Pingtone (Herndon, VA - 703-621-616, www.pingtone.com) has a hosted IP communications service presently extending up and down the east coast. It's based on Cisco IP phones - simple 7910s or bigger-screen 7960s, provided and installed by Pingtone's network of authorized resellers. And it runs on a part-Cisco/part-Pingtone platform that links to carrier Class 5 infrastructure, and offers a unique, end-to-end QoS monitoring system for VoIP links from the premise.

Pingtone's Cisco phones support a growing number of text applications: timeclock, client billing, and Fedex/UPS tracking, for starters. Jerry Cady, CEO, lays out three main benefits to a Pingtone contract, listing disaster recovery first. Then remote access: use your Pingtone Phone and license at home (or anywhere else) to make calls through the host's softswitch. Third is unifying dial plans, directories, and costs for a multi-location enterprise. Included in their business packages are unlimited local and domestic long distance, four-digit dialing across sites, unified messaging, configurable hunt groups and call queues, dial-by-name auto attendant, and multiple levels of call forwarding. Their mid-range business package includes One DID number, one IP fax DID, four line appearances, find-me follow-me, secure IM, UM, conference calling for up to five, and outdialing from voicemail. Click-to-dial from Outlook, Act, Goldmine, GroupWise, Lotus, or from Pingtone's own web GUI, and from inbound/outbound/missed call logs.

Pingtone makes a substantial commitment to insuring that customers get business-class performance and good voice quality. Their network channel partners will qualify a customer's LAN before they'll install. Requirements include a separate VLAN setup for voice, and a QoS-enabled router; but that's equally true of any IP Centrex service that works down to the extension level. Pingtone also provides the managed data T-1, or several, per site, and, as noted above, actively QoS-monitors voice to the premise and will intercede to insure that the effect of transient network impairments is minimized.

Pingtone sells the voice and Internet access for flat prices ranging from $50 to $75 per seat per month.

VIRTUALPBX

VirtualPBX (San Jose, CA - 415-221-6600, www.virtualpbx.com), is not an IP Centrex offering. Its hosting platform harkens back to the still very-much-with-us days of Dialogic-powered call-control and IVR. But this market has been spiffed in recent years with web-based controls and configuration, enhancing utility and perhaps extending its viability as a successful competitor to IP-centric solutions.

The web interfaces let customers sitting anywhere log in via web. VirtualPBX then begins to route a company's 800 number to that agent's designated phone, be it teleworking office, cell phone, or any other location. In a "virtual ACD" scenario, administrators can easily assign agents to multiple queues, and see call center stats, also via browser. Agents can use their browser windows to set call treatments, follow-me, and to retrieve voicemail.

The VirtualPBX solution makes most sense for a widely-dispersed workforce of agents and field service workers. Workers abroad can gain web access to the platform for the equivalent of international call-back: here, they input the number at their location, the number they want to dial, and VirtualPBX makes two outgoing calls and bridges them. VirtualPBX is also making it possible for national organizations to bill their own branch offices for the service.

VirtualPBX has numerous application-friendly features - like the ability to voice-whisper an inbound ANI or DNIS number into an agent's ear, so they can call up a corresponding customer record from a database. With VirtualPBX covering the voice end and a CRM ASP like salesforce.com the data, call centers can outsource all the agent infrastructure but the company lunchroom. (See Muraskin File, August 2003, page 14 for more on this application).

VirtualPBX also enjoys popularity as a disaster-recovery solution, holding a table of alternate phone numbers (e.g., mobile or other telephones) it can immediately map to extension numbers should a customer prem go up in smoke.

VirtualPBX has an active staff handling management tasks. They can do extension configuration, record IVR prompts, compile company dialing directories, configure an auto attendant, and add more virtual extensions or 800 numbers in hours. Virtual extensions have access to DID, voice mail, outdial-from-voicemail, new-message paging (via email or numeric pager), and four-digit transfer, translated to ten digits within the Intel platform. A "*" alerts the Virtual PBX to listen for commands.

In addition to a setup fee, VirtualPBX charges an access fee for each extension, and per-minute charges (heavily discounted with volume) for each call, all of which are necessarily two-legged. CEO Paul Hammond reports that his hosted comm company is growing 300 to 400 percent per year. At this point, at least one of his customers is using the service as an umbrella switch to link up his headquarters PBX with acquired outlying sites; VirtualPBX can deliver the calls to the CPE PBX's extensions, and will take unanswered calls back into its own host voicemail system.

OTHER HOSTED PBX/IP CENTREX SERVICE PROVIDERS

TelVerse (Dulles, VA - 571-7234030, www.telverse.com) is a wholesale IP Centrex offering for telcos, recently acquired by Level 3 Communications. It runs off Sylantro softswitches and Harmony 6000 Media Servers from IP Unity for unified communications and web/audioconferencing.

Synergence Networks (New York, NY - 212-400-7100, www.synergence.com) will launch this fall as a retail IPT host from Virginia to Boston. The newcomer is designing a flat pricing model that eliminates capex to its customers. It figures in the cost of Cisco phones, Cisco 100 Switched LAN (router, switches, firewall), T-1 access, managed network, the whole IPT promise with voicemail, location-independence, controlled IM, personal IP Fax, UM and unlimited local and domestic long distance. It still promises to save from 10% to 40% off current voice and data costs.

OUTSOURCING TRANSACTION MESSAGING

MediaLinq (800-952-2911, www.captaris.com/medialinq) is the services arm of UM/Rightfax fax server maker Captaris, specializing in high-volume fax and e-mail services over its own network. They've announced a new outsourcing option, "ML Transaction Messaging," for one-to-one e-document processing and delivery. It replaces a lot of manual labor with existing business processes, e-templates, and data file merges. Automated invoice generation is the best applied example of this offering. Two new SDKs, XMLplus and DOCplus, will allow customers to trigger these automated document responses with web-based, event-driven or production-based (SAP, Oracle) software stimuli.

HOSTING'S INTEGRATED, LONG-TERM VIEW: SYLANTRO

Sylantro (Campbell, CA - 408-626-2300, www.sylantro.com) is a strong proponent of the SOAP and XML-based web services model. "You can run all of our IP-Centrex capabilities through our web portal as though it were a Microsoft application," says Sylantro's Laura Thompson. "This allows us to expose our application through different sorts of end-user portals," including a speech-driven one. In a VON demo, last year, Sylantro used BeVocal's speech platform to bolt a speech-command front end onto the IP telephony portal. At this year's Supercomm, they demonstrated an integration between a Sylantro softswitch appservser and a hypothetically hosted - or on prem - customer database.

Combining SIP and a web services model, the Sylantro server posited a travel center getting a customer phone call through a Sylantro-based IP Centrex host to a Microsoft SIP phone. "We do a dip on ANI in our Sylantro database, see which hosting customer this is, and use Web services and Caller ID to extract that customer's customer information from the Sylantro server and display it on the agent's PC monitor. At the same time, it sends the key fields to the agent's enterprise database and pops the relevant CRM screen." These are all standards-based sorts of models, says Thompson." To take hosting one step further, the CRM app could be hosted as well, salesforce.com being the best example of the ASP breed.

"SOAP and XML are de facto standards for applications exchanging information - it goes through firewalls cleanly. Using these standards-based sorts of models lets people do complicated computer telephony products that ten years ago costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and take weeks instead of months or years," says Thompson.

A non-call center version of this idea can be demonstrated with Outlook. "When I travel a lot, I don't carry my PC," says Thompson. "If I've synched my Outlook contacts with the Sylantro server, I can go to a kiosk and see my service provider's site. I can click-to-dial out of my directory via Sylantro and my cell phone. That's called Remote Instant Office. Service providers are looking at this for verticals."

It's A Real Choice

Choosing whether to purchase or outsource your business phone system is a lot like deciding whether to buy or lease a new car. Once you identify the features you're looking for, you'll need to determine what financing scenario makes the most sense in terms of your immediate and long range needs.

As with purchasing an automobile, buying an on-premise phone system is generally accompanied by a commitment to extended ownership along with the responsibility of maintenance and upkeep. Yes, eventually you will own the vehicle, but along the way, you'll likely have to invest additional time and money in repair costs while settling for older features as newer models emerge. With a leasing arrangement, the driver can continually upgrade by trading in one lease for another.

Similarly, when a business-based PBX system isn't working properly, the owner becomes saddled with the administrative and monetary burden of maintaining an up to date, smooth-running phone system. With a hosted service, the communications provider handles all system upgrades and repairs for the customer at an offsite point of presence.

How can a business decide what solution will best serve its needs? First, determine how many people will be using the system. A sole proprietor should consider a follow me service with email paging, allowing him to be on call at any time. A small business of two to 40 people located in a single office should consider a premise-based solution to deliver calls to its employees.

However, most business have a blended workforce with road warriors, distributed offices and work from home employees. This is the ideal profile for a hosted service, where you can obtain all the functionality of a very expensive PBX without the hardware costs. The per call minute charges may be slightly more, but balance that with maintenance, upgrade and administrative costs and you may find that a hosted service offers the best value for money.

- Paul Hammond, President/CEO, Virtual PBX

Hosted Solutions Are The Future

Hosted voice services provide a slew of benefits and cost savings. For starters, hosted solutions are "future proof," since the provider will be upgrading the latest features to the system. Hosted solutions reduce the total cost of ownership, since there is no need for additional dollars to support premise-based equipment - including HVAC, insurance and maintenance agreements. In addition, staff traditionally responsible for moves, adds and changes is now free to focus on IT initiatives that benefit the bottom line.

Hosted solutions also provide inherent disaster recovery benefits. While the competition is waiting for repairs to be completed or temporary office space, hosted solution users can use the web portal from anywhere to quickly set up call forwarding options allowing business to continue as usual.

Hosted solutions are the future and decision makers need to focus their reviews on the providers. Consider the following: Can the hosted provider deliver 911 service? Is the provider facilities-based, or are they leasing from another? Hosted solution providers should have redundant network systems ensuring greater reliability, 24 x 7 monitoring and repair, far above what a single company could build and afford.

IP telephony and SIP-based applications will forever change how people communicate. While it's made possible through convergence, it's the integration of the end users' communication tools that is most exciting. Hosted solutions will deliver on this promise faster and better than enterprises going it alone.