable to most applications of voice conversation. It offers tantalizing potential savings over fixed line service costs – from £5 per number/line per month. Calls to other VoIP subscribers are free on your network and calls to most of the countries around the world are ridiculously cheap compared to fixed line call charges.

Move geographical numbers

You can move ordinary phone numbers – you know 01905 Worcester ones and all the other geographical ones. If you are moving from one BT exchange to another, this is currently the only way to get free incoming calls on the old number and keep it long term.

Add VoIP lines to your phone system for cheaper calls

You may be able to have VoIP lines added to your phone system to cut rentals and call charges. There may be circumstances where changing the fixed lines to VoIP is a viable option.

You may have seen the ads, tried Skype, heard of VoIP… Voice over IP is neither simple nor are the deals straightforward, but you don’t need to know everything about it – but you do need a bit of knowledge as, for business, VoIP may not always be the best way to go.

BUT IT ISN’T FOR EVERY APPLICATION….

Not or everyone

If we say that something that offers savings won’t suit you – you will want facts – so sit up up in class now!

What VoIP is…

In order to deliver calls reliably, the voice content in calls is converted into digital packets of data.

With ISDN you rent the WHOLE line on which this is sent to the other end of the call or the last digital exchange on the way there, where it is delivered as digital data to a phone system at the other end or converted to analogue.

With VoIP, instead of a dedicated phone line to deliver the packets, voice over IP uses data connections, like your broadband link. The packets are sent in sequence and unpicked in sequence at the other end – this is fine for ISDN where you rent the whole line.

Unfortunately, to make the connections work for free with VoIP, this can result in various degrees of compression of the data and this progressively reduces the quality of the call.

Additional problems can result from lost data packets that can make calls sound like bits of what’s been said are missing.

This may be perfectly OK for some people, but for business it is imperative to decide what is most important for you – cost or quality. The telecommunications industry has spent 15 years IMPROVING the quality of voice calls with digital calls – so chucking this out may be a lowering of standards that is unacceptable. We have become used to “putting up” with this on mobile phones, but we mostly expect better quality from our fixed services.

Our approach is to look at how you work, what services and equipment you have on your data connection – probably a broadband service. We then recommend a solution if we think it will work and talk it through with you.

Broadband Connection Back to Top

If you can, you should have a broadband connection. We offer a comprehensive range of services at different speeds, with different levels of support. We offer routers suitable for voice over the internet, connection of one or many computers and phones. Just tell us your plan and where you are and we will try to work out the best solution for you. If you already have a connection and you aren’t happy we will bring the service over to us, find out what’s wrong and put it right.

Fast Internet access makes researching world-wide libraries for information an easy and regular part of many people’s day. The Department of Health even tells doctors to use Google.

Broadband gives you a service that runs at the same time as a phone conversation on the same line, unblocking a home number. The phone line it runs on can send or receive a fax at the same time.

With broadband and VoIP we can give you am extra telephone number for your business from home and connect it to a phone system on the Internet for a few ponds a month.

With broadband you share the connection with other businesses and this is called contention –you should know what you are getting - this is still a suitable solution for most business, but if you need more, we take you on to leased lines…

Leased Lines Back to Top

If reliability of services is a paramount requirement and you need to be certain the service is supported at all times, a leased line is another option. You can combine voice lines securely onto leased lines because they come with service level guarantees similar to ISDN, using part of the leased line for voice and part for data.

Not cheap – very cheerful.