Ask any business VoIP provider, video conferencing service, or anyone else in the telecom and digital communications world these days, and they’ll tell you that collaboration is key to their company. Today, organizations of every size are taking advantage of the benefits of enterprise VoIP solutions in the cloud and the collaboration that these models naturally bring.
Collaboration between multiple vendors ensures truly unified communications. The idea is that there is not one software for team collaboration, but instead, many vendors that seamlessly come together to build your business. This blog will look at some of the collaboration software and applications that meld behind the scenes to create a true UCaaS solution, powered by VoIP First Media, for your business.
CallTower for Direct Routing with Microsoft 365
CallTower partners with VoIP First Media to provide direct routing with multiple private connections to your UCaaS solution. One of the benefits of working with this solution is that CallTower specializes in integrating with your current Microsoft environment.
Chuck Phaneuf, CallTower Channel Specialist Northeast points out the difficulties inherent in working with Microsoft alone without a third-party vendor like their firm. He says, “They’re not telco people, they’re not phone people. That’s what CallTower does.” Using Microsoft alone as your primary communications solution provider means that you won’t experience the level of seamless integration than you would have if you also partner with a firm like CallTower.
CallTower can integrate with your existing on-premises phone hardware as well as your hard-wired alarms and access systems. CallTower offers “tons of flexibility. We’re coming over the top of your existing services,” according to Chuck.
Some of the typical configurations CallTower creates to integrate with Microsoft Teams include:
- Teams from Microsoft Direct, a self-porting DIY service for technically savvy teams that want a measure of control.
- Native direct routing that lets you use multiple automated telephone failovers
- Direct routing partners with a third-party PBX.
- Third-party Teams integrations.
Chuck says, “Rather than having to support your own phone system and having to deal with Microsoft or deal with these providers behind the scenes, CallTower takes over that whole responsibility in that management for you.” CallTower is a Gold Microsoft partner, expert with the Teams collaboration app.
Cisco WebEx Software for Team Collaboration
CallTower also works closely with Cisco customers in the UCaaS space. Cisco has been around for a long time and they’ve made a huge name for themselves in the voice space, the device space, and in the conferencing space. Chuck says, “There’s really been a huge push from Cisco to get into more projects. The way they’re doing this is they’re trying to simplify everything.”
Today, Cisco is taking what used to be stand-alone applications that used to be siloed and wouldn’t communicate with each other and turning them into a condensed, integrated single environment. Chuck enthuses, “No one ever really complaints about Cisco because it’s so well developed, they don’t do anything without testing it for three or four years internally themselves.” Cisco now has combined everything into one easy-to-use application that spans as many devices as possible.
CloudTower CLOUDVoice Team Collaboration App for Metaswitch Customers
Of course, collaboration is the natural outgrowth of a company like Microsoft, which can easily afford to buy up a business VoIP provider, competing software products for team collaboration, or even a 5G specialist like Metaswitch. Last year, Microsoft agreed to acquire Metaswitch to ensure the partnership was the strongest possible for their customers. This type of acquisition is typical for Microsoft, which has aggressively been buying up key players in the UCaaS market for several years now. Chuck points out, “Metaswitch has been around for a really long time, and they’re one of two carrier-grade infrastructure companies out there.”
Redundancy and reliability are key components offered when of partnering with Metaswitch. They currently have 25 million commercially deployed business lines. Chuck says it’s the flexibility of the Metaswitch application that’s appealing to companies seeking a team collaboration app or other solution from a provider like Cisco or Microsoft. However, Metaswitch is not integrated with web apps or other collaboration tools. Chuck says, “It’s more of a standalone phone system with a standalone video conferencing that we can add on to.” There’s a lot of feature-rich functionality because we’re growing on top of that Metaswitch foundation and building our telco house.”
CloudTower Video Conferencing Powered by Zoom
CloudTower is now offering CT CLOUDMeeting powered by Zoom. Instead of having your video conferencing service as a standalone application, CloudTower has made this secure service a UCaaS option to consider. CloudTower has added a more sophisticated layer of analytics on top of the Zoom video conferencing service, which is giving customers a more robust set of data to inform their decision-making. CallTower can help with prioritizing your bandwidth so that your video conferencing receives the pipe it needs, then afterwards turn the video conferencing down and prioritize the other applications that use up your bandwidth. Chuck points out, “Organizations are returning back to their on-premises locations. We’re finding that their bandwidth is taking an absolute beating, and they’re not able to keep up.”
How Can CallTower Help Your Business?
CallTower is a true collaborator and integrated in the UCaaS environment. Their goal is to provide multiple solutions that integrate true unified functionality in your business. They work closely with enterprise VoIP solutions provider VoIP First Media by offering a number of services to facilitate a collaborative communications environment. This includes:
- HPBX and trunking, a fully hosted replacement for enterprise PBX platforms.
- Hosted UC&C mobility support for desktop and mobile, along with API integrations to pull all your tools together.
- A fully integrated call center support service that leverages cloud enterprise VoIP solutions to provide the telecom infrastructure for every size business.
CallTower’s solution integrates smoothly with the big three customer relationship management (CRM) software like HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics and Salesforce. The firm offers an end-to-end solution for environments seeking greater collaboration in a more unified architecture. Talk with VoIP First Media about how our CallTower collaboration could make sense for your business.
