Phone System Services -Lombard, IL 60148

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:

We’ve all been there. . .you’re on the line with tech support, trying to figure out why a piece of equipment isn’t working properly. You’ve been connected with a friendly (hopefully) employee at a help desk somewhere and they ask a few famous questions: “Did you check to make sure it’s plugged in?” “Is your internet working?” “Did you try turning it on and off?”These questions can seem a bit ridiculous when you are on the phone, but you wouldn’t believe how often something as seemingly simple as checking a cable, power source, or on/off switch can be the solution to some of your technical issues.These strategies don’t just work for your office PC or your entertainment system at home either. The questions might be a little different, but you can do some basic troubleshooting on your business phone system when things are acting up. Read on to learn three basic steps you can take to troubleshoot common telephone system issues before calling in your telecom vendor for advanced assistance.

Top 3 Common Professional Phone System Issues

1. Check to See if Your Power Source is Functional

There is almost nothing worse than walking into the office in the morning to find your professional phone system is down. This is a big deal and you’ll want to get the system back up as soon as possible: but before you panic, you’ll want to head to your IT closet (or wherever the PBX box is stored). Once there, our technical team recommends locating the power cord and your backup power source or UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply). Unplug the PBX power cord from the UPS and plug it directly into your electrical outlet. If the system receives power and turns on – you know that the issue isn’t your phone system. You just need a new UPS.

An average life cycle for a backup power supply is approximately 3-5 years. So having a spare is a good way to avoid issues related to UPS failure.

If plugging your system directly into your electrical outlet doesn’t get you up and running, it’s time to call your telecom service provider and get advanced technical assistance.

2. Check Phone Cords and Handsets

Sometimes your professional phone system is working, but call quality is on and off. For example, you are on the phone and you can hear the caller, but they can’t hear you speak or vice versa. You may also feel that the sound quality is distorted from time to time.

Often, these issues can be resolved by replacing the cord that connects your phone to the physical handset. If that doesn’t work, you may want to consider replacing the entire handset. It can be helpful to keep a few spare parts like these at the office to quickly change things out and fix these small issues. If you end up needing to replace an entire handset, you may need to call your professional phone system support team so that they can program your handset. In some cases if you have your system configured properly, this can be accomplished remotely and you don’t even have to have a technician come on site.

3. Determine if All of Your Lines are Down or if Only Certain Lines are Down

Sometimes for a number of reasons you may have one, multiple or all lines ‘down’ (no ring tone and no ability to make outbound or take inbound calls). Before you reach out to your service provider or your telephone system vendor, it is a good idea to determine which lines are impacted.

To do this, all you have to do is grab a list of your various phone lines and try to make an outbound call from each. If you can make a call, that line is working fine. If you don’t get a dial tone and can’t make a phone call – you’ve got a dead line.

Your next step is to call your telephone service provider and have them troubleshoot the issue to get your service reconnected.

It should be said that you can always call your professional phone system support company to help you troubleshoot any issue you have with the telephones at your office. That’s what we are here for! But, you can save yourself some time and potentially even some money by going through some of the tests above before scheduling a technician to come out on site or work on your system remotely.

The post 3 Professional Phone System Troubleshooting Techniques for Common Issues appeared first on Andromeda Technology Solutions.

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.

On January 17^th of this year (2020), Microsoft discovered and disclosed the existence of a zero-day vulnerability. It was present in Internet Explorer versions 9 through 11. Hackers could display specially crafted websites that would allow them to remotely execute commands on a site visitor's computer without their knowledge. That is, if they browsed the page using any of the above mentioned versions.

Microsoft is still working on a permanent solution to the problem. As a stopgap, they released a temporary fix that involved changing the owner of a certain problematic .dll file (jscript.dll) and denying access to that file for the "Everyone" group. Unfortunately, that temporary solution created new problems.

The company outlined the new issues as follows:

"Implementing these steps might result in reduced functionality for components or features that rely on jscript.dll. For example, depending on the environment, this could include client configurations that leverage proxy automatic configuration scripts (PAC scrips). These features and others may be impacted."

As more and more people have downloaded the temporary fix, it has come to light that the scope of the issues caused by it is far greater than originally anticipated. A growing number of users are reporting that post-fix-installation, they're unable to print using HP and other USB connected printers, receiving an I/O error when a print command is issued.

Other users are reporting that MP4 files can't play on Windows Media Player and that printing to a Microsoft PDF file have stopped working after the temporary fix was applied.

The main point is that there are no good solutions here. If you decide to run without the temporary patch, then you risk having your PC taken over if you happen to visit the wrong site. If you patch, you may lose other functionality you rely on. Sadly, Microsoft has no ETA on when a permanent fix might be available, so you'll have to weigh the risks and your options carefully.

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