Technical

London’s Tube to get free Wi-Fi in time for Olympics

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Free Wi-Fi will be made available to London’s commuters in time for the Olympics. That is, when the Tube drivers aren’t on strike leaving half the network crippled for days at a time.

Everyone loves a freebie, especially if it comes in invisible wireless waves of Wi-Fi enjoyment. Thankfully for the typical grumpy Londoner, users of the Underground subway system will receive free Wi-Fi during July and August.

The catch? There isn’t one as it happens, with anyone able to use the free Wi-Fi during the Olympics and beyond, thanks to Virgin Media. If there were one, however, it would be that once the slightly later Paralympic Games are over, non-Virgin customers will be shuttered out.

London’s Tube to get free Wi-Fi in time for Olympics

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business telephone selection – services and hardware – get your office the service back up it requires

Be sure to select a communications provider that can provide your business with what it needs – not what they want to supply you.

A supplier should have a number of vendor and supply options.

 

Often we have been in competitive situations against a ‘One-man-band’ or ‘man-and-a-van’ whilst a customer may save £50-£100 with such an out fit, there are many downsides, we recommend you look for all these in any new comms provider.

1) Support – a depth of back office support, in telephony, adsl, and mobile technologies

2) A selection of vendor equipment (for features, look and feel, integration to other systems in the business)

3) A selection of Tier 1 network providers, with proper wholesale relationship to provide a higher level of service than if you were direct

If you are a small business looking to save money it may be a false economy to buy cheap today, but have to reinvest a year down the line if the cheap option purchased can’t handle voip or voicemail etc..

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Business Phone System from just £12.50 per month

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Ideally every small business should have at least two phone lines and a Phone System to field calls, with professional voicemail and features similar to those used by large companies. People working from home do not want to use the domestic phone line and number for their business.

Smartinfo offer SmartHorizon – The Professional Solution

SmartHorizon gives all the features of a fully blown Phone System, at a fraction of the cost.

We supply you with a Cisco business phone which connects to us via your broadband. The phone is delivered already set up to your configuration – Phone no. etc.

You will have a new phone number, with an area code of your choice.

Do not worry if you want to alter your set up as you will have access to a web ‘portal’ which will enable you to make changes.

A few of the benefits that come with SmartHorizon:

  • Line Rental is included in the £12.50 monthly fee. Each phone has a line.
  • Never miss a call. If you are engaged and someone calls they will be put through to voicemail.
  • Call log. All calls – including missed – calls are logged.
  • Voicemail.  Voice mail messages can be sent to email.
  • Directory – Create your directory by capturing the caller’s number.
  • Twin your phone with your mobile – both can ring simultaneously or sequentially.
  • ‘Night service’ message. Different message for when the office closes – You choose the time.
  • Auto Attendant – press 1 for Sales, 2 for Accounts etc gives the impression of scale.
  • You can even record calls. During a call instruct the system to record and it will do so from the beginning of the call. You then simply download the ‘file’.

The only additional cost is a £200.00 one off set up fee which includes the pre-configured Cisco Phone. You simply plug the phone into your Router and start making and receiving calls.

SmartHorizon uses the Broadsoft platform (the world’s largest hosted provider) to power our services. The system evolves from us implementing our client’s wishes. Consequently there are all the features you would expect with additional ones being added all the time.

We look forward to helping you resolve this common issue for a monthly charge that is less than the rental of a BT Business Analogue Phone Line.

Smartinfo Ltd are available to help.

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Cisco phone system for small business

Cisco phone system for small business

Cisco phone for small business

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Smartinfo can supply and configure a Cisco phone system for you small business. Based on the Broadsoft r17 platform, customers can manage their extension online and upload auto attendant and music on hold online.

POE (Power over Eithernet)  switches, cat 5 installs, and fax to email solutions are also available.

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Telephone Systems for Schools and Colleges

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Smartinfo have installed many new phone systems for schools and colleges. Many companies just remove old switchboards like for like, misssing an opportunity to add greater functionallity to a schools facility management.

Some of the features we like to install specifically for schools are:-

1) An Operator console – to enable the receptionist to handle a large number of calls at the busiest times

2) Texting from the desktop to allow student or parent realtime updating of urgent opening times info

3) Mobex – to allow mobile phones to replace DECT systems

4) Paging through phones

5) Scalling of lines up and down at busyest times such as admissions for 6th form colleges

6) Mobile gateway to reduce mobile call costs by 60%

If your supplier has not recommended any, or all, of the above they are not looking after a schools functional needs!

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Phone System Maintenance

It is recommended all owners of telephone systems take out a maintneance contract on their phone system.

A maintenance agreement gives a number of benifits over a pay as you go call-out structure.

A specific telephone system maintenance agreement gives you 1. A contracted SLA (service level agreement) 2. HArdware and Labour cover

As an added benefit Smartinfo also throw in some free moves and changes into our maintenance contracts, that is we provide a number of free dial-ins over the term of the contract, often refered to as MOCs – or moves and changes, such as phone name changes or ring group tweeks.

What is often overlooked is the cheap cost of maintenance, on our survey of our customer base Telephon system maintenance if less than 10% of the price of IT support for the same company. If you consider a company still uses telephony for customer contact at least as much as email and web this offers great value. Also most IT contracts do not offer hardware cover, whereas a smartinfo phone maintenance contract covers all hardware failures and the labour to replace or fix, within an SLA of commonly 4 or 8 hours.

If you refer to our life of a phone system blog post it is interesting to note that maintenance or service contract also covers software upgrades.

Some people relate a service contract to consumer items such as washing machines or fridges, or even business products like photocopiers, but these items tend to have a single mechanical part, and a modernday phone system is software driven and a business critical component – in fact we would argue as important as the business premisis, or staff.

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Voip Telephone systems and inter-operabillity to 999 and other 3 digit short dials

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Smartinfo install voip telephone systems with PSTN access (even if it is just a single traditional BT Analogue line) This can be programmed to provide both inbound and outbound resilliance, and can also be utillised for 999 emergency calls and operator type calls too: –

here is an interesting aticle from the states relating to Vonnage VOIP call 911 (999 evivelent)

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705397000/Can-you-text-911.html

Remeber if you install a voip phone system the system does not know your true location (a London number could be ringining on a Manchester Phone System)

Call us or fill in our for for a free quote for a Telephone System

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Major Software upgrade on Virtual Infrastructure

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Engineering work will be undertaking an essential software upgrade within the resilient virtual firewall infrastructure at the London 3 data centre. This work will allow further virtual firewalls to be provisioned whilst also removing a software bug recently identified that is preventing provisioning activites to take place. This work has been recommended by the vendor.

Affecting

No customer impact is anticipated during the works as virtual services hosted on the device being worked upon will be migrated on to unaffected resilient devices within London 2. However, there is a very slight possibility of disruption to services in London 3, mainly the DNS platform but also including DSL and Leased Lines.

Advice to affected users

Please check your connectivity after the maintenance window. If problems persist, please contact the Emergency Support Team.

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Italian Financial crisis – Stop Telephone systems Install

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Smartinfo recently quoted for a very sophisticated and complex telephone system for a rich Italian for his London house. The handsets quoted have large coloured screens and programmed to pick up the images from the CCTV system and sound from the security system cameras.

All the bedrooms and bathrooms are o have cameras installed and voice sensitive recording devices attached to each camera. The complete systems were priced at £50k. He said he wanted to fund it by a lease but the banks refused because they said they did not want to add to the Italian debt crisis. Negotiations on payment methods continue as he desperately wants us to fulfil our proposal and install the telephone system and security system before Christmas…

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Virtual PBX – Modest Office Phone Systems

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Virtual PBX is usually a fantastic alternative, in relation to picking out a smaller Office Phone Systems. With all its improved telecommunication facilities, this cellular phone assistance can help organization communication in a productive and specialist way.

A virtual PBX cell phone system is integrated by using a variety of refined options which might be commonly seen in fashionable phone systems of greater firms. Voice mail box facility, fax mail, fax to email, caller ID, find me follow me, simply call forwarding or no matter what be your modest small business telecommunication necessity, it is possible to have it all by a virtual PBX program, at very reasonably priced rates.

Benefits of a Compact Office Phone Systems

Gains that your tiny office environment may have from virtual PBX systems are a lot of. This phone process can be create simply and features when using the assist of a broadband world-wide-web connection; all calls will likely be linked to the meant extensions inside minimum time. Benefits that PBX cellular phone programs convey towards your small business will not be basically constrained to:

  • Ease-of- use.
  • Slice down telecommunication charges
  • Minimized infrastructure prices
  • Scalable
  • Simultaneous simply call transferring facility
  • Current much larger corporate picture
  • Round-the-clock expert service
  • Independence to operate company even when within the move.
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