A growing number of businesses are deploying Voice over IP (VoIP) driven by the benefits of increased productivity, flexible communications infrastructure, improved operational efficiency and overall lower costs.

As businesses migrate to VoIP, one of the keys to a successful deployment is ensuring you have the right LAN infrastructure to support the complex requirements of VoIP.

In a recent webinar, ADTRAN provided a valuable education on VoIP deployment, addressing a number of key areas:

• Market trends around VoIP
• The unique challenges of VoIP – Jitter, packet loss, delay
• Most important LAN switch considerations to support VoIP
• Deployment best practices

Check it out here:

As technology continues to shift, catering to customers has become a tricky but crucial task for every business.

A successful customer-focused business needs to be well-prepared to serve the customers before they even come to the door. That’s where the integration of VoIP and a CRM system comes into play. Let’s see how the integration can help you exceed your customers’ expectations.

Increase Efficiency with an Automation Setup

Integrating VoIP and CRM systems enables you to set up an automation process such as auto call forwarding, saving you time and energy to focus on dealing with your business. The automation setup will also reduce customer wait time and therefore increase the satisfaction rate.

Deliver Excellent Customer Service

Another great benefit is that you have access to features such as call recording, order history, and other customers information, right from a single system, during a call. Understanding your customers is the key to getting your foot in the door. This helps you deliver excellent customer service and build a long-term, strong relationship with your customers.

Connect with Customers and Employees Effectively

VoIP and CRM integration is especially useful when it comes to interacting with customers and employees over a variety of platforms.

The unified system also provides you the ability to track and access all kinds of activities in the organization even remotely, which gives you the option to set your employees free from their office without compromising the high standard customer service.

VoIP is very flexible and integratable with a wide range of business systems. Are you considering to integrate your VoIP and CRM systems? How do you think you can  benefit from that? Share with us.

The Konftel Ego is a lightweight portable speakerphone that can easily fit in a briefcase or travel bag to bring high quality audio phone calls anywhere with you. The Konftel Ego has the ability to connect to a PC, mobile phone or tablet by offering ultra fast Bluetooth or via USB cabling. With remote workers and the work/life balance the Ego helps to extend the office anywhere.

With the Konftel Omnisound the Konftel speakerphone is able to bring the quality of large conference room to a hotel room or small huddle room. Omnisound incorporates audio technology such as echo cancellation and noise suppression to drown out background noise.

Along with multiple ways to connect a device the Konftel Ego is compatible with multiple unified communication platforms such as Skype for Business, Cisco Jabber, Avaya Communicator and other conferencing tools.

Award winning quality

Before it has even been released the Konftel Ego has won the Red Dot award for “excellent product design” earlier in 2016. The Red Dot jury stated “With its small, compact form, the Konftel Ego is flexible in use and convinces with good sound and intuitively understood functions.”

Konftel Ego Images

What’s included in the box?

• Conference unit
• USB Cable
• Soft Case
• Quick Guide

Summary of Features:

• 12 hour operating battery time
• Headset connectivity option allows easy switching between headset and speaker function
• 1.77” Color LCD display for easy viewing and use
• Support for UC applications. Optimised for Skype for Business, but also supports other UC applications such as Avaya Communicator and Cisco Jabber
• OmniSound® with HD audio
• Music streaming in HD
• Compact, portable speakerphone that connects simply to a mobile phone, tablet or PC

When it comes to selecting the best conference phone, the first thing you need to consider is the size of the room that you will be using this solution in.

In this blog, you will find our top pick conference phones at VoIP Supply based on room sizes and why our customers can’t help but love them.

Small Rooms

Small meeting rooms usually can accommodate 4 to 10 participants. In this case, a conferencing solution that enables a microphone pickup range of 5 to 8 feet will be sufficient to provide clear conversations.

Polycom IP5000 is one of the most popular conferencing solutions for small room users. It features Polycom HD Voice technology with 7-foot microphone pickup and SIP interoperability that works seamlessly with a wide range of PBX including Asterisk based PBX at an affordable price.

If you are looking for a solution that can expand the capability to fit in a standard room when needed, consider Snom MeetingPoint. Suitable for up to 10 participants with optional add-on microphones for a larger recording range, Snom MeetingPoint IP Conference Phone features OmniSound® Full duplex broadband sound technology and 12 SIP registrations.

Standard/ Medium Rooms

Most small businesses have standard/ medium rooms which normally allow 12 to 20 participants at the same time. In a standard room, 10 to 14 foot microphone pickup will be required for all attendees to hear and be heard clearly.

Polycom IP 7000 can fit in this room environment just right. It is designed to eliminate listener fatigue with high-fidelity audio from 160 Hz to 22kHz and 20 foot microphone pickup range.

With optional expansion microphones and multiple call control interfaces, Polycom IP70000 gives you the flexibility you need. The wired microphones allow you to reach 7 feet away from the host IP7000 in any direction.

Another superior solution is the Yealink CP860, a 10-foot range and 5-way conferencing that’s designed to reduce wasted time and misunderstanding.

Featuring Optima HD sound quality, Yealink CP860 offers lifelike voice quality and eliminates annoying interruptions. Aside from the basic conferencing features, it also supports USB call recording and multiple different languages.

Optional expansion microphones are available for you to use in a larger group.

Large Rooms

Large meeting rooms can accommodate 20 or more attendees. In this case, you should consider a full conferencing service as it delivers the best audio/ video quality.

Grandstream IPVideoTalk conferencing service enables 8-100 participants in the same meeting with 1080 p video resolution and up to 8 video presenters.

GVC3200 with GAC2500 is complimentary with IPVideoTalkPro platform which not only allows for plug-and-play video conferencing but also being interoperable with any 3rd party SIP video conferencing platform.

If you are interested in downloading our infographic for the Best Conference for Different Room Sizes, please submit the form below.

Carrying around 33 billion minutes of international voice calls, Skype is known for its low rate and ease-of-use design.

You may grab whatever headset you have and connect it to your account just like many other do; however, if you expect to have the best sound quality with no cut-offs, you will need to get a Skype tested/ certified headset.

For your convenience, here we collect some of our best tested headsets for Skype at VoIP Supply.

Plantronics Blackwire C320 Binoural Headset

Plantronic C320 is a USB two-ear headset that supports wideband audio, noise cancelling microphone, and inline volume controls. This lightweight, customizable headset is highly durable for all-day use and the SoundGuard technology even protects you against audio spikes.

Busy workers also enjoy the indicator lights and audio alerts which give them call/ mute/ volume status to avoid interruptions.

Jabra UC Voice 250

If you are looking for a single ear USB headset, consider Jabra UC Voice 250. This headset is compatible with many leading Unified Communications (UC) platforms and softphones which is ideal for multitaskers like you.

Featuring plug and play design and intuitive call-control unit, Jabra UC Voice 250 enables fast adoption even for the first time users. Our customers love the thoughtful, dynamic EQ feature that auto adjusts audio for multimedia use, allowing you to switch back and forth among different platforms.

Sennheiser Presence UC ML Wireless Bluetooth Headset

Sennheiser Presence UC ML Headset is another great choice for Skype users. With up to 25 meters call range and 10 hours call time per charge, this wireless headset sets you free from your desk and is ideal for business professionals who need to be on the phone all day long.

Its Wind Safe and Sound Focus technologies give you crystal clear communications without unnecessary noises and interruptions. Whether you are in the office, in your car, or even on the road, Sennheiser Presence Headset has you all covered.

You can find more Skype tested equipment at our online store including phones, headsets, video phones and webcams. What headset do you use for your Skype? Do you have any recommended headset? We want to know!

Here at VoIP Supply, we pride ourselves at being the one stop shop for all of your VoIP hardware and software needs.

Our Refresh line of VoIP Hardware encompasses a large variety of phones, gateways and switches that have been reconditioned and put through a meticulous 10-step process to assure that our customers only receive quality products.

This month for our dose of Refresh, we are featuring Polycom VoIP phones that would make a great addition to any home or office.

Polycom IP 560

This is an advanced IP Phone with 4-lines and dual switched Gigabit Ethernet ports. Part of Polycom’s SoundPoint series, the IP 560 features HD Voice with wideband audio. You’ll be sure to hear and be heard clearly and echo-free. With a large backlit LCD display and support for Power over Ethernet (PoE) the IP 560 from Refresh is a great choice for management employees.

Polycom VVX310

Here you have a mid level VoIP Phone that is also part of Polycom’s Business Media Phone series. The VVX 310 is Gigabit and supports up to six lines. With dual RJ45 ports, this phone is suitable for call center operators and cubicle style environments. The VVX310 complements your PC by allowing you to view and manage workplace applications such as calendars, meeting reminders, and instant messaging presence right on the phone display.

Polycom IP6000 PoE

The IP 6000 provides crystal clear conference calls for small to medium sized rooms. Its 12-foot microphone pickup hears every word and clearly communicates it to the other end. Featuring full-duplex technology and echo cancellation, you won’t get any distracting drop-outs or redundancy. Supporting Power over Ethernet (PoE), this conference phone makes setup easier as it can be placed anywhere and not necessarily near an outlet. The IP 6000 is the perfect solution for all of your voice conferencing needs with advanced call handling, security, and provisioning features.

Refresh Polycom phones are not only dependable, but also affordable and backed by our full six month guarantee. We trust that our phones have been properly examined and upgraded with the latest firmware. We also intuitively set the phones back to their default settings so that you get a clean slate to work with. Lastly, we repackage the phones in all new bubble wrap and boxes with all the applicable original components (phone, handset cord, base stand, RJ45 cable and manuals). Rest assure that when you choose Refresh, you are choosing quality!