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VoIP Profile or SIP Trunk

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SIP Trunk

Are you evaluating strategies for your company’s voice environment? If you’ve done your homework you’re probably wondering what happened to plain old telephone lines. Do you even need a phone system or should you use a system in the cloud? VoIP profiles like those you get from a cloud based phone system differ from SIP trunks issued by carriers to provide dial tone to your PBX. 

Old phone lines (POTS or Plain Ole Telephone Service) provides dial tone by pushing electrical signal over copper. SIP trunks provide dial tone over the internet or another circuit. VoIP profiles deliver dial tone AND all of the features of a VoIP system via the cloud, making that dial tone and feature set accessible anywhere you can get an internet connection. 

Cloud-Phone-System

A VoIP profile can make a call from a desk phone or soft phone that comes with the service. You can make a phone system accessible remotely or via a soft phone however a VoIP profile comes that way out of the box. It should come equipped with security features like MAC address and two factor authentication. Since the VoIP provider is responsible for the whole shebang from the phone to its connection to the PSTN, they’re liable for everything that happens in between. To make it simple, a VoIP profile is basically its own phone system.

A SIP trunk is just a telephone line providing dial tone to a phone system. Unlike regular phone lines, a SIP trunk can provide a telephone system with dial tone over the internet. By using IP addresses and other data like MAC addresses, a SIP trunk can securely provide dial tone. 

Phone systems can be set up to perform like a cloud based system but they won’t have the redundancy and failover capabilities of top notch cloud based phone system provider. After all, that’s their business. Most providers have globally redundant switches for their PSTN access and feature switches whether 5ESS, Metaswitch, Broadsoft, or even Asterisk based providers. 

VoIP Phone System in the cloud

Connection to the PSTN or Public Switched Telephone Network is what allows two people on telephones to speak to each other. That dial tone is what SIP trunks or POTS lines provide. Additionally, they allow for basic features like Caller ID, Three Way Calling, Call Forwarding, E911 capabilities and some more advanced capabilities like Destination Not Found Automatic Call Redirect. 

Additional features that come with VoIP profiles, however, include Find Me Follow Me, Voicemail to Email, Voicemail transcription, Fax to Email, Conferencing, Team Messaging, and collaboration. Users are required to manage and maintain their own E911 settings so that emergency services don’t try to rescue you at the office when you’re really working from home. A VoIP profile should cost a bit more but theres a lot more you can do with them. 

SIP trunks are concurrent call sessions but VoIP profiles may have their own outgoing line or simply a Direct Inward Dial. It’s common to see a ratio of 3 phones to 1 outgoing call path but every business has unique needs. Burstable SIP trunks are offered by some providers to increase or decrease the number of available call paths which is cool but does have potential drawbacks in billing.

What does your voice environment look like today? How are your users interacting with their voice technology? Do efficiencies exist using new technologies? Can you be more productive? 

Toll Fraud Prevention: Five Steps to Securing Your PBX

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Toll Fraud Prevention for network security. Is your business at risk?
Toll Fraud Prevention should be included in your network security strategy.

Toll Fraud Prevention is important for anyone using a PBX that’s connected to a network. Toll Fraud occurs when a phone system is hacked and calls are terminated via its PSTN connection to international and other high priced destinations. 

Protecting yourself from these liabilities are becoming more important as VoIP capabilities develop allowing hackers to spoof IPs, phone numbers, and more. 

Security starts with your updates and backups, then your gateways, and your ability to recover from a potential loss (BCDR). We’ve outlined five steps to batten down the hatches for toll fraud prevention.

Updates and Settings

Handsets and phone systems need to be constantly updated like any other computer with an operating system. Systems with old firmware are vulnerable to compromise. This goes for handsets as well. 

The PSTN or Public Switched Telephone Network and the carriers that connect your company to it have destinations or phone numbers that they block access to because of significant toll fraud. Some carriers do not restrict access but you’re more likely to be held liable. 

General Counsel or Consultant

Toll Fraud Prevention can be proactively addressed using various systems but to recover from an incident you’ll need an experienced voice consultant and/or general counsel. Ideally, terms and conditions in the contract verbiage should be negotiated at the outset however if you’re past that point you want to call in an expert before you simply cut a check to the carrier or they cut off your service. 

If you need an Ogre to have your back… contact us here

Intrusion Detection or SIEM

An intrusion detection system is your best proactive toll fraud prevention tool. Port based firewalls can help reduce the amount of traffic in your viewer to better detect anomalies. Tools like MaaS360 and QResponse from IBM can be used to seal up any gaps in your security network security. Managing real time voice traffic and getting screen captures are beneficial practices to ensure calls aren’t being terminated form your PSTN connection. 

Calls per minute/second and limits on spend

Some carriers can limit your spend on international calls. A PBX can be used to block calling to and from particular destinations. A least access security policy in a voice environment is extremely problematic since it’s so close to the end user. Using your PBX in conjunction with your carrier to limit the ability for rob dials can help prevent toll fraud. If you’re not operating a call center environment to make twenty calls per second. 

Two Factor Authorization and PINs

Permission settings are another valuable tool for toll fraud prevention. Restricting access to dial tone to some users or phones in places like common areas is a good practice. Requiring users to enter PIN numbers for access to outbound dial tone is another good practice to prevent unauthorized calls, whether from hackers or rogue employees. Many legal and accounting practices employ account codes to further detail calls, allowing for easy billing of clients. This can be done at  the PBX and carrier level.

With SIP and VoIP being more widely adopted and hackers targeting these systems more frequently, toll fraud is a growing concern. For many companies its a s simple as turning off international calling. Larger companies don’t have that option so employing the above practices are a great way to seal up and gaps in your voice security and further prevent toll fraud. 

Could AT&T be next on the Chopping Block?

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If you’ve ever been in contact with AT&T to fix a billing error you know it sucks. It sure feels like a group of folks trying to justify fraudulent behavior with a flawed internal system. “That’s just how it works” is something you’ll hear often. It happened with Worldcom, MCI, Norvergence, Qwest and many other telecom companies that left businesses and sales people wondering what happened to all the money. Stock holders can’t understand why shares plunged to near its 52 week low. Is AT&T’s service delivery, sales, and accounting bordering on fraud? There are a lot of great minds that feel that a bubble’s best indicator is the emergence of widespread fraud.

Typically, there are indirect consultants that sell AT&T products and services. They compete directly with AT&T’s internal sales reps but they are able to offer broader solutions. Today, the indirect and direct sales teams can work together without either taking a compensation hit. That’s right they’re paying twice. Whenever I’ve worked for a telco in the past, a year or two before a merger or acquisition, we’d have gross changes in compensation packages that accelerated sales, whether real or fraudulent but usually a mix of both. 

https://youtu.be/13bccd-95iE

Windstream’s filing bankruptcy and the sale of their network assets comes as no surprise to any telecom vet. Not only does their service and service delivery have room for improvement but if you look at the evolution of the comp plans of Windstream and the companies they acquired you’ll see the same pattern whether at Earthlink, NuVox, Deltacom, Broadview, or any of their other acquisitions. Deltacom’s exclusive agent program paid so well it was hard to believe they’d ever make money.

CenturyLink shares plunged yesterday to their lowest level in 25 years because of “material weakness” in their accounting stemming from the Level 3 acquisition. This comes as no shock to anyone whose worked for or with these organizations. The telecom industry, it should shock no one, is rampant with fraud like slamming. Centurylink in particular has a heritage of this type of behavior coming from roots with Qwest Communications whose leadership served jail time for their misconduct.

AT&T, in my opinion, is next on the chopping block. Whether Centurylink, Worldcom, Norvergence, etc. theres always a tell tale sign that a telecom company is in danger. Follow the money. Commission plans, the dangled carrots, incentivizes sales executives behave in ways that drive the sale of certain products. These aren’t simple changes like “get paid an extra $100 for selling 2 widgets this month”. These are macroscopic changes that alter salesforce behavior. Over the few two years things at AT&T went from bad to worse with compensation packages that encourage unscrupulous behavior. 

I’ve been working with AT&T pretty closely for a few years now and watched customer service suffer, service delivery has deteriorated but sales compensation has improved, at almost the same pace. This should sound an alarm. If you’re selling a lot and booking revenue that may not install for long periods of time you’re left with gaps in time that make manipulation of GAAP very easy. Here is the anatomy of an AT&T sale and install below over the course of a year and keep in mind that sales revenue must be booked:

  • Customer calls me and says hey I need solid internet at 123 XYZ St
  • I say that I see AT&T has fiber nearby, provide a quote, and get a signature
  • AT&T pays commission to me, my channel manager, and sales rep
  • Customer is waiting for service 
  • Since we’re building a new building, AT&T has issues with service delivery and we wrk with the general contractor to coordinate install, risers, conduit, etc. 
  • Customer already has AT&T at their current site but has to order new service then cancel the old service because that’s “how their system works” (though true, a bogus answer)
  • Alternative fiber provider brings in internet connection (because we’d never rely on AT&T alone)
  • AT&T cancels the order internally (completely unrelated to the other provider) claiming site is not ready, meanwhile we have the other fiber provider in there so it must be ready
  • AT&T Channel Manager contacts me asking me to get the client to sign a new contract with relatively no material changes, when I ask why… its the system.
  • That same AT&T system that accepts our new order then disconnects the phones and internet at the client’s office for non-payment for this service that we are still waiting to install
  • Customer pays thousands of dollars to turn the phones back on immediately… having never received a bill it felt like being strong armed
  • AT&T says they will not issue a credit until the new service is installed. When will that be? Six months! Golly!!! 
  • Thank goodness for that back up fiber provider right?
  • Where’s my channel manager in all of this? Wheres the rep? Ducking and dodging like prize fighter… There is no explanation so their tactic is to shuffle you around to other people so the issue is never truly addressed allowing the accounting nightmare to continue internally with that reflected in the stock price
  • Fast forward, the building is built, customer is moved in and AT&T is not installed… although they had an extra six months. 
  • Asking for an update from AT&T they regurgitate system info… it’ll be there on blah blah date… Well, Mr/Mrs AT&T why is there fiber in the ground from AT&T installed last week and your service delivery project manager doesn’t know? What project is he managing?
  • So let’s go to LinkedIn and shout this to the Channel Manager since all I’ve done falls upon deaf ears…. he tells me to go ask my channel manager then deletes the comment

A few years back, AT&T basically paid nothing for selling their products… somewhere around 6%. The agent community hated selling AT&T because it didn’t pay well, took forever to install, and there was always something to correct, but you don’t always have a choice. Comp then changed to 8% but all upfront on order entry… that’s right you get paid upon order entry. So, let’s say you sell a circuit for $1,000/month… your commission is $80/month * 36-60 month upfront plus a bonus and that’s paid out when ink hits paper with little to no confirmation of the sale being real.

It’s easy to see how that impacts sales person behavior but how does that impact the stock price and investment community? Sales was being paid $60/month over the course of the contract and are now being paid 20% more, upfront, making that $60/month commission almost $4k upfront. Talk about dangling a carrot. 

The first mark that someone is trying too hard to drive sales  is evidenced in the compensation model. It leads sales folks to be unscrupulous, book whatever sales they want, get paid, and shuffle things around in a few quarters when a customer gets a bill and starts to complain. A lot of these sales were made via verbal contract without confirming with the customers so there are a lot of bad sales out there that don’t come off of AT&T’s books for years. That’s right, there is not even a contract!

Suppose a sales person cold calls a door of an unsuspecting business whose owner may not speak the best english or be technically savvy… Watch out! You’re getting revenue booked in your name and your avenue of recourse is call the 800 number if you can locate your bill. Don’t believe me? Okay wait until you or your customer gets slammed and you have to call in to hear that they signed the contract, a copy of which can not be produced, because it was verbal. 

AT&T is not Windstream and it is not Centurylink. AT&T’s market cap is 10 times greater than Centurylink and Windstream combined. They are the backbone of our nations telephone and internet infrastructure, with ownership of a majority of both domestic and international long haul fiber optic connectivity. The scale of the company, their assets, and the impact on our nation is enormous and should warrant greater scrutiny. The AT&T-Time Warner acquisition is much more benign than anything having to do with its fiber assets which are much more valuable… after all how else are you gonna get your content? Wireless doesn’t work without wires.

If you think this is a safe place for your retirement, investment, or even a good place to work think again. AT&T is rife with widespread fraud. We’ve known it forever, there’s just nothing to do about it besides short the stock in anticipation of a major telecom fall out. If Windstream and Centurylink are having financial woes, how does that not hit the AT&T balance sheet as the nation’s largest provider?

2018 NYC Construction Embargo aka Moratoriums – The Five Construction Embargoes you need to know

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Work stops in NYC during construction embargoes

Every year NYC DOT restricts construction via construction embargoes limiting digging in parts of New York City. That has an impact on telecom projects within the area. Some NYC Construction Embargoes can even squash existing permits that you may have you in a jam if you were waiting for a new fiber optic cable to be run to your office on Madison and 25th!

The construction embargo above is called the no dig/dig with caution construction embargo and it started in August 2018. The areas effected are below:

Manhattan

  • Area bounded by East 23rd Street on the North, East 15th Street on the South, Park Avenue on the East, and 5th Avenue on the West
  • Madison Avenue between East 23rd Street and East 30th Street
  • East 28th Street between 5th Avenue and Lexington Avenue

There are four additional construction embargoes to keep in mind for the remainder of the year and into 2019 that have an impact on telecom construction in Manhattan. They are as follow:

1. The Veteran’s Day Construction Embargo November 8th – 11th

Location(s):

Broadway between 5th Avenue and 27th Street

5th Avenue between Broadway and 23rd Street

24th Street between 5th Avenue and 6th Avenue

25th Street between 5th Avenue and 6th Avenue

26th Street between Madison Avenue and 6th Avenue

27th Street between Madison Avenue and 6th Avenue

5th Avenue between 24th Street and 46th Street

46th Street between 6th Avenue and Park Avenue

5th Avenue between 46th Street and 48th Street

48th Street between 6th Avenue and Madison Avenue

2. Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Construction Embargo November 13th – 22nd

Columbus Avenue between 81st Street and 77th Street

Central Park West between 81st Street and 86th Street

81st Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue

77th Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue

76th Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue

71st Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue

68th Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue

62nd Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue

Central Park West between 81st Street and East Side of Columbus Circle/59th Street

Columbus Circle between 59th Street and Broadway

Broadway between 59th Street and 58th Street

59th Street between Columbus Circle and 6th Avenue

6th Avenue between 59th Street and 34th Street

34th Street between 6th Avenue and 7th Avenue

33rd Street between 6th Avenue and 8th Avenue

34th Street between 7th Avenue and 8th Avenue

34th Street between 6th Avenue and 5th Avenue

35th Street between 6th Avenue and 8th Avenue

36th Street between Broadway and 8th Avenue

37th Street between Broadway and 8th Avenue

38th Street between Broadway and 8th Avenue

39th Street between Broadway and 8th Avenue

40th Street between 7th Avenue and 8th Avenue

7th Avenue between 33rd Street and 40th Street

Broadway between 45th Street and 34th Street

40th Street between 7th Avenue and 6th Avenue

39th Street between Broadway and 6th Avenue

38th Street between Broadway and 6th Avenue

37th Street between Broadway and 6th Avenue

36th Street between Broadway and 6th Avenue

6th Avenue between 34th Street and 33rd Street

8th Avenue between 40th Street and 33rd Street

Thursday, November 22, 2018

86th Street between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West

85th Street between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West

84th Street between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West

83rd Street between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West

82nd Street between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West

75th Street between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West

74th Street between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West

73rd Street between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West

72nd Street between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West

70th Street between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West

69th Street between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West

67th Street between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West

66th Street between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West

65th Street between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West

64th Street between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West

63rd Street between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West

61st Street between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West

60th Street between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West

58th Street between 7th Avenue and 6th Avenue

57th Street between 7th Avenue and 6th Avenue

56th Street between 7th Avenue and 6th Avenue

55th Street between 7th Avenue and 6th Avenue

54th Street between 7th Avenue and 6th Avenue

53rd Street between 7th Avenue and 6th Avenue

52nd Street between 7th Avenue and 6th Avenue

51st Street between 7th Avenue and 6th Avenue

50th Street between 7th Avenue and 6th Avenue

49th Street between 7th Avenue and 6th Avenue

48th Street between 7th Avenue and 6th Avenue

47th Street between 7th Avenue and 6th Avenue

46th Street between 7th Avenue and 6th Avenue

45th Street between Broadway and 6th Avenue

44th Street between Broadway and 6th Avenue

43rd Street between Broadway and 6th Avenue

42nd Street between Broadway and 6th Avenue

41st Street between Broadway and 6th Avenue

Columbus Avenue between 77th Street and 58th Street

Columbus Avenue between 86th Street and 81st Street

46th Street between 5th Avenue and 6th Avenue

47th Street between 5th Avenue and 6th Avenue

48th Street between 5th Avenue and 6th Avenue

49th Street between 5th Avenue and 6th Avenue

50th Street between 5th Avenue and 6th Avenue

51st Street between 5th Avenue and 6th Avenue

52nd Street between 5th Avenue and 6th Avenue

Rockefeller Plaza between 48th Street and 51st Street

6th Avenue between 46th Street and 52nd Street

5th Avenue between 46th Street and 52nd Street

Date

Wednesday, November 28, 2018 12:00 am through 11:59 pm

Madison Avenue between 42nd Street and 57th Street

6th Avenue between 42nd Street and 46th Street

6th Avenue between 52nd Street and 57th Street

5th Avenue between 42nd Street and 46th Street

5th Avenue between 52nd Street and 57th Street

3. Winter’s Eve at Lincoln Center Construction Embargo November 24th – 26th

Columbus Avenue between West 67th Street and West 62nd Street

Broadway between West 68th Street and West 60th Street

Columbus Circle between West 60th Street and West 58th Street

West 61st Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue

West 62nd Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue

West 63rd Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue

West 64th Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue

West 65th Street between Central Park West and Amsterdam Avenue

4. 2018 Holiday Construction Embargo November 15th through January 2nd 2019

This effects all area’s in New York City

Click Here for a Map of the Effected Area

If you need help wit ha telecom construction project in New York City contact us at CloudOgre. We’re experts on New York Cit telecom infrastructure. Some streets are just protected and you won’t be able to dig so any existing conduit will need to be rock solid. Give your IT department a break and contact CloudOgre to manage your infrastructure project and get you the lowest price on WAN services and bandwidth. 

Three Tips to Lower Telecom Bills for All

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Lower Telecom Bills

Want lower telecom bills? 

Let’s face it, we all want lower telecom bills? There are three surefire ways to get a better deal on your telephone and internet bills. 

These tips three tips to lower telecom bills pretty much work across the board, in residential and commercial settings. These tips are better to keep in mind for larger companies with multiple offices in diverse locations. 

Dealing with many carriers can be time consuming, having the wrong mix of services can be expensive! Here’s what you can do to fight back and get lower telecom bills.

  1. Cancel service and order new 

New customers get better deals because the ISPs and telephone companies value new connects over disconnects. The same holds true for cell phones and it frustrates us all. Who wants to see an ad promoting service for $100/month for new customers when you, an established customer, is paying $200/month? Can I get the same deal? Nope. You have to move to a new provider and then back to your old provider. Either way you’ll be dealing with the Win Back team who’ll be responsible for that cancelled account for a particular window of time, after which you can order new service. Carriers do this because its such a painful process to cancel and re-order to lower telecom bills. 

  1. Long term contract 

This will save money since telecom providers want to lock in their rates and revenue. A contract will certainly guarantee lower telecom bills and the longer the contract the lower the rate. Questions is, how long of a contract makes sense? Will prices go down so much that it’ll make sense not to contract? Probably not, the rates on bandwidth and dial tone have been commoditized to a historical low. That said, changes often happen like the shift from copper to fiber, point to points to MPLS and SD-WAN. The correct configuration of services can do wonders for your telecom budget. 

  1. Bundle or separate

That leads us to the good ole bundle. Phone companies want you to buy their internet and cable companies want you to buy their internet along with their TV. What’s the right product mix? In enterprise environments bundling is more complex and entails network routing like MPLS and SD-WAN mentioned above, as well as, ad danced security services like DDoS and Managed DNS or Network Based Firewalls. Additionally, mobility services may be bundled in but whats’ the right product mix? Whose reselling, whose the actual underlying services provider, and where can you get the best deal? 

Expertise in these areas is cheap compared to the amount that can be saved. The right product mix and contracting can help you do a lot more with your telecom budget or simply get you lower telecom bills. Apples to apples comparisons are infrequent since every provider has its nuance. If you just want to save money, that’s easy… If you want to do more with less or, better yet, accomplish your goals for whats in your purse, you’ll want an expert… and guess who I’m gonna recommend… That’s right the Ogre! 

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