1.  I thought 3COM just made Palm Pilots!

Actually, 3COM is a worldwide leader in networking and connectivity.  3COM introduced Network Telephony in 1998, boasts the most mature operating system available, and yes they have made a lot of Palm Pilots.

2.  What exactly do you mean by network-based phone system?

A network-based phone system is when your voice and data traffic share the same set of cabling.  This leads to significant cost savings since you will only have one cable plant to maintain.   

3.  So if our server crashes the phones stop working?

Not at all.  The NBX phone system is just using the data cables, it isn't dependant on the server.  Now just as with traditional phone systems, if something happens to the cabling itself, such as a maintenance worker accidentally cutting through the wire, that portion of the phone system will be down until the cable is repaired.

4. What is the advantage of having voice traffic and data traffic share the same cables?

Two main advantages:  First, maintenance of your building's cable plant is less expensive and less complicated; you only have one cable plant to maintain.  Secondly, with your voice traffic on your data network you can take advantage of cutting-edge, advanced computer telephone integration applications that will provide you with a more productive operation and yield significant cost-savings.

5. What does it mean when you talk about self-directed administration of your phone system?

This is one of the biggest differentiators between the 3COM NBX and traditional Key and PBX phone systems.  Traditional phone systems require a specialized phone technician to handle things like adding a new extension, moving an employee's extension to a different office location and removing an extension from your phone system.  With the NBX you do these and most other administration functions yourself.  Moving an employee's extension to a different office is as simple as just taking their phone to the new office and plugging it in.  The phone will retain all of it's personalized settings including voice mail prompts and customized button features.

6. What are some examples of computer telephony applications?

You can unify your e-mail and voicemails into a common inbox, save voicemail messages in your e-mail program for later reference, have screen pops that tell you who is calling before you even answer the phone, and dial out of your contact list program by just clicking with your mouse.  These and other features are standard with every NBX system sold.

7. What size company is the NBX designed for?

Any size really.  The NBX is designed to make any business more productive, and the self-directed administration is guaranteed to provide cost-savings for any company.

8. How many models of the NBX phone system are there?

There are three models:  The NBX 25 (1-15 phones), the NBX 100 (1-150 phones), and the NBX Superstack 3 (1-1500 phones).

9. How does the NBX compare in cost to other phone systems?

On paper, the NBX will typically fall between the lower-end Key phone systems and the higher-end PBX systems.

10. I only have 5 phones in my office, so why would I pay more money for an NBX?

It all depends on what you need from your phone system.  If all you need is dial tone, then you are better off buying a low-end Key system to be perfectly honest.  But if you want voice mail, or any other non-standard features, you will probably find that the lower-end Key is going to start pricing out closer to an NBX.

11.  Okay, so I found a Key system, added voice mail and a couple of other features, and the NBX is still more expensive.  Why should I consider paying more money for the NBX?

Phone systems are typically classified into three general categories: 2-3 year systems, 5-7 year systems, and 20 year systems.  If you spend less right now for a system that is going to start wearing out in 3 years, you will save some money in the short term.  But the NBX is a 20 year phone system, so if you spend a little more now on an NBX, you aren't going to be replacing your phone system every 3-5 years.

12. How much does it cost to add voice mail to an NBX phone system?

Nothing ... a full-featured voice mail system is included with every NBX phone system as standard equipment.

13. How difficult is it to learn how to use the Administration Utility that controls the NBX Phone system?

If you can use Windows, you can be shown how to completely administer your NBX in about one hour.  The included Netset utility is a Windows-based program that allows you to control the entire phone system with a keyboard and a mouse.  This utility can be accessed from any computer in your network, and even from your home if you would like.

14. Some of the other literature talks about the NBX Business phones having 18 programmable buttons.  What's the big deal there?

Most phone systems are very under-utilized.  They actually contain a lot of useful features, but the series of codes you have to remember to use these features requires a photographic memory.  The standard NBX business phone has 18 programmable one-touch buttons.  You decide which features will best enhance your work force and assign them to these buttons.  You can assign features that are useful to everyone on some of the buttons, and let your employees choose personalized features for their other buttons. 

15. The NBX includes Call Center Capabilities ... what does this mean exactly?

This means you have the ability to completely control the behavior of inbound calls.  Incoming calls for a specific department or group can be routed so that they ring only the phones of the employees in that group.  Your customers can be automatically routed to the specific group of employees they need to talk to.  The NBX is not magic, but how you handle incoming calls is basically up to your imagination.

16.  What is a Hunt Group?

A hunt group falls under the Call Center part of the system.  As an example, say you have 4 employees who work in the accounting department.  With the NBX, all incoming calls for accounting can be set to ring each of these employees phones twice (or however many rings you choose).  If the first employee doesn't answer the call after two rings it "hunts" to the next accounting employee's phone and rings it twice, and so on, until it has rung each phone twice.  If no one in accounting answers, the caller can be sent to a receptionist, to a voice mail box for that group of employees, to one of those employee's personal voice mail box, to an automated attendant, or even to someone's cell phone or house.

A variation on the above example is to have incoming calls to accounting ring everyone's phone in the accounting department simultaneously, as opposed to ringing each phone in order.  If no one answers after the set number of rings, the caller goes to the receptionist, voice mail, etc.  The idea is that your inbound calls can be handled in the way you feel is most efficient for your specific business.  Your customers are handled more efficiently when they call, and happier customers mean your business is going to grow.

17. What is an automated attendant?

An automated attendant is the recording that you reach at a lot of businesses that tell you to "press 4 for this department," "press 5 for that department," etc.  The NBX allows you to implement multiple automated attendants with multiple sub-menus and options.

18. We want a human being to answer our phones, so automated attendants aren't something we would find useful.

A lot of businesses feel that way.  But what if your receptionist becomes swamped, or needs to step away from the reception desk for a minute and no one is able to cover the phones for them?  Wouldn't it be nice if the receptionist could simply push a button and instantly have all incoming calls handled by an automated attendant?  Once your receptionist returns to their desk, or is no longer "swamped," they simply push the same button and the system returns to manual mode, with a human answering the phones again.

And what about after hours?  With the NBX your phone system can automatically enter "night" mode.  All callers reach your businesses customized after-hours automated attendant and are offered whatever options you choose.  They can dial an extension directly to reach an individual or group voice mail box, they can access a name directory to look up someone's extension, and they can even reach an employee you have on call after hours by pressing one of the numbers on their keypad.

You can have the NBX automatically enter up to four "modes" based on time of day and day of week. 

19. I read somewhere about off-site notification.  What does that mean?

If you need step out of the office, you can have all calls to your extension automatically forwarded to your cell phone, home phone, or any phone number you choose.

You can also choose to have the system notify you when you have a new voice mail.  The system can page you, call you on a cell or home phone, and it can even send you a voicemail as an e-mail if you want.  If you need to stay in touch with the office don't worry ... the system will find you ... you just tell it how to do so.

20. We have a lot of employees who could use voice mail features, but don't really need an actual phone.

A lot of companies are in this situation.  They have sales staff that are rarely in the office, or a lot of employees who work out in a shop or warehouse area.  With the NBX you can assign these employees a "phantom extension."  A phantom extension behaves just as if it were associated with a phone, but it isn't.  Anyone you assign a phantom extension to has a fully functioning extension number, with voice mail and off-site notification, but there is no physical phone associated with their extension. 

As an example, say you have 10 employees in a shop area.  Just create a phantom extension for each of them, and they can have a fully functioning voice mail box.  They can access their voice mail from any phone in your organization.  You can have one shop phone they all share, yet each of these employees can take advantage of and be reached by the off-site features of the system.

21.  How can the NBX help us control long distance costs?

In several ways:

You can assign calling permissions to individual phones or groups of phones.  If you have a phone in a common area, such as a lobby or waiting area, you can have that phone set to only make internal, local, toll free, or 911 calls.  Any employee can override the restrictions on a common area phone by entering a feature code and their password.  The common area phone behaves as if it were that employees extension for the duration of that phone call.  Once the employee hangs up the phone is once again restricted.  And the call made by the employee is logged as if it were made from their extension. 

Rather than have your employees remember different long distance access codes for different calling areas, you can have the NBX automatically select the long distance carrier you want for a specific call.  If you want all state-to-state calls handled by AT&T, but in-state calls handled by another carrier, the system can automatically do that for you.  Your employees just dial the number and the system takes care of the rest.

Included in the NBX is a powerful call detail reporting application.  This application allows you to look at and analyze your businesses calling habits in a number of ways.  You can view call volume by hour, day, week, month, etc.  You can even pull up a record of all calls made to or from a specific extension for whatever time period you specify.  If you have an employee that is abusing their long distance privileges, you'll know it.  You can see every single phone call that comes into or goes out of your business.  You can see what numbers are being called, what extensions are making the calls, and how long the calls are lasting.

22. I have a question that wasn't addressed here.

If you have any questions we will be more than happy to answer them.  Use any of the contact options below to reach us: