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:

Are You Overpaying On Your Phone Bill? Tips and Hidden Tricks to Save On Your Business Phone Bills. Dec 22, 2017

It costs money to make money.

It’s safe to say that you’ve heard this phrase somewhere – especially if you own or manage a business.

Rent . . . Employee Salaries . . . Utilities . . . Outsourced Services . . . Supplies . . . the list goes on and on and on.

With the cost of being in business steadily increasing, it is important to save where you can.

We speak with business owners about how technology can add value on a daily basis. We assist in improving uptime which increases productivity, we help business owners and managers secure their data so they can rest easier knowing they have proper protection in place.

We help business owners secure their physical locations with access control, security cameras and burglar systems.

We even help businesses increase revenues with professional website development and digital marketing strategies.

All of that said, there is still one area that we see business owners overspending on time and time again.

Care to guess what that might be? . . . if your phone bill came to mind you nailed it!

If you are like many other professionals, you want to take a good look at your phone bill but don’t know where to start. With that in mind we grabbed a few things to pay attention to and cost saving ideas that you’ll find below.

Tips and Tricks to Help From Overpaying on Your Business Phone Bill

Pay close attention to your contract dates

While there is a certain expected increase in services over time, all too often companies are being overcharged every month by their service provider because they are out of contract.

Service providers don’t want you on a month to month agreement. They want to know they have your business for extended periods of time.

On top of this, the end of your current contract is a great time to see what else is out there. Even if you stay with the incumbent provider, you’ll know that you are getting the best rate and may be able to get a deal for sticking around instead of jumping to the competition.

Take a look at how your phones are serviced

Getting your business “in the cloud” is a big topic these days. With many different cloud based applications and even cloud based hardware, it is no surprise that your phones also have cloud options.

There are many types of phone systems available to you and they are serviced differently which means that they have different costs associated as well.

While we won’t dive into too much granular detail, your main options for a phone system are on premise digital systems, on premise IP based systems and other cloud based systems or VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) systems as they are commonly known.

At times, a VoIP system may offer a cheaper monthly expense but over time it may end up costing more than your traditional PBX or on premise solution.

We would recommend bringing in professional assistance before switching from an on premise system to a cloud based or VoIP system. There may be infrastructure costs or other back end costs associated with this switch you should be aware of before making the change.

Make sure all of the lines you pay for are in use

This may seem like a no brainer but as your organization grows and you have more phone lines in service, it is easy to forget that one or many might not be necessary.

The most common instances of these forgotten lines are dead extensions, fax lines or other dedicated office equipment lines and potentially even dedicated lines for security.

You obviously don’t want to disconnect these without investigating how it might impact things at the office – especially if the lines are dedicated to security.

We’d suggest having a professional technician come on site to test and document your lines if you believe you are paying for lines that aren’t being used.

Consider a PRI

A PRI is a Primary Rate Interface but the acronym is a commonly used term for phone bills and the telecommunications industry.

In a nutshell, a PRI is a circuit with a physical device on site that allows you to group multiple analog lines or DID (Direct Inward Dialing) numbers onto one circuit.

We’ve found that a PRI cuts down costs for companies with approximately 6 analog lines or more. Instead of paying a monthly fee for each of those lines, you pay a fee for the service to your PRI and an upfront cost for the hardware.

Of course, this doesn’t save you money in every instance but more often than not, using a PRI will cut your monthly bill a bit.

Check your bills regularly

There are many different reasons you want to check your phone bill every month.

Service providers may change rates, add fees or any other number of things and if you pay the phone bill without regard or even set it up on auto pay it may take months before you recognize the discrepancies.

The more comfortable you are with reading your phone bill, the more you will understand about the different fees and charges and the less likely you are to have random fees or charges go unnoticed.

When all is said and done, we suggest taking a deeper look into your phone bills about every 6 months. You can do this yourself or task an outsourced firm to do it. There are even brokers out there that  you can contract to shop rates and ensure you get the best deal.

Andromeda is not in the business of providing your actual phone connection, but we are in the business of providing you with the best technology and customer service experience with your phone system.

With that in mind, if you ever have a question about something you aren’t sure about on your bills, our staff is more than welcome to help you out.

The post Are You Overpaying On Your Phone Bill? Tips and Hidden Tricks to Save On Your Business Phone Bills. appeared first on Andromeda Technology Solutions.

5 Things You Must Consider Before Installing a Hosted VoIP Phone System At Your Office Jan 19, 2018

There is a whole lot of hype and buzz around VoIP Phone Systems (Voice over Internet Protocol). This solution differs from its main competition (digital on-premises PBX) in a few ways but the main difference is the source of service.

While digital systems pass information over traditional analog or POTS lines, an IP or VoIP system uses your internet to transmit data and make phone calls.

When it comes to VoIP there are both on-premises options and cloud based options. On-premises VoIP solutions are often hybrids that offer the advantages of IP solutions and digital solutions in one.

Hosted or Cloud based VoIP systems have no “head end” hardware in your office. That hardware is hosted in the cloud along with all of the programming and interface for your system. You simply have handsets in your office that plug into computers and use the magic of the internet/the cloud to make and receive calls.

Many business owners and decision makers are attracted to the versatility, hardware cost and high tech features of hosted VoIP options.

With that in mind, implementing hosted VoIP sounds like a no brainer but it is important to consider certain requirements and factors before making the switch.

5 Things You Must Consider Before Installing a Hosted VoIP Phone System At Your Office

1.  Is your internet steady enough and robust enough to handle the added demand of a phone system?

An internet outage is one of the most frustrating things isn’t it? Unless you have a failover it slows down productivity, prevents you from using certain programs and if you are in the cloud you can’t do anything at all.

Cloud based solutions require an internet connection to operate. That is true for cloud based software and it’s also true for a hosted VoIP solution. The issue doesn’t stop at a complete outage though. Any disruption of service will impact the quality of your phone calls. You may experience poor reception or you might drop calls completely if your internet connection isn’t steady and strong.

So, what do you do about that? For starters you can implement a failover. This failover service will take over if your main provider goes down allowing you to keep moving in the event of an outage.

Additionally, you should consult with your internet service provider to ensure that your bandwidth can handle your typical call volume. If you don’t have proper bandwidth, your internet won’t be able to keep up with your system and you won’t be happy with the quality of your service.

2. Is your network infrastructure compatible with a VoIP solution?

Every business has their own specific requirements when it comes to network infrastructure and a hosted VoIP solution but there are some standards you can look for right away.

In regards to your cabling – industry standards now recommend at least Cat6 wiring. Andromeda suggest a minimum of Cat6e cable to support all IP solutions.

You will also want to connect your IT partner with your VoIP provider to make sure any other requirements are met.

Some of those might include:

• Quality of Service Routers/Switches
• Optimized Network
• Backup Power Source
• Redundant POE Switching
• Gigabyte Network Support

As mentioned before, hosted VoIP can be a much more cost efficient choice when it comes to the actual system hardware (basically just the phones), but there are many instances where the infrastructure updates needed are just too hefty.

3. Do you own the equipment? If not, who does?

It is important to look into who actually owns the equipment when you purchase a hosted VoIP solution. Many times, your purchase is part of a leasing program where you pay a small fee every month to ‘rent’ the phones.

This is most common with hosted solutions and far less common with on-premises solutions.

It may not look like a lot of money at first but over time it adds up.

For example – in a typical three year contract, your handset costs might start at approximately $15.00 per month (this is just the cost of the equipment – not service). If your office has 20 handsets that means you are spending $3600 annually and almost $11,000 across the lifetime of your contract on equipment you don’t even own. Not to mention the monthly service charges and taxes involved.

These costs only increase when you add in higher quality phones and special features.

4. Have you looked into the tax rates applied to VoIP services in your area?

“Taxes, surcharges and fees apply” – Cryptic right?

Statements like this are used often when VoIP vendors pitch their solutions and too often, business owners aren’t made aware of the taxes required for their VoIP solution on top of the basic equipment and service fees.

Each state and region has their own tax codes and it is not unheard of for these taxes, surcharges and fees to reach hundreds and hundreds of dollars a month.

All of a sudden that cost savings you were anticipating is chewed up and spit out by these hidden fees.

The worst part is many national VoIP providers don’t even give you the hard numbers when they deliver their proposal. Imagine opening your first bill, expecting to see a $600 total and finding that you owe $900! Now multiply that out over the course of your contract and you get the picture.

For Illinois specifically you can learn more about VoIP specific taxes here.

5. Have you looked into who will support your phone system if there are programming or equipment issues?

With a hosted solution, you don’t have the head end equipment in your office. There isn’t a box or piece of hardware that a technician can come work on when things go wrong. Instead, there is cloud hosted software that connects to the handsets plugged into your computers.

If there is an issue and you can’t seem to get things resolved, it is highly unlikely that your VoIP provider has technicians available to come visit your office. At that point, you are stuck calling around and googling to try and find a company to come work on your phones.

It is not safe to assume that the same people who handle your IT will know how to help you with your hosted solution. They may not be trained on the software and they may also have no knowledge of the phones themselves.

Hosted VoIP enters into a gray area where there are IT and Telecom pieces at play.

Before you sign up and install a hosted solution, you should figure out who will be able to service you in a pinch.

Your phone system is one of the most important communication tools you’ve got. There are many different options out there and hopefully this list of questions will better prepare you for a hosted VoIP system if that is the solution you choose.

Andromeda helps businesses select professional phone systems in many varieties every day. Give us a call and let us help you determine which solution is right for your needs.

The post 5 Things You Must Consider Before Installing a Hosted VoIP Phone System At Your Office appeared first on Andromeda Technology Solutions.

Payment Pages Are Being Compromised To Steal Data� Oct 09, 2018

Symantec's most recent statistics have revealed a disturbing trend.� Malware designed to compromise checkout pages is seeing a big spike in use, with the company reporting a staggering 248,000 attempts since August 13th of this year, with more than a third of them (36 percent) between September 13th through September 20th. As disturbing as those numbers are, that's just the tip of the iceberg.

As Symantec notes on their website:

"If we compare the week of September 13 to 20 to the same week in August, the number of instances of formjacking attacks blocked by Symantec more than doubled, jumping from just over 41,000 to almost 88.500 - a percentage increase of 117 percent."

Leading the surge is a particularly nasty strain of malware known as "Magecart."� Magecart campaigns are quite robust that begin by breaching the target website, then injecting malicious scripts into it that are designed to scrape card details and other customer information provided during the checkout process. This is an attack that's alternately known as formjacking, payment card scraping, and web-based skimming.

Symantec isn't the only company to take note of the trend.� RiskIQ has been sink holing domains associated with Magecart infrastructure for much of the month and alerting companies compromised by Magecart attacks as they find them.

Kevin Beaumont, an independent security researcher, had this to say via Twitter:
"#TrackingMagecart I've updated the IoCs to double the number of domains, now tracking over 1000 objects - some of the domains have now been sink holed.� Recommend InfoSec vendors block/flag domains."

Magecart isn't new.� Security researchers have been tracking it since 2015, and independent researcher Willem de Groot has created a malware scanning website called MageReport, which allows business owners to check to see if their Magento-based webshop is vulnerable to this type of attack.� If you think you might be, it certainly bears making use of.

At present, the one thing that's not known is the reason behind the sudden spike.� Only that it's happening.

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