So you made the big decision to move your office to new premises.

Moving offices can be one of the most stressful functions you can undertake as a business owner. But by careful planning most of the stress can be alleviated.

Step 1 – Get all the stakeholders together for a meeting so that that everyone has an understanding of the scope and time frames for the move. Its best to plan backwards from the longest lead-time items and develop strategies that will lead to the least disruption and down time for the business. Key items to consider will be Equipment relocation, Telecommunications relocation including relocating your PABX, Phone & data cabling, Moving office equipment such as desks etc. and business equipment making sure it is damaged ion transit.

Step 2 – Identify the key milestones such as setting up of installing your business phones lines and ADSL Internet that will determine when you can relocate and function adequately. You also need to allow adequate time frames to relocate your Business PABX Phone system. Note to get Business Phone Lines connected can take up to 25 working days for ISDN 10/20/30 or 5-10 working days for PSTN lines. ADSL can only be added 3-4 working days after the ADSL is connected.

Step 3 – If you have office partitioning and work stations being purchased and delivered, map out the floor plan for each level allowing for adequate space for each functional area to operate in and each area’s seating allocations. Consultants are available to perform this work for you . Once this is done let everyone know where they will be located and provide time for feedback and modification if needed.

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Voice over Internet Protocol is making a rapid entry into society. Vonage, well known the world over, is at the forefront pushing VoIP as an alternative to traditional home telephone services offered by companies like AT&T and Verizon. There are even devices on the market that will connect your phone to your computer, allowing you to make phone calls via your high-speed Internet connection. With VoIP being touted as the future of communications, can it really make the transition into the corporate environment?A business communications system is a much larger and more complex entity than a home phone network. Businesses require separate extensions, dial-by-name directories, the ability to transfer calls to other users and numerous other features not needed in a home environment. Up until now, companies needed to purchase their own pricy PBX unit from a telephone hardware vendor and contract with expensive phone system specialists to deploy it and keep it running. Can VoIP providers handle the complexity of all of these extra features? Business VoIP providers have tailored their product to work just as well as the PBXes offered by the established telephone giants. These VoIP providers offer separate extensions, voicemail features and call transferability, among other things. They even provide for advanced features such as an auto-attendant to answer incoming calls, ACD queues to manage multiple calls at the same time and conference bridges that allow multiple people to talk with each other on the same call. Most providers even have or are developing E911 abilities.And what’s more, companies that use a hosted business VoIP product for their telephone system enjoy the added advantage of not having to take care of bulky, complicated telecom equipment! The hosted PBX provider handles that- and reputable providers have dedicated and knowledgeable staff members to look after the equipment on a daily basis. By not having a PBX in your office, you can avoid all of the hassle of making sure the system is working, and all of the stress when something goes wrong. Read the rest of this entry »

Even as businessmen were enjoying the benefits of the Internet, they visualized how the not-too-distant future of voice communications and telephone services would be linked with Internet services. In keeping with those expectations, today VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is certainly creating a storm in the telephone industry. VOIP is an acronym for Voice over Internet Protocol which is basically the transmitting of voice conversations over an Internet connection. A VoIP service, simply stated, allows you to use your high speed broadband connection to place telephone calls over the Internet.VoIP has been slowly but steadily developing over the last decade. Earlier, computer users began to talk to each other through their computers. This was made possible with a voice-enabled computer, a reliable and stable Internet connection, and a software program installed on your computer that made it all work.The distinct advantage of this computer-to-computer communication was the elimination of the traditional telephone system because you could talk to anyone located anywhere completely free provided a similar setup was available at the other end. But the serious limitation of this type of communication was that you were abjectly dependent on often unstable dial-up Internet connections, and the person at the other end of the conversation had to also be online with a voice-enabled computer.Today’s VoIP technology has made a quantum leap as broadband Internet servicehas been ubiquitously adopted thus leading to more stable internet connections that are mostly switched on. Besides, the industry has developed a simple, inexpensive method of integrating the IP network (the Internet) with the traditional telephone system. This revolutionary development lets a user of VoIP enjoy the facility with his or her own telephone to call anyone else who has a traditional telephone connection. Read the rest of this entry »