Customer Service on VoIP stores

Googling for voipsupply would lead you to their website. But the troubling thing about voipsupply is this blog post. Sure looks like someone was not happy at all about Voipsupply's service.

If it isn't obvious, customer service and satisfaction is important especially when your resources is out there on the line: whether it be money or your time. Customer experience plays a vital role in the success of your business. You would not want to go through hassle and difficult people to deal with. You would want someone who would understand where you're coming from and someone who would attend to you fully.

PBXEQ.com offers the best customer service out there. When you talk about convenience, they're the VoIP store to talk to. I have heard and read stories about people ordering via telephone and the representative tells them to just buy online instead. Isn't it in the customer's prerogative where he'd like to purchase? Anyway, PBXEQ deploys 4 ways of ordering your products:

• Online Cart
• Telephone - 877-88-72937 (PBXEQ)
  
• Chat online
• Email

What's great about this is that they have used every channel possible in order to make the experience convenient to customer. Truly, any other VoIP hardware store out there with this kind of customer service is hard to find. Whether you are looking for asterisk cards, asterisk hardware, digium cards, digium compatible hardware and the like, the people in PBXEQ would gladly help you choose your hardware.

Did I mention they also have after-sales-support? You're never left behind even after you've payed them. Beat that!

VoIP at home

Have you ever wondered how to turn your home landline telephone into a professional VoIP service circulating into different rooms all over your house?

It's pretty simple:


With a simple PBX box, you can run your own asterisk at home setup. You just need to simply install Asterisk in your Linux machine and have your analog card installed and your good to go. In this illustration, the FXS modules (green modules) connect to the analog phones. They have a 1:1 Ratio, 1 FXS module per 1 analog device (RJ11 phones and fax machines). The FXO module connect to the telco line, which the line coming from the wall socket of your telephone service provider. All modules are connected to a base board (like a motherboard for modules). In this illustration, we have Zapmicro's ZMA400P base card.

You can configure extensions and local numbers from within your own Asterisk home network and call each other up without affecting the outside line.

If you'd like to see more Asterisk hardware that are priced lesser than Digium's, check out PBXEQ.com.

VoIP and IP-PBX Spending

As expenditure in Voice over IP and Wireless LAN is expected to intensify within the next three to four years, different segments of society start to embark on the VoIP bandwagon. Multiple forecasts have been hypothesized and it showed promising results for VoIP retail companies hence leading them to cut down costs to safeguard their already small profit margins and to be able to participate in this highly-competitive industry. End users, on the other hand, have different reasons of using VoIP and Wireless LAN. But it all boils down to one single fact – the period 2006 to 2009 is the peak of VoIP.

Some of the main reasons why different institutions purchase VoIP equipment, specifically IP PBX, is to organize and to deal with complex inventory management – useful for suppliers, and to improve communications and avoid time-consuming distribution of data between branches – beneficial for government institutions. IP PBX equipments not only played important roles in the manufacturers and the government but also in multiple service-oriented industries totaling in more than $200 million in 2004 alone.

Alternatives to Digium

We know that there are a lot of alternatives out there that can measure up to Digium's releases of Asterisk cards. Why Digium charges so much with their cards are beyond me, when for the same functionality and the same quality, customers can avail of alternatives for a relatively lower cost. Quality asterisk hardware need not be expensive.

Question is where? Where do we look for such alternatives?

First, are you even open? Being in the open source community, you should be. Techies have a mindset that whatever gear they're after, it has got to be good. But in order to be good, you have got to be established. Digium's done that. And now they charge their cards at rates they can dictate and control. Again, are you open?

If you are, here is a list of known good Asterisk cards that offer the same functionality as their Digium cards:

• Zapmicro
• Yeastar
• Rhino
• Sangoma

Those are the ones in my list so far.

Zapmicro offers a pin-to-pin compatibility with their Digium counterparts. Meaning if you have a Digium card already and would like to expand it with either FXS or FXO modules, you can buy Zapmicro's modules and have absolutely no problem making it work with your Digium card. This works vice versa. If you have a Zapmicro base card and would like to expand it by using modules, you can use your Digium made modules as well.

Standard drivers for Zapmicro's 4-port card, the ZMA400P, can be used with asterisk. Non-standard cards such as the 8 port version, ZMA800P, requires a driver download so you can make it work with Asterisk. It is a guaranteed working driver.

Yeastar's Asterisk cards are uniquely done for their own. The Yeastar TDM800 base card sports an 8-port capable card but only has 4-ports physically present. What do I mean? See, their modules come in pairs. You have physically one module, but within are 2 modules. So they have a module with 2 FXS in it, 2 FXO's, and 1 FXO / 1 FXS pair with it. So there are combinations available as well. For starters, here are the module models:

• S2 - 2 FXS modules equivalent
• O2 - 2 FXO modules equivalent
• SO - 1 FXS and 1FXO equivalent

Don't get lost, it's pretty simple. If you want a 5 FXO card and 3 FXS card, use this config: 1 TDM800P base card + 2 O2's + 1 S2 + 1 SO. Got it? You should. Yeastar cards are not pin-to-pin compatible with Digium and you would need to download their driver from their website in order for it to work with Asterisk as well.

Rhino asterisk cards are also for Rhino modules. They sport their own hardware for echo cancellation, which is very important for VoIP applications. Echo cancellation basically is a method of removing noises caused by IP traffic and other factors that are involved in a VoIP telephony transaction. Texas Instruments make their echo cancellation chipsets. Rhino manufactures both analog and digital cards, as well as industry scale channel banks (a lot of FXS or FXO found inside an external box!).

Lastly, Sangoma cards are known to be expensive but reliable. Not that the other cards aren't, but they sure give that impression with their "Because it must work" tagline. Sangoma is an established engineering firm and have designed their cards to be justified with the reputation the company has. If you've got the budget, go!

Now, where do you buy these?

There are plenty of online stores that you can choose from when purchasing VoIP hardware. I've found one interesting though. PBXEQ.com. Unlike any other hardware store, the site gives a customer focused appeal, instead of the usual "Get the hardware you need and leave" kind of thing. The site also features live chat where you would have to simply click and you get a customer representative on the other end who is knowledgeable with the hardware they are selling. The site also features other VoIP products such as IP phones, gateways, Analog Telephone Adapters, and the like.