VoIP PBX within Crystal Blue Voice supports key systems
Whaleback Systems is upgrading its small business VoIP service by adding support for phones that look and perform just like multi-line key systems those companies are used to.
The Cuttyhunk release of Whaleback’s Crystal Blue Voice Service adds key-system emulation, which enables use of phones that show activity on multiple lines, support intercom between phones and allow for paging through handsets by zone. Zone paging lets users designate a group of phones in an office to receive a page rather than all phones.
Whaleback is also adding fax support to Crystal Blue Voice. Called OrcaFax, the service makes it possible for offices or individual desktops to send and receive faxes via any POP3 e-mail client including Microsoft Outlook. The fax capabilities include blending fax notification with e-mail and voice mail so when a fax comes in, it generates an e-mail notification and a voice message that it has arrived.
“Small and medium businesses, especially retail, are more reliant on fax than large enterprises,” says Michael Ladam, an analyst with Stratecast.
Integration with e-mail also includes the ability to print, store and forward faxes as .PDF files. The service also allows faxing from PDAs.
Whaleback competes against small-office PBX vendors including Avaya and Cisco, as well as service providers such as Vonage and Skype Enterprise, says Nora Freedman, an analyst with IDC.
Since initiating service earlier this year, Whaleback has added a dedicated broadband connection to customer sites as part of its service bundle. Before, the company would use existing broadband connections that also carried data, but found that service reliability improved with a dedicated link. The company uses DSL or cable links, orders the service and pays the bill to the carrier that provides the connection as part of Crystal Blue Voice.
Whaleback’s service relies on PBXs at customer sites as opposed to an IP voice switch based inside its own network. Ladam says this set-up can relieve potential congestion at the beginning of the work day and after lunch when many employees are checking for voice mails all at once. If they have to fetch the messages from within the service provider network, their calls can use up the bandwidth on the access line to the network and result in callers being unable to reach an open line, he says.
The company has also added collocation sites where its network connects to those of long-distance carriers for redundancy, says Whaleback CEO Mark Galvin.
All the new features except for OrcaFax are bundled in with the existing price of Crystal Blue Service, which is $50 per phone per month, plus the one-time price of the hardware and training. OrcaFax costs $49.95 per month for unlimited faxing for a company plus $4.95 per month per person sending and receiving faces directly from their desktops.
