Managed.IT - issue 52

14 MANAGED.IT TELEPHONY 01732 759725 Spitfire has added a new hosted telephony solution to its product portfolio, giving small and medium- sized businesses all the telephony features they need for just £6 per extension, per month, with free set-up and no up-front costs. Developed in-house by the company’s engineers and software development teams and hosted on servers in one of Spitfire’s secure core network nodes, with full power and back-up redundancy, Spitfire Hosted PBX 2.1 provides: n a full set of features out of the box (see panel); n free calls between extensions; n softphones and smartphone apps for full integration of mobile devices; and n an online portal for easy system management. Simplicity & affordability In developing the system, Spitfire has drawn on more than 30 years’ experience meeting the communications needs of small and medium-sized businesses, in particular the requirement for simplicity and exceptional ease of use. This starts with the clear, transparent pricing of £6 per extension, per month, with free set-up for contracts of 12 months or more, which makes Spitfire Hosted PBX 2.1 one of the best value hosted telephony solutions on the market. Even when you add in the cost of renting handsets for customers that don’t want to buy them outright, the cost is just £9 to £11 per extension (depending on phone model). The fact that Spitfire charges by extension rather than by device, as some suppliers do, is another selling point, as it allows users to associate more than one phone with their extension without charge. This could be an office phone, a DECT phone (as a second office phone), a home office phone, a softphone, an app, or all of the above. Suppliers that charge by device require customers to buy a subscription for each additional device used, adding significantly to the total cost of any deployment. Ease of use Installation is just as straightforward. Spitfire Hosted PBX 2.1 connects to a router on the customer’s premises using voice-approved broadband or converged voice and data Ethernet circuits. The customer then just plugs in pre-programmed, auto- provisioning Yealink handsets and they are ready to go. Spitfire Engineering Solutions Director Dominic Norton told Managed IT that Spitfire’s own employees, who have been using the system since March last year , have been particularly impressed by its ease of use. “People say they find it much easier to use. They really appreciate things like the ability to assign names to buttons on the phone, so you don’t have to dial by extension number, and the alphanumeric keypad, which dynamically presents names from an address book as you type, just like on a mobile,” he said. The administrator console is laid out very logically, making it easy for customers to control all aspects of the system, should they wish to do so, with support from Spitfire when required. A fully managed service, at no additional charge, is available for customers that prefer Spitfire or one of its resellers to handle day-to- day system management. Norton says the system is so straightforward that customers won’t need to spend time and money on training courses. “With some traditional solutions you pay to go on a special course, but we have made this as easy to self-manage as possible,” he said. “User can log on and make adds, moves and changes without having to call up their supplier or change the features on the buttons. They can do things like change who’s in a ring group and the order of answering phones; configure the auto attendant feature; create call centre groups; set up call flows to route calls to different destinations depending on the time of day or day of week; view call statistics down to an individual user level – all via easy to use drop-down menus.” Because administrators can provide different levels of access, they can enable end users to do things like set up call diverts to a home number/mobile phone or log- on at someone else’s extension but restrict access to more advanced settings and capabilities. For small and medium-sized businesses, a cloud hosted telephony solution offers many advantages, from a high-end feature set to flexible deployment and no upfront costs. With Spitfire Hosted PBX 2.1, there has never been a better time to move your voice to the cloud. www.spitfire.co.uk With Spitfire Hosted PBX 2.1, there has never been a better time to move your voice to the cloud As easy as you like Spitfire has drawn on more than 30 years’ experience meeting the communications needs of small and medium- sized businesses Spitfire Hosted PBX 2.1 Issue 52 2019 Spitfire Hosted PBX 2.1 Key Benefits n a full set of features out of the box n free calls between extensions n softphones and smartphone apps for full integration of mobile devices n an online portal for easy system management (for those who prefer to do this themselves) n clear, transparent pricing System Features n Web-based management console n Call management/routing (e.g. call transfer, forward, hold, park/pickup) n Auto attendant/Digital receptionist n Call queuing & management statistics n Music on hold n Voicemail including email notifications n Call twinning (ringing deskphone and mobile simultaneously) n Softphone integration n Programmable buttons on handset/ softphone n Group contact directory n Multi-user conference call bridge