Category: VoIP Features

Professional telephone system features available for your virion business grade VoIP service.

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News Remote Extensions Telephone System Features

Work from home as a teleworker with VoIP

Virtual Assistants, Teleworkers, Remote Contractors and VoIP

Skype is synonymous with VoIP because it was around when the Internet grew up and it was free. It’s free because on-net calls don’t cost you anything and it’s the same with the virion VoIP system, calls from one number to another number in your CloudPBX phone system are free no matter where you are.

We’ve recently received calls from companies who are working smarter and more efficiently with their staff by downsizing from their big office to a smaller office and having their team members work from home, teleworking.

When they initially spoke with us they were not sure if a phone system can handle this type of setup but they were pleasantly surprised when they discover that VoIP gives them:

  1. Flexibility of remote VoIP handsets,
  2. Power of a professional business telephone system features, and
  3. Low call rates of VoIP

Typical VoIP Business Telephone System Call Flow Scenarios

To demonstrate more precisely how many of our customers utilise a VoIP business phone system with the CloudPBX we have created some rudimentary call flow diagrams. These call flow diagrams show you how a small business can take advantage of sophisticated features and work with their staff from their home offices.

The cost to expand your business telephone system

[quote]With virion VoIP you can order an extra phone number by sending us an email![/quote]

We’ll setup the new number, configure your CloudPBX, setup the VoIP handset and ship it to your location. Within a short amount of time you’ll have the extra service and your staff can get on with serving customers. The cost of these services is very low and will simply appear on your next monthly invoice.

 

 

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Cisco Business Telephone Systems Gateways & ATAs Hosted PBX (CloudPBX) News Telephone System Features VoIP Features

The Commander business telephone system + VoIP for small businesses

Commander and VoIP

It’s pretty easy to spot a small business or one-man-band these days, just by looking at their contact details. It’s even easier to tell which ones use remote workers, too. You know how? They only give out a mobile number. Even if they tell you otherwise on their website, and give the appearance of being a professional medium-sized business, the mobile phone number always gives them away.

Maybe you’re one of those businesses; you started out small, but as you grew you needed to hire more people. Now you have a sizeable team of remote workers, each trying to communicate with your clients and customers using a mobile phone. Aside from being impractical (how do you transfer an external call to a member of your team from a mobile?), it’s also not very professional.

The Commander of business telephone systems

The problem has always been that for most small businesses, the go-to phone system was the Commander business phone system, which was originally manufactured by Nitsuko Corporation in Japan, until Nitsuko was bought by NEC. They stopped producing Commander phones not long after that, although you’d have hardly realised; they were so hugely popular in Australia that, even to this very day, you can still buy secondhand Commander telephone systems and spare parts for them – and quite cheaply, too.

If you’re looking for a business phone system, picking up a secondhand Commander telephone system might be the way to go, and for as little as $50 in some cases at sites like Gumtree and Ebay.

These old analogue phone systems can be set up in your office but you’ll need someone with the technical skills and you’ll also need analog lines which you’ll need to organise with someone like Telstra. Keep in mind, also, that if you only have four phone lines and each one is in use when someone calls, they might get the engaged tone – pretty bad for business. If you’re looking for some advanced call handling features like call waiting, auto-attendants, and so forth, you may need to get a more modern, more sophisticated business telephone system from Cisco or Yealink.

These cheap analog telephone systems might solve the problem for small businesses looking for a cheap phone system that their staff can use in their office, but what about those remote or teleworkers? If they deal with external stakeholders on your business’s behalf, you’d still want to be able to assign a business number for them.

The Commander’s modern mate: an ATA adapter

Some virion customers have an old Commander business phone system but connect it to an analogue telephone adapter, like one of Cisco’s ATA adapters. By connecting a Commander phone system to a Cisco ATA adapter, ideally Cisco’s Linksys PAP2 device, you’ll be able to add two extra VoIP services, so you can extend the functionality of your phone system AND enable all your outbound calls to travel via VoIP (at a largely discounted call rate).

For less than $100 you can pick up a complete Commander phone system and a Cisco Linksys PAP2 adapter, and then configure if for a VoIP service, making it a low-cost option for small businesses. If you anticipate your business to grow – and quickly – you might consider the benefits of a new VoIP phone system for cheaper than you think.

Commander – Cheap to buy, expensive to setup

Because you’re using old technology, however, there isn’t a lot of assistance available in terms of set-up or troubleshooting if problems occur (you may need to consult the Internet in such instances), and although it might seem like a cheap phone system you’ll then need to find a local technician who’ll need to come to your office and connect to your expensive Telstra PSTN phone lines.

New VoIP business telephone systems may be cheaper

If you’re thinking of switching your business phones to a VoIP service, browse our website to compare our different services or contact us to request a quote for a VoIP system for your business. To learn more about VoIP for business, continue reading our blog.

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Call Queue Case Studies Cisco Business Telephone Systems Line Hunt Telephone System Features VoIP Features

CloudPBX Business Telephone System for Bookkeepers

Case Study for CloudPBX

We recently had a bookkeeping business order a business telephone system for their key administration people and they wanted it all in the cloud. They wanted features like Line Hunt, Remote Extensions, Softphones on Mobile devices, and Call Queues and the challenge was that each person in the admin team where located from their own home offices – enter the CloudPBX.

Key benefits of cloud based online services is that your business telephone system is located in a secure data centre, your staff’s VoIP telephone handsets are located on their desks and the two talk to each other via the Internet. If you have a team in remote locations yet you still need them to be part of the same telephone system then CloudPBX is the best solution for you.

Want Cisco VoIP Handsets?

Our customer had their mind on Cisco VoIP telephone handsets and they wanted to take advantage of our Cheap Telephone System offer so we provided them with some Cisco phones from our rental stock and they worked perfectly. Because they took advantage of our low rental rate for their business phone system Cisco handsets they only needed to pay for their VoIP call services.

3 handset Business Telephone System

For a low minimum monthly fee our bookkeeping business received:

  • 4 telephone numbers,
  • 3 handsets,
  • unlimited calls to local and national numbers,
  • free calls between handsets (even though they’re in remote locations),
  • cheap calls to mobiles and
  • a business grade telephone system that has all of the call handling features most businesses desire.

Use Your Current Internet Service Provider

Our client uses Telstra as their ISP in two of the locations and iiNet in another and despite the variety of different hardware used at the remote sites their new business phone system worked easily. It is important to note that the quality of your VoIP telephone service is dependent on your broadband Internet so if your Internet goes down your telephone system won’t operate so we always recommend a business grade broadband plan.

Virtual Assistants and Cloud Bookkeepers

Many of our clients are virtual assistants or independent contractors who run their businesses from their home so we’re always proud to promote our CloudPBX as a service that enables all of these remote workers to be connected to your business telephone system and able to respond to customers needs quickly.

Request a Quote for a Business Telephone System

If you are starting a new business, relocating or just want to upgrade your telephone system to one that has powerful PBX features, low cost and great support, then Request a Quote from us.

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Assisted Call Transfer Gateways & ATAs Group Pickup IP Handsets IP PBX equipment News Telephone System Features Voicemail-to-email VoIP Call Rates VOIP Equipment

Siemens Gigaset C470IP – Registering a Handset

C470IP VoIP Phone System
C470IP VoIP Phone System

C470IP is a very simple IP PBX with basic VoIP functionality however it can connect up to 5 additional handsets. Multiple handsets can be registered to be used with a single VoIP phone number (endpoint) or multiple endpoints.

Configuring a C470IP System

Most IP PBX’s can be configured by entering the IP address of the device. An IP Address looks something like 192.168.0.2 and it’s just a location for a device that is located on your local network.

To get the IP address of your Siemens C470IP system, press the blue “Paging Button” that normally gets each of the handsets ringing. You’ll see the IP Address displayed on the handset.

Type that address into your browser and the normal password is 0000. You can then log in to the admin area, setup phone numbers, handsets and manage how calls are handled – things like which phone number rings on which handset.

Handset registration process

When you get another handset to use with your system you can register it using the following procedure:

Turn on additional handset

On the phone menu, Navigate to Settings > Handset > Register H/Set

Enter your system PIN, (default is “0000”)

Press and hold INTERCOM button on base station until handset is registered (it will show an icon like the phone is ringing).

 

Great for Virtual Assistants

You can then go into your IP PBX admin and rename the handset to something that makes more sense to you. For example if you operate a home based business as a virtual assistant you can have one line for home and a couple others for your own business and any business you’re answering calls for.

We’ve had quite a bit of interest from virtual assistants who are using these phone systems because they are cheap and enable them to take advantage of cheap voip rates and have some great features like group pickup, assisted call transfer and can be combined with the VoIP service features like voicemail-to-email.

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Marketing Numbers News Small Business VoIP FAQ's virion business voip phone systems VoIP Service VoIP Support

It’s Clear You Want to Port Away

Phone Numbers are no longer attached to your local Telstra exchange

port your landline number away from Telstra for VoIP business telephone systems

Many companies are moving to VoIP and enjoying the benefits of a digital telephone service and the most obvious benefit is to be able to take your phone number anywhere you want. In the olden days your telephone number was linked to the copper wire that comes into your home or office, but these days a phone number is virtual – it doesn’t matter where you are. Many larger companies have a different phone number for each state that are all answered in a central location. These days phone numbers are completely separate to the cabling that carries the voice signal.

Mobile and Landline Phone Numbers

There was a time in the early days of mobile phones where mobile phone carriers could keep a customer for many years because we didn’t want to change our phone numbers – changing carriers meant you had to change your mobile phone number! Many small business owners still believe that they need to change their landline phone number if they move their office location but that is not the case with VoIP – you can take your number with you now.

Port Away

When you move your phone number from one carrier to your new carrier it’s called Porting Away and it happens quite often. In our experience most request to port away involve those customer who want to move away from Telstra (mainly because they are a huge supplier and have most of the landline customers) and those carriers who tied customers into long-term and expensive plans (we won’t name names).

If you are interested in porting away from your existing phone number carrier just use the PAF (Porting Application Form) from our VoIP Support site.

Wholesale Account Number

When you Port Away the application form asks for the account number for the phone number you want to port away and many customers believe this number appears on the monthly phone bill, but it doesn’t. Often you’ll need to call the leaving carrier, let them know that you are porting away from them and need to get the wholesale account number for the phone number you want to port away. Once we have this information the whole process now takes half the time it use to.

Special Offer for Small Businesses

If you are ready to move your telephone system to VoIP and start saving money but also getting all the features of a digital phone system, visit our VoIP Partner website and learn how you can get a VoIP Phone System for $1 per month.

 

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Assisted Call Transfer News Telephone System Features VoIP Features

Assisted Call Transfer with the Virion System

virion seimens voipSo you have been clever to install the Virion VoIP phone system. This blog will now teach you how to carry out an Assisted Call Transfer using the Virion  system using your Siemens Phone.

Hierarchical Structure

The Virion phone system is structured like a hierarchy; you have the main phone at the top, then you have multiple phones from then on, depending on how many phones you have on your particular system.

When someone calls your business, anyone on the Virion System  can answer the incoming call within the hierarchy.

INT

INT which is located on your Siemens phone  in two places:

1. The bottom left of the screen on the phone(press the button underneath), and

2. On the silver square on the left hand side (press the square on the left hand side). Once you have pressed either of the buttons a list of other users will appear on the screen.

Scroll through the list until you find the right one to transfer to, using the silver square pressing the top of the square (up) or bottom of the square (down).

Once you have select the correct phone; press the green phone to call the other phone. Once the Phone call is answered hang up the phone using the red button.

***

It’s really that simple to assist transfer with your Siemens phone and the Virion Phone system.

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News virion business voip phone systems VoIP Features VoIP Service

CLI or Calling Line Identifiers

CLI - Calling Line IdentificationOn our new Cumulus VoIP Call Plan we provide CLI overstamping at no additional cost so everyone who calls you back calls your main switch number – it’s a great way to manage a callers experience.

With CLI we are able to “overstamp” each of your Direct Indial Numbers with your main telephone number so that call recipients see your main phone number and return the call using that, rather than the direct indial number. You also have the ability to hide your number. This service is available on some plans, please check our VoIP Plans for more details.

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Marketing Numbers News Small Business Phone System Plans Telephone System Features VoIP Service

The Importance of Tracking How People Hear About Your Business

Marketing numbers and call analyticsWe recently spoke to Angela, a freelance writer, to share her experiences working with some of the largest publishing and advertising businesses in Australia. If you are interested in media and more importantly how large and well known companies measure the success of their advertising dollar, you’ll find this quite interesting.

 

For a spell, I left the media industry to work as a research analyst where I analysed the efficiency of various advertising and marketing strategies for a host of clients, such as Qantas, Westpac, Coca Cola, the NSW Government, and so on.

Though my chief objective was to determine things like whether a thirty second spot in Packed to the Rafters would deliver a client’s TARP goals, time and again, I was asked how a client could tell if that thirty-second spot had resulted in more sales; something I was unqualified to speculate on.

To isolate this information, marketers would often suggest that clients advertise different products or special offers in each different medium they used, and then analyse sales data to see which medium outperformed the other. But becoming more popular is the use of a Voice Over Internet Protocol service (VoIP).

Unlike the former, which cannot control for natural selection—a person going into a supermarket and selecting Arnotts Tim Tams over another Arnotts product due merely to product placement, impulse or pre-existing bias—a VoIP rules out the possibility of natural selection.

Using different telephone numbers in different advertising mediums, VoIP allows you to efficiently and accurately track what marketing messages your enquiries are originating from; and importantly, a VoIP also isolates which advertising medium delivers more call-to-action.

You may use a variety of mediums—television, print, online, radio, outdoor—but of those mediums, which one actually drives a person to pick up the phone? What was the strongest marketing message? VoIP answers all of those questions with a simple text file detailing every phone call and the marketing number they originated from.

VoIP delivers something that as a research analyst I could never definitively answer: accountability. It’s true that VoIP is no substitute for a good marketing campaign, but when used in conjunction with your marketing strategies it offers a kind of clarity that TARPs and circulation numbers simply cannot.

To include Virion’s VoIP service in your next marketing campaign, sign up here.

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VoIP Features

Bluetooth-to-Mobile

Bluetooth-to-Mobile

Many business phone users have unlimited mobile plans which are an obvious benefit when calling mobile phone numbers. With the Siemens Gigaset small business phone systems you can connect your mobile phone to your phone system and use it to make outgoing calls or even receive incoming calls. The two great features of this are that you can save money on outbound calls and reduce any potential radiation risk of having your mobile phone near your head.

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VoIP Features

Transferring Calls

The most fundamental requirement for an office phone system is call transfer and depending on the system you purchase you can have a Blind Transfer or Assisted Transfer in a phone system that costs only a few hundred dollars. Larger systems of course offer more functionality. If you have a business with multiple locations you can call (or transfer a call) from one office to another office that uses virion, free of charge?

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VoIP Features

Call Groups

Call groups are excellent for teams, where every extension rings and any staff member can pick up the phone. This functionality is available in some of our supported VoIP phone systems and Siemens IP Phones and can be easily configured by you or your IT Support Consultant.

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News virion business voip phone systems VOIP Equipment VoIP Features VoIP Service

Request a Quote for VoIP phone system

Request a quote - virion voip phone system

Telephone systems in general are technical products to understand so rather than scratch your head and look at all the available IP telephony equipment and what they can do, tell us a little about your business and your requirements (this will take you less than 15 minutes) and one of our consultants will contact YOU to recommend a solution for your business.

You can then study the VoIP telephone system equipment recommended and understand more about how the phone system will be installed, the costs and the extra new features of VoIP.

Request a Quote now.

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News Number portability VoIP Features

Take your phone number with you

The olden days when you would lose your telephone number if you moved to a different area outside of your local telephone exchange is long gone. Many businesses used to get a 1300 or 1800 number so that they could keep their telephone number the same no matter where the business was located.

You can now keep your telephone number with you no matter where you go, even overseas!

The telephone numbers that are allocated to you by virion are normally configured into your telephone handset so wherever your handset goes, so does your number. Combine that with voicemail-to-email and you have a totally modular telephone system solution that will grow as your business grows.

To learn more about what is included in a virion VoIP telephone number subscription click here.

If you don’t have business grade VoIP in your office yet, order it now using our Instant Trial Application.

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News Voicemail-to-email VoIP Features

Voicemail to email

You are probably familiar with voicemail (also known to Telstra customers as Messagebank) that enables your callers to leave a message for you. With mobile phone services a common scenario involves you calling a special voicemail number and retrieving those messages.

Some virion business grade VoIP services automatically come with voicemail-to-email and the feature is included in the subscription price for your VoIP telephone numbers, all you have to do is tell us to turn it on and you’re away. Some low priced plans have this feature as an add-on for a small extra charge on your monthly statement.

virion’s voicemail-to-email service sends each message to you via email as an audio file attachment. Using an audio player (like iTunes or Windows Media Player) on your computer and some speakers you can hear the actual message no matter where you are in the world. If you need help recording your greeting or working with your voicemail-to-email service contact your virion representative.

Don’t have virion business grade VoIP yet? Apply now using our Instant Trial Application form.

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Hosted PBX (CloudPBX) Soft Phone softphones Telephone System Features VOIP Equipment VoIP Features

CounterPath Bria Softphone

Bria 3 is a carrier-grade next generation softphone application that enables you to manage your communications easily and efficiently – all from your computer desktop. Replacing or complementing your hard phone, the Bria softphone allows you to make VoIP and Video calls over IP, see when your contacts are available, send Instant Messages and transfer files with ease and efficiency.

Built on SIP and open standards, Bria is proven interoperable with many of the industry’s standard platforms and devices. It now also includes features specifically designed for business and enterprise users and can be deployed within an enterprise environment either by manual configuration via the softphone Graphical User Interface (GUI) or by using a provisioning server.

The latest softphone technology

Bria 3 is the first CounterPath softphone based on Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and .net for Windows, and Cocoa for Mac, the most flexible user interface frameworks currently available. This foundation enables a dynamic interface with new task flows and customization options for an unprecedented user experience.

Click here for more information: http://www.counterpath.com/bria.html

CloudPBX Hosted PBX LogoSoftphones are powerful with CloudPBX

Mobile phones and even tablets like Samsung, iPad and even Windows tablets are a fantastic platform for softphones connected to a business telephone system based on a CloudPBX (hosted PBX) system. Learn more about how they can help you get a cheap phone system with enterprise grade features!