Harnessing the future

Small businessman Len Phillipson first became interested in VoIP as a way to keep down call costs between his two tobacconist gift stores in Rockhampton and Emerald, Queensland.

His IT background was limited to his business as a QuickBooks trainer and selling PCs and point-of-sale systems from 2000. He installed a VoIP system five years ago alongside the PSTN. A third store opened a year ago in Gladstone.

“You didn’t have to be too bright to see this was where the future was going. I got some gateways set up between our stores using the older H323 protocol. It didn’t allow me to access normal land lines, but it gave me free calls between branches,” said Phillipson.

CStore’s suppliers were in capital cities around the country. Staff were frequently calling Phillipson for instructions on using the POS systems he had installed.

With immediate savings of $300 per month, the VoIP system paid for itself in three months. The head office in Rockhampton had a Quadro4x IP PBX and the two other stores each had a Quadro2x, with Aastra 480i and 9133i handsets. All CStore’s equipment was supplied by Melbourne-based VoIP vendor Alloy Computer Products. The business-grade ITSP services came from ISPhone.

The stores are connected by 1500/512 connections over ADSL. “Anything under that I found was a problem.”

The system’s advantages were so obvious to Phillipson that he started selling and installing the system himself. He changed the name of his Quicken business to CStore and approached friends’ businesses, offering free installation in return for experience.

After setting up his own three stores, Phillipson found it relatively easy to replicate the system for a small mower business, printer and service station.

“One of the advantages of using the Quadro IP PBXs is that I can get remote access. I can be at the shop and if a customer rings me I can troubleshoot in minutes. I don’t think I’ve ever had to go on site. It allows me to do a full firmware upgrade remotely as well.”

VoIP’s beauty is that all routing is done at the PBX rather than the handsets themselves. There’s less cabling and lower installation costs as voice runs over the data network.

Despite big savings on call costs, Phillipson believes this is less important to VoIP than the simplicity of running phone and data over one network and all the possibilities of convergence.

Cheap calls may serve as an entry to SME, but Phillipson doubts whether it will be the same in two years as the major carriers react to the threat of VoIP. “Even now I’m seeing Telstra offering businesses $50 rentals per line, including unlimited STD calls.”

CStore is targeting SMEs from any industry, “from a workshop to a local store to your local chemist. If I had a business wanting 50 phones that would be a big sale for me.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever had to go on site.”

collaboration future harnessing networking the