Frequently Asked Questions

FAQ

What is an IP-PBX?

An IP-PBX is a customer premise business phone system that manages telephones throughout the enterprise. An IP-PBX allows you to place calls using a network instead of standard telephone infrastructure.



What is IP telephony?

IP Telephony, or Internet Protocol Telephony, is the transmission of voice signals over the Internet/wide area network (WAN) or local area network (LAN). IP Telephony uses voice-over-IP to break down voice transmissions into packets of data and transmit them across a network.



What is CTS's approach to IP telephony?

CTS has an evolutionary approach to IP versus a revolutionary approach. We provide a migration strategy that allows our customers to implement both traditional voice and new IP-based services. Other vendors require their customers to move immediately to a pure IP infrastructure for both voice and data. This is a much riskier and more expensive approach and usually means that organizations must upgrade their entire network infrastructure and retrain personnel on operational functions. CTS has taken a different approach that allows its customers to migrate to IP when they are ready and focus on the applications they need today. This approach provides better reliability while still taking advantage of new technology. The system also combines the full support of an IP-PBX with application capabilities. By combining applications within the voice platform companies can more easily affect and manage customer interactions as well as understand customer calling patterns through network-wide reporting. Example application modules include: call routing and queuing; directed marketing messages; store service response; interactive voice response (IVR); connections to backend databases and enterprise applications.



Where do pure IP telephony solutions fit best?

Companies that require IP solutions with the installed LAN/WAN infrastructure can be initially designed with voice-grade Quality of Service (QoS) and a single cabling system for all communications needs. Pure IP solutions are not cost optimized for deployment in many environments as these solutions usually require gateways, additional servers, and careful network engineering to ensure proper operation.



What are the advantages of an IP-PBX system?

Multiple Branch Offices With VoIP- expanding your business phone system to multiple branch office sites is easy. Integrated IP Gateways allow you to traffic calls between offices over the Internet and save on long distance charges. Dialing branch offices is as easy as calling an extension down the hall. Toll Bypass IP-PBXs enable businesses to reduce the cost of long distance calling by routing calls inexpensively over IP networks. If you have overseas facilities, using an IP-PBX could reduce your businesss costs significantly. Even if your business has a single remote office, an IP-PBX can give you the flexibility to pick an affordable solution. Purchasing a solution that allows for a small or large number of IP trunks might be right for you. Have employees that work from home? CTS's sophisticated IP-PBX software extends easily and seamlessly to your telecommuters/contractors and consultants and makes them part of the corporate phone system.



How do IP-PBX's work with other applications including legacy applications?

The CTS platform can host both custom and third-party applications managed locally or remotely. CTS also provides a simple script-based development environment for custom applications to address specific customer needs. The CTS solution can also be tightly integrated into back end applications and databases, enabling companies the ability to provide new customer-facing applications like inventory look-up. Other vendors require additional servers (dedicated for some applications), which again, adds to the cost of the solution.



What makes an IP-PBX an applications platform?

The platform should be fully application-ready with the processing power and memory to support third-party applications. The system should be standards-based and use standard application programming interfaces like VoiceXML and TAPI.



Can I use an IP-PBX system if I want to keep my existing analog & digital handsets?

Support of legacy, analog, and digital handsets should be a top requirement for most IP-PBX installations. Why throw away your existing phones and wiring when the right IP-PBX solution can work with legacy handsets as well as IP? CTS has implemented the Koretel IP phone system in front of legacy PBX and is able to route the calls through a T1/PRI. This type of implementation allows for the client to keep the old system while simultaneously adding new IP equipment and phones in a different part of the company.



What if I want to adopt IP at our own pace instead of radically redoing our entire infrastructure?

The emergence of voice-over-IP networks presents todays business manager with a tough choice when making a long-term phone system purchase decision. Maybe you are not ready to standardize on a one-wire network requiring an expensive network upgrade. Perhaps you have no need for multiple branch communications but want to plan for your future expansion. How do you leave your options open? The right IP-PBX should offer a practical solution providing the flexibility to use your phone system as a traditional PBX/IP-PBX or a combination of both - the choice (and timing) should be completely up to you.



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