Unity Business Networks: Clearly Benefiting from HD Voice

Polycom (News - Alert) has been at the forefront of wave that’s sweeping the IP communications industry, namely the development, deployment and proliferation of high-definition voice enabled telephony solutions for businesses of all sizes.

 

A recent wave of interviews with Polycom partners and case studies of how they’re leveraging Polycom HD Voice™ bears that out. To see more of these HD Voice success stories, visit the HD Voice global online community to see coverage of the following Polycom partners:

 

Denver-based Unity Business Networks is another provider that is taking advantage of all that Polycom HD Voice has to offer. TMCnet recently had the opportunity to catch up with the firm and the result is the interview that follows.

 

UBN: Founded in Denver, Colo., in 2003, Unity Business Networks (UBN) is a leading regional provider of hosted and integrated internet-protocol (IP) communications services for businesses. Serving markets in Denver, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Portland, Ore., Colorado Springs and Fort Collins, Colo., Unity offers its clients bundled communications packages, which include telephone and Internet services, such as a hosted phone system, local and long distance, high-speed internet and proactive expert support.

 

Unity focuses on communications quality and high-touch customer service. With point-to-point connections and an ability to monitor the network, Unity is fully accountable to clients for any disruption in service. There is none of the finger-pointing that goes on between parties that control various pieces of a network.

 

UBN: Our mission is to be the world’s best provider of semi-custom core business communications packages that leverage efficient and reliable technologies in a consistent, high quality, and profitable manner.

 

UBN: Unity Business Networks’ clients range from five people (in one site) to 5,000 people across multiple locations. We are focusing our marketing efforts upon the multi-site client with 25–200 end-users per site. Companies in the mining industry, energy industry, travel industry and mortgage industry have made ideal prospects for Unity. They include Blender Products, Interactive Passport Visas, Mackenzie House and Guardian Mortgage Documents. Non-profits with multiple locations have also found Unity’s telecommunications solutions to be ideal. Those clients include the American Red Cross and American Lung Association.

 

UBN: We focus on voice services, and we have standardized our operations on the Polycom line of SoundPoint® IP desktop phones and SoundStation® conference phones. The revolutionary technology of Polycom’s HD Voice provides users with a clarity previously unknown. Our clients can conduct a conference call that includes people from all over the world, and HD Voice makes the conference participants feel like they are all in the same room.

 

UBN: Absolutely. Polycom HD Voice dramatically improves the clarity of our phone calls and the process is ideal for businesses with employees at multiple locations. Since we have employees in different states, we are the perfect candidate for this technology.

 

UBN: Polycom HD Voice introduces consumers to a whole new phone experience, one that is focused on providing its consumers with superior voice quality. With more than twice the clarity of standard phone calls, using HD Voice reduces the confusion generated by “fuzzy” conversations and promotes productivity. With HD Voice there is no interruption and no need for constant repetition, with fewer mistakes translated. Everyone on the call is involved in the conversation rather than listening, trying to keep up. It provides capacity for the full fidelity of the human voice so listeners can distinguish who is on the call and feel their presence in the room even though they may be geographically thousands of miles away.

 

HD Voice technology essentially tears down the walls and removes the distance. It’s the difference between a muffled AM radio station and a crystal-clear CD. And yes, it’s comparable to the difference between standard and high-definition television. When football fans first saw games on high-definition TV, they commented almost in unison they felt they were at the stadium. People who hear HD Voice for the first time make the same comment. They close their eyes, and they swear rather than just listening to a conference call they are sitting in the boardroom and attending the meeting across town.

 

UBN: Historically the SoundPoint IP 501 has been our biggest seller, but many multi-site clients started buying SoundPoint IP 550’s for the HD technology. With the release of the SoundPoint IP 450 HD, we have already seen a huge spike in orders for HD. This phone looks to be the new HD workhorse, and it is easy for our customers to recognize the advantages. We began making our clients aware of them in the last 30 days, and we have already sold 200 of them (on order) even though they were just announced last week.

 

UBN: We think it’s pretty revolutionary that people from around the world can participate in a conference call and HD Voice can make it seem like they’re all in the same room just having a casual conversation.

 

The clarity and reliability of HD Voice eliminate the frustration connected with the inability to hear or understand what people say on standard-def. Participants no longer need to identify themselves before every comment. Instead, with Polycom HD Voice, users can distinguish between callers. For example, “imagine being on a conference call in Denver, connected with people in three cities, some of whom speak with the same deep, Southern accent, so how do you know who is talking? With HD Voice it’s easy. One speaker doesn’t enunciate his ‘s’ sounds as crisply as another, who speaks more softly at the end of sentences. This solution to “accent barriers” is even more pronounced and appreciated when dealing with international parties who have distinct foreign accents.

 

UBN: We have been working with Polycom since they released the first SoundPoint IP 500 in 2003. We know their IP phones inside and out, and we have been able to build in a lot of automation as we provision our handsets for our clients. They get a high-quality experience at a low cost. We also manage the phone files for our clients on an ongoing basis, as new releases and capabilities arise. Since these are IP phones, we can monitor clients’ service into their office to ensure that their voice quality remains extremely high. And when issues arise, we have the technology and knowledgeable staff in place to deal with them.

 

UBN: Polycom made a strategic decision recently to open their platform to enable the Web 2.0 revolution into their handsets. Web 2.0 will enable leading IP Communications Service Providers like Unity Business Networks to work in collaboration with developers and the business community to integrate mission-critical client systems with real-time voice services. This integration essentially allows us to build and support each client’s ‘Killer App’ and provide value far beyond what a traditional premise-based solution can provide.

 

One simple example is the possibility of adding weather reports to phones. You push a “soft” key, and the weather report for your area appears.

 

Another, slightly more involved example is the possibility of helping a law firm (or any other professional organization) track its billable time. The process begins with a “soft” key that says “start,” and after you enter an account code, the button changes to “stop.” Of course, the timer connects to an existing billable system within the law firm’s computer, meaning that you eliminate the step of rekeying data into the system, which is so common with current manual processes.

 

These are the kinds of things we are excited about. If we have a client that wants this kind of feature, we can build it — sometimes within hours and usually within at least a week or two.