Unified Communications is Enabling Increased Productivity

A very interesting article in Business Communications Review points out that unified communications is changing the way we do business.  An interesting aspect of this article is that employees work in groups now more than ever, the days of the solo contributor are numbered.

As employees depend more and more on each other, its important to allow them to reach each other at all times, especially in a company that has offices in many different time-zones.  Currently, corporations use smartphones with PDA functionality so that many of their employees can access email, IM, and make phone calls.  The most advanced companies will let these phones access the corporate website in real time.

High-end mobile phones are expensive to buy, and more expensive to operate, (Imagine paying airtime to talk to a telemarketer!)   so only a few employees in a company will get them..  Also, we've found that often two employees in the same building will call each other on their cellphones, costing the company twice the minutes.

As a reality check, think of how handy a cordless phone is at home.  But cordless phones don't have the necessary range, and will interfere with each other in an office. 

Many offices have a WiFi network.  And many inexpensive PDAs have "ear and mouth" audio capability.  By adding SIP to these PDAs, many employees can use them in the same way as the high end mobile phones mentioned earlier.  And if a VPN is added, the PDAs can be used with a home WiFi network, or at any WiFi hotspot.  Also, there are inexpensive SIP WiFi phones that can be used by those who only need a phone. 

Nine-9s also sees dual mode WiFi and mobile phones coming to market.

SIP is the voice and IM component of unified communications, and TeleSoft has a SIP stack that has been proven in Windows Mobile, Symbian and Linux devices.

The article in Business Comunications Review may be found on line at http://www.webtorials.com/main/gold/bcr/index.htm

TeleSoft Doesn't Announce Telecom Management Software.

February 9, 2008. 

Engineers often call TeleSoft inquiring about T1/E1/J1 telecom management software.  TeleSoft prides itself on our telecom signaling software, which includes ISDN, QSIG, T1 Robbed Bit Signaling (RBS) and E1 R2 CAS signaling, and we have helped many engineers complete their product on time and on budget.

Occasionally an engineer will ask for alarm management or maintenance management software.  TeleSoft has long considered this level of software to be an enabling technology rather than an end in itself.  Customers would come to TeleSoft for the signaling software, and TeleSoft always assumed that they need the alarm and maintenance management software, and so it was included in the package.  To us, the alarm and maintenance software was like silverware at a restaurant--you assume that you get the use of the place setting, and would be very surprised to see a charge on the bill for your use of it.

Recently, customers have asked TeleSoft if we supplied this software, and pointed out that others charge for it.  Of course TeleSoft has this management software.  We've had it for years.  We just never thought that a simple state machine, like you need for alarm management, justified a high price, so TeleSoft includes it with their RBS, R2 and ISDN protocol stacks.  Naturally, we have a configuration manager for all of this.

The alarm and management source code supports:

Maintenance operations for:

∙          Remote, local and payload loopbacks

∙          ANSI T1.403 (FDL reports)

∙          AT&T TR54016 (FDL reports)

Performance data per:

∙          ANSI T1.403

∙          ANSI T1.231

∙          AT&T TR54016

Alarms per:

∙          ANSI T1.231 (LOF, LOS, AIS, RAI)

∙          ANSI T1.231 (Declaration & clearing)

Bit oriented messages:

∙          BOM/BOC per T1.403

 

And TeleSoft occasionally adds features to this list per customer demand.

We consider this a non-announcement because the product is released, and has been fielded for about 20 years.  So we can't announce this as a new product.  Nine-9s would like to point out that TeleSoft is an engineering company and so is driven by engineers.  We apologize for TeleSoft's lack of marketing "slickness" but feel that their technical ability more than makes up for this lack.