PC Phone Systems

TeleVantage Q & A Section

Q. What is TeleVantage?

A. TeleVantage is a PC-PBX that runs on Windows NT Server and industry standard Dialogic voice processing boards.

Q. What makes TeleVantage special?

A. TeleVantage provides more functionality at a lower cost than a proprietary PBX.

TeleVantage runs on industry standard Dialogic boards. It’s a proven system on today’s technology and moves very quickly to support new technology too. Artisoft is first and foremost a software company which has allowed us to create the most powerful and also easy to use system.

Key TeleVantage Features:

1. Ease of use, Intelligent call Handling, non-proprietary hardware……
2. Multi-line call control
   You can easily juggle multiple calls on a single line phone or by pointing and clicking on your TeleVantage Client on your desktop PC. You can screen the calls based on caller ID or hearing the person’s name.
3. Graphical Voice Mail
   The TeleVantage Client lets you see your voicemail & play them back in any order you wish over your phone or PC speakers.
4. "Follow Me" Call Forwarding
   You can tell TeleVantage to forward calls to you at several locations so you stay in touch even when on the road. And you can even screen the calls so you know who is calling and whether to take their call or not
5. Personalized Call Handling
   You can set up "People Rules" that dictate who can reach you at home or on the road, who goes directly to voicemail, and even individual greetings for special callers.
6. ACD - Automatic Call Distribution
   Many small businesses can’t afford any call center solution or use limited methods to get calls to sales or support agents. TeleVantage has ACD build right in to professionally handle call center needs.
7. LCR - Least Cost Routing
   Least Cost Routing places outbound long distance calls over the lowest cost carrier without requiring a change in long distance companies.

1. TeleVantage doesn’t require expensive addons
   With TeleVantage you don’t have to add on expensive, voice mail, auto attendants, unified messaging, or ACD. Its all built in.
   
2. Saves Administration costs
   The graphical user interface of TeleVantage let’s you handle management in house. You don’t have to pay high prices per hour to a service person just to do simple moves, adds, and changes. Even creating auto attendants is just a matter of pointing and clicking. This can often save $200-$300 per month.
   
3. Least Cost Routing saves money on long distance without requiring a change of carrier.
   TeleVantage comes with software from Call Manage who has negotiated special discount rates with several long distance carriers. Sign up with their program and you save on all you long distance calls. The program is free you just pay them a small percentage of what you saved.

Q. When did TeleVantage first ship?

A. TeleVantage 1.0 shipped in March of 1998. Version 2.0 shipped in August and 2.1 in December. We able to come up with new releases relatively quickly since we leverage the industry standard Dialogic hardware rather than producing our own.

Q. How many trunks & stations can TeleVantage support

A. TeleVantage supports up to 48 trunks (both analog lines and T-1 channels) and 144 stations.

Q. Is TeleVantage Reliable? What kind of fault-tolerance features does it have?

A. TeleVantage has been built to be extremely reliable. Because the phone wiring is separate from the network wiring, it will continue to be fully operable even if your network goes down or your desktop PC freezes up. And, Artisoft has very worked closely with Dialogic to develop an emergency bypass panel, so even if your power goes out, TeleVantage will connect your trunks directly to extensions so that your critical functions always have phone service. In addition, TeleVantage has a watchdog monitor that will automatically restart the server if it ever comes down. And, if desired, you can always employ additional safety measures like using UPS (uninterruptable power supply) and database backups.

Q. Does TeleVantage support T-1? Full T-1? Partial (fractional)?

A. Yes, T-1 full or fractional

Q. What signaling on the T-1?

A. E&M robbed bit, superframe

Q. Can I share data and voice on my T-1

A. Yes and No. Data does not use superframe, it uses extended superframe. Hence if you want to share voice and data on the same T-1 you need to order your T1 for Extended Superframe (ESF) and then make sure you use a CSU/DSU that can convert the voice portion to Superframe (SF) for TeleVantage.

Q. Does TeleVantage support E-1? ISDN (PRI ? or BRI? )?

A. Not today, but shortly in the coming release v3.0

Q: Does TeleVantage support IP telephony (such as for toll bypass)?

A: Yes, we began in version 3.0. Its all pretty straightforward since we leverage Dialogic’s work there and our work with our Visual Voice toolkit which already support IP Telephony.

Q: Does TeleVantage support IP telephony (single wire to the desktop)?

A: Yes, in version 3.0 we will support voice over IP. That would include server to server or to an IP station of some kind such as an IP phone or MS NetMeeting client.

Q. What (Dialogic) boards will be used for IP Telephony?

A. The Dialogic IP Link boards.

Q: Will TeleVantage support Cisco/Selsius phones?

A: Not right away, they are not really fully standards based. Some of what they do is proprietary to their system. We much prefer to work with pure H.323 standards based phones and are working with people on that topic

Q. What else is in the new release?

A. The things we are demonstrating here:IP Telephony, Web Browser, ISDN support, support for FSK signaling such message waiting lights and many feature enhancements.

Q. Does TeleVantage support visual (flashing) message waiting lights?

A. TeleVantage indicates you have voicemail via a stutter dial tone and visually on the PC screen. You can get several phones or other desktop devices that flash when you have stutter tone. In the next version of TeleVantage we will support the Bellcore FSK signaling protocol to light the light most commonly found in many phones.

Q. Does TeleVantage send Caller ID to the phone.

A. TeleVantage detects Caller ID on the server and displays it on a users screen. The 3.0 release of TeleVantage also sends that information to the desktop phone.

Q. What is the phone hardware interface for TeleVantage

A. TeleVantage uses Dialogic’s Business Communications Platform hardware. This includes D/80SC-4LS and D/160SC-8LS analog trunk boards, D/240SC-T1 and D/480SC-2T1 digital trunk boards, and MSI/80 or 160 or 240SC-R station boards. TeleVantage also uses the BCP connection panel to connect trunks and stations to the server and provide emergency bypass connections if power goes out.

Q. Is the PBX switching done by Dialogic or TeleVantage

A. TeleVantage handles call control.

Q. Does TeleVantage support CT Media

A. TeleVantage runs on Dialogic boards and drivers currently available in the marketplace. CT Media and the OpenSwitch boards are Dialogic’s future and we will support those at that time.

Q. What are the system requirements for TeleVantage?

A. The minimum server is 166 MHz, 64 MB RAM, NT 4.0 Service Pack 3 – This will run a 4x8 system. Larger systems will require a faster processor (200, 233, etc. and 128 MB RAM)

Q. Does TeleVantage have a graphical user interface?

A. Yes, the TeleVantage client can be run on Windows 95/98 and Windows NT 4.0 systems. It provides graphical call control, graphical access to voicemail including the ability to listen to voicemail in any order and group messages in folders, and the ability to intelligently control calls.

Q. Is the TeleVantage client required to use TeleVantage? What if I don’t have a PC on everyone’s desk and what do I do about phones in places like a conference room or phone closet.

A. The TeleVantage client is not required to use TeleVantage. TeleVantage provides an easy to follow voice guided interface for local and remote phone users. TeleVantage client licenses are optional. For example, you can purchase 24 station licenses and choose to only purchase 18 client licenses.

Q. What is TeleVantage’s competition?

A. TeleVantage competes in the same market as traditional proprietary PBXs.

Q: How is TeleVantage better than NetPhone's product?

A: 1) NetPhone is a proprietary board vendor. We are working with Dialogic-Intel and we have the world's most popular telephony toolkit, Visual Voice, which is an open toolkit product. Leveraging Dialogic we were able to move quickly to provide T-1 support and will do the same soon with ISDN and IP. 2) Our client software is more functional and a lot easier to use (we're software guys). 3) They don't have any intelligent call management features (personalized call handling and least cost routing).

Q: How is TeleVantage better than Altigen's?

A: 1) Altigen is a proprietary board vendor; we're working with Dialogic-Intel. That means we can quickly move to new platforms. For example we added T-1 very quickly, It took Altigen years to offer T-1 (which is just in beta). 2) Their client software is very minimal. 3) They don't have any intelligent call management features such as personalized call handling.

Q: How is TeleVantage different / better than Interactive Intelligence? Isn’t Interactive Intelligence based on Dialogic boards too?

A: Interactive Intelligence is really focussed on a much different market, the very high end call center. Their product cost 5 times more than TeleVantage. They have focussed on features that really just benefit call centers. TeleVantage is designed as a full featured PBX and voice mail system for small to midsize businesses. TeleVantage delivers the power of running a phone system on a computer to all users with intelligent features such as personalized call handling and least cost routing. And now with version 2.1, TeleVantage includes ACD features that are needed by call centers in small-mid sized businesses.

Q: What about Data/Voice PBX’s like Cisco’s Selsius, NBX, Sphere, or CellIt?

A: Systems like that force you to make a decision for data/voice integration before you are ready. They are not flexible and use proprietary phone hardware (Selsius and NBX) or uncommon networking such as ATM (CellIt and Sphere). TeleVantage is open and flexible and will support standards based IP Telephony as we are demonstrating today. You will be able to mix analog, T-1 & ISDN, and IP trunks and analog & IP stations. You can customize TeleVantage to meet your infrastructure needs rather than having to customize your infratructure to meet some other company’s idea of an interesting phone system. Also, all of these products have focussed on solving interesting server-side engineering problems but they do not deliver any productivity gains to end users such as personalized call handling.

Q: Does TeleVantage support TAPI?

A: Yes. TeleVantage includes a TAPI Service Provider that can be used to integrate with contact managers, etc.

Q: What version of TAPI is supported? Is TAPI 3.0 supported?

A: TeleVantage supports a subset of functions common to TAPI 3.0, 2.1, and even 1.X. You can use Artisoft Visual Voice for TAPI to create custom screen pop and auto-dialer applications that can link to your existing systems.

Q. What TAPI functions does TeleVantage support?

A. Placing a call, and being notified of an incoming call including Caller ID.

Q: Does TeleVantage work with contact management products like Act, Outlook, Goldmine?

A: Yes, you can import all your contacts into TeleVantage or simply point and click to dial your contacts while still in Act! Outlook, Goldmine, or any other application that supports TAPI. You can also screen-pop records from these products based on Caller ID of incoming calls.

Q: Does TeleVantage support voice recognition or text-to-speech?

A: At this time you can use Visual Voice Recognition and Visual Voice Text to Speech to create speech enabled applications. These can integrate with Televantage.

Q: Does TeleVantage provide unified messaging?

A: Yes you can unify your messaging with TeleVantage. We can provide email notification – including caller name & caller ID – when voicemail is received. This can even be used with alphanumeric pagers that support email paging to receive page notification. Additionally, TeleVantage can optionally include the actual voice mail message as a WAV file in the email notification. This allows users to unify their messaging since they can read email and hear voice in one client if they so choose.

Q. Does TeleVantage come with an email server?

A. No, TeleVantage integrates with virtually every email system out there via MAPI (the MS MAIL API). This means that TeleVantage can work with MS Exchange or Outlook, Lotus Notes or cc:Mail, Eudora, and virtually any other email system. Since each of those products can also connect to POP3/SMTP systems via the internet, you can be using any email system in the world. We did not want to force people to use our email server. We want to work with whatever email system people already use.

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