20 February 2009: Coms launches Coms Xstream, a VoIP compression technology that dramatically improves the number of calls over a DSL connection, but crucially maintains call quality.
Terry Martin, CEO of Coms, commented, “VoIP technology has so far had an unsteady reputation and it’s usually down to the quality of calls. This is mainly due to the fact that regular SME ADSL lines are up and down in terms of quality. We are extremely excited by Xstream as it dramatically improves the quality of VoIP calls over a regular line by utilising compression and prioritisation technology, that has a side effect of being able to let you make more calls over a regular DSL Broadband line.”
Coms Xstream overview
Coms Xstream reduces the bandwidth overhead so that more calls can be made on an ADSL line. In doing so Xstream also improves Quality of Service (QoS) as voice packets are treated as priority.
As ADSL is slower sending than receiving data (i.e. the uplink has lower bandwidth than the downlink), the number of calls that can be made is limited by the much slower uplink speed (typically 256K or 446k).
Bandwidth is an important issue because VoIP speech is encoded using a codec, the main two codec’s used being G.711 and G.729. G.711 is considered to be the highest quality codec, but it doesn’t compress speech, so it’s very bandwidth hungry, while G.729 is considered the best match between compression and quality.
When speech is sent over the Internet there is still a “transport overhead” for each call that increases the bandwidth used by a VoIP call, however, Coms Xstream uses only one transport overhead for all calls, thereby maximising the available bandwidth.
To view the bandwidth comparison table click here
How Coms Xstream Works
Voice is no longer treated as simply another type of data, which happens to have a high priority. Instead, it is treated as a data stream with very specific requirements not only in terms of priority, but also in terms of spacing between packets. Voice and data can readily coexist on a single link. Data transfer rates are not compromised by the fact that voice is present. Classes of data can be given their own share of available bandwidth in a much more granular way than traditional QoS.
Coms Xstream benefits and features include:
• Enables up to 28 concurrent calls on a standard 256k uplink ADSL connection or 52 calls on a 446K ADSL connection.
• Enables delivery of SIP trunking up to 28 ports on a single ADSL connection with only 256k upstream bandwidth, making it a viable replacement for E1 circuits.
• Dynamic and seamless blending of voice and data using QoS allowing FULL utilisation of bandwidth increasing overall throughput for both voice and data traffic.
• Enables low Broadband bandwidth to be used for VPN connectivity in branch / retail environments offering simultaneous voice and data access.
• Supports multiple Voice protocols.
• Increased security for both voice and data traffic.
Sunday, 15 February 2009
Saturday, 14 February 2009
Coms launches Bundled VoIP and Broadband Package for Business
London, UK, 1st Febuary 2009 Coms Plc (AIM: COMS.L), a leading provider of VoIP Telephone Systems for Business, is launching a combined VoIP and Broadband service, which provides substantial cost savings and guaranteed consistent high quality whilst eliminating the need for a BT landline.
In conjunction with Tiscali broadband, customers receive the ‘Coms Office 10’ package, comprising 2mB SDSL-M Broadband plus the company’s fully featured VoIP service for ten users, which can be extended as required. The package, which can be installed within hours, includes UK DDIs, an Auto Attendant, plus leading edge call handling features such as call hold, transfer, forwarding, follow-me, voice mail, conference service and voice mail to email.
Terry Martin, Coms CEO, commented: ‘We chose SDSL-M because it is available to over 80% of UK businesses. By installing the Broadband element ourselves, we now have total control over the quality of calls, emails and fax. No longer will UK businesses have to pay BT’s expensive line charges and call rates.’
One of the system’s first users is Craft Publishing which is seeing major benefits already. Matthew Line, Director, commented: ‘We have been with Coms for over a year as we established the business. It’s ‘pay as you grow’ VoIP model enabled us to build our business without investing in communications infrastructure. We have now moved into a new office and with Coms Office 10, we were up and running on day one, as soon as the Broadband went live - again without investing in costly or potentially obsolete infrastructure.’
Terry Martin continued: ‘Our primary objective is to deliver business class telephony services to UK business using VoIP that simply works. We see it as our role to deliver calls and dial tones to our customers while keeping the complexities behind the service firmly locked up in our data centre. Office 10 extends this philosophy by combining business VoIP and the DSL Broadband service used to deliver VoIP in a combined package.’
In conjunction with Tiscali broadband, customers receive the ‘Coms Office 10’ package, comprising 2mB SDSL-M Broadband plus the company’s fully featured VoIP service for ten users, which can be extended as required. The package, which can be installed within hours, includes UK DDIs, an Auto Attendant, plus leading edge call handling features such as call hold, transfer, forwarding, follow-me, voice mail, conference service and voice mail to email.
Terry Martin, Coms CEO, commented: ‘We chose SDSL-M because it is available to over 80% of UK businesses. By installing the Broadband element ourselves, we now have total control over the quality of calls, emails and fax. No longer will UK businesses have to pay BT’s expensive line charges and call rates.’
One of the system’s first users is Craft Publishing which is seeing major benefits already. Matthew Line, Director, commented: ‘We have been with Coms for over a year as we established the business. It’s ‘pay as you grow’ VoIP model enabled us to build our business without investing in communications infrastructure. We have now moved into a new office and with Coms Office 10, we were up and running on day one, as soon as the Broadband went live - again without investing in costly or potentially obsolete infrastructure.’
Terry Martin continued: ‘Our primary objective is to deliver business class telephony services to UK business using VoIP that simply works. We see it as our role to deliver calls and dial tones to our customers while keeping the complexities behind the service firmly locked up in our data centre. Office 10 extends this philosophy by combining business VoIP and the DSL Broadband service used to deliver VoIP in a combined package.’
Glastonbury Festivals use the Coms On-Demand Business Telephone System
LONDON, UK - 1 FEB 2009: Glastonbury Festivals use the Coms On-Demand Business Telephone System at their office in Northload Street Glastonbury, which deals with many commercial aspects of the main festival such as press contact and trader enquiries as well as the organisation of events such as the Glastonbury Extravaganza and Equinox Party.
In the past communications was provided by means of an onsite PBX with 4 lines plus 3 direct lines for the press office. While this worked well the PBX was coming to the end of its life and a decision was made to move into the 21st century.
Tony Daniel, of Glastonbury Festivals comments: "The functionality of Coms On-Demand System exceeded requirements and enabled us to cut costs by reducing the number of BT telephone lines and removing the expensive PBX maintenance costs."
"Keeping existing numbers was easy with the number porting service and the change over was on time and painless."
The Coms On-Demand telephone system has many features, but the two features that really worked for Glastonbury Festivals were:
1. The Ability to handle limitless inbound and outbound calls
2. Auto Attendant Flexibility
Limitless inbound and outbound calls
During the year, about 1,000 calls a month are made to and from the office, however, in the run up to and during the Festival this increases to over 2,500 calls per day.
While we were not able to answer all the calls at peak times the automatic voice mail service for those unanswered meant that no calls were missed and the ability to respond during quiet times kept the work flowing.
Auto Attendant Flexibility
During the year the Auto Attendant works just like most offices, greeting callers and giving them an option to route their calls, e.g. Welcome to Glastonbury Festivals, press 1 for this and 2 for that etc, but in the run-up and during the festival, the Auto Attendant was changed as required to give callers relevant updates, particularly when the office was not manned during the main festival times and the use of voice mail was again very useful. These features were not available with the previous PBX and even messages on the answer phone were restricted to 5 messages and most people actually only heard the engaged tone during peak periods.
One of the best features of the new system was the support we received from Coms which was very helpful and responsive.
Further Details from http://www.coms.com/
Coms Integrates Outlook with Polycom IP Phones
LONDON, UK - 13 FEB 2009 : Coms PolyPop integrates Outlook with Polycom IP Phones so that Outlook users can Click to Call from their Outlook Contacts and also have Contact details pop up to match inbound calls.
The development brings CTI (Computer Telephony Integration) in reach of many SMB customers, whereas previously CTI was for Enterprise or Power users.
Coms PolyPop CTI is a not only a time saving tool, it's also an efficiency tool as caller details are seamlessly available to called parties, enabling simpler use of contact details to improve relationships and leverage exsisting contact data.
Coms PolyPop has options as to which data fields are used to math inbound call with and also how contact data is screen popped as well as how it's displayed.
Available to download for a free 30 day trial and then it's just £10 for a single user per year.
Full details from http://www.coms.com/polypop
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