CallPort FAQs
Is 8el reselling a telephony solution?
The 8el IP Centrex solution is not based on a hosted PBX or reselling of a 3rd party infrastructure. CallPort is an 'in house developed' platform in partnership with Redwood Technologies. 8el looked at several solutions for bringing a VoIP offering to market and after research and investigation 8el designed in partnership with Redwood, our own IP Centrex platform.
Who developed the CallPort platform?
The CallPort solution functionality specification was generated by the 8el team to ensure synchronisation with the IP Freeport. The specification was then coded and delivered by Redwood Technologies using their service creation tool, RT Composer.
Who are Redwood Technologies?
Redwood Technologies are a global supplier of hardware and software solutions to national PTT's and media companies. Their technology has been responsible for projects such as 'the talking clock', mass calling platforms that can handle up to 30,000 channels through to conferencing services used on financial trading floors.
What is an IP Centrex solution?
An IP Centrex platform is a network based phone system that can handle high volumes of calls. CallPort is an IP Centrex platform engineered to protect users from denial of service attacks and disclosing network addresses using carrier grade session border controllers.
This approach enables internet and private WAN users to use the platform without concerns around security holes that may occur by using VPN tunnels over the internet. Organisations are fully partitioned and via multi-level logins, users can control the features and details for their users.
The main benefit of an IP Centrex platform is the core resilience available. LAN based solutions, especially for multi site companies are only as good as the power supply and connectivity into the building. As a result hosted solutions are often more resilient to environmental outages.
What is a hosted IP PBX solution?
A hosted PBX is dedicated solution based in a data centre. Whilst this is an option for customers, the cost can be higher than necessary as resilience needs investment and SIP trunks or PSTN lines are still needed to integrate the platform onto the PSTN. Also due to the cost of SBC's this means that the IP Centrex model tends to be either more competitive and or secure for businesses.
Why a VoIP phone system?
VoIP is a replacement for traditional ISDN and digital phone system technologies. By using IP, business benefits are delivered from plug and play moves and changes through to reduced call and rental costs through to mobility and home working.
What is SIP?
SIP is the industry standard protocol used in VoIP networks to substitute ISDN and proprietary PABX protocols. It therefore enables handsets and devices to talk each other across a potentially public or private IP networks.
Why managed vs. owned?
Investing in a technology that is morphing within the boundaries of the SIP protocol can easily be seen as a risky move as the acceleration of the technology development has been staggering over the past 5 years. The possibility of VoIP has moved into a true reality for an increasing proportion of businesses around the world. With SIP capability being integrated into mobile handsets using Wi-Fi and collaboration tools appearing on a monthly basis, the way we use telephony as a service will be radically different in the next 5 years. As a result, a managed service that is constantly developing to keep pace of these changes is a logical route to adopt as the system will remain customer focused and feature fresh.
What is "under the bonnet" of 8el's CallPort VoIP platform?
The CallPort platform has 2 key infrastructure elements to deliver services - from the core and a single component on the customer site, the IP Freeport. The core uses a combination of Redwood Technologies hardware and software is split between the two 8el data centres and ACME packet session border controllers. Both provide best of breed technologies to the global telecoms market and together provide a feature rich, resilient platform from which services are delivered.
In addition to the core technology, 8el uses an in-house designed and developed, onsite configuration and lifeline server. This IP Freeport is often installed to provide handset firmware and software updates, personal settings storage, Active Directory integration and synchronisation with the core network. This topology enables extremely high availability through local ISDN breakout which for key sites can provide peace of mind to support the core resilience provided by the core network.
How many users are there on the CallPort platform?
Currently there are over 3000 and climbing. The platform is expandable by adding additional chambers, each of which can support approximately 4,000 users.
What do you offer with the fully managed CallPort solution?
8el offers a fully outsourced service where, rather than training up administrators to configure and manage users, the 8el support team can take this responsibility on. This is particularly popular when IT departments are heavily stretched on resource.
How do I manage the solution?
An internet based web interface called the CallPort Administration Portal (CAP) enables all moves and changes to be managed by administrators and users 24/7 without incurring additional costs as would be found with maintenance charges for moves adds and changes with traditional PBX solutions.
I don't trust VoIP quality, how can you guarantee that?
VoIP technology is more than capable of delivering as good, if not better quality sounding phone calls than the PSTN. The areas that dictate the quality of calls are:
1) Hardware and codecs
The way a call is wrapped into IP packets and the amount of bandwidth used to transport the packets can impact the volume and quality of calls. 8el offers a choice of codecs, however the recommended codec G.726, provides a corporate grade of call quality.
2) LAN infrastructure and network design
The LAN engineering is a vital element part of protecting call quality. By running dedicated switch ports or using VLAN tags with Type of Service enabled, LAN switches can differentiate between time, low bandwidth, sensitive telephony traffic and data hungry data applications. Both approaches have been deployed in 8el solutions, both with faultless results.
3) WAN infrastructure and QoS engineering
This element is key and where 8el prides itself. With approximately 10 years of voice and data convergence experience, 8el designs, deploys and manages MPLS and ATM based data networks engineered to support al media types. Whilst the CallPort solution is a network based solution, 95% of deployments are not primarily using the Internet. That is not to say that the Internet cannot be used for 8el VoIP customers, however the quality of service can only be guaranteed over a private, controlled network without bottlenecks.
What codec does 8el use and why?
8el generally use G.726 as the MOS rating is high, the bandwidth usage is low. This codec is widely adopted across the 8el customer base and is the default for most deployments.
Other manufacturers support smaller codecs such as G.729a - will 8el?
8el support several codecs including G.729. However, due to the volume and quality fragility this codec is not recommended as a rule. Demonstrations of this codec can be heard at 8el's demo lab in Reading
How do you connect to the PSTN?
The CallPort platform interconnects with BT and other corporate focused carriers to route calls without encountering the traditional quality issues that can occur with least cost routing.
Can I keep my existing telephone numbers?
As a telecoms company, 8el interconnect directly to BT and NTL from its core. By doing this, 8el is able to port existing BT and NTL geographical numbers from analogue and ISDN lines into the CallPort platform. This 'virtualising' process removes the historical issue of not being able to take published numbers beyond the reach of the BT and NTL local exchange.
8el also has porting agreements in place with Virgin Media (formerly NTL and Telewest) and COLT.
Do internal calls stay within the site?
Callers in the same physical site can stay local rather than using the link by using either an IP Freeport in proxy mode or by using wireless, IP DECT handsets on a deployment.
Upfront cost is not going to make changeover worthwhile - how do we minimise CAPEX expenditure?
8el has a number of methods available for customers looking to fund initial hardware requirements. It is worth noting that the cost of the 8el managed service is significantly less than a traditional IP PBX as the core technology is already in place, therefore the only real cost is for the handsets which are competitively priced. The 8el commercial team is able to provide clear payback models on request and will highlight several areas where additional savings are available.
Do we purchase the handsets and switches?
8el provides switches, snom handsets and routers as required to supply VoIP services with a 24/7, 4 hour 'switch out and fix' on most equipment.
Can we use our own handsets and switches?
8el can deliver services on 8el or customer owned equipment. The only requirement is that the specification meets the quality standard required to provide the service level to be valid. This is established during the pre-sales part of any project.
Can you support calls over a broadband Infrastructure?
Yes. 8el has many deployments of this nature in place. Generally 8el will supply this broadband infrastructure to ensure the contention is appropriate to protect call quality.
How many calls can simultaneously be supported over a broadband connection?
Bandwidth and contention levels dictate the number of calls and there is a calculation conducted for all sites when sizing requirements.
Can you support Presence on a broadband Infrastructure?
Presence does require messaging to be forwarded between phones, either through the core or via the IP Freeport which will keep the signaling local. A review of bandwidth will be required.
Can you provide call centre services?
There are several call centres using the CallPort platform, however the requirements vary according to the environment. There is an ACD module under development that is expected to be in place the second half of 2009. The platform also has an Auto Attendant module that can be configured with several advanced features.
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CallPort can be fully outsourced or managed at a customer level, depending on organisation requirements. CallPort is deployed over a private, managed network and is commissioned with end-to-end Quality of Service and backed by a first class SLA, bringing the benefits of IP telephony services without the need to invest in a dedicated and expensive IP PBX on each customer site.