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ISDN
Call Centre
Voice Over IP
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Broadband What is ADSL? ADSL stands for Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line. It transforms the twisted copper pairs of wires between a local telephone exchange and a customer’s telephone socket into a high speed digital line. It is called "asymmetric" because it moves data more quickly from exchange to customer than from customer to exchange. This makes it particularly suitable for applications where customers expect to receive more data than they transmit such as use of the World Wide Web, corporate intranets, and reception of digital audio-visual material. Speeds BT’s initial wholesale ADSL services will provide access speeds of between 512Kbit/s and 2Mbps downstream, and 256Kbps upstream. This is 10 to 40 times faster than today’s typical modems. How does it work? ADSL operates over a traditional telephone line. This means that an existing telephone line can be used to send and receive high-speed digital data. The ADSL signal is carried by two ADSL modems - one at the user end and one in the local exchange. These ADSL modems are designed to exploit the physical transmission capabilities of the copper line, to achieve higher data rates over the line than ever before A ‘splitter’ (which is a filter), one at the user end and one at the exchange end, separates the telephony signal from the ADSL signal. This means that telephone calls can be made at the same time that data is being sent or received (i.e. a customer can surf the Internet and still make telephone calls) What are the key benefits of ADSL? Speed. It provides high-speed digital access (between 512Kbit/s and 2Mbps downstream, and 256Kbps upstream). This is 10 to 40 times faster than today’s typical modems. Always On. Customers no longer have to waste valuable time obtaining a connection via dial up. Flexible. It does not affect the normal telephone, so customers can make and receive telephone calls or faxes whilst they are on line. Who are your ADSL based services aimed at? Our services are aimed at a wide range of service providers and other operators. These high-speed access services will allow service providers and operators to deliver packages of digital content combined with digital access to their own customers. Our services are also aimed at corporates - enabling these organisations to provide their teleworkers with remote access to the corporate network. What content will be offered to customers (both residential/business)? It is a commercial judgment for service providers to decide what content and services they wish to provide to their customers. Content could include streamed video, audio, games, online shopping, banking, etc When will you offer a consumer product? We plan to launch our consumer priced offerings early next year. However, there is nothing to stop a Service Provider from taking the products that will be available from October and retailing these to consumers. What products will BT itself provide, at what prices? goto http://www.bt.com/broadband Why should business customers select ADSL over ATM and leased lines? ADSL is potentially cost effective for customers with moderate, bursty bandwidth needs. But ADSL is asymmetric and so it not ideally suited to all situations (e.g. where the user needs to send large quantities of data as well as receive it), whereas ATM and leased lines are symmetric in nature. Is the connection that BT will supply suitable for services such as alarms or security monitoring which require an "always on" channel (e.g. ISDN D channel)? ADSL is not recommended for these applications. Can I keep my existing telephone number? Most customers will be able to keep their existing telephone number. Will BT be offering CPE? If yes what and how much will it cost? The cost of the ADSL modem/splitter and the installation will be included in the charge to the ISP. |
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ISDN What is ISDN? ISDN stands for Integrated Services Digital Network and provides end-to-end digital connectivity over the telephone network. ISDN is a phone line - with one big difference: it’s digital. If you think of a line as a pipe that that carries information from one point to another, the difference with ISDN is that the ‘pipe’ is a lot bigger, and a lot cleaner. Replacing traditional phone lines with ISDN is like replacing old one-inch lead water pipes - which carry water slowly, and pollute it with impurities - with brand new three-inch stainless steel pipes - which carry a lot more water, much faster, with no impurities. Analogue modems must dedicate some capacity to error correction and retransmission. This overhead reduces the actual throughput, while an ISDN line can dedicate all its capacity to data transmission. ISDN is based on the fact that, in the modern telephone network, analogue speech is broken down (digitised) into a series of binary digits (bits) and transmitted at a rate of 64,000 bits per second (64 kbps) on channels set up through the network. It is then converted at the remote exchange back to an analogue signal, which arrives at your phone. ISDN simply replaces the analogue path between you and the exchange with a fully digital service. As such, ISDN can provide an end to end (i.e. all the way from one user in their premises, to another user in their premises) digital transmission path. There are two different types of ISDN access; Basic Rate access (supplied as ISDN 2e by BT) and Primary Rate access (supplied as ISDN 30 by BT). ISDN 2e This service provides two 64 kbit/s channels (Known as the B-channels) that can be used for communication and one 16 kbit/s channel (known as the D-channel) that is used for call set up and signalling thus leaving the full bandwidth of the B-channels available for use. This service requires the existing wiring to be reconfigured and a different box to be fitted on the wall inside your office which is known generically as an NT1 (Network Terminating equipment) and also a different box in the serving telephone exchange. What is ISDN 2e? ISDN 2e is BT’s new and standard basic two channel ISDN service available for all new provision for orders placed on or after 13th October 1997. ISDN 2e fully complies with European Telecom Standards and will allow terminal equipment produced in other parts of Europe to work on BT’s network. ISDN 2e also provides a network platform that will be capable of supporting new Supplementary services in the future. ISDN 2e will inter-work with ISDN 2 lines for both voice and data calls. ISDN 2e Benefits The main benefits of ISDN 2e are: * Encourages Low cost terminal equipment from the already developed European markets to be used in the UK, which will improve choice and reduce the overall cost of ownership of ISDN 2e. * A more flexible set of numbering options for the Multiple Subscriber Numbering Service (MSN) 3. Allows Data calls to be forwarded as well as Voice calls. ISDN 30 There are two types of primary rate ISDN available in the UK. BT, for example, offers these two services as ISDN 30 (ADS 2 - also known as DASS2) and ISDN 30 (I.421) Other network operators have similar offerings. ISDN 30 (ADS 2) is BT’s primary rate service offering which does not conform to the European standards (see I.421 for Euro version). ISDN 30 is the equivalent of up to 30 exchange lines (known as channels) delivered to the customers premises and connected to an iSPBX (Integrated Services Private Branch Exchange) or for data applications to a PC or multiplexer. It is available from only 8 channels upward and therefore applicable to all industry sectors. ISDN 30 is provided normally over Fibre cable but can be provided over transverse screen, Microwave or copper twisted pairs. Each system is a 2 Mbit/s digital connection from the telephone exchange presented as an RJ45 connector. |
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Call Centre What is a Call Centre? A call centre is a strategic corporate resource, dedicated to making and answering telephone calls quickly and efficiently. A call centre can be anything from hundreds of people answering thousands of calls per day, down to just one person answering a single telephone. Call centres are particularly appropriate for the following activities: * enquiry and help desks * telemarketing * financial services * retail or wholesale order entry * reservation systems * customer service departments The number of call centres is growing rapidly. According to the Henley Centre, there are already 40,000 people employed in call centres in the UK. Within four years this figure is expected to reach 400,000. One of the key drivers for the market is rising customer expectations: Customers expect high levels of service at convenient hours for all of their business requirements customers are increasingly prepared to use the telephone as a method of obtaining these products and services. 80 per cent of people will buy over the telephone, compared with 70 per cent two years ago. more than one million people in the UK have used the telephone to take out a mortgage or buy a car over the last two years. Suppliers realise the benefits that can be made from setting up a dedicated resource to provide the first point of contact with customers. They realise that an efficient call centre is the only cost effective method of meeting increasing customer expectations. Setting Up a Call Centre There is no such thing as a standard call centre. By monitoring the length of time it takes for incoming calls to be answered and assessing the workload on different members of staff, you can plan a call centre that meets your business needs. A call centre does not have to be located in a single place. By utilising the networking capability of a switching system, you can configure a call centre in a number of different ways: - agents can work in teams focussed on customer requirements, with the ability to belong to several teams - multi-site companies can operate a single call centre; customers call their local branch, but the call is re-directed automatically to the call centre distributed call centre network means that callers can overflow to remote sites in peak periods or be diverted to specialist centres of excellence in different sites. The Solutions Automatic Call Distribution ACD is integral to call centre success. ACD allows you to develop user-friendly queuing techniques to ensure that calls are answered in sequence and no calls go unanswered. incoming calls are queued and answered in order systems can be programmed to feed calls to waiting or specified staff automatically if all staff in a group are busy, calls can overflow to a secondary groups calls can be routed to other groups after a pre-set ringing time. Computer Telephony Integration CTI allows telephones and computers to be linked together to provide a range of integrated business applications that are particularly suitable for call centres. This function significantly improves the efficiency of the call centre, while meeting customer requirements for a fast and effective service.It is estimated that 80 per cent of call centres will have CTI functionality by the year 2000. CTI combines the data processing power of the computer with the convenience of the telephone to handle calls intelligently.A CTI-driven call centre can allocate incoming calls to available staff, recorded messages or automated services using direct computer access. When calls are transferred to staff, details about the caller or service required can be presented on screen as the call is connected, saving time and optimising service. CTI can also help with outgoing calls by automatically driving calls through the telephone system with names and numbers extracted from the company's database. CTI applications can integrate telephone functions with information held on a database.In a telesales or service operation, this can entail: * an incoming caller can be identified immediately. * information relating to the caller can be assessed quickly. * customer-specific pricing information can be given orders can be placed. In some cases this can be done by callers simply keying in information via the telephone handset without the need to speak to an operator thus reducing time, overheads and costs. Looking beyond the technology Thinking through the business rules, which will govern the call centre, is a must. This should be obvious but many companies, in the rush to exploit new mediums and new technologies, do not think through how these technologies are dependent on business principles, which may not be well understood. Failure to take this step can be expensive - call centre managers who decide to ‘improve customer service’ and use technology to do it, could end up with very high operation costs if they do not think through why they are doing it. As with any business that involves direct customer interaction, people skills are intrinsic to its success. If the skills, training and development of call centre staff is not planned and managed effectively, the call centre could experience far more inflated costs than initially planned. The cost of implementing and maintaining a call centre can be split into three key areas: * 15 per cent of overall costs include telecommunications and data communications; * 25 per cent are allocated for network services including hardware, software and desk equipment; * 60 per cent, the biggest spending area, usually accounts for staff. Without keeping staff motivated, trained and rewarded, the call centre is likely to have a negative impact on customer satisfaction. Call centre solutions require careful planning and a belief from the top down that the technology can be made to work for their company. Changes to business systems and processes will be required and projects undertaken should be carefully planned and initially small scale, to determine viability. Once benefits have been recognised, larger scale rollout becomes more widely accepted and integration into the existing business becomes easier. Finally, call centres will benefit from the ability to use the best medium for each type of transaction, and from the ability to use all of the available contextual information to drive customer interactions for maximum business benefit. For the technologists who implement these call centres, the challenge is to combine previously separate worlds even more closely using new vendors who are not bound by old assumptions. |
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Voice Over IP One technology, two implementations - Voice-over-IP and Voice-over-the Internet By Robin Hayman - Sales & Marketing Manager, Lucent Alchemy Voice-over-IP (VoIP), the most talked about example of packetised voice, is real, useable and is starting to be implemented now. The ideal target environment for this technology is in the remote Branch Office. A fixed digital circuit will probably in place already for data traffic, VoIP allows this link to be utilised for voice traffic between two sites, typically the branch and regional/head office, thereby integrating voice and data over a single link. Adding voice compression technology (typically 32k ADPCM, 16k CELP or 8k ACELP) alongside support for voice prioritisation and/or Quality of Service (QoS) helps to ensure that speech quality is maintained for business applications. Just think of this service as voice-networking in the same manner as the AC-15 or DPNSS circuits we all know and love (?) so well - the only difference is that these circuits carry voice and data traffic and they’re terminated at each site by a router or VoIP gateway before the circuits are passed on to the PBX. However, if you’re using a switched service, such as, PSTN or ISDN between sites, rather then a fixed circuit, then VoIP, isn’t so attractive. Yes you could in theory send voice and data between two sites over a single circuit, but the technology to check that a path to a specific destination is already in use before setting-up and then tearing down an ISDN connection just isn’t there yet. And if you’re not going to send voice and data down the same switched circuit, then the process of packetising, or wrapping voice traffic within IP packets just causes unnecessary overheads and end-to-end delays. Where as VoIP provides predictable performance (and therefore acceptable speech quality) over a point-to-point, fixed link, putting VoIP-over-the-Internet is akin to playing Russian Roulette. The current state of the Internet allows for no QoS, or prioritisation of voice traffic, and of course, being packet switched (as opposed to circuit switched as we’re used to in the voice world), there’s no way of ensuring that the sequence in which voice traffic gets sent out is the order in which it’s received. Think about the random nature of the Internet, it can take seconds to download the home page of your favourite web site during some periods of the day, while at others it can take minutes, or even time-out altogether due to the sheer volume of Internet traffic. It’s due to this indeterminate nature that voice-over-the-internet could not be considered a business application for the foreseeable future. |
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