October 19 and 20, we will be on site at the 2010 NJSBA Workshop Trade Show for K-12 Education. The event, held at the The Palace at Somerset Park in Somerset, NJ, is an opportunity for school board members and educators to learn tools, techniques and tactics that can be used to advance education.

Eastern Datacomm will be an exhibitor at the upcoming event. We will be at Booth # 511 and will be demonstrating Shoretel IP PBX. We also will have Lifesize Video products on hand and the Aruba Wireless products.

If you’re planning to attend the event, stop by and learn how the products and services we offer can help your school district boost productivity and save money.

Nemertes Research has once again awarded the 2010 PilotHouse Award to ShoreTel for IP Telephony. This is the seventh consecutive year ShoreTel has received this award.

The Nemertes PilotHouse Award program aims to determine how well vendors and/or service providers perform based on the judgments of their business users. The results of the research project are entirely based on the views and experiences of actual users of IP telephony vendors.

Because the market has some “market leaders” who have hundreds, thousands or even millions of customers (Cisco) and significant market share, versus other “market challengers,” Nemertes segments the two groups and issues an award for each. Cisco received the 2010 award for market leaders, while ShoreTel received the award for market challengers.

Their customers rate telephony providers on a scale of 1 to 5 on technology, customer service and value. ShoreTel was the only vendor to score about a 4 in all categories.

This year, ShoreTel received the highest rating yet for technology: 4.33. The report states that customers say the ShoreTel system is “easy to understand and not overly complex.”

In regards to customer service, ShoreTel was the only provider to be rated above 4, with a rating of 4.10. The study quotes a research participant who is a CIO of a $100 million K-12 school district who said ShoreTel is “…sterling relative to their peers.”

The value category is a rating measuring what customers think about what they get for their money. ShoreTel had the top value rating of 4.24, ranking high above other vendors, including Cisco, Avaya, and Microsoft.

For full results of the study, click Nemertes 2010 PilotHouse Awards IP Telephony.

If you have deployed a ShoreTel phone system or are considering one for your business, do you know what the architecture of that system is? What makes a ShoreTel system “brilliantly simple?” The simplicity of the ShoreTel phone system begins with the foundational building blocks of the system.

The first two videos in our ShoreTel Demo series will take a look at the architecture and structure of the ShoreTel system.

Part I

ShoreTel began with ShoreGear Voice Appliance, and is the fundamental building block of the ShoreTel system.

Built with no moving parts, except the fan, the mean time before failure (or life expectancy) is extended 11-15 years, bringing down the total cost of ownership.

The small size of the ShoreGear system has a dramatically smaller footprint, adding to cost savings.

For a business with one site, the system would be set up with:

• One or more ShoreGear Voice Appliances
• Phones
• Applications server – voicemail, auto attendant, work groups (ACD functionality)
• Computer telephony integration and admin (ShoreTel Director)
• All call processing is handled on the ShoreGear voice appliance, rather than the server. Even without the server, the core functionality of the phone system still exists, as those core functions are run on the ShoreGear voice appliance, separate from the server.

Watch the video below for more details and a visual representation of the ShoreTel architecture.

ShoreTel Communicator for iPhone

With the release of ShoreTel 11 come several changes to the ShoreTel system, including a name chanage of ShoreTel Call Manager to ShoreTel Communicator. The release simplifies integration with existing IT infrastructure and legacy PBX systems.

But perhaps the most exciting new offering with the ShoreTel 11 release is support for the iPhone. The ShoreTel Communicator platform is now supported on the iPhone, allowing access to the user interface of communicator.

Other SmartPhones that are platforms for ShoreTel Communicator include: BlackBerry Storm, BlackBerry Curve and Samsung Blackjack II.

The ShoreTel Communicator for iPhone app, available in the iPhone App Store, has many features including:

• View, listen and call back from ShoreTel voicemail box
• Access to and call back from call history
• Presence and preferred call handling settings
• Allows you to assign your ShoreTel extension to your iPhone
• Dialing to iPhone contacts
• Allows you to hide your iPhone number when calling out

With mobile apps, ShoreTel is becoming even more “brilliantly simple.”

Want to know more about how ShoreTel 11 works on the iPhone? Download this PDF.

By our friends at Xtelesis

Problem: Quality and reliability of service are primary concerns of any IT specialist, and for good reason. When purchasing and installing a VoIP phone system, high standards of quality and reliability are expected, but not always achieved.  Without additional AC outlets for each phone, coupled with the possibility of an occasional power outage, how can reliability be achieved?

Solution: Using a PoE (Power over Ethernet) switch could increase the quality of a VoIP hosted PBX system and could therefore positively affect the quality of service.  PoE technology can save time and cost of installing separate power cabling and AC outlets and eliminates the need for a dedicated uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) for individual devices connected to the Ethernet.  This means that in it is possible to centrally back-up IP telephony phones in the event of a power failure.

In the design and installation phase, power supply is often overlooked or underestimated, which could lead to increased cost and loss of time.  PoE reduces the need for dedicated power protection at the desktop but can increase power protection requirements at the switch level.

Not all companies that provide hosted services include PoE due to the extra cost, but as the customer, it is important that you are aware it is an option.

Problem: While the use of a Power over Ethernet (PoE) switch eliminates the need for a dedicated Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) for individual devices connected to the internet, system reliability could still be at stake in the event of power failure.

Solution: A power backup to your data room, specifically the PoE switch is crucial to maintain uninterrupted service.

A UPS provides emergency power to a system when the input power source fails. It is different from an emergency power system or generator in that a UPS provides near-instantaneous protection from power interruptions.

The use of a PoE increases reliability and flexibility of a phone system by removing a point of failure in the external power supply. PoE simplifies installation because only one cable is needed, so the workspace is uncluttered.

Using a backup batter system like a UPS on the PoE switch ensures that all of the IP phones in your system will maintain power in the event of a power failure.

This is the ShoreTel Model ShoreGear90 appliances and the ShoreTel Shoregear PRI appliances at the Ridgewood Public Schools main data center. Ridgewood has 10 schools which each have 1-2 ShoreTel equipment in the rack, the main site is the Education center/Board office

Unified communications needs span all types of businesses and organizations.   Ridgewood Public Schools in Ridgewood, NJ came to Eastern DataComm seeking a solution to replace their Centrex system, specifically a standardized, controlled system.

The Ridgewood Public Schools have been customers of Eastern DataComm for a year and a half, and have been using the ShoreTel phone system for one year. Louise Ricart, IT Specialist for the district says the backend software has made management easy, and the phone system directory has been especially helpful to the district.

The implementation of a ShoreTel system has had the most impact on communications between parents and teachers, Ricart said. Parents are now able to leave messages for teachers on their mailboxes. Staff members are able to access their voicemail even from outside the district and receive email notifications of new voicemails.

We believe in ShoreTel’s “brilliantly simple” solutions, and so does the Ridgewood district. Adaptation of the new phone system for staff has been very easy, according to Ricart. “They love it,” she said.

It is our goal to provide unified communications solutions that are easy for our customers to deploy and manage. We are so pleased with the success the Ridgewood Pubic Schools have had with their ShoreTel phone system.

For more information on phone systems for your business or organization, contact us.

T1 blunt with RJ45B connector

Originally published by our friends at Xtelesis.

If you’re looking for broadband internet for your businesses voice and data networking, do you know what it is you’re looking for or what your choices are? The two most popular choices for broadband internet service are DSL and T1.

DSL is a digital line that can reach download speeds of up to 10MB, depending on location and number of subscribers in the area. The biggest concern with DSL is that speeds will vary, depending on the number of users at any given time, and you are not guaranteed to have a full speed or consistent service. The greatest advantage to DSL for an SMB is cost. DSL internet will cost about 10% of the cost of a T1 dedicated line.

A T1 line can be used to transport digital voice and data signals.  T1 is designed to handle large amounts of bandwidth, and can comfortably service up to 50 users, with each user having their own bandwidth. T1 lines are guaranteed to deliver 1.5 Mbps by the provider, and your T1 provider should provide an SLA to guarantee both speed and uptime. T1 lines are managed by the provider, rather than in-house, which could be an advantage or disadvantage, depending on your internal technical support capabilities and needs.

If reliability is a top concern, or if you expect significant traffic on your voice and data lines, a T1 might be the best choice for your business.  On the other hand, if budget is a concern – as it is with most SMBs – using DSL for your internet service will cost less.

A recent study by Gartner Research analyzed ShoreTel and other SMB Unified Communications providers in North America. The marketscope looks at: voice and telephony, conferencing, messaging and presence and IM offerings of these UC providers. For the study, SMB was defined as a company with between 20 and 499 employees.

Among the companies included in the research was the ShoreTel 10 UC platform. Gartner’s findings of the ShoreTel solution was “strong positive,” with a number of strengths, including:

• ShoreTel’s bundled all-in-one UC solution with limited installation and configuration requirements. The ShoreTel 10 bundle includes: IM, audio conferencing and web collaboration, voice messaging and telephony.
• Easy to understand and maintain. Simple and transparent pricing and licensing. Included support and maintenance.
• Optimization for positive customer experience.
• Cost-effective and reliable for SMBs with distributed operations.

The findings of the Gartner study emphasize ShoreTel’s commitment to ease of use with its “brilliantly simple” motto.  Other UC providers included in the study were: Avaya, Cisco, Critical Links, IBM, Interactive Intelligence, Microsoft, Mitel, NEC, Siemens Enterprise Communications, and Toshiba.

For the full study, click here.

For more information on ShoreTel solutions for your business, contact us.

While most most often used by businesses to conduct long-distance meetings, and reduce travel budgets, videoconferencing sometimes reaches beyond the business world and into the community.

NBC Nightly News recently aired a feature about Freedom Calls and the organization’s efforts to keep military families virtually connected.

Freedom Calls is a non-profit organization working to offer deployed soldiers the opportunity to participate in milestone family events such as births, birthdays, weddings and school graduations.  The organization uses LifeSize videoconferencing solutions to get military personnel as close to the real-life action as possible.

The NBC story features a young military couple, and how LifeSize and Freedom Calls connected the young, soon-to-be father to his wife during the birth of their first son.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

In this video demonstration from our friends at Xtelesis, learn how to access your recorded videos online with an inside look at LifeSize Video Center.