Business Phone System Reviews | SE Telecom

The Federal Communications Commission has given its stamp of approval on a sale that tops $8 Billion. Verizon Communication Incorporated has sold off almost five million telephone lines to Frontier Communications Corporation. This sale spans mainly rural areas across 14 states.

This deal came with some speculation on how well Frontier could handle the financial strain of the landlines. Let’s face it; Frontier Communications is a much smaller company that Verizon Communication and dealing with five million landlines is a big deal.

Frontier Communications won this deal by promising a lot to its new rural customers. The biggest promise comes in the form of faster broadband access to more people in its service areas. Add to that the promise of fiber connectivity to libraries, hospitals, and other anchor institutions. These are some big promises by a little company.

Julius Genachowski, FCC chairman, went on to say “Today the Commission approves, subject to conditions to protect the public interest, a transaction with the promise of significantly improving broadband availability to millions of consumers—as well as small businesses and anchor institutions—in rural and small-town America.”

This deal did not come without a few upset people though. In April, communications workers in West Virginia protested this deal. They argued that similar deals with Verizon Communications in other locations led to workers losing jobs, inadequate service, and broadband promises that have yet to be fulfilled. Protestors topped off the protest cake by pointing out fears of Frontier Communications financial abilities to handle such a large service area.

While Frontier Communications is making big promises, only time will tell how well this deal works out for the company and the service area. The FCC has a goal of spreading the broadband wealth across the nation. Frontier Communications has promised to fulfill this wish. How they do it and how many people are left standing with jobs will be the true indicator of how successful this deal really was.

According to MobileCrunch, the large hotel chain Holiday Inn is running a trial in two of their main branches for using mobile smart phones in place of the more-common plastic magnetic key cards.

Though the article doesn’t go into how exactly the phone/key system would work, the user would presumably download a key app, then scan a personalized bar code matching that of their room’s sensor. The iPhone app Red Laser has been working on similar things for a while, so the technology at least exists.

The idea behind the innovation is to simplify the key card system, allowing guests to use the item they’re already carrying (smart phone), and not have to add another piece of plastic to their wallet. For hotels, though installing readers is likely costly, the payoff comes when they get to do away with non-reusable magnetic cards, and save time handing out and replacing the normal key cards.

Bryson Koehler, an executive at InterContinental Hotels group, told USA Today: “The holy grail item for us is to simplify the room-key hand-off moment at the hotel. We don’t need to burden people with additional items; it just clutters up their lives. The beauty of the smart phone is that they’ve already got it.”

Testing of the new system will run about 2 months, in the cities of Chicago and Houston, TX, USA. The keycard technology is said to be compatible with iPhones, BlackBerrys and Android phones.

We’re obviously unsure of how the trial will go. Or, for that matter, how cost effective it’ll prove to be for hotels. But eliminating more plastic, and empowering our smart phones to do even more (when they practically do everything already) is an exciting prospect.

We’ll be keeping an eye on this one!

Web call accounting can be a helpful, or indeed a needed element for many small or medium sized businesses. The Revolution Web Call Accounting solution, delivered by SE Telecom, is recognized as among the world leaders in call accounting software.

Businesses such as offices, hospitals, and universities — those that need to allocate telecommunications costs to certain individuals or departments — consider call accounting a virtual necessity in their day-to-day operations. Revolution Web Call Accounting gathers this crucial information automatically, making it easy to track, designate, and bill online.

Other businesses, such as traditional offices or service companies, do not bill their telecommunications by certain sub offices or departments. However, these businesses may benefit from web call accounting just the same, using it to gain a quick glimpse behind-the-scenes of their phone system(s), and easily monitoring telephone productivity for each line or employee.

The Revolution Web Call Accounting solution can can be accessed from a desktop computer, or from around anywhere around the globe through its web interface. Revolution Web Call Accounting can connect to virtually any telephone system, including those from Avaya & Nortel, and is designed to work in any country.

The Revolution Web Call Accounting solution comes included with numerous preset report settings, support for account and pin codes, contact database for identifying business and personal calls, client billing, and a built-in query builder.

If you’re considering investing in a web call accounting system, or are looking for a new, innovative way to improve the efficiency of your telecommunications investment, please contact SE Telecom today. We would be happy to discuss your options with you.