As for call management, we could set up particular actions based on the time of day for select incoming calls. For example, you can send calls to voicemail automatically, which is great if you don't want to be disturbed during customer meetings. ICG also lets you forward calls to a remote number, such as a cell phone number if you're out of the office, but it can forward to one number only and cannot try several numbers, as GoBeam's system can.
ICG began offering the service in Denver and now provides it in Atlanta; Dallas, Houston and Austin, Texas; northern and southern California; and the Ohio Valley. ICG has its own MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching)-enabled, OC-48 backbone and keeps voice calls on its data network as long as possible, even if the call is not meant for another ICG-serviced telephone.
VoicePipe, $4,398 monthly for 100 seats basic VoicePipe service plus a $1,250 nonrecurring setup charge, with a 3-year term. ICG Communications, (888) 424-1144, (303) 414-5000. www.icgcom.com
MCI (formerly Worldcom) showed us what kind of IP Centrex service a large carrier can provide, and frankly, we were disappointed. MCI sent us a Cisco 7940 IP phone for our testing, along with an account and phone number tied to one of the company's test groups, but not to the rest of the company. This left the phone on its lonesome, with no access to an employee list.
Although MCI touted its service's ability to operate over Internet connections not provided by MCI, its service couldn't handle our connection without a little intervention. The solution MCI provided required the telephone to know the public IP address of our router's WAN interface. This normally wouldn't be a problem, except that our public address is assigned by our service provider via DHCP. Inputting the IP address into the phone is a quick process, but if we had to do this every couple of days whenever the address changed--and we could no longer place or receive calls until we completed that task--it would be a major annoyance. Neither GoBeam nor ICG had this requirement.
MCI's Web interface was rather difficult to get to because it required us to log in and then click on a link to get to the area for managing the phone. In general, we had to go through more pages to get where we were going. Once there, we were given a choice of seven buttons. Most of your users will use four main selections: the change options for Find-Me, call forwarding, and voicemail and phone-book access. During our tests, access to this Web site was slow, with pages sometimes taking minutes to load. MCI acknowledged the problem and said it is moving the site to different servers soon.
Subsea cable alternatives can provide a level of comfort for those concerned about disruptions. Realistically, they will continue to play a small, but critical role in the short term.
Maintaining existing network infrastructures often incurs huge technical debt before newer technologies are adopted over time.
Amid ongoing regional uncertainties, telecom infrastructure in the Middle East has expand to include terrestrial low-latency network infrastructure, which offers resilience and agility in navigating political complexities without relying solely on undersea networks.
