The Life and Times of Seattle’s Small Business Systems Consultant. Articles and advice on small business phone systems, phone and internet services, VoIP, and all things technology related.
Selkowitz Technology | Seattle’s small business network and telecom consultant
Highest Rated
- Polycom vs. Konftel - Conference Phones Compared
(4.67 out of 5) - AastraLink Pro 160 Phone System Review
(4.6 out of 5) - Response Point vs Talkswitch - a comparison of small business phone systems
(4.2 out of 5) - Why You Shouldn’t Hire ADR Data Recovery for Reiser Recovery
(4 out of 5)
- Polycom vs. Konftel - Conference Phones Compared
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7 New Things to Love About Allworx 7.1
Allworx System Software 7.1 release for the Allworx 6x, 10x and 24x phone systems just came out, here’s 7 new things to love in 7.1:
Headset pickup/hangup: also known as “EHS” or electronic hook switch, this lets you pickup and hangup calls from a cordless headset without a lifter. Unlike many solutions no special cord or [...]
iAllworx Integrates the Office with Mobile Phones
iAllworx is a new iPhone/iPod Touch application for use with Allworx phone systems and is a truly groundbreaking new integration application. iAllworx allows you to change your Presence, manage voicemail, and see conferences all from your iPhone.
Presence management - presence is where you are or what you’re doing. Depending on presence, calls can be [...]
Talkswitch Intros the New 350i and 550i
Talkswitch just today announced the new 350i and 550i phones - and I’m happy to say we’re first on the block with a review since we’ve had them for a few days now!
These phones are Talkswitch’s second generation IP phones and definitely improved from the quite good first generation. Both phones are a step up [...]
Phone Disaster Planning
With all the talk locally about the possibility of the Green River flooding in the Kent/Auburn area, I figure its a great time to address disaster planning regarding business phones.
Even if your office is up out of the valley floor you may have disruptions due to phone/internet services which route through flood areas, power outages, [...]
AastraLink Pro 160 Phone System Review
I recently had the pleasure of installing an AastraLink Pro 160 IP Phone System for a client. I’ve found no real-world review of deployed AastraLink Pro 160 systems, so to fill the gap, here’s my thoughts.
Background
AastraLink Pro 160 is a newer phone system, it came out in May 2008. Aastra however has been around since [...]
Jabra Introduces New GN1900 Value Headset
We recently got in Jabra’s new GN1900 headset in for testing. Jabra wisely recognized the market need for a high quality value headset for office phones, the GN1900 fits the bill beautifully.
The GN1900 is clearly well designed and built, though definitely minimalist compared to their higher end units. I found the unit extremely comfortable [...]
Diagnosing Bad VoIP Connections with VoIP Spear
A while back I wrote about why VoIP sometimes doesn’t work right. Diagnosing public internet VoIP issues can be tough because the problem can be the hardware, VoIP service, internet service provider, or just the internet.
VoIP quality services like VisualWare VoIP test are great, but only helpful for consistently bad connections. In many cases the [...]
How IP Voice Can Save Your Business Thousands over PRI
PRI is a common business phone service, it basically a voice T1 with Caller ID. PRIs have an advantage over traditional phone lines as they can do “Direct Inward Dial” (DIDs), enabling a business to have numbers ring directly to staff or use different numbers for marketing campaigns to track the effectiveness of their marketing. [...]
Introducing the Cordless 850i Handset for Talkswitch Phone Systems
Cordless phones are very popular for small medical clinics and retail stores, as the staff often isn’t tied to a desk but around and about. For an office needing a bare-bones solution, the Panasonic KX-TG4500B among other models are good, but lack the feature set of a full phone system.
Few small business phone systems [...]
Key System mode on IP PBXs Ease the Upgrade
Being a technology guy, I generally like to use and learn the newest (hopefully more effective) ways to get things done. In the phone business that means the PBX model rather than the Key System/KSU model. Basically if you’re used to telling someone to pickup line 2, you use a KSU. If you transfer calls [...]