Unified Communications Features,

While some of the features of Unified Communications exceed the operational needs of a Small or Medium sized business, most do not. As examples:

• The ability to take a VoiceMail and forward it to a team of people as an email with notes as to what needs to be done.
• The ability to record a conference call and post it as a permanent part of a customer record.
• The ability for a small company to create a Virtual Private Network with remote offices (including branch offices, home offices, and even third party partners) that are secure and carry almost no Operating Costs is also powerful and desirable (especially if those partner offices are overseas).
• The abilty for an operator/receptionist to see that a sales executive is on a personal or internal call when an important customer calls in, and then text/chat with that executive to inform him/her that the customer is on the line.
• The ability for a manager who has oversight of multiple offices to "log in" to his/her phone upon arriving at a remote office such that the manager's extension rings wherever they may be, is important and valuable.

Unified Communications Capable Networks,

Just because your company already has a data network does not mean that it is ready to host Unified Communications capabilities. Basic data networks deal with TCP/IP traffic, which fails over nicely in the event of dropped packets. This type of traffic "batches", it sends batches of information, and if any batch does not arrive it simply resends that particlar batch. This is the kind of transport used when we surf the Web, send/receive email, work remotely on a document or file, etc.

Unified Communications capable networks utilize streaming protocols, wherein dropped packets are far more noticeable. A dropped packet on a phone call is noticed as garbled speech (audio) or in video as frame smears (video). In order to minimize the impact of dropped packets, smaller frames are used so that the garble or smear is limited. This puts additional load on the network.

UC Capable Networks deal with this disparity between TCP/IP data and Streaming Data (UDP) by providing prioritization rules for Streaming (Voice/Video) over TCP/IP (standard) data, allowing for bandwidth throttling to limit non-essential data transport, maximizing Streaming traffic throughput, and enabling Redundant/Additive links to allow for both guaranteed connectivity and additional bandwidth. Most vendors use "UC Capable" as justification for charging exorbitant prices for their network tools. TenX Networks UC Capable network tools are the most cost effective in the industry.

MPLS/Differential Class of Service/Quality of Service capable,

At the very least the network must be able to provide these capabilities. All of these features are basically the same thing, recognizing traffic types and making decisions that prioritize certain types of traffic over others. A network that does not meet these standards should not be used to deploy VoIP or other Unified Communication applications.

Capable of providing adequate upload and download bandwidth,

Many parts of the country/world have limited bandwidth options. It is necessary to be able to guarantee that there is adequate bandwidth to support Unified Communication applications, and upload is as important as download. Sometimes deploying the type of gear described in the above paragraph is not enough, because there is not enough upload bandwidth. Using a simple DSL Load Share/Load Split device allows you to combine two or more lines such that adequate bandwidth can be provided for UC applications.

Security,

Networking gear (routers/switches, etc.) should qualify as Assurance compliant, and provide for integrity, authentication, confidentiality as well as availability. They should offer:

• Internal netork security: protecting users from internal information theft and diversion
• Protection against external threats: being connected to the Web "opens the door" to external attacks against your network, including Phising, SPAM, Intrusion attempts, ...and more
• Protection to ensure that your network is utilized for proper (business related) purposes: this includes things like blocking access to sites that post inappropriate content (adult content, hate sites, etc.) to preventing employees from wasting work time/resources on personal web usage.

Remote Management,

Your network should allow your IT person to remotely manage and reboot critical networks components. Our network tools even allow IT managers who carry Web Enabled phones to remotely monitor network performance, and reboot any device that is not responding or otherwise behaving as it is expected to.

Extendable to wherever you need to use those services,

Unfortunately reliable IP connectivity does not always exist where you really need it in order to really leverage the capabilities of UC applications. TenX Networks Solutions allow you to enhance DSL Connectivity options, or extend connectivity wirelessly in environments where Cat5/6 Ethernet cabling is not a viable option.

Finally - COST,

This is where TenX Networks solutions are unique. Most vendors are using Unified Communications as a "reason" to increase the price of their networking gear. It does little good to move to "Operating Expense saving" Unified Communications solutions if the Capital Expense cost is so high that the savings are not realized for years to come. Our UC capable networking gear is extremely cost efficient to purchase, deploy, and manage for the lifetime of the applications that run.