fixing a fault

What connection
do I need?
Boost
PBX
Power
your
Internet access and cloud solutions have become a key part of how we work. But the success of these online tools relies heavily on
making sure you’ve got the right connectivity. Here’s our simple guide to choosing what’s right for you.
managing risk
“internet’s useful
to us”
“internet’s essential
to us”
“internet’s critical
to us”
“internet’s critical
to us – all 30+ of us!”
What would we
recommend?
DSL
Fibre broadband
Ethernet First Mile
Ethernet Fibre
Who might use it?
An online business who use
A small business that uses
A business that relies on
cloud based applications,
email, perhaps writes a
sending and receiving
for example for their
blog, orders online, checks
large files, or media,
customer relationship
social media
such as a design agency
management (CRM) system
Why use it?
If you want to take your
first step into dedicated
business-grade internet
access
If you need a robust,
dedicated solution that
can easily be scaled up
as your business grows
How fast is it?*
Expect speeds of up to
35Mbps for download
AND upload
Expect speeds of between
10 and 1000 Mbps for
download AND upload
Expect speeds of up to
76Mbps download,
19Mbps upload
One reason these options are so cost-efficient, is that
effectively you ‘share’ the connectivity. It could, for
example, be shared with 20 users; if all 20 people were
downloading something at the same time, the speed
could drop. This is known as a ‘contended’ service.
What technical info
do I need to know?
How much is it?
Expect speeds of up to
17Mbps download,
2.5Mbps upload
from £16.99
from £36.00
These options include something called symmetric
bandwidth, which means all your devices can send and
receive data at equal speeds.
You also benefit from QoS, or ‘quality of service’, which
means that the important things, like voice traffic, get
there first. This will be critical if you want to implement a
hosted telephony solution.
from £200.00
from £400.00
* Speeds may vary depending on the line, technology available and distance from the exchange.
Q: What’s the nature of your business?
A: Stanco Services specialise in the repair, service and maintenance
of all types of coffee machines and vending equipment.
Q: How many employees and sites do you have?
5 minutes
with
Stanco
Services Ltd
A: 30 employees – most of us are out on the road.
Q: What products do you take through Nine Telecom?
Upgrading your telephony solution doesn’t always
mean moving away from a traditional PBX. Many
PBXs are set-up to be able to connect to something
called IP, which gives you a great gateway to access
new technology while fundamentally keeping things
the same. Sound too good to be true? Not at all…
.Built-in disaster recovery
.Scalability, whether your business is expanding
or downsizing
.Number
.Instant access to a wide range of useful features,
such as call recording.
call queuing
The extra features available with IPSDN allow you to
plan ahead and put contingency plans in place for
managing the unexpected.
For our customers
A great big Nine ‘thank you’ for all your positive
feedback about the first issue of The Outside
Line. We’re all incredibly proud of it here, but that
means nothing unless you enjoy it too! We’ve
taken on board your suggestions for future
issues and indeed, a lot of the content included
in this issue is in direct response to some of your
suggestions so please keep them coming.
In 2012 UK businesses
made 25 billion minutes
of outgoing mobile
calls, compared to
24 billion minutes on
traditional landlines
Paul Ballinger
Group Sales Director
Even better, because you already have the PBX in
place there is no cap-ex and the install process is
quick and painless.
mobile office
next generation connectivity
made simple.
Win a Kindle !
BYOD
Connected
Efficiency
Find me
Homeworkers
good
luck!
FIXING
A FAULT
What goes on behind the scenes?
We’ve put together a list of just some of the
benefits of using your telecommunications to
mobilise your workforce. If you can find all nine
of these in our wordsearch we’ll put you into a
draw to win a Kindle.
working on the move?
Solutions to make life easier
Please scan your entry and email it to
theoutsideline@ninetelecom.co.uk
Q:What business challenges do you face that you think
could be addressed by smarter telecommunications?
A:Keeping in contact with field based engineers and responding
quickly to customers’ queries or service calls.
The competition is not open to employees of Nine Group and
the judges’ decision will be final.
a chance to have your say about what you like
and more importantly, what you need from us.
Please take part when we issue the survey and
please be brutally honest… you can even be
anonymous if that helps!
Lastly, we wanted to try and de-mystify the
subject of connectivity. Yes, we all know that
these days a business needs connectivity, but
One key thing readers asked us to cover was how do you know which service is right for you?
the whole area of Service issues – what happens Our simple guide to connectivity should help…
when you log a fault with us? In this issue we’ve
Keep the ideas coming in, and good luck with
sketched out an outline of this process and we
the competition to win a Kindle!
introduce you to some of the key players you’re
likely to meet along the way. Hopefully this will Chat soon
help, but of course, let us know if you need any
more information.
Coming back to feedback, my colleague James
Carroll talks in this issue about a future survey P.S. Don’t be alarmed by the very early ‘seasons
we’ll be issuing, which will ask for your thoughts greetings’ below; it’s the crazy world of
on more general Nine Telecom issues. This is Marketing apparently!
Seasons Greetings
GROUP MARKETING DIRECTOR, MARK SAUNDERS, TURNS HIS ATTENTION
TO UNPOPULAR IDEAS BY LOOKING FORWARD TO THE FESTIVE SEASON.
Mobilisation
One number
Smarter working
Stay in touch
by 12th October 2013. The lucky winner will be
chosen at random from all correct entries. The
winner will be notifed by email or telephone and
announced in the next issue.
A: Calls and lines, Mitel 5000 telephone system and maintenance
Issue 02 | September 2013
The Outside Line | Issue 02 | September 2013
IPSDN is a new, simple, voice connectivity solution
that works with your PBX to give you:
flexibility (keep the same number
even if you move to a different geographic area)
A large office, with 30+ staff,
perhaps with remote
workers and multiple
cloud based applications
It’ll give you faster speeds
It’s good, cost effective
than DSL, for greater
internet access
efficiency
The Outside Line
The Outside Line | Issue 02 | September 2013
The Outside Line | Issue 02 | September 2013
Broadband slowing you down?
Solutions to speed things up
In cricket The Ashes have been secured, the
football season is underway, the children are
back at school, nights are drawing in and
unwelcome adverts are appearing outside
Christmas party venues.
Now, these locations do need to publicise their
Christmas hospitality packages – the market
for lively evenings with a Blues Brothers tribute
act is a cut throat one, but does anyone really
want to be reminded of the forthcoming festive
season in September? So, my question is how
do you market something that most people
don’t want to be reminded about?
At Nine Telecom, we believe that taking time
to understand the customer’s perspective is
essential. For example, we deliberately steer
away from the emotive term “disaster recovery,”
preferring to talk about “managing risk.” We
don’t want to highlight switchboard hacking,
gridlocked transport systems, power outages,
or flooded premises, but these things can all
happen and could disrupt or damage your
business.
As with the Christmas night out, prevention
and planning is much better than treating the
following morning’s headache, so talk to your
Customer Account Manager about our range of
solutions for managing risk.
Visit www.customerdrivers.co.uk and click on
Managing Risk to find out more.
we love business
we love business
we love business
we love business
email theoutsideline@ninetelecom.co.uk for more information
email theoutsideline@ninetelecom.co.uk for more information
email theoutsideline@ninetelecom.co.uk for more information
email theoutsideline@ninetelecom.co.uk for more information
Mark Saunders
Group Marketing Director
The Outside Line | Issue 02 | September 2013
Driver spotlight
The Outside Line | Issue 02 | September 2013
Whether you’re at a customer’s premises, travelling to meetings or working from home, take your
work with you and never be out of the loop again*. By making your business truly mobile you can
benefit from cost savings and efficiencies, that’s got to be a great thing right? But how can it be
done?
Q: What’s the nature of your business?
A traditional PBX
– everywhere
Working on the move
A: 100+, over 20 sites
Using a hosted IP telephony
solution you can redirect your
inbound calls to whatever – and
however many – devices you
like so you can work effectively
wherever you are. The call
routing is simple to change
whenever you need, which
also has the added bonus of
disaster recovery, should you
ever need to react quickly.
together to completely change
the way we work so you no
longer need to be tied to the
office. Thanks to smartphones,
laptops and tablets, everyone
can have the tools to do
everything they need to do, just
as if they were in the office.
Your company budget says
one mobile, but you prefer
another? No problem
Latest trends show that
many companies allow their
employees to ‘bring their own
device’ (known as BYOD)
to work. This has many
advantages, as the company
can get great savings on
SIM-only devices, while the
employee gets to use a handset
that they’re comfortable with.
“that all sounds like a
lot of hassle and a lot of
Technology trends are coming
suppliers”
Video calling
Not for those who choose
to work from home in their
pyjamas admittedly, but IP
video calling is a great way of
cutting down on meeting travel
costs while ensuring everyone
can continue to work together.
As well as video calling, with
IP telephony your voice calls
can go through your PC, mac,
tablet or smartphone with
fantastic clarity.
Actually, it doesn’t have to be.
Choose a supplier who can
provide the full range of mobility
products and services so that
you can see them all on a single
bill, with transparent display of
information and explanations
of all charges so that you can
keep on track.
When you switch to a hosted IP
telephony solution, installation
is a simple and quick process,
meaning you can be up and
running within no time.
of a service
issue
A: We’re a Costa Coffee retail franchise in the north of England
Q: How many employees and sites do you have?
The most
efFIcient way of
getting things
done is to make
your work come
to you, not
the other way
around.
ASK THE
Don't get ...
for
Service issue reported
via email
Service issue reported
via telephone
Q: What products do you take through Nine Telecom?
back
Email sent
ledge
to acknow
receipt
A: Lines, calls, broadband and phone systems maintenance
Q:What business challenges do you face that
you think could be addressed by smarter
telecommunications?
A:Reduced telephone costs by not using the old ADSL
technology, as we continue to expand. Improved speed of
communications as broadband becomes faster, allowing
better technical interaction with our customers at all
times. By using better telephone products our customer
interaction should become much more professional, whilst
also keeping our ‘small company personal touch’.
James Carroll
Service Director
we really appreciate
the feedback you’ve
given us - thank you !
*unless of course you want to
hide away once in a while!
The Outside Line | Issue 02 | September 2013
The journey
5 minutes with
Sim Trava Ltd
WORKFORCE MOBILISATION
The Outside Line | Issue 02 | September 2013
The details of the issue are taken and
recorded on our system
What do
you think?
Based in our Luton office,
Nine Service delivers PABX
engineering, maintenance
and support for Nine Telecom
customers and it’s fair to say
that we’ve been dealing with
challenging times of late.
Relocation from our Hemel
Hempstead office, expansion of
the team and the integration of
new businesses have placed a
strain on many of our processes
and our people, but thanks to a
lot of hard work and attention
to detail, we are increasingly
confident of providing the high
level of service that you should
expect.
Among the improvements
we’ve made along the way,
our teams have received cross
training on various products
and systems and we’ve been
busy implementing robust
processes to ensure you receive
a consistent, professional
response every time you need
to contact us.
Of course, we’re incredibly
grateful to you for your patience
if you have been impacted
during this period of transition
and we really do appreciate
the feedback that you’ve
given us. We’re keen to listen
to everyone though, so we’ll
shortly be sending out a very
brief survey to get your thoughts
on the areas that matter to
you. Please be honest in your
answers so that we can improve
where necessary and deliver
the service that you need. If
you prefer, you can feed back
anonymously, although if you
are happy to provide your name,
we’ll enter your details into
a prize draw to win a Kindle.
Watch your inbox for details
coming soon.
Renalda Milasiute
Service and Installation Supervisor
“if you completely
lose your systems don’t
worry, it’ll get fLagged
as a priority.”
The Service Manager will review each job and
allocate to an engineer accordingly
“I’ll give the
engineer a job sheet with
everything he needs to know,
including any historic
fault information.”
Field Engineer
We’ll contact you to confirm
when the engineer will visit
“It’s rare for
us not to be able to
resolve an issue, but if we
can’t, the Service Manager
can escalate it to the On site, once the engineer is satisfied the
manufacturer.”
issue has been resolved, you’ll be asked
to confirm and sign the job sheet
“If we can, we’ll
fix the issue remotely
so that you can get
back to your day
job asap.”
it costs too much !
Q: We’re an engineering company with offices
Meet the TEAM
Anthony Simmonds
Job title
Barry Wyatt
Service Manager
5 minutes with
SE Leisure
About
He’s Australian, very friendly
and extremely tall - just as
well, his favourite hobby is
basketball!
Q: What’s the nature of your business?
“If the repair does
turn out to be chargeable,
don’t worry, we’ll let you know
quickly how much it’ll be. We
won’t work on anything until
you’ve told us it’s ok.”
A:The supply, rental and maintenance of
amusement equipment.
Pete O’Mara
Senior Tech Desk Engineer
A:150 employees across 3 depots, although
the majority of staff are field based.
Q:What products do you take through
Nine Telecom?
The next day, our Service Team will
contact you to check you’re happy and
that everything is as it should be
Behind the scenes, we’ll
monitor our SLAs and details of
faults to make improvements wherever
we can and to spot trends, which
in turn are passed on to the
manufacturer.
Q:How many employees and sites do you
have?
A: PSTNs, including ISDN, DIA and EFM, as well
as MiCall
ISSUE CLOSED
Q: What business challenges do you face
that you think could be addressed by
smarter telecommunications?
A:With most of our staff being out in the field,
it’s critical that we’re able to all keep in touch
easily. We’re currently implementing MiCall
which will help in this area.
throughout Europe and the Middle East and,
although we have a hosted solution in place
which makes contacting our colleagues easier,
inevitably we sometimes need to use a traditional
landline or mobile to contact them. The cost of
these calls is so prohibitive and it’s starting to
delay projects. What can we do?
Vicki says:
Customer Services Manager
Technical Desk
Ricky Plummer
Senior Field Engineer
“We’ll add an
updated job sheet to
your records; that way if
you have the same issue
again we can make a
quick diagnosis.”
the clocks go back
on 27th october.
If you need help
adjusting your
systems don’t forget
to book time with us
so that we can get
to you quickly.
TEAM ...
You’re right that having the hosted
solution will generally make contacting
your other sites easier, but I can
understand that sometimes an ‘old
fashioned’ landline is the answer.
International rates will always vary
greatly and we’re confident we
can offer you competitive rates on
international calls, however for your
company you may be better off
choosing the International Saver
Tariff. For just £5 a month, you can
get access to a greatly reduced
ratecard for the most frequently called
international destinations.
Even better, there’s no call set-up fee
Vicki Cowperthwaite
Job title
Customer Services Team Leader
About
Vicki’s fanatical about making
friends and keeping them
happy - she also makes a
mean chocolate brownie.
We’ve got a very friendly
and helpful bunch of people
supporting Vicki and Tony.
If you need anything just call
0800 970 2999, they’d love
to hear from you.
we love business
we love business
we love business
we love business
email theoutsideline@ninetelecom.co.uk for more information
email theoutsideline@ninetelecom.co.uk for more information
email theoutsideline@ninetelecom.co.uk for more information
email theoutsideline@ninetelecom.co.uk for more information
. Sweden fixed line 2.00
. Netherlands mobile 27.60
. UAE fixed line 27.50*
With a combination of your hosted
solution and the International Saver
Tariff, there’s no reason to delay any
projects… it’ll be like they’re in the next
room!
*call charges are pence per minute
Have a question for the team?
Send your communication challenges to
us at asktheteam@ninetelecom.co.uk
and we’ll answer them in the next issue.