One Pipe—and how it helps you with your business phones
When I was a kid in elementary school, I remember teachers talking about the idea of having “one pipe” into our houses that would replace TV and phone.
I am dating myself a bit because when I was in school the Internet did not exist, at least not for the average person. The idea of having one single connection for communications was strange to me. I thought “How are they going to do that?”
Well it’s now a few years later (lol) and the idea is coming to fruition via the InterWebs. In the industry, we are seeing more and more services being delivered over “one pipe”.
This has a fancy name: “network convergence”.
I guess the “one pipe” nomenclature wasn’t good enough.
According to wikipedia “Network convergence refers to the provision of telephone, video and data communication services within a single network.” We are seeing this everywhere now. At homes people use TV services such as IPTV, Netflix, Shomi, Cravetv; music services such as Spotify, Apple music, Google play music; online banking and shopping; email, web surfing and the list goes on and on.
Smartphones using this pipe are ubiquitous.
Businesses are using the pipe for email, web, smartphones and so on similar to home users. Business are also using the “one pipe” for VoIP phones or phone systems, many services via the “cloud” such as SaaS, IaaS, NaaS, and CaaS.
If you are using Gmail or Hotmail you are using SaaS (Software as a Service). More about these “as a Service” items in an upcoming article.
At TELECO we provide and support many of these services. One cool example is the VoIP client for an Android or iPhone called OneX Mobile which communicates via the pipe to the IP Office phone system.
Staff can give out the business phone number and be reached on their Cell Phones
With this tool, staff can use their cell phone as if it were a desk phone at their workspace. It does not matter where they are physically located as long as they have a pipe to the ‘Net.
Calls out of the cell phone appear to come from the business, not the cell phone, and calls in to the staff can easily be answered on the cell phone.
This is great for a business as they can market one phone number and present brand consistency to the public.
It is also great for the staff as they can take and make calls regardless of where they are and can easily logout when they are done work.
Staff no longer give out their cell number to the public, just the company main number and their extension or their direct number. And if a staff member leaves your business, your customers will call into your business phone, as usual, instead of trying to reach a past-employee’s personal cell phone.
Contact us at TELECO if you wish to have a demo of this killer app.
