There are many details in selecting the right call center software. The business requirements of the call center and costs are primary considerations. The obvious current requirements for the call center software are easily identified but it is the future unanticipated requirements that may limit the capability of your call center due to the limitations of the call center software. In many cases, it may be very difficult to anticipate all the functional requirements for the call center software with fine granularity. Once a call center is operational, changes or software upgrades increase the risk of disruption and impose enormous overheads on project planning and execution. Continue reading “Call center software feature list – Part 1”
Scaling Asterisk for larger call center deployments
Asterisk is an incredible hybrid-IP PBX conceived by Mark Spencer and now, an ever expanding open source project. His creative brilliance and the collective effort of volunteer programmers have permanently changed the world of telephony for good. This revolution coincided with the growth of IP and internet world. Today, Asterisk quietly fulfills the communication needs of thousands of office phone systems. The ever increasing presence and use of Asterisk in call centers is due to the tremendous growth of online internet commerce and the need for customer service and support. A good call center software with ACD is essential to setup a proper inbound call center.
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Our new kettle will give you nightmares
The kettle in the lunchroom broke so we got a new one, this is what it looks like:
Asterisk based Inbound Call Centers for business communications
Asterisk is playing a dominant role in IP-based call centers. Intel processors have become less expensive and more powerful and a quad-core motherboard is able to offer over hundred concurrent calls with significant processing load from voice recording and transcoding. This has unleashed a powerful change with Asterisk based inbound call center solutions knocking at the last bastion of business phone systems based on closed proprietary ACD (automatic call distribution) technology from players and brands like Avaya, Cisco, ShoreTel, and Nortel Norstar and BCM. Continue reading “Asterisk based Inbound Call Centers for business communications”
ACD call distribution and skills based routing for Asterisk PBX
Managing and keeping up with the “state of the art” in technology is always a challenge. In late 2002, the design architects at Indosoft were looking to move away from maintaining and enhancing our PBX software based on legacy CTI boards. Indosoft wanted to keep its focus on call center software development. The emerging confluence of VoIP and TDM, made possible by PBX software like Asterisk, created significant product development opportunities in contact center industry. After considerable due diligence, we began porting and migrating the outbound and the inbound call center suite to the Asterisk PBX platform. Our Legacy to Asterisk migration was well timed. Continue reading “ACD call distribution and skills based routing for Asterisk PBX”
The SPITstorm is upon us already
Ideally, every VoIP provider should allow open access to incoming calls over the Internet. Yet, few of them do. They know that as soon as they open it up, their subscribers will be inundated with SPIT (SPam over Internet Telephony). SPIT is worse than traditional telemarketing because all calls are automated, they come at all hours of the night and 100% of them are scams. This causes the next generation phone networks to be closed and is actually stalling true VoIP acceptance.
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Indosoft servers, then & now
2000:
The servers were all stacked on a table at the back of the main development room. In the picture, the entire network infrastructure for the company is present. There are 5 servers pictured: Continue reading “Indosoft servers, then & now”
Bonded T1 – Will it hurt TDM PRI board sales?
I notice a trend with businesses using Asterisk PBX. They are starting to opt for exclusive bonded T1 from their ISPs (or IPSPs) with SIP terminations for voice. This is in conjunction with separate bandwidth for data. Being in the same back plane of the termination provider and captive bandwidth to the termination provider does help VoIP call quality. The price of the bonded T1 does not seem any cheaper than ISDN PRI T1. The bonded T1 approach to SIP trunking dispenses the use of Digium or Sangoma TDM boards. Will this trend pose a serious problem to the volume of board sales in future? I hope this is not the case. After all, these TDM boards are what made Asterisk shine in the early days.
The March of IP telephony – Part 1
As we all know, this march of IP telephony is purely from my perspective and fairly narrow, reflecting how I think Indosoft migrated to IP Telephony. This started in early 2003 Continue reading “The March of IP telephony – Part 1”