Bye-bye busy signal - telephone systems - includes related article on shopping tips - Technology Information

Home Office Computing, March, 1996 by John B. Jainschigg

YOU'VE REACHED A MILESTONE IN YOUR BUSINESS LIFE: It's time to buy an office phone system. Phone service is bleeding your budget at upwards of $50 per month per line. A phone system will let your business communicate efficiently, while keeping the number of outside lines to a minimum. Whether you're planning for your first employee or accommodating a growing number of them, two lines just won't cut it anymore.

Anyone in your office should be able to call from desk to desk, put callers on hold, transfer, conference, park, and forward calls to colleagues. Fortunately, just like computers, phone system prices are going through the floor while features proliferate. Virtually any business--even a two-person office with three lines--can afford state-of-the-art phone features. The real trick is buying a system that's easy to install, works with voice mail and other popular "computer telephony" adjuncts, and grows with your business. Without moving all the way up to a public branch exchange (PBX) system, two options will see you through the 20-employee level: key system units (KSU) and the new KSU-less phones.

But before you head out to buy new equipment, think about how you and your employees work. The old rule of thumb for the number of phone lines was four employees to each phone line. But if you and your employees rely on fax machines and online services, you should practically reverse the rule and include two lines for each employee.

First Phone Systems For the smallest business, a new type of phone is here. Several manufacturers, such as Teligent and Newtronix, have recently come out with systems that build the rich features of more expensive systems into the phones themselves. Because they duplicate the capabilities of KSU phones without the KSU, these smart phones are called KSU-less systems. Instead of connecting phones to a KSU, KSU-less phones connect to each other while sharing outside lines.

KSU-less systems match the basic features of standard office phone setups, including conferencing and transferring calls. Their benefit for cash flow-conscious entrepreneurs is their cost: Featurerich KSU-less systems run from $150 to $400 per phone. But because the most powerful KSU-less systems can only distribute four external lines among 16 phones they work best for companies with four or fewer employees. However, analog ports may be difficult to include in a KSU-less system, so plan on keeping separate lines for your computers and fax machines.

Another drawback is that you're generally locked into a hianufacturer's proprietary auto-attendant features or voice mail. KSU-less systems also may not offer music-on-hold, call accounting, or an open application interface to connect your phones to your computers for call-processing applications. Finally, because each phone requires its own power supply, it can be hard to keep a KSU-less system up and running in a blackout. By contrast, a simple uninterruptible power supply (UPS) will keep a centralized phone system running for a limited time. And plainvanilla phone service from your Baby Bell usually works when your electricity remains out.

Phone Key If you've reached the stage where you need advanced phone features, perhaps you're ready to move up to a KSU system like AT&T's Partner or Comdial's Impact. Just as in a PC, KSU systems contain a power supply, a motherboard, and expansion card slots. You can add various interface cards to the slots to connect with different kinds of phone service (plain old analog lines, an ISDN basic rate interface, and so on) and different kinds of phone equipment, including feature-rich proprietary digital phones or analog fax machines and modems.

Although you may feel comfortable enough to install a KSU system yourself, manufacturers usually include installation in a starter unit's $1,995 to 6,000 purchase price. Office wiring may cost extra and each phone can run from $150 to $600.

The main benefit of a KSU system over a KSUless one is that it supports music-on-hold, audio paging, and call-record output. With a serial port connection to your PC and support of open application interface (OAI) compliant software, advanced systems run standard automated call-processing software to help service companies track client billing time and telemarketers manage their staff.

Most systems' minimum configuration includes four lines for either eight or 16 phones, although you can generally buy fewer phones. You can expand these units to support as many as 32 lines and 80 phones in a single cabinet, usually in fouror eight-line phone increments.

KSU systems tr;ditionally work best for the four- to 15-person company. Technically, that upper limit keeps rising as these systems' capacities grow. In a KSU, however, outside lines appear as buttons on each telephone. Incoming calls ring on all phones or on groups ofphones associated with a given trunk). That helps in a small office where anyone can pick up from anywhere in the office. But in larger organizations, you'll probably want a full-time attendant rather than having phones ringing off the hook during meetings.