IP Voice, Video, Collaboration & Messaging
Open up to a world of communication
IP Multimedia is telephony, but not as you know it. Here’s why: it uses Voice over IP (VoIP) networks - such as the customer's LAN and inter-office WAN - rather than the legacy protocols of the public switched telephone network (PSTN). But IP Multimedia goes beyond VoIP too. Where VoIP only offers services for voice, IP Multimedia extends it with visual options, Instant Messaging, collaboration and Presence indicators.
IP Multimedia uses an open, standardised, operator-friendly, Next Generation Networking (NGN) multimedia architecture for IP services. It's a VoIP implementation based on Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). SIP has been selected by the telecoms industry as the protocol to replace the legacy PSTN protocols for IP traffic. NGN networks combine voice and data in a single packet switched network, to offer network controlled multimedia services.
All pretty technical, sure, but we figured you’d want to know that our IP Multimedia is no closed, proprietary solution: it’s open and accessible.
Existing Customers
Download the latest user guides and soft clients.
IP Multimedia options
With our IP Multimedia, you can introduce multimedia communications as and when across your network. IP Multimedia can be used with:
- Your existing PBX
- Network hosted (Centrex) services
- Existing analogue phones and equipment.
Our network design teams will use all of our experience in managing change in communications to work with you to identify exactly what you need, and then set about delivering it for you.
We fully manage our IP Multimedia (so your people don’t have to) and monitor it 24/7. The good news is that you only need to lease the functionality or capacity that your business demands.
We’ve developed a range of packages that deliver basic and advanced features and services on different terminal platforms, depending on your day-to-day needs. And we’ll also take into consideration where your people will be operating from. That includes specialised workers such as call centre personnel. Enhanced voice capabilities can be accessed either through feature codes on analogue handsets or feature keys on IP telephones and soft phones. These packages are:
Option 1 - Multimedia
Put simply, a package of powerful communication tools that bring voice and data together, integrating your telephone with your PC, over a single network. We can also offer your business a vast range of multimedia services and features that can enhance employee communication, productivity and efficiency, wherever your people are working.
- Multimedia PC Client – a Microsoft® Windows®-based application that enables advanced IP Telephony features, many of which are unavailable to traditional Private Automated Branch eXchange (PABX) extensions.
- Collaborative Services – allow workers to share files, images and text in real time.
- Presence – dynamically communicates a user’s status and availability across the network, e.g. ‘on the phone’, ‘available’, ‘out of office’.
- Instant Messaging – business grade tool which enables real time text-based conversation between users.
- Call Logs – creates and maintains a log of outbound and received calls.
- Conferencing – instantaneous or scheduled audio or video conferencing, private ‘Meet Me’ conference bridge for multi-party video conference meetings.
- Video calling – from a user’s desktop.
- Telephony – delivery of traditional voice services as well as Unified Messaging (Next Generation voicemail), personal and group directories, dynamic call handling and picture ID.
- Call screening and personalised routing – allows you to handle incoming calls in a variety of ways. For instance, you can divert certain calls; send calls to alternative numbers and even route by time of day, ensuring that calls are answered wherever you are.
Option 2 - IP Voice
IP Voice enhances traditional voice technology with time-saving features while allowing you to keep your existing systems in place. It provides all the benefits of IP telephony for organisations that don’t need multimedia applications like video calling and Instant Messaging, while giving access to time-saving features, including specialised functions required by call centre agents and supervisors.
Employees using their phones from a remote location can enjoy the same functionality as they would from their desk phone in the office. The exceptional flexibility of IP Voice can help to increase productivity, support business continuity and eliminate the need to relocate staff.
- Enhanced voice quality and reliability
- Next Generation telephony applications
- Sophisticated call management options
- Unified Messaging
- Hot desking
- PC soft phone for those on the move
Option 3 - Centrex (IP)
The Centrex (IP) package is a network hosted telephony solution that gives you similar capabilities to premises-based equipment, which means there’s no need to buy, manage or upgrade hardware. Centrex (IP) provides an analogue phone line which can access features via * and # codes. In addition to Unified Messaging capability, you can benefit from:
- Convenience dialling - direct dial, call transfer, speed dialling
- Efficient call handling - call park, hold, divert, barring
- Time efficiency and call completion - ring back when free, last number redial, 1471, reminder call
- Number display services
- Unified Messaging
- Incoming Call Management.
Option 4 - Call Centre Services
For those requiring specialised call handling, our call centre capability provides a suite of specialised features for agents, including call queuing, agent phones and supervisor phones. It also enables a call centre supervisor to use real time graphical screens on their PC to monitor and manage both agent and queue performance.
Access network
IP Multimedia users can connect to the network using various methods, all of which use the standard Internet Protocol (IP). We provide managed IPVPN connections to all the customer locations, or just the main locations, which then connect to branch locations via existing WANs, or to any of our MANs and WANs, for example, using Metro Ethernet VPN. Fixed access, using DSL or cable modems, is supported, while other analogue phone systems are also supported through gateways.
Equipment
You’ll be using supplied soft clients on your PCs and will normally also use IP desk phones such as i2001, i2002 and i2004. The IP Phones that we supply can be configured to use one of two different CODECs, depending on bandwidth required: G711 or G729. Most users will also prefer to use headsets for making and receiving voice calls. In addition, webcams will be required for video conferencing functionality.
Got a question? Call us on 0800 953 0180
