According to Webopedia, T-1 or Trunk Line One is a dedicated phone connection supporting data rates of 1.544Mbits per second. A T-1 line consists of 24 individual channels, each of which supports 64Kbits per second. Each 64Kbit/second channel can be configured to carry voice or data traffic.

Within the communications world, trunking is analogous to the structure of a tree with one trunk and many branches. According to Wikipedia, this is exactly how trunking got its name. Trunking is a concept by which a communications system can provide network access to many clients by sharing a set of lines or frequencies instead of providing them individually.

T-1 lines are a popular leased line option for businesses connecting to the Internet and for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) connecting to the Internet backbone. Here are some more facts for your review:

• T-1 transmits digital signals instead of analog.
• T-1 connections are available in US, Japan and South Korea, while E-1 connections are available in Europe.
• T-1 PRI offers 23 channels and 1 additional channel to pass data such as Caller ID and improve performance. T-1 PRI is often used for call centers.
• A Bonded T1 is two T1 lines offering 3.0 Mbps of bandwidth.
• A T-1 line is either made of fiber or copper and T1 is being replaced by Fiber to the x (FTTx) technologies, which is a generic term for any broadband network architecture that uses optical fiber to replace all or part of the usual metal local loop used for last mile telecommunications.

Inphonite, LLC develops and markets professional, automated phone messaging systems and interactive computer telephony products that improve the profitability and productivity of a wide range of organizations. InphoniteVoice supports Digital, Analog and VoIP connections.

We have blogged previously regarding Internet Telephony Service Providers (ITSP) and the criteria they should meet in order to be considered. A SIP trunk is another service offered by an ITSP that permits businesses that have a PBX installed to use Voice-over-IP (VoIP) also outside the enterprise network by using the same connection as the Internet connection.

SIP stands for Session Initiation Protocol and is an open-standard which allows carrier voice equipment to integrate seamlessly with customer premise equipment. The logical voice channel established between them is referred to as a SIP trunk; a virtual phone line that utilizes a broadband connection for access.

At one time, businesses had to buy a dedicated line from a telephone provider. Thanks to SIP trunking, businesses can now enjoy lower costs, better communication, and an increased ROI for their business. This method can be used for conferencing, three way calling, traditional voice calls, as well as many other applications that a business needs to function.

Specific Benefits of SIP Trunking:

• Converging your local, long distance and broadband Internet services onto a single pipe with dynamic bandwidth allocation
• Reduce toll charges on long distance calls and eliminate them on local and on-network calls
• Reduce hardware costs and leverage your existing legacy system investment with seamless integration
• Leverage dynamic bandwidth allocation to maximize your network
• Instantly, incrementally and infinitely scale your business communications as demand dictates
• Bring all of your communication needs into one location with one bill and one point of contact.
• Choose DIDs from anywhere in the country and serve them to the central PBX simply and efficiently

With SIP trunking, your communications can easily grow as your company grows. We hope this helps you in your search for the right telephony solutions for your company.

As an office clerk of a local school you have a lot of kids to keep track of. Once the teachers turn in their attendance notes, you need to call all the parents that haven’t already called in and let them know their child is absent. If you reach them, you need to ask if their child is home sick or has a valid excuse for being out. If you don’t reach them, you may need to call another number, or series of numbers and leave several messages.

Imagine this, set up InphoniteVoice to say, “Your child is absent today. If they are ill, we need to know their symptoms, so we can keep the rest of the students safe. To leave a message and confirm they are home ill or explain another reason for an excused absence, please press “1.” If you prefer to speak directly to the attendance clerk, please press “0” now.”

Your attendance duties are done and you can move on to other things.

This concludes my series of posts and ideas of when to use InphoniteVoice for Emergency or Blast Notifications. I hope to have shed some light on the amazing capacity and flexibility of a program such as InphoniteVoice.

As stated in an earlier post, I'm sure you can come up with your own scenarios. Unfortunately for this writer's friends, while I took a break from blogging, a local Tucson neighborhood experienced flooding. How useful might InphoniteVoice have been, if the Neighborhood Association, or City were able to warn our friends to evacuate. With InphoniteVoice as an in-house solution, the power to do so, could have been directly in their hands. And therein, is another scenario. Do you have one?

A common misconception is that an Auto Attendant is a very simple kind of inbound Interactive Voice Response (IVR). Alison Smith notes in her article 15 Commandments of IVR that "IVR" seems to be a catch-all term which applies to a device which automatically transfers the caller to an extension without the intervention of an operator — this is actually an "Auto Attendant". IVR is much more than this. Let’s look a little deeper into the real meaning of each term.

Auto Attendant
In telephony, an Auto Attendant allows callers to be automatically transferred to an extension without the intervention of an operator. Many Auto Attendants will offer a simple menu system (i.e. "For sales, press 1, for service, press 2," etc.). An Auto Attendant may also allow a caller to reach a live operator by choosing a menu option. An Auto Attendant serves a very specific purpose of replacing live operators and routing calls. In addition to its main purpose, Auto Attendants have the ability to provide different greetings based on time of day and day of the week. They can also support multiple languages and touch tones as well as voice recognition.

Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
In comparison, an IVR offers the functionality of an Auto Attendant, but also an advanced level of interaction with the caller that an Auto Attendant is not able to provide. An IVR allows a caller to interact with the system. This means callers can maintain bank accounts, schedule appointments, or even make purchases using their telephone. From a company's perspective, benefits of an IVR system would include the ability to retrieve call center statistics and maintain a larger customer base without an increase in staff. And an IVR system can grow as you grow. Control, cost savings, and scalability are benefits of an IVR system that a simple Auto Attendant cannot compete with.

How does IVR work? IVR is a technology that allows a computer to detect voice and dual-tone multi-frequency signaling (DTMF) keypad inputs. In telecommunications, IVR allows customers to access a company’s database via a telephone keypad or by speech recognition, after which they can service their own inquiries by following the instructions.

Although similar in nature, there are indeed some great differences between the two offerings. If you’re interested in learning more about the different kinds of IVR, follow our blog closely. There is more valuable information to come! Inphonite, LLC develops and markets professional, automated phone messaging systems and interactive computer telephony products that improve the profitability and productivity of a wide range of organizations.

DTMF is the acronym for Dual-Tone Multi-Frequency signaling. We all know DTMF as the tones generated by the keypad of a telephone, also known as touch tones.

Here are some factoids on DTMF:

• According to AT&T, commercial touch tone telephones were previewed at the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair.
• The Bell System was the sponsor of Disneyland’s Circle-Vision theater in the late 1960’s. After viewing a 360° movie entitled America the Beautiful, guests were welcomed to a hands-on demonstration on the speed of touch tone dialing versus rotary dialing.
• SugarLoaf’s 1975 hit Don't Call Us, We'll Call You included the sound of a touch tone phone dialing two phone numbers – one an unlisted CBS number and the second a public number to the White House. According to Wikipedia, this was a practical joke on CBS Records for turning down the band for a recording contract.