May/12

Video Conferencing with Grandchildren using Grandstream GXV3175

by Express Interconnect under ExpressVoice PBX, GrandStream, Video Conferencing, Video Phone

Case Study of an Eldery Couple that uses Video Conferencing with their Grandchildren

Recently, I was contacted by an elderly couple in Hawaii. The customer wanted to talk to their Grandchildren in another State using Video feature of the Grandstream GXV3175 Multimedia IP Phone. The grandmother talked to the Grandchildren about 3 to 4 hours a week and wanted video capability without turning on the computer to start a video chat application. They wanted to know what we can offer them.

While ExpressVoice PBX Hosted VoIP Plans were designed with Small Business and Medical Offices in mind, I offered them the same plan specifically for them. There was No Way I could deny a Grandparent from talking to their Grandkids!

The plan I offered them was the ExpressVoice PBX SOHO Individual Hosted VoIP Plan which allowed them up to 2000 minutes for voice or video calls.

I had them sign up for two accounts: One for themselves and one for their Grandchildren in another State. The Grandstream GXV3175 IP Video Phones were pre-configured and shipped to each location enabling them to just plug it into their router/network and have it provision automatically to our server for a Plug and Play operation.

The way the two separate IP phones were configured allowed them to dial each other’s extension and have video chat with each other. No 10 or 11 digit dialing or starting up any applications. Just pick up the phone, punch in the extension number and hit Video Call. That’s it!

Well, I followed up with them today to see how it was working out and they absolutely love it and were very thankful for my service. I know this is a Blog for my Business and I should proessional but this couple were so thankful, personable and friendly that I have to write about them.

It truely makes me feel very blessed knowing that my customers are happy.

NOTE: To Video Conference using Grandstream GXV3175 or GXV3140 Video Phones, the configuration are very similar and work equally well with a standard Asterisk IP PBX. The link above will guide you to a successful Videoconferencing session.

About Express Interconnect: We are a Portland, Oregon based Small Business | Medical Office VoIP Consultant specializing in implementing quality VoIp PBX system based on Asterisk IP PBX. We can be reached at 503-820-3513 or via email at: support@ExpressInterconnect.com and can help with any questions you might have.

Due to Demand, we have finally branched out into Hosted VoIP Service for Small Business and Medical Offices. Our Hosted VoIP Service provides full Asterisk IP PBX functionality in a simple Plug and Play system.

Also, please make sure to visit our on-line store at VoIP Phones Direct for all of your IP Phone needs. We carry Grandstream, Polycom, Snom, Aastra, and Yealink IP Phones with a 14 day money back guarantee and FREE UPS Ground Shipping.

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May/12

BLF Extension Monitoring for Medical Offices

by Express Interconnect under Medical Office, Medium Sized Business, Small Business, Small Business VoIP, Small Office, Small Office Phone System

BLF or Busy Lamp Field use in Medical Offices

Oftentimes, I get asked what BLF is and what purpose it has for Small Offices and Medical Offices. BLF stand for Busy Lamp Field and it is used mainly to monitor the line status on a specific extension. This is especially useful for a receptionist in a busy Medical Office that handles a large volume of incoming calls and must route it properly to the correct destination as effieciently as possible.

Using BLF will allow the receptionist to know if a specific phone or extension is in use. Knowing this small bit of information will enable the receptionist to know whether to transfer a call to a Doctor’s office or directly to his/her voicemail.

BLF information is readily available by a quick glance at the IP Phone’s status indicator lights. The status indicator will be solid Green for an extension that is free but it will be solid Red for an extension that is in use.

While it is a simple process of enabling BLF, not all Hosted VoIp providers utilize this feature. Yes it uses up a small amount of bandwidth for the status notiications but I believe it is well worth it. Therefore, BLF is available on all ExpressVoice PBX Business Pro and Elite Plans allowing any Medical Office to take advantage of this powerful feature.

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benefits of IP PBX, BLF, ip pbx, medical office, medium sized business, small business, small office phone, SMB Leave a Comment more...

May/12

Hosted VoIP for Small Business

by Express Interconnect under ExpressVoice PBX, IP PBX Solution, Medical Office, Medium Sized Business, SIP providers, Small Business, Small Business VoIP, Small Office, Small Office Phone System

Benefits of Hosted VoIP for Small Business

With availability of reliable Internet Connection and abundant bandwidth, there is very little reason not to go with a Hosted VoIP Service for your Small Business. Hosted VoIP Service provides easy to use, full featured phone system at a fraction of the cost of traditional PBX system. It also allows you to offload the maintenance of the phone system allowing more time to Run Your Business.

Below are some of the reasons why your Small Business should use Hosted VoIP:

QUICK & SIMPLE:
Hosted VoIP can be implemented very easily and quickly to meet tight time-frames. All you need is a reliable Internet Connection, IP Phones and a Hosted Small Business VoIP Account. Once you have those three components, it is as simple as plugging in your IP Phones to the network. Once properly configured, the IP Phones will contact the VoIP Server and provision automatically. What this means to you is that if you sign up for a Hosted Small Business VoIP Service through ExpressVoice PBX and receive your IP Phone, all you have to do is Plug it In.

INTEGRATION WITH CURRENT SYSTEM:
Hosted VoIP Service can be used in Conjunction with a Traditional Telephone System and can work together seamlessly. A good number of clients use Hosted VoIP Service for outgoing calls only to avoid tying up Incoming Lines. What this means to you is that you can migrate to a Full Hosted VoIP environment in stages to avoid overhauling the entire phone system and to reduce initial cost.

RELIABLE:
Hosted VoIP Service by ExpressVoice PBX is Reliable and Dependable as it utilizes Redundant Power, Cooling and Connectivity. What this means to you is that our PBX Servers are well protected against Power and Internet Connection Outages.

FEATURE RICH:
Hosted VoIP Service can provide your company with Full PBX Features without complicated equipment or programming. Features, from Simple to Advanced can be implemented easily. Some of the features are:

Call Forwarding to any number you choose
Call Hunt Group to ring a group of Phones
Call Transferring among internal Extensions
BLF Field with Status LED to monitor Extensions (On-Line, Ringing, Free)
Voicemail to Email with Remote Voicemail Access
IVR and Auto Attendant for Menu Driven Call Routing
The list goes on and on

What this means to you is that your Small Business can have FULL Features of a Large Corporation and route your calls in a way that will enhance productivity and efficiency.

UNLIMITED CALL SESSIONS:
Unlike a traditional telephone system, Hosted VoIP Service can allow you to have One account that allows Unlimited Number of Concurrent Calls. The limit is really your Internet Bandwidth and not the phone system itself. What this means to you is that you give out One Number and we can have that One Number route to any phone you need. All of your outgoing calls can show the Main Phone Number in the Caller ID which will simplify your marketing efforts.

NO CONTRACT:
Hosted VoIP Service usually does not Require you to sign a Service Contract. ExpressVoice PBX for instance is on a Month to Month basis. What this means to you is that you have the peace of mind of knowing that if things don’t work out, you have the option to cancel without incurring any penalties.

As you can see, there are many Advantages in Moving to a VoIP system.

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asterisk, asterisk pbx, benefits of IP PBX, ip pbx, ip phone, medical office, medium sized business, small business, small office phone, SMB, voip phone Leave a Comment more...

May/12

Starting Asterisk IP PBX on Amazon AWS EC2 Automatically on Startup

by Express Interconnect under Amazon AWS, Asterisk How To, Asterisk Server Configuration

Configuring Asterisk IP PBX running on Amazon AWS EC2 to Start Automatically on Reboot

After I install Asterisk IP PBX on Amazon AWS EC2 Cloud Servers for testing, I usually run a command “make config” to modify the config files so that Asterisk starts automatically upon Server Reboot. Well this time, it did not work as planned and my Asterisk failed to start resulting in me manually starting Asterisk every time. On a Production environment, this is a big No No so I had to figure this out.

It turns out that since I am running a Paravirtual instance on AWS, Asterisk was trying to run as ec2-user instead of root user. Since the ec2-user does not have root access, what changes I made to rc.local file had no affect. I scoured Google looking for answers to no avail which bring up a point: It is very hard to find good information on Asterisk out there. I tried many solutions offered including adding ec2-user to root group membership, changing folder permissions on key Asterisk paths and even modifying the rc.local file to: “sudo asterisk”.Finally, after some tinkering and thinking about this, the solution was very simple.

Solution that finally worked was to modify the rc.local file located in /etc/and add the following commands:

sudo -i
asterisk

What the commands above does is to elevate to root user then start Asterisk service. After the edit, a reboot brought up Asterisk automatically. Perfect!

I hope this article helps you and I would like to hear your comments and also about your experiences with Amazon AWS EC2 servers.

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Apr/12

Recommended Medical Office Hosted VoIP Features – ExpressVoice

by Express Interconnect under GrandStream, IP PBX Solution, Medical Office, Medium Sized Business, Small Business, Small Business VoIP, Small Office, Small Office Phone System, Yealink

Medical Office | Private Practice Hosted VoIP Available Plans and Recommended Features

Medical Offices and Private Practices have unique Phone needs that require special attention and this is where VoIP phone system shines in both simplicity and function.

Simplicity:
ExpressVoice hosted IP PBX solution provides any Medical Offices and Private Practices to simply plug in their IP phone to the network and use the ExpressVoice IP Phone System with very little configuration. If the IP Phones were purchased through Express Interconnect or VoIP Phones Direct, it will be delivered pre-configured for you eliminating the need for any configuration onsite.

Function:
ExpressVoice hosted IP PBX will provide your Medical Office staff with Full Featured PBX functionality which previously was not attainable unless a small fortune was spent on a dedicated phone system. The availalbe features can be as simple as voicemail to email and as complex as multiple IVR/Auto Attendant, Call Conferencing, and Call Groups.
Below are typical features we can enable for staff with different roles in your Medical Office | Private Practice. Please note that this is what a typical installation will allow and more advanced features are available. The list below also has recommended IP Phone as a reference:

Receptionists: Grandstream GXP2110 or Yealink T28P IP Phones
Dedicated Incoming Phone Number (Can be your existing phone number)
Auto Attendant to configure the Call Routing such as Follow Me, Hunt Group, etc.
Day and Night IVR (Interactive Voice Response) which will prompt the Callers to press a specific number to reach doctors/nurses, etc.
BLF (Busy Lamp Field) to monitor other phones and extensions for use
Call Transfers (Blind Transfer and Attended Transfer)
Call Parking to Park Calls until someone is available to answer the call
Call Queue to have incoming calls held in a queue until answered in a sequential order
Call Pickup button to allow any Receptionists to answer the Main Line at their own desk
Voicemail to Email as an Attachment

Nurses: Grandstream GXP2100 or Yealink T26P IP Phones
Call Routing such as Hunt Group, Follw Me, Call Forwarding
BLF (Busy Lamp Field) to monitor the Doctor’s phones and extensions for use
Call Transfers (Blind Transfer and Attended Transfer)
Call Parking to Park Calls until someone is available to answer the call
Call Pickup button to allow any nurses to answer each other’s extensions
Voicemail to Email as an Attachment and Remote Access to Voicemails from anywhere
Video capability to directly dial the Doctors or other Nurses

Doctors: Grandstream GXP2100 or Yealink T22P IP Phones
Call Routing such as Hunt Group, Follw Me, Call Forwarding
Call Transfers (Blind Transfer and Attended Transfer)
Call Parking to Park Calls until someone is available to answer the call
Dedicated Virtual Conference Rooms for conferencing with others
Voicemail to Email as an Attachment and Remote Access to Voicemails from anywhere
Video capability to directly dial other Doctors or Nurses

Exam Rooms: Grandstream GXP2000 or Yealink T20P IP Phones
A basic function usually used as an intercom

Lobby Area: Grandstream GXP2000 or Yealink T20P IP Phones
Basic Outbound Calling

ExpressVoice hosted IP PBX plans start at $149 a month for 5000 minutes. However, we are offering a Pre-Launch Promotion which will double the minutes to 10000 for the same price.

Small Business Plus Plan: $149 a month for up to 10 phones/extensions + 199 Setup fee

5000 total minutes included for continental US for all extensions
Unlimited Concurrent Calls
Additional 5000 minutes available
Includes 5 inbound telephone number which some can be your current numbers
Includes Meetme Virtual Phone Conferencing
Includes BLF (Busy Lamp Field) for Monitoring Phone States
Includes Custom Inbound Voice Response and Autoattendant configuration
Customizable Call Forwarding, Hunt Groups, Follow Me features
Includes Voicemail to Email and remote access to Voicemails
Month to Month without long term contract

We offer other Small Business | Medical Office Plans with details to follow soon.

If you are looking for a Hosted VoIP system that is easy to set up, have the full functionality of traditional PBX system at fraction of the cost, AND do not want to worry about Maintaining your Out of Warranty Legacy PBX Equipment, please contact us at any time. I can be reached at 503-820-3513 or emailed at support@ExpressInterconnect.com. I would be glad to give you any advice or recommendation that will fit your needs.

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Apr/12

Small Business VoIP: Enable Asterisk BLF (Busy Lamp Field) in Yealink and Grandstream IP Phones

by Express Interconnect under Asterisk How To, Asterisk Server Configuration, GrandStream, IP PBX Solution, Small Business, Small Business VoIP, Small Office Phone System, Yealink

Enable Asterisk BLF (Busy Lamp Field) in Yealink and Grandstream IP Phones

BLF if a very useful feature that is beneficial to receptionists, secretaries, office managers, or anyone that handle a large volume of calls that gets routed to many different extensions. BLF in a nutshell is an indicator that lets you know the status of a specific extension by monitoring the hints. The indicator usually lights up in different colors or blinks to indicate the current status. A good example is the Yealink SIP T-38G IP Phone I reviewed which has multi color LED. Green LED means the extension is Available, Blinking Red means the extension is Ringing, and Solid Red means the extension is currently in use. This allows a person to easily identity and ask the caller if they would like to HOLD or be transferred to the Voicemail system. At this time, due to Asterisk’s inability to push the hints, DND function will not be indicated in the status hints.

I have outlined the BLF setting for Polycom IP Phones in my previous article which involved the MAC-address-phone.cfg file. However, with non-Polycom IP Phones, the process is slightly different as they do not use these files and these features are enabled by the web-GUI built into the IP Phones.

To enable BLF, you still have to specify the hints so that the subscribed extensions (Monitoring Phone) can know the status. To enable hints, you specify it in the extensions.conf file as follows:

exten => _X.,hint,SIP/${EXTEN}
exten => _X.,Answer
exten => _X.,Dial(SIP/${EXTEN},30)
exten => _X.,Voicemail(${EXTEN},u)
exten => _X.,HangUp

This of course assumes that your internal extensions or the context uses these extensions numbering scheme and that you want ALL extensions to give out hints. You can also hint a specific extension by typing in:

exten => _3000,hint,SIP/${EXTEN}
exten => _3001,hint,SIP/${EXTEN}
exten => _3005,hint,SIP/${EXTEN}
and so on

Once this is done, we need to modify the sip.conf file to allow the phones to subscribe to hints. Under the general context in sip.conf insert the following lines:

subscribecontext = internal-extensions (Name of the context for internall extensions)
callcounter = yes
allowsubscribe = yes
limitonpeers = yes
notifyringing = yes
notifyhold = yes
notifycid = yes

Finally, in sip.onf under each extension, you MUST specify the following:

call-limit = 2 or any number greater than 1

Once you have these changes in place, reload Asterisk and type: “core show hints” in the Asterisk CLI. This command will show the current extensions that are giving hints and which extension is monitoring for hints. When you see the hints and subscriber, the Asterisk configuration is done.

At this point, we have to assign the BLF fields to buttons or keys for the IP Phone via its Web GUI. This method varies by the phone make and model but it involves setting the key to BLF and specifying the extension you want to monitor. For your Reference, Yealink’s SIP T38G web GUI is shown below.

NOTE: I am waiting for the RPS (Redirecting and Provisioning Service) from Yealink to come out of BETA status for the T3X series phones. Once I have access to this service, I am hoping that it will allow configuration parameters to be set for BLF.

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asterisk, asterisk config, asterisk how to, asterisk pbx, asterisk tutorial, Grandstream, ip pbx, medical office, medium sized business, small business, small office phone, voip phone, Yealink 1 Comment more...

« Older Entries

Video Conferencing with Grandchildren using Grandstream GXV3175

Case Study of an Eldery Couple that uses Video Conferencing with their Grandchildren

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BLF Extension Monitoring for Medical Offices

BLF or Busy Lamp Field use in Medical Offices

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Hosted VoIP for Small Business

Benefits of Hosted VoIP for Small Business

Share and Enjoy

Starting Asterisk IP PBX on Amazon AWS EC2 Automatically on Startup

Configuring Asterisk IP PBX running on Amazon AWS EC2 to Start Automatically on Reboot

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Recommended Medical Office Hosted VoIP Features – ExpressVoice

Medical Office | Private Practice Hosted VoIP Available Plans and Recommended Features

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Small Business VoIP: Enable Asterisk BLF (Busy Lamp Field) in Yealink and Grandstream IP Phones

Enable Asterisk BLF (Busy Lamp Field) in Yealink and Grandstream IP Phones

Share and Enjoy

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