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The flexibility of Skype for Business

Nexus IP — Fri, 06 Oct 2017 10:02:45 +0000

The flexibility of Skype for Business

Meetings and mobility are the key features for the Digital Transformation.

Skype for Business is the solution for every kind of meeting. Audio, video and web conferencing are combined into a one user experience and unified platform.

6 Scenarios where you can use Skype for Business

Scenario 1 - On the Go

Any place where remote or mobile workers need to connect, present, or conference with others.

Situation: “On-the-go” refers to mobile or remote workers who still need to connect with others.

Need: You want to look and sound the best whenever and wherever you are connecting with others, conferencing, or giving a broadcasted presentation.

Solution:

On-the-go users may be in an open space and require some privacy for their conversation. They will want a wireless headset.
They may be working from their PC when there are limited conference rooms. Their PC should be equipped with a wired/wireless headset and a webcam.

And what if…

You want to move from one space to another (e.g. from a PC to a Smartphone) during their conversation?
You need great quality video to project a professional appearance?

And if you are…

In a remote job site
In a coffee shop
In lunch or break room

These Skype for Business meeting solutions provide that capability

Scenario 2 – My Stage

A personal space where presenters can look and sound their best when engaging with remote audiences.

Situation: “My Stage” is for office workers at all levels who need to share content. You could be a mobile or remote worker as well.

Need: You need an optimal visual experience that allows you to see and present content and each other. You may or may not be in an office, but still need to look and sound their best when interviewing.

Solution:

High-quality video is achieved with a webcam.
In an office environment, a conference phone should also be included.

And what if…

On-the-job workers want to share high-quality video of work in progress from their smartphone?
Office workers want to see the reactions of others in real time when they present.

And If you are….

In Private or shared offices.
In Stage-like arrangements and furniture choices.
In Camera-optimised space, colors, or lighting.
In Space that accommodates conversation geometry.

These Skype for Business meeting solutions provide that capability.

Scenario 3 - The Huddle

A place for impromptu/rich collaboration and staying connected without leaving remote people behind.

Situation: “Huddle” refers to a place where office workers tend to meet that isn’t a formal conference room.

Need: Those people need to connect with others, often impromptu or informally. They don’t necessarily need to present content.

Solution:

Meeting rooms should be equipped with an audio/video solution like a conference phone and a 360-degree webcam. When no meeting room is available, a small conference room or huddle space should include a conference phone.

And what if…

They want to move an impromptu conversation in progress into a conference room?
They want to extend the conversation to remote participants?

And if you are…

Acoustic treatment
Visual boundary
Sit to stand postures

These Skype for Business meeting solutions provide that capability.

Scenario 4 - Next Gen Conference Room

The meeting room that “just works” to help presenters perform confidently and participants interact naturally

Situation: The “NetGen Conference Room” is for office workers in dispersed teams who need to work together on projects.

Need: Connection and interaction should happen effortlessly and naturally.

Solution:

Conference rooms can include Surface Hub devices or Skype for Business Room Systems for real-time “white-boarding”

And what if…

Employees need to brainstorm, generate, and iterate in small or large groups?
Employees in multiple locations all want to review and edit presentations at the same time?

And if you need…

Furniture that moves for changing orientation.
Accommodate people’s devices.
Controllable room lighting.

These Skype for Business meeting solutions provide that capability.

Scenario 5 - The Vibe

The public space where anyone can share, discover ideas, make timely connections and just have some fun.

Situation: “The Vibe” is for groups who want to share content in a public space, such as a lobby or auditorium.

Need: Anyone can access and engage with the content without having to enter log-in credentials.

Solution:

Public spaces should be equipped with a visual device such as a Surface Hub or touch-screen monitor. The content is what creates “the vibe” of the space.
In an auditorium setting, a Skype for Business Room System makes sharing content and seeing the presenter or attendees simultaneously possible.

And what if…

People and groups had a place to share their work and knowledge with the greater organization?
Our cafes and walls offered serendipitous encounters with who we are and what we’re working on?

And if you are…

In a hallway/lobby
In a boundary walls

These Skype for Business meeting solutions provide that capability.

Scenario 6 - The Auditorium

Where information is broadcast or exchanged amongst a large group.

Situation: “The Auditorium” is for public presenters or and large audiences who wish to exchange or collaborate on content.

Need: These people may be communicating an idea company wide, or may need to engage in two-way communication with a broad audience.

Solution:

The audience space should be equipped with a visual device such as a Surface Hub if white boarding and collaborating on content is desired.
In spaces such as an auditorium where attendees will have their own laptops, a monitor enables attendees to see the content iteration and each other.

And what if…

Employees want to integrate individual output into shared output?
A public workshop to collaborate needs to include remote attendees?

And if you are…

In a classroom
In a lecture hall
In a large lobby
In a ballroom
In a event booths/stage

These Skype for Business meeting solutions provide that capability.

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Unify OpenScape Cloud – Flexibility, customised and cost saving

Nexus IP — Tue, 18 Jul 2017 13:32:12 +0000

Unify OpenScape Cloud – Flexibility, customised and cost saving

The workplace has changed drastically over the past few years. A Few months back, BT announced to switch off the ISDN networks and to replace it with SIP Trunks by 2025.

This is happening because the communication between businesses have become more digital and thanks to the cloud solutions and collaboration tools. This helps in allowing more customised solutions, cost savings and enabling employees to work with more flexibility i.e. remote working, home working etc.

Few days ago, at the global partner conference in Monaco, Unify launched OpenScape Cloud in its portfolio combining the Top Two Unify Solutions, OpenScape Voice and Circuit into a single hosted service.

Previously, Circuit was available as a service and OpenScape as a licensed product. To create OpenScape Cloud, Unify has moved into Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS). UCaas is a delivery model in which a variety of communication and collaboration applications and services are outsourced to a third-party provider and delivered over an IP network, in both public or private cloud.

At the moment, OpenScape Cloud is available in the US, UK, France and Germany and Unify are aiming to expand to many other countries by the end of this year.

What makes OpenScape Cloud different from the flow is:

Channel friendly
Aimed directly at service providers
Offers a migration path for organizations with premises-based UC solution

Luiz Domingos, Head of Product House for Unify said:” The move to cloud is a major market trend, and our customers and partners are looking for more options and stronger offerings than are available today. Unify’s OpenScape Cloud provides superior functionality and the flexibility for public or private cloud deployments, so Unify and our partners can offer customers the deployment choices and flexibility to migrate at their pace.”

If your communications are not in the cloud yet, it’s time to move forward!

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Polycom solution by Unify – Maximize your UC investment

Nexus IP — Wed, 31 May 2017 13:32:18 +0000

Polycom solution by Unify – Maximize your UC investment

Polycom and Unify have partnered to maximize your UC investment to provide seamless collaboration, from desktop voice and video to boardroom immersive telepresence for the OpenScape solutions.

The native integration of Polycom voice and video solution with the Unify’s platform offers:

Seamless integration– Polycom solutions offer unmatched levels of operability, flexibility, and investment protection
Scalability– Introduce a robust and scalable video and voice collaboration network under the Unify OpenScape platform
Improved productivity— Full communication experiences through Polycom solutions equip organizations to make swifter and more informed decisions
Completeness– Nexus IP is partner with both Unify and Polycom and we provide the first line of services and support

To meet up the conferencing needs from small businesses to large enterprises, Unify OpenScape have integrated Polycom voice solution into OpenScape Business and OpenScape Enterprise Express.

Unify OpenScape Business is designed to meet the specific challenges faced by small to medium-sized businesses that accommodate up to 500 users.

OpenScape Business is a complete, unified communications solution that covers all your communication needs, from one-click web conferencing to visual voicemail and from instant messaging to a multimedia contact centre. (read what Comms Trader review on here)

Unify Openscape Enterprise Express is designed for businesses with up to 100,000 users.

OpenScape Enterprise Express ends system integration complexity with pre-integrated applications like mobile collaboration, unified communications and Contact Easy collaboration means more efficient operations and more effective employees. (read what Comms Trader review on here)

Polycom SoundStation conference phones deliver the legendary voice quality, expansive microphone pickup, and advanced audio processing that makes conference calls seem as natural as being in the same room. (read what Comms Trader review on here)

Choosing your next communications solution is a major decision.
But it doesn’t have to be a painful one.

Not with our new Triple Play online tool.

The post Polycom solution by Unify – Maximize your UC investment first appeared on Nexus IP.

Key criteria to choose your telecom provider

Nexus IP — Wed, 17 May 2017 11:46:23 +0000

Key criteria to choose your telecom provider

How many times have you happened to be in a big brand shop and you’ve felt completely lost, in the middle of a huge selection of products and you not finding what you are looking for?

Sometimes, the brand shops put you in a situation where you end up thinking that the Products that you need is not available elsewhere. So you force yourself to spend hours , pay huge amount and may have to even wait long if they are low in stock and last but not least you may also face lousy customer service.

This never happens in your habitual shop where they only advice you on the best. Everyone is ready to help and assist you, especially because you’ve built a relationship with them.

The similar situation can be applied when you want to find something in telecoms .

There may be instances, where you may have paid huge amounts of money for your big named telecom circuits and waited for hours on the phone to get lousy support, poor speed or quality in response and ancient technology in exchange.

Sometimes choosing a local telecoms company can help you to find the right telephony solution for your business.

There are five key criteria to keep in mind when choosing a telecom provider:

Quality

Telecommunication plays a huge role in providing services to both internal and external users. Quality is a combination of speed, latency and jitter. Establishing SLA’s and looking for high performance.

Some private and local companies are very focused in keeping the relationships with existing clients more than creating a huge portfolios and they can offer the better quality than big companies.

Service

Maintaining your telephony system plays a crucial role in your business. If the system goes down your business goes down too. It is very important that you exactly know what to do and who you call during a disaster. Your provider should be able to demonstrate the ability to know when a circuit is down, escalate appropriately, allocate technicians efficiently and reroute your traffic to a backup network if needed.

Reliability

Your telecom provider should help you grow your business, not slow it down.

All telecom providers may have the ability to repair your service while minimizing business impact provides the differences between the multiple services available.

Ask the providers if they own their network or lease it from others, their escalation procedures and if you can expect a live person to answer when you are in trouble.

Flexibility and Scalability

Flexibility and scalability should also be considered. Look for a provider who is always up in the market trend. This will allow you to enhance your telecoms usage by doing appropriate upgrades, adding services or introduction to new products which may suit your organisation as it grows.

Security

Ensuring that your provider can meet your regulatory requirements including encryption, password management, router management, monitoring, IDS or IPS services and even DDOS solutions is key.

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Unify Triple Play – You choose, we deliver

Nexus IP — Wed, 19 Apr 2017 14:58:59 +0000

Unify Triple Play – You chose, we delivered

Realise your communications potential with Triple Play.

Triple Play is a new way to find the right telephony solution for your business in just 3 simple steps and 3 minutes away!

Step 1

SMB
Mid-Sized
Enterprise

Unify

Step 2

Capital Expenditure
Operating Expenditure
Subscription
Mix & Match

Triple

Step 3

On-premise
Virtualised
Private/Hosted Cloud

Play

With Nexus IP’s support, your business communications will:

Address end of life concerns

Provides a straightforward, no hassle migration to a futureproofed IP enviroment.

Delivers cost saving

A simplified IP – enviroment to reduce communication costs

Simple to migrate

Low-risk migration that enhances business capability whilst leveraging existing Unify assets, including licenses and devices

Extends business values

Adds contact centre, mobility, collaboration and Microsoft integration capabilities

Easy to use

A familiar solution that provides an enhanced, cost-effective replacement to existing system

Deployment flexibility

Delivers flexible deployment options – on premise, hybrid or in the cloud.

Find the best telephony solution for your business with the Triple Play calculator

Get Started

Launch Triple Play to find the best solution for your business

Play Now

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What the ISDN switch off means for your business?

Nexus IP — Wed, 29 Mar 2017 08:33:47 +0000

What the ISDN switch off means for your business?

Earlier this year BT announced to switch off the ISDN networks and replace with SIP by 2025. Although it’s still a decade away ISDN users need to come up with a strategy to avoid having their phone lines cut when the service comes to its final breath. In fact, BT will start to switching off the service from 2020.

ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) are digital lines. They are formatted as either ISDN2e or ISDN30

SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) is used to establish a voice connection between two end points across the Internet. SIP trunking delivers telephone lines using an external data connection as the bearer for the purpose of making and receiving calls.

ISND channel over SIP trunk

Benefit of SIP over ISDN

Scalability

ISDN services are limited across the channel blocks, SIP instead, is deployed across a business’s existing WAN. This means that provided the bandwidth exists to handle the traffic, channels can be dynamically added or subtracted as they are required.

Portability

In the ISDN deployment, the line and channel block, comes with an allocated phone number.

In a SIP based service numbers are separate from the channel blocks, which has the benefit of helping to lower the cost of the service. This means that calls to SIP numbers can be diverted incredibly easily to other locations.

Interoperability

SIP voice is transferred as IP (Internet Protocol), this means that customers with video enabled handsets can make video calls.

Same functionality is also available on an ISDN service but, the limited bandwidth requirement of video over ISDN make this an economically unjustifiable option.

Quality

SIP can be delivered across high bandwidth connections which means higher levels of vocal quality can be delivered from end to end. Therefore customers can make and receive HD quality voice calls, assuming of course their handsets are compatible.

SIP services could utilise a primary service with automatic failover to a second path, which is not available on ISDN.

Price

With ISDN your voice and data connection are on different lines. You will be able to save money by having both on one line. SIP trunking can reduce your costs by 50% on line rentals and 25% on calls.

When to migrate?

We would advise businesses to start thinking about migrating sooner rather than later. Now that ISDN is essentially viewed as a legacy platform, investment in it is likely to fall. This could mean that the standard of the existing network, and support infrastructure, could begin to suffer the effects of being retired well before the 2025 switch off date.

How can we help?

Nexus IP can explain and advise you about the benefits of migrating to SIP. Unify, our preferred partner, offers robust and scalable SIP Trunking solutions that match the communication requirements of your business; streamline calls and connectivity charges, with the potential to eliminate call charges between business sites.

For advice and information about the benefits and savings of switching to a SIP service call 03452001770 or email: info@nexusip.com and we’ll get back to you.

The post What the ISDN switch off means for your business? first appeared on Nexus IP.

Nexus IP join Unify UK Mid Market Programme

Nexus IP — Tue, 07 Mar 2017 15:41:37 +0000

Nexus IP join Unify UK Mid Market Programme

As part of Unify’s strategic focus on the Mid-Market, UK partner, Nexus IP have announced an ongoing investment in delivering Unify solutions to the 250 – 5,000 user space. This activity will include further enhancements to their sales personnel, professional services and product offerings alongside ongoing support from Unify’s High Touch and Inside Sales teams.

Mark Casey, MD Nexus IP commented:

“Nexus is delighted to be part of the Unify Mid-Market and Enterprise focus programme. We have been serving larger customers for many years as part of our strategy to drive quality telephony & UC solutions into the SMB marketplace, thus this next step into the 250-5,000 user space is a natural next stage for us.”

“Upskilling into more Enterprise level solutions will also benefit our SMB clients by providing them with the assurance that Nexus can help them make the transition into Mid-market, and into products and services that will help them achieve their strategic goals. Telecoms has always been an important part of a company’s overall communication plan, but Mid-market platforms that provide integrated services such voice, unified communications, collaboration, mobility and call centre are now more mission critical to organisation more than ever before.”

“We look forward to working closely with Unify in this area, and helping our customers move up to enterprise-level communications”

Barry Tuffs, Unify VP Channel Sales, UK & Ireland, added:

“As well as sharpening our channel focus throughout 2017, we also aim to strategically grow and train our partners to win more opportunities is the 250-5,000 user space. In order to do this successfully we have created a new and exclusive programme for the right partner profiles to invest in and commit to. We are delighted to announce that Nexus IP, are a dedicated member of this group. Nexus IP have been providing business telephony nationwide for over 30 years, and we know their team will succeed in securing incremental revenue and grow their business as part of this programme.”

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Seven Signs It’s Time to Move Up

Nexus IP — Thu, 02 Feb 2017 09:04:10 +0000

Seven Signs It’s Time to Move Up

As businesses grow, unified communications (UC) systems become increasingly sophisticated and complex.

Here are 7 signs to recognise when It’s time to move up to an Enterprise Communications:

You need to scale your operations

Expects to grow to more than 5 sites and/or about 500 employees in the next 2 – 4 years
Needs to manage growth centrally for cost control and agility
Wants a consistent, seamless experience across all locations

Business growth has created the need for enterprise architecture

Has a risk profile that requires tighter security and reliability measures to reduce the likelihood and extent of system failures
Needs to manage its network from the data centre and virtualize as much as possible

Personnel demand increased mobility and collaboration capacity

Has a portfolio of user devices that is likely to change or include user-provided devices
Needs highly secure voice and web collaboration
Possesses UC apps that may need to integrate with groupware solutions now or in the coming years
Requires a single enterprise-wide collaboration platform

Higher customer volume means more resources to manage

Multifunction call centre personnel
Access to complete customer data
More ways to customers to engage
Management of inbound and outbound customer contact

Process effectiveness has become critical to growth

Wants a system that provides flexible and easy integration options
Has sales and service functions that are growing and integrating with enterprise apps that speed processes and enable consistent process and communications with customers
Needs flexibility to integrate Unified Communication functions with a changing of devices, apps, and groupware solutions

You need to manage multiple locations from a single sites

Expects to have a large number of locations and needs the benefits of a centralised solution
Requires easy and flexible solutions for mobile and remote workers
Needs a highly secure, SIP-based network

IT department is strained to maintain systems

System Operation
User Support
Moves and changes
Integrations

If enough of those statements describe your situation, it may be time to step up to a new communication system!!

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Nexus Heart

Nexus IP — Mon, 23 Jan 2017 08:00:08 +0000

Nexus Heart

Nexus IP is an award-winning provider of VoIP telephony, using the same technology we already provide to our clients. We believe in honesty, transparency and simplicity. Our project management and support is delivered in-house to make sure we provide the best service to clients, with that formula Nexus Heart is born.

Our hosted platform runs from secure data centers located in London.

PBX vs Hosted

PBX is a private telephony network that is used by a company or organisation to make calls and control how they flow into the building. Traditionally a PBX would be held in a rack or on the wall at the company’s premises which would be connected to the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) via ISDN lines.

Hosted telephony is cloud based, this means that the brain of the system resides in a data center off site and the only hardware required in its offices are the handsets themselves. Calls can be made using a data connection – which go over a broadband line, ethernet circuit or similar, removing the requirement for ISDN.

Hosted PBX Services

The Nexus Heart platform provides advanced call function capabilities while allowing business an affordable and configurable solution. This also allows users remote access to their office which is seamlessly integrated under a single unified telephony system.

How It Works

The Benefits of a Hosted System over a PBX

Make changes, moves and additions instantly
Free calls between your offices
Manage your own calls and facilities
Great voice quality
Disaster Recovery/Business continuity as standard
Let your staff work flexibly wherever they want

The post Nexus Heart first appeared on Nexus IP.

3 Office Posture Mistakes and Fixes

Nexus IP — Mon, 16 Jan 2017 08:10:48 +0000

3 Office Posture Mistakes and Fixes

A very common disorder but particularly found in people who sit for a long time working at a desk are:

Cradling your phone

The most common muscle involved to holding a phone between ear and shoulder is Levator Scapula.

Its function is to elevate the scapula towards the head. When this muscle is overworked, Trapezius can be “activated”, producing pain in a wishbone-pattern and producing an inability to turn the neck, sometimes termed as “stiff neck”.

What you can do:

Stop contracting your muscles this way from the action and switch to a headset.

Poking Chin Posture

Poking chin posture can be detected by looking at someone from the side and can be caused by sitting too low, a screen set too high, a hunched back, or a combination of all three.

What you can do:

Provide an ergonomic assessment of the desk space

Hunched back and “text neck”

Text neck is the term used to describe the neck pain and damage sustained from looking down at your cell phone, tablet, keyboard or other wireless devices too frequently and for too long.

What you can do:

Sitting up straight might not come naturally at first. “It requires diligence, but more importantly, practice”

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