For consultants, it’s absolutely critical to be able to quickly communicate with anyone at any time. Both revenue and customer satisfaction often depend on getting in touch with the right person right away — or on ensuring that they can get in touch with you.
And with the combination of Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Quintum Technologies’ Tenor VoIP gateway, German IT consultancy Plan-B has been able to do exactly that. In fact, by enabling its consultants to overcome the constraints of space and time, Plan-B’s state-of-the-art communications environment has significantly boosted staff productivity while helping the company save thousands in telecommunications costs.
Plan-B’s consultants all have Office Communicator and Outlook running on their personal computing devices, which include laptops and PDAs. Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 will be running on a server in the company’s main office. A Quintum Tenor BX gateway sits between that server and the company’s PBX.
This setup allows consultants to use their computing devices as phones. For audio input/output, they use Bluetooth headsets, USB-connected headsets, or the speakers and microphone built into their laptops. Communicator acts as a VoIP client, allowing voice traffic to travel over the office LAN or the Internet to the Office Communications Server 2007.
This server connects to the Quintum gateway, which in turn connects to the PBX. This allows voice traffic to move freely between the company’s LAN and the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Voice traffic can also move between the company’s LAN and the Internet via its router.
This simple yet effective combination enables a wide range of high-value communications capabilities that enable Plan-B perform at tremendous efficiency. These capabilities include:
ULTIMATE MOBILITY. The client’s staff can answer their office phones from anywhere in the world, as
long as they have an Internet connection. Staff can have one phone number, and any calls coming in from the PSTN are passed through the Tenor VoIP gateway
to Office Communication Server 2007. Office Communication Server 2007 can be configured to call a staff member via a rosoft Office Communicator 2007 client
running on their laptop or PDA, or to a telephone on a PBX voice network, or a landline or cell phone connected through the PSTN.
LEAST COST ROUTING. The client’s staff can reach their company’s local offices from anywhere in the world via the Internet — which means they can call domestic and international locations from anywhere in the world and only pay the in-country rate. The Tenor VoIP gateways can then switch the calls to the local PBX or PSTN.
Plan-B selected Quintum’s Tenor VoIP gateway solution for a variety of reasons, including its support for ISDN (a must for interfacing with European PBXs) and its ease of installation. Quintum gateways also provide failover and compression features that are invaluable for ensuring the reliability, efficiency and quality of its VoIP calls.
"Quintum gave us a fast, simple way to add voice to our Microsoft-enabled communications and collaboration environment," says Alan Dutton, head of Plan-B’s unified communications practice. "As a result, we can work smarter and faster than ever with significantly reduced telecommunications costs."
