Westwind Digital Communications

If you read our blog often you see a theme (aside from the random movie quotes) that usually starts, “We were talking to a customer . . . “

Being in business for 20 years you get to see and hear a lot of things. Fortunately this time it was not a situation Westwind Digital or the customer created, but it was a headache we both had to deal with. The topic today is the importance of structured cabling and maintaining the integrity of your investment.

A small business had made the investment when moving into a new office of going with structured cabling. One reason is they went with a VoIP telephone system.

There are many reasons compelling to go with a structured cabling system. Instead of rehashing them, here is a good article citing a few of them.

http://www.technology-toolkit.com/computers-and-technology/what-is-a-structured-cabling-system

What we ran into was an electrical subcontractor that came in behind us. As you can see below, they ran the electrical lines literally on top of ours.

An example of what not to do.

What is the big deal you ask? Great question! Electric lines put out a lot of “noise” and interfere with the signal going through a CAT 5 line even if the cables are shielded. This interference will make any phone sound like you are talking in a tin can and could even knock a computer off the network. Here is an example of what a good structured cable should look like:

What a good run should look like.

Not that we are telling you how to run a business. If you paid for structured cabling, you might as well reap the benefits of having it.

Most of the time we get your run-of-the-mill telephone system request. That does not mean we take short cuts when it comes to finding out about a customer’s operations. For one thing, as a trust I.T. provider we do not want to over look any aspect as it may come back to haunt us down the road. Secondly, asking the right questions allows us to sometimes find a way we can make a customer more efficient and save money at the same time. That‘s when we become a trusted partner in their business.

I have stated this before, we are lucky to have some of the best technicians in the entire state of Oklahoma. Combined they account for over 100 years of technical expertise. That does not mean they are miracle workers and when its time for a phone system to be put to rest, it’s time. We had a customer who was seeing more and more of our techs at a regular interval.

Chad and I went to see them and after doing some digging, we discovered a way to save them over $6,600 a year on their phone bill. The main office was in Oklahoma City and had two satellite offices in Edmond and Wilson Oklahoma. They also had an employee that worked out of her home in Albuquerque, NM. The office in South OKC had been connected point-to-point to Edmond with a dedicated T1 line and all four locations were incurring considerable long distance charges as they all interacted with one another on a daily basis.

What did we come up with for a solution? Well, we installed a new Toshiba CIX 670 phone system, ordered a PRI from AT&T, and killed the dedicated T1 line between the two offices. On the phone system was a new MAS (Media Application Server) with unified messaging and fax to desktop. This centralized the voicemail for all four locations. We then set up a VPN (Virtual Private Network) and tied all four offices together using Cisco routers. This way we were able to utilize VoIP and eliminate the long distance charges from the telephone carrier. Another great benefit is we did NOT need to travel to New Mexico to set up the home office. Our technician simply programmed the phone and mailed it to the young lady’s home in Albuquerque. All she had to do was plug her phone in and she was off and calling! Now any call comes to the receptionist in OKC and she is able to rout it to the proper office with the caller not knowing where they called in the first place.

In the end, the customer really did not care what we had done. They got a new phone system, it works, and he saves money every month. Simple as that.