IT Brief New Zealand - Technology news for CIOs & IT decision-makers
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SNAP offering national VoIP solution for corporates
Mon, 6th May 2013
FYI, this story is more than a year old

We’ve all heard of VoIP, and, to be honest, it’s had a bad reputation. poor voice quality, dropped calls, or worse, a total loss of service that can go unnoticed for long periods of time.

None of which are ideal when you’re wanting to communicate with customers. All of this can make you a little gun shy, and rightly so.

The good news is that the technology has now come to a point where businesses can reliably replace their old phone systems and get a far more flexible phone solution for a fraction of the cost. It doesn’t stop there though.

With hosted communications, you get the benefits of CAPEX reduction and outsourcing the management of your phone system, all while increasing the productivity of your staff.

Snap’s Hosted Voice delivers you the power of a fully-fledged PBX system over your company’s existing internet or Wide Area network (WAN) connection. All you need at your premises are the phones that operate over your businesses local Area network (LAN) and you’re up & running.

Bundle our Snap Hosted Voice service with our High Speed Internet or WAN services and save even more money.

Our standard service delivers you a powerful, full-featured, business-class phone system without the cost, space and hassle of having an on-site PBX. It has all the features you’d typically expect, plus some extra bells and whistles that take advantage of new technologies.

Things like having the ability to make and receive calls from any device at any location, while still looking like you’re at your desk. Through our easy-to-use web portal, you have complete control over how your phone system is set up and used.

At the end of the day, we can tell you all about the features of this great product, but it needs to work for you, and provide your business with tangible, measureable benefits.

We could rattle off hundreds of these, but to give you a clear idea of what advantages Snap Hosted Voice brings to the table, we’ve boiled it down to five key reasons:

It’s all about you

You’re in business for a reason. That reason isn’t to maintain a phone system. With a hosted communications solution, the time and resource taken up managing business communications is taken care of, allowing you to focus on other projects and your employees to utilize the great features and tools to continue to grow the business.

With hosted voice, your employees are no longer tethered to their desks – they can be connected and productive anytime, anywhere. It works like you do – you’re not always at your desk, and it’s not always convenient to keep talking on your cell.

now you can move calls seamlessly from your desk phone to your mobile when you need to be on the move, or move your desk phone to a conference room without having to take the equipment with you.

Unlike standard PBX systems that occupy valuable office space, hosted communications requires no more space than phones on desks, plus it requires very little IT support or training to administer, freeing up your time for more important projects.

Through our easy to use web interface, you can quickly and easily make changes and configure voice features–all without additional support or staff. In fact, Snap Hosted Voice is so easy to use, users can manage their own features right from their computers.

The bottom line

With Snap’s Hosted Voice solution, you save from the very first day on your communications costs. With no large outlays for equipment, your costs move from CAPEX to OpEX to greatly reduce your up-front costs.

And compared with the cost of traditional phone lines, your monthly rental will most likely be greatly reduced.

The cost per seat model allows for easy projection of increasing costs associated with company growth, and our service can accommodate businesses both large and small.

And as this is a managed solution, your system will be upgraded to the latest technology on your behalf, allowing you to capitalize on new and improved features without having to rebuild your system over and over again.

Resilience is everything

Snap delivers a high quality, reliable solution over its managed network.

Snap’s network will automatically handle calls and messages during power outages. In case of disaster, employees can forward calls to home or mobile phones or have the system automatically deliver the calls to a pre-determined location. Every Snap Hosted Voice customer is connected to a highly available, redundant solution.

Snap’s product Manager Mike Hrynkewycz said: "Snap’s Hosted Voice platform delivers a much more solid and robust platform than traditional PBX’s (VoIP ones included).

"We are delivering the equivalent of two geographically separated PBX’s per customer with full off site hosting and full management as standard.

"Quite a tricky and traditionally expensive exercise which often priced itself out of reach of many businesses, however now we deliver it as standard to all our customers, no matter how big or small.

"Our solution scales from 10 users (or devices) to over 50,000 so covers a broad range of organisations."

Snap’s voice network utilizes best of breed technology including Mitel MICD Hosted Telephony, Metaswitch class 4/5 softswitches and world leading Acmepacket Session Boarder controllers. It runs over its Juniper MX powered network, which is available in 24 points across nZ and multiple points in Australia.

Soldier on

Being able to work from anywhere is not just a ‘nice to have’ these days, it is a requirement for any business that wants to keep going, no matter what the world throws at them.

Since Snap’s Hosted Voice does not live on your premises (it resides in two secure, geographically diverse data centers) you’ll still be able to connect with your business and customers; and your employees can work from anywhere.

Our web-based portal allows you to quickly forward calls to cell phones or other phones in unaffected locations. This can even be set up to automatically forward in certain situations. It’s a fast, easy way to proactively take control of virtually any situation and ensure that your business can remain running even in the worst of circumstances.

Business yoga

Snap’s Hosted Voice is a flexible infrastructure can grow as you grow. It’s simple and quick to add more phones, shift staff around or even open a new office or branch.

What’s more, existing phone systems can easily integrate into it — providing better support for home workers and satellite offices.

All features and upgrades are taken care of for you. We’ll let you know about any upgrades to features and services, so you can use these to their best advantage when they come online. You can stay focused on your business and we can focus on providing you with the best business communication tools possible.

Snap’s Hosted Voice gives you the peace of mind that comes from not being constrained by a phone system that only supports a fixed number of employees and can be costly and complicated to expand.

You’re not just investing in a new phone system though, you’re investing in what will probably be a new business relationship. We’re passionate about the industry. We understand what you want. We’re Snap.

We deliver innovative, customized solutions to other telecommunications providers, enterprises, government, small business, schools and residential users all over New Zealand.

“We are targeting significant growth over the course of 2013, with a number of hosted business services lined up for our business and residential customers,” explains Mark Petrie, CEO of Snap.

“We’re enhancing our voice and video solutions and focusing on providing VDSL and fibre-based offerings to business and residential customers nationally.

"To fulfill these requirements, we needed an architectural platform that could not only scale, but give us the ability to offer a wider variety of solutions easily and efficiently. This product gives us that.”

What’s more, Snap is 100% kiwi owned and operated, one of New Zealand’s fastest growing internet service providers, and has been quietly working smarter for a whole range of customers already. corporates, education and health providers, home users and of course businesses.

“We’re committed to providing innovative, market leading products as well as the very best service to our customers, and an expansion of our sales team and the opening of an office in Auckland can attest to this” concludes Mark Petrie.

To discuss how Snap’s Hosted Voice product can benefit your business, call us today on 0508 SNAPME (762 763).