Fifth Annual Small Business Summit 2010 - 16 March

July 30, 2008

When Your Telephone System Helps The Environment

In Mobile, Alabama a construction company, White-Spunner Construction, built its new headquarters with a commitment to going green. They didn't want to just have an environmentally friendly building but they also wanted to ensure, as much as they could, that other aspects of their business were green as well - including their telephone system. Callis, a managed telephone provider helped them have a "green" telephone system in three ways.

• Desk phones - by leveraging 802.3af technology, the phones located throughout the building are powered by a central source versus the need to plug each phone into an individual power outlet.


• Network - two redundant common switches with one power source enables the phone network, data network and power supply to run over the same wires.


• Switch - the service is provisioned on one common telephone switch that feeds to a private network that runs back to the network operation center (NOC), eliminating the need for a PBX that can pull 20 to 30 amps of power on its own.

The result: a green solution that reduces by at least 50% White-Spunner’s energy needs for telecom services.

Of course investing in a managed telephone solution is much more than about going green, but as you can see in this example, it's clearly one side benefit, if planned properly. Of course a managed telephone service is the ultimate built-in backup if your business is inaccessible due to a disaster. All you have to do is go to a location with Internet access, plug your telephone lines to the new network and you're up and running.

Beyond the apparent telephone features of a managed telephone service, you can also gain intelligence about your customers, can match the telephone to a CRM service and more.

Your telephone system doesn't have to simply be a tool for talking, it can be a powerful asset for enhanced communications, saving money, being more productive and getting to know more about your customers.

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