1. What is the Cost of a hosted PBX solution including hardware, software and installation?

OneStopCorp has the lowest cost of overall ownership with a simple, economical plan of $45 per phone line plus the cost of any requested phone sets.

2. Can a telecommunications solution be implemented in phases for minimal disruption?

OneStopCorp can phase in a solution so that the business client and users have a smooth and transparent cutover.

3. Does your vendor provide technical support 24 hours a day by 7 days a week?

OneStopCorp has a staff of trained technicians ready to respond to problems 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

4. Does the system have high reliability and availability?

OneStopCorp has built our hosted IP PBX platform on a “cloud computing” network that is not only extremely reliable with diverse components but also stays available at the carrier grade rate of 99.999% available uptime.

5. Is the system easily scalable?

Being on a cloud computing network allows OneStopCorp and our clients to easily and quickly scale their systems. Increasing capacity with legacy systems used to take days or even weeks but now are possible in minutes just by adding additional phones.

6. Does your system allow Multi-vendor interoperability? Can you use your existing network equipment with the new solution?

OneStopCorp can integrate with your existing phone equipment easily by adding analog telephone adapters (ATA’s). However you would not have the many additional features that VoIP was made for unless you use the newer VoIP phones that contain these features.

7. Do you get a Full suite of communications features & business-enabling applications?

Cost savings on phone calls are not simply the only reason to use a hosted IP PBX system. Many of the cost savings come from the additional features that you get with an IP telephony system. The OneStopCorp system can provide many value added services like call history logging, conference call capabilities, document sharing, follow-me features, etc.

8. How easy is it to implement, manage and maintain the system?

With OneStopCorp IP telephony systems, life easier for your IT team, not more difficult. Because the new system works on the existing network, everything is managed similarly. If management of the IP telephony solution is not straightforward and intuitive, how long will it take your team to ramp up to the point that the system will be supported adequately? It’s imperative that changes be made quickly and easily so that the addition of a new system doesn’t add burden to busy IT personnel.

Some of the most important factors of convergence are how it simplifies life and how it saves organizations in terms of management time and money. Does your staff need to train with the vendor every month, and can you afford their time out of the office? How difficult is it to train users on features of the system, and will they be calling for help more often than usual because of the IP telephony implementation?

In reality, users should be calling your help desk less frequently with a new IP telephony system. Even employee moves, adds, and changes (MACs) should be simple for either the user or one IT staff member to make within a few minutes. You should also no longer need a service provider to make these alterations for you—this will save you money and time.

9. Is it easy and cost effective to integrate your multiple sites on one network?

OneStopCorp easily combines and integrates your company’s multiple locations onto one network architecture. This means that although you have the diversity and safety of each location having its own phone system, all the features can be easily shared by one and all of the locations. One main number can be shared and phone calling and transfers between locations are free of per minute charges. Furthermore, your combined service can receive the high volume phone service discounts available only to the largest corporations.

10. Is there an overall cost savings over the life of the service?

When comparing systems, remember to add the projected cost of managing the system as well as any additional peripheral facilities and equipment. With OneStopCorp, easy management by the client for most tasks results in a much lower cost over the long run.

11. How easy is the system to use by the actual users?

This is major factor that you will want to consider with any system. Sure, there will always be some training needed as employees become familiar with system, but such training should not be difficult or tediously long. The actual phones and call management software program should be intuitive and simple with clear instructions whenever possible.

Features like forwarding of voice mail calls, ad-hoc conference calling, simple call transferring should be simple for employees, even those who have to learn to use the system without training such as remotely located employees.  Such ease of use can only improve your customer service and employee productivity in the long run.

12. Is your network ready for such a system?

By testing your data network’s ability to successfully support IP telephony traffic and discovering potential performance problems before your system is installed, a network assessment helps you plan, design and implement a successful IP telephony solution.

The assessment can be handled by a technical network provider or by the vendor you choose, since both should have the experience with IP telephony that they apply to interpreting the test results.

In order to achieve toll-quality voice, you need to deploy IP telephony over a properly architected network infrastructure - i.e., it has to provide sufficient throughput and meet latency, jitter and packet loss requirements.

Throughput: How much bandwidth you need depends on the how many simultaneous calls your organization has going on, the voice encoding scheme used in the IP handset or soft phone, and the signaling overhead.

Latency and Jitter: Latency is the time it takes for a caller’s voice to be transported (packetized, sent over the network, de-packetized, replayed) to the other individual. Distance and lower-speed circuits can cause delay. Latency that’s too high interrupts the natural conversation flow (you may have spoken with someone using VoIP - you think they have stopped talking but they haven’t-that’s latency). Latency cannot exceed 100 milliseconds one way for toll-quality voice. Acceptable quality voice can go up to 150 milliseconds and participants can still carry on a decent conversation.

Packet Loss: Packet loss results in a metallic sound or conversation dropouts. It’s caused by congestion, distance and poor line quality. Because IP telephony is a real-time audio service using Real Time Protocol (RTP) running over User Datagram Protocol (UDP), there’s no way to recover lost packets. A mere one or two percent packet drop degrades voice quality.

A thorough assessment uses active application traffic across the LAN and WAN in order to reveal what’s going to happen when IP telephony is introduced into the mix. Test engineers send a variety of network traffic packets - using different application protocols, packet size, packet spacing and quality of service (QoS) levels. The tests simulate the various types of IP telephony traffic that are likely to occur on a live network. In addition to measuring peer-to-peer traffic, the engineers can also generate real-time client transactions against production servers, including communication with IP PBX servers. This comprehensive approach enables the test engineer to pinpoint the source of potential problems and make recommendations for resolution, thus avoiding unwelcome surprises following the implementation.

Pilot Installation and Testing

If you have an integration partner or the vendor you have selected works with regional resellers and consultants, call and schedule a time to determine your needs list. If your organization or the vendor does not have an integration partner, get an engineer from the vendor in to help you with this list. With this person (or people), look closely at the current design of your network and make a list of any equipment upgrades or new purchases you’ll need to make in order to optimize the infrastructure for IP telephony.

Update any existing network diagrams you’ll be using. Be sure to label it so you know it is the original (pre-IP telephony). Next, sketch your new network diagram with the gear included. Determine if there is any overlap and if perhaps you don’t need as many switches as you thought. If you’re not working with an integration partner, you may want to invest some money in having a technology expert take a look at your new proposed network diagram. It’s better to make major changes in the planning stage as opposed to after you’ve taken delivery of your IP telephony equipment. An expert can also make sure you maximize your equipment purchase and may make modifications to your diagram that will save you money in the long run.

After you’ve come up with your new network diagram, begin deploying the gear onto a test network. This will not only help ensure the new system works optimally, it will help you get accustomed to the new equipment so other deployments (to other locations, for instance) go smoothly. At the beginning, the test network should not affect anybody’s workday. During the second phase, transition some noncritical employees or departments to the test network. This will help you further test the system in a real-world scenario and also gets users familiar with it.

Go Live

After you have played with the system for a few weeks or months and made appropriate configuration changes to adapt to your entire organization, you can begin rolling out IP telephony company wide. An installation in phases tends to work best, even if the phases are over one week. The larger your enterprise, the longer it will take and the longer you may need between phases.

After the rollout, it’s imperative that you schedule end user training. You may handle this by department or location, depending on your organization. Vendor representatives are often available to be onsite to provide expertise and demonstrations during end user training sessions. While your choice of solutions will likely be rich in features, these features should also be intuitive to the end user; therefore training should take just two or three hours, as opposed to all day.

Make sure that the team you’ve put together is available for the duration (right through user training), at least on some level. If you’ve chosen a project leader, this is the person who will know all the details, even if he or she is not working daily on all of them. Once you’ve made the switch, sit back and start enjoying the many benefits of IP telephony.

13. What is the contract termination policy?

OneStopCorp offers extremely competitively priced services with discounted pricing for phone handsets. In order to install and rent such hardware, it is necessary to request a 24 month commitment. If at any time during the commitment period, you are not satisfied with quality of service, you may return the hardware, pay a contract termination fee of $20 per phone and be released from any further liability.

14. What start up costs are there beyond setup and equipment fees?

You must ensure a there is a broadband connection with enough capacity available to handle your voice traffic. OneStopCorp will help you to determine your requirements at no extra charge and will then interconnect the phone equipment to your broadband router and you will be good to go.

15. What day to day usage costs are not covered by a service plan? What are the rates for International calls for example?

OneStopCorp has over 20 years of experience and deep expertise with international networks and this allows us to have some of the lowest rates and best overall quality in the industry. We even have the patent pending "Qualirouter" technology that maximizes the connection quality to every international destination.  

16. Can the system handle outbound and inbound faxes out of the box? Can I just plug in a fax machine or do I need special equipment?

Yes, unlike some of our competitors, the OneStopCorp platform, instantly recognizes fax transmission and routes it through at the highest quality level.

17. Do I need add-ons or extras to handle old style analog phones that I already have or that remote or branch offices have already installed?

If you have analog phones or an old PBX, you can still use our service by adding an ATA device (analog telephone adapter.) You will still get great quality and low rates with these converters but some of the cutting edge features may not be available. This functionality will depend on the type of older system that you have as well as your current needs.

18. How does the system handle remote and mobile workers?

One of the best features of the OneStopCorp IP PBX is how easily and seamlessly you can connect remote personnel and offices. Regardless of their location throughout the world, your remote offices and staff are just additional extensions to your central system (or they can be separate if you wish.) You benefit with volume discounts and cost savings as well as with the speed and efficiency of 4 and 5 digits dialing on any extension.

19. If I underestimate my requirements and need a major upgrade or my company grows, what are the additional costs for upgrading?

This depends on the system that you need but one thing is sure that all of the OneStopCorp hardware and software are built "backwards compatible." This means that you will never have to waste any hardware or phones already installed; you just add what you need as you grow.

20. How do you guarantee your quality of service?

OneStopCorp has a patent pending technology called QUALIROUTER. This radical new system routes distributes calls across multiple terminating networks and automatically adjusts its routing to maximize calls to the best performing network. It's like having a team of 100 technicians monitoring your traffic flow and instantly adjusting the quality of the network.

21. What about emergency services; do you provide full 911 or E911 services? Will dispatchers know my location automatically? And how about remote workers?

One of the limitations of VoIP is the need to program the location of the phone into the system. This is done by the installers when they install the system and is a small additional charge per month.

22. How do I know you are going to be around in two years, let alone three?

OneStopCorp's parent company, World-Link, Inc., has been around since 1992 and has always been a leader in providing technical solutions to large companies and industry carriers. Now this innovation is being made available to any company throughout the world. Custom call routing programs that can solve many customer service issues are also available at competitive rates.