I recently had the opportunity to ask the team at Tadiran (News - Alert) Telecom about its Coral Sea Softswitch line, how companies can save money with their products and more.
Tadiran’s comprehensive portfolio of IP telecommunications products are designed to meet the needs of businesses and organizations of all sizes, from small companies to large, multi-national enterprises.
How does your solution help companies to save money?
The Sea Softswitch significantly reduces costs and saves customers money at different levels:
* Converged infrastructure for data and voice – no need for TDM links (such as PRI or QSIG) between sites. TDM leased lines are no longer needed.
* Unified support team (operation and maintenance) for Data and Telephony, instead of two separate teams.
* Centralized management system allowing the system manager to configure and maintain the system from any location, at any time – saves time and resources.
* Advanced Routing Selection mechanism that enables the definition of least-cost routing and best-cost routing policies, as required in the SLA between the customer and the carrier or the ITSP (Internet Telephony (News - Alert) Service Provider).
* Multi-layered mobility – provides the customer the ability to use Call-back, Call-through and FlexiCall (User Centric) over different transportation layers (IP, WiFi (News - Alert), GSM, or WiMax). These capabilities save companies much money, especially for long distance calls and international calls.
What are the standard Sea Softswitch license packages?
There are two Sea Softswitch packages are available: The Sea Softswitch Business Package and the Sea Softswitch Enterprise Package.
The Sea Softswitch basic package includes:
*Dual CPU server with dual core Xeon processor, RAID.
*Pre-installed operating system.
*48 party conference system.
*Licenses: 30 users, 9 Tadiran IP phones (MGCP or SIP), 1 IPNET channel, 4 FXO gateways, 4 ports for basic voicemail, 10 Unified Messaging.
What proactive maintenance tools (alarm messages) does the Sea Softswitch provide? What options are available to monitor system performance?
The Sea Softswitch can create alarm messages (traps) on system malfunction and shortage of resources. The system sends these messages to external SNMP Network Management System applications, or to specified email addresses using SMTP.
In the current Sea Softswitch version, the following alarms are sent and displayed:
*Server alarms—alarms related to insufficient or missing CPU, disk space, or memory resources of Sea Softswitch servers
* License alarms—alarms on license resources that are almost used up or have expired.
* For each alarm type, it is possible to specify a threshold. If the resource usage exceeds this threshold, the system sends an alarm.
It is possible to view all alarms in the system or only the current alarms.
Alarms can be retrieved from an SNMP server or received by email. Alarm access parameters therefore include:
*SNMP—the user name and password required for connecting to the SNMP server.
*SMTP—SMTP email server specifications and the email addresses to which the alarms are to be sent.
What system and CDR reports are available to the system administrator? Are these standard in your proposed solutions? If optional, please include costs.
CDR reports reflecting inbound and outbound activities in the system are available to the system administrator. The Sea Softswitch produces CDRs at different information levels, including information related to the endpoints and users that participated in a call. All CDR files are located under a specific directory and issued according to a programmable schedule. CDRs are kept in daily files.
The Sea Softswitch internally produces several reports as a standard:
* Detailed call report for each extension (alias)/user.
* Summary of detailed call report for each extension (alias)/user.
* CUGs – detailed call report.
* The most expensive calls for each extension (alias)/user.
* The most popular number that has been dialed.
* The longest conversation duration per each user.
* Detailed trunk statistics.
Does the Sea Softswitch support fax?
The Sea Softswitch supports Fax Over IP utilizing a third party FXS Gateway (News - Alert) that supports T.38, for reliable real-time fax transmission over the network.
Describe how the Sea Softswitch supports music on hold (MoH). How many sources are supported? Does the system external sources?
The music played to parties put on hold can be either an audio file or an external source, such a radio or CD player connected to the sound card of the Sea Softswitch server. In an ongoing call, the user can put the second party on hold and call another destination. The held party hears music until the conversation is re-established or disconnected.
Describe the call forwarding options that the solution offers. Can a delay be specific per phone before the call is transferred to this phone?
The call forwarding rules that can be defined for Sea Softswitch users and their phones is practically unlimited. Calls can be forwarded to any internal or external destination, as well as to a predefined group.
For example, the following rules can be defined:
* Call Forward All – calls are forwarded regardless of the state of the call user.
* Call Forward at Night/Holiday – flexible schedules can be designed to forward calls only at night, on holidays, or at any requested time intervals.
* Call Forward on Busy – calls are forwarded if the called user is busy * Call Forward on No Answer – calls are forwarded if the called user does not answer the call.
* Call Forward on DND – calls are forwarded if the called user is in Do Not Disturb mode.
* Call Forward on Logout – calls are forwarded if the called user is not logged in to the Sea Softwsitch.
* Call Forward based on Caller ID – calls are forwarded depending on the calling user or ANI.
Users can have calls forwarded to specified extensions, such as a cell phone number, if they do not answer a call within a specific time interval. This time interval is measure in seconds and can be changed through the Unified Management System GUI.
Does the solution support call detail reporting and billing?
All reporting requirements can retrieve information from the CDRs and be used by 3rd party applications such as TABS, MIND CTI (News - Alert), or Syata.
The Sea Softswitch provides different reports on CDR information:
* Number of calls diverted to voicemail.
* Number of calls left in voicemail.
* Time of inbound calls.
* Time of internal calls.
* Reports on call pickup.
* Reports on hunt groups (future).
* Number of failed calls – can be retrieved from the CDRs. A ready-made report will be available in the future.
Does the solution support PC attendant functionality, with features such as directory, transfer, hold, speed dial, break in, break out, redial, night service, DND, priority, etc.?
The Sea Softswitch Navigator can function as the Attendant Console (availability in Q4 2008). Part of its capabilities is to make calls based on the contact list, receive calls and transfer these calls, put the calls in a Hold position, etc.
Stay tuned for part two of the Q&A with Tadiran Telecom.
For more information on the company check out its Softswitch channe on TMCnet here.
Tim Gray is a Web Editor for TMCnet, covering news in the IP communications, call center and customer relationship management industries. To read more of Tim’s articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Tim Gray