Remote Working

There is a lot of hype these days about Voice over IP (VoIP) and how it can bring more productivity features to the individual user of communication services. Mostly these new features are often pitched and prevalent with many of the new IP PBXs that are available on the market.

For those less tech savvy a PBX is a phone system or can be defined as a "Private Branch eXchange (PBX)". This refers to equipment that provides switching internally to a company or an organization rather than having a carrier provide those switching features to the PSTN or public telephone network. This is different from a "Key System" which refers to phone equipment where the user must pick the line they are going to use by pushing essentially a "key" or button. In either case PBXs have come to mean phone equipment or systems. The equipment you own typically is the primary source of your phone features but features can also be provided by carriers as well.

One of the things that carriers have been able to provide because of the dawn of IP Communications is remote worker capabilities. This essentially means that a user can work outside the office and use some other phone or line than they typically would but connect somehow to their internal voice network. Imagine the typical sales executive who works outside the office on trips or from his home. Instead of customers having to know not only his work number, but also other numbers like his cell or home office line in order to reach the sales executive, they could call one business number and that number would simultaneously ring other lines or phones that he could be reached.

The way this technology works is though a Broadsoft or other softswitch that the carrier would be using on their network. As most IP communications is handle through a softswitch there are new capabilities that these carrier platforms can offer users. Broadsoft for example has a toolbar that can be placed in Outlook or a web browser that allows users to remotely talk to the switch to enable certain functionalities. This includes remote worker functionality like simultaneous ringing, click-to-dial, feature management, and outbound calling over your business' voice network. All these features are essentially turned on through the Internet by making a connection to the softswitch directly. Conversely this could also happen through directly connecting to an IP PBX through the web as well where your phone system itself would be responsible for these advanced features but I want to focus on carrier capabilities in this post. The idea is that by using a computer and a broadband connection you connect to the softswitch through the Internet and let it know that you are working remotely. Many of the features I will describe below are "turned on" through this process so that the softswitch knows that the user is working remotely. This typically happens through an above mentioned toolbar which would have certain features built into it.

Let's take a minute to break down each these key remote work features. First is simultaneous ringing. This essentially tells the switch that when your number is dialed (i.e. your work line) that you want the switch to also dial other numbers where you can be reached. Most systems can support up to 10 simultaneous rings at once. When you pick up a phone at any one of these other numbers the softswitch then connects the call to that line and hangs up on the rest. The idea is that you never miss a important call plus you don't have to manage multiple call forward scenarios yet you simply pick up the phone where you are closest. This is perfect not only for the home user but also for the users that works out of several offices like a roaming manager or a staff member working at multiple job sites. I often find service industry professionals like CPAs and lawyers to find this tool useful as they often working at client's sites and might be given access to a temporary desk or phone in a conference room.

Second most notable feature is click-to-dial. This allows a user to simply click on a phone number within a contact field like in Outlook or one that they have on a website through a web browser. When they click on the number the number is sent through the toolbar to the switch over the internet connection that was set-up and dials the phone number called and the number that the person is working from. In this scenario the switch dials two legs of the phone call. One leg is to connect the user from where they are dialing from and the other leg is to the caller or destination that is being dialed. It is important to note that for many carriers this means you need to pay for both legs of the call but it can be a handy feature. One use is to have the call billed directly to the service of your company rather than that of the remote phone you are working from. So let's say you are in a hotel or other company where you don't have immediate access to long-distance or international calling. You could use this feature to make that call and have it billed to your company's phone circuits. To the phone that you are using it is only seen as simply an inbound call. The second reason click-to-dial features are useful is it provides the other person you dial with your company's caller ID so it seems like you are calling from your office and creates a seamless professional appearance to the person being called. This also might allow you to transfer or use other features just like you were in the office.

Lastly remote worker features allow users to instantly make feature changes to their lines remotely so for instance you can tell the switch that you will be in a meeting and all calls should be forwarded to your secretary or your voice-mail whereas as soon as you are out of that meeting you can instantly have the calls get to you live wherever you are working. This is much easy than the remote executive who is constantly banging out calls on their blackberry checking messages and checking in with internal staff letting them know their availability.

There are some real world applications of these remote worker features beyond just giving users more flexibility and some neat features. First there are many companies who have remote offices across large geographic regions. In many cases these remote offices might be much smaller than their headquarters or main offices and may not be with the same carriers or network configuration of the main office. Sometimes it becomes very hard for an IT manager or administrator to address external telecom issues for remote sites such as local lines going down or a hardware issue with a remote office's phone system. Because it may take time to resolve the issue remote worker capabilities can act as a disaster recovery feature for these offices.

Another common application is for the typical road warrior, salesperson, or executive who is out of the office a lot. To handle all of their communications on a cell phone can be cumbersome. The ability to turn other phones (especially land lines like a hotel phone or a phone at a customer's site) into a temporay work phone is very helpful for these types of workers. Also the fact that anyone can reach them by simply dialing their single business line or number makes things much more easier and simplistic in order to contact them.

Environmental issues can also be a good application for remote worker features. Sometimes when offices are rural or on a large campus it may be difficult to run typical land line to them. A good example might be an agricultural business or a college that has older annex buildings without good wiring. Also warehouse typically have this problem. The remote worker capability can often bridge the gap between this type of offcie environment or single worker who could easily access wireless broadband or use broadband wireless cards in order to connect their telephony to the major T1 service that the organization has in place. This eliminates the high cost of try to get wired connectivity to these office or perfrom costly build-outs of cabling.

In summary, the new available remote workers features of phone carriers and iPBXs offer a greater flexibility to staff and office environments who struggle with communication issues or want to become more productive whereever they are. In time the industry will offer more and more types of these features that will make communications seamless everywhere.

-Harris Von Essen
"King of Telecom"