Phone System Services -Chicago, IL 

Whether you need a legacy phone system maintained, or an entirely new communications system for multiple offices, Andromeda Technology Solutions is the answer you have been looking for. As our expertise also includes complete data network solutions, you can rest assured that we can fully integrate a communications system that will best leverage your existing or future IT infrastructure.

In many cases, your telephone system is the first thing people will experience when dealing with your business.

• Does it show your company in a good light?
• Is it set up so your clients have a good experience?
• Does it help maximize employee productivity?

Let us show you how a phone system should be set up!

Experience the simplicity of having an experienced company to handle all aspects of your communication systems, letting you focus on running your business.

Contact us or fill out the Request form on this page now to ask us to contact you!

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Hybrid PBX and IP-based Phone Systems

We support a host of major phone systems—from Avaya, NEC, Panasonic to Toshiba— and are a certified Panasonic dealer for both a traditional PBX system, as well as a true IP-based VoIP system. The beauty of these systems lies in their very extensive feature set (over 800 features) and their mix-and-match capabilities. Each system can mix analog, digital and IP phone sets to match almost any application. Also, each system has extensive functionality built-in for incorporating branch offices, work-at-home employees and other remote workers.

We spend a great deal of time understanding all your requirements, so we can select the system and functions that are exactly what you need.

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The Phones Become the Network

If you are considering an IP-based telephone system, it is important to understand these systems are more data systems than phone systems. Unlike a traditional PBX system, a VoIP system puts a significant burden on your data network, and requires specific equipment and configuration to ensure everything is running properly.

Many traditional telephone service companies lack the skills to properly install and maintain a VoIP system. Andromeda Technology Solutions excels in all aspects of voice and data, and will ensure you get the system that is right for you.

Whether Cloud-based, Hosted/virtual PBX, or completely on-premises, we have the knowledge AND experience to guide you and implement your voice communication system to perfection.

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Replacement of Legacy Phone Systems

We have many years of experience upgrading/replacing legacy phones systems from: ComDial, Nortel, Toshiba/Mitel, and Samsung just to name a few. If you would like to experience service from a truly customer-focused organization, call us when you are ready to replace and upgrade your existing legacy telephone system.

			KX-TA KX-NCP KX-TDA KS-TDE
			IP Office Definity Magix Legend Partner
			Aspire Elite IPK I-Series DS/DSX

AndroPedia Tech Library

As part of our service, it is important to keep our client-partners well informed on Telephone system developments, news, and best practices. Here is just a sampling of typical items from our AndroPedia^SM library archive:

It’s that time of year. The winter holiday season is prime time for criminals and scammers. In fact, it is estimated that fraud attempts increase upwards of 30% during holiday shopping season. There are multiple different techniques and we covered a few of the more popular smartphone scams last year too. You can find our two part series here:

• Popular Phone Scams & How to Avoid Them
• Popular Phone Scams & How to Avoid Them – Part 2

Now, let’s dig into some scams we are seeing in 2018 including some smartphone scams you’ll want to avoid.

Verify Information Smartphone Scams

Criminals and Identity Thieves know that your personal information is valuable. A criminal can use it to open up fraudulent credit cards, empty your bank accounts, impersonate you or they can even steal it and sell it on the dark web for a quick profit.

With this in mind, criminals are always looking for new ways to get ahold of your data.

This popular phone scam begins with a criminal impersonating a representative at a company you probably already do business with or subscribe to. Many times, criminals will impersonate your insurance provider (Blue Cross Blue Shield is very popular).

The criminal calls you and informs you that they are making a routine call to update and verify information on your account . . . sounds innocent enough . . . but don’t fall for it!

Some ways you can defend yourself:

• Most of the time these big companies automate this process through pre-recorded messages. If you get a call from a real human being asking to verify your information – this is your first sign of fraud. Your best bet is to get off the phone and call the company direct. Confirm that they are the ones actually trying to update your info that way.
• Don’t fall for threats or bullying! Often, when you resist these criminals they will begin threatening you and try to intimidate you into giving the info over. “You can lose your insurance” “You will face fines” If these kind of threats and bullying techniques are being used, you’re almost certainly being scammed.

The Tech Virus/Issue Scams

This scam has been around for a while but it tends to pick up traction during the holiday season.

You get a call from a tech company of sorts letting you know about some issue with your equipment or software. The criminal on the phone may direct you to download a ‘patch’ or the solution to your problem. In reality, the criminal just got you to download and open a file with a virus attached. You weren’t infected before but your equipment is now.

The criminal, still impersonating a tech employee or customer service rep, now explains that they can fix the problem for a fee.

The most popular version of this is a Microsoft scam where criminals call you to inform you that your computer is infected (wouldn’t that be some awesome customer service!). Once they get you to your computer they either have you change settings that will allow them to wreak havoc on your comp and steal data from you, or they prompt you to download a file/visit an infected website.

Once you are infected they extort you to get the outcome they desire.

At the end of the day, there are very few companies who are going to call you and tell you about a virus or an issue on your computer or smart device. If you get a call like this . . . disregard. If you want to make sure you don’t have a virus on your computer, contact your IT support staff instead.

Text Message Phishing or SMShing Smartphone Scams

With smart phones at our fingertips most hours of the day, criminals have turned their focus to these devices as a great way to steal information and cause trouble.

These text message phishing scams and SMS phishing (SMShing) smartphone scams use the same techniques you’ll see in an email phishing scam. They will send you messages via text designed to get you to click links, download programs/apps and they try to trick you into handing over personal information.

There are some techniques you can use to discover and avoid these scams:

• If you don’t know the person texting you or don’t recognize the number, don’t click links in their text messages.
• Your bank and other financial institutions aren’t going to text you to verify password info – if you do get a text from someone claiming to be from your bank etc. go direct to the website and handle things that way.

Fake or Look-alike Apps

A big new scam on the market, fake applications are designed by criminals to look like real applications you’d download and use on your smartphone. These applications are designed with malicious hidden code designed to steal your personal information, access your contacts, send spam messages from your phone to your network and even track your location via GPS tracking.

These bad applications are more common on Android devices because the application marketplace is a bit easier for criminals to navigate but that does not mean that you don’t need to be on the look out if you are an iPhone user.

• Make sure you only download applications from trusted web stores and application stores.
• Take a look at the developers of the app and do some research. Make sure they are reputable and trustworthy.
• Read through the terms and conditions of applications before you download. Be sure you know what permissions you are giving developers and programmers when it comes to the data on your phone and usage.

These scams are some of the more popular ones in the market but there are many more including popup smartphone scams, IRS scams, Utility scams and the ‘yes’ scam.

The key to defending yourself is educating yourself and others on these criminal tactics as well as the techniques used to identify and outsmart them.

The post Beware! Popular Phone and Smartphone Scams And How To Defend Yourself appeared first on Andromeda Technology Solutions.

Whether you are considering purchasing a hosted VoIP Phone System or you’ve already made the switch there are some important things you’ll want to consider to make sure that you have in place.

Hosted VoIP phone solutions are a great option for small business. They offer many special functions and programming options to businesses via cloud technology and network capabilities.

These systems are easily portable – sometimes referred to as ‘plug and play’ solutions. As long as your office has proper cabling and network infrastructure, you can move phones easily across the office in minutes without having to call a technician or service company.

Hosted VoIP Phone solutions are scalable, offer many bells and whistles, make remote workforces easier to manage, offer detailed reporting options and a wide range of other business functions.

It should be mentioned that many if not all of these functions and programming options are available on digital solutions and IP hybrid solutions. Do not believe any phone vendor that tells you otherwise.

If you decide that hosted or cloud VoIP phone systems are the solution for your office, you’ll want to take a few steps to make sure that you are setting yourself up for a smooth and secure transition:

1. Consult an IT Vendor with Network Security experience

Whether you are planning a transition to hosted VoIP Phone Solutions or you already have them, it is important that you understand the implications this has on your network and your network infrastructure.

You want to make sure that you know how much bandwidth you currently have available and whether you’ll need to increase this. Making and receiving phone calls over the internet can eat up your available bandwidth and if you don’t account for this demand increase, you may suffer from dropped calls, low call quality and other issues. So make sure you have strong enough service from your internet provider.

Adding your phones to the network adds other requirements as well. You’ll want to have a network audit done to check up on your infrastructure and your network security. You may need to add equipment and/or update infrastructure for your VoIP phone solution to work.

Hosted VoIP systems without proper network security and infrastructure are vulnerable to data theft, DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks and other cybersecurity issues. Just like any other extension on the network, you’ll need to make sure that connections are secure and you are proactively protecting your business.

2. Make sure you have a plan for emergency numbers

While hosted VoIP phone systems can be great for your business, they do create some issues for emergency calls to local law enforcement, medical help etc.

Because your calls are made over the internet there is no geographic location associated with your phones and this poses a problem for first responders. Essentially, your phones cannot figure out which emergency call center to direct the call to.

Because of this, most companies with a cloud phone solution like hosted VoIP need to have a backup plan for emergency calls. This may mean that you maintain one digital or POTS line for emergencies.

If you have a burglar system or security system you might already have this set up because these solutions run into the same issues with VoIP service.

3. Find a vendor who can support your solution

There are hundreds of options available to you for your hosted VoIP Phone system. Between all of your hardware options and service provider options things can get a bit confusing.

A great first step when you are looking into VoIP is to engage your IT company and see if there is a solution they provide/work with.

All too often we get calls from companies with hosted phones looking for support and we have to turn them away because they have hardware Andromeda isn’t able to support.

When choosing your hardware and service provider you want to ask the following:

• How long has the company been around (they pop up and disappear far more often than you’d think)?
• Who is going to provide service to the hardware?

You definitely don’t want to find out once it is too late and your phones are having problems that you don’t have anyone to help you out.

Your phone system may change or be replaced but the need for a secure and reliable phone system remains the same. Additionally, your need for a technology or telecom vendor that understands your solution remains paramount. If moving to hosted VoIP Phone Solutions or cloud phone system is something on your mind, make sure to give us a call and we can work to make sure your transition is as smooth and secure as possible.

The post Hosted VoIP Phone Solutions: 3 Essential Steps You’ll Want To Take To Protect Yourself And Your Business appeared first on Andromeda Technology Solutions.

Do you have an Android device?� Are you running Android Nougat, Oreo, or Pie (versions 7x, 8x, or 9x)?� Do you play games on your phone?

If you answered yes to those questions, you may have a problem. It is a bigger problem given that there are more than a billion devices currently in service running one of those operating systems.

A carefully crafted, innocent-looking video file could be embedded in a game app and could compromise your system, thanks to a critical vulnerability.

The RCE (Remote Code Execution) vulnerability is being tracked at CVE-2019-2107. It wworks by finding a way to trick the user into playing a poisoned video via Android's native video player application.

Google moved quickly to address the issue and has already patched it, but there's a catch. Millions of Android devices are still waiting for that last security update.� The bottleneck isn't Google in this case. It's the device manufacturers themselves that are dropping the ball.

As bad as the bug is, there is a potential silver lining.� The vulnerability only works if the video is viewed directly on the device.� If the video is received through an instant messaging app, or uploaded to a service like YouTube, the attack becomes utterly ineffective. That's because messaging and video hosting services both compress and re-encode media files, which has a distorting effect on the embedded malicious code.

In terms of avoiding the issue, there are three things you can do:

• Make sure your OS is up to date
• Don't download games or other apps from un-trusted third-party sources. Get them from the Google Play store or don't get them at all.
• Don't download videos from un-trusted sources, including links to videos or apps you might get in your email.

While taking the advice above won't completely eliminate your risk, it will dramatically reduce it.

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