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| Client: | Vox Entertainment, El Segundo, CA |
| Problem: | VOIP meltdown |
| Solution: | Bandwidth upgrade (DSL to twin T1s) |
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"Your post-sale service and approach to customer care were just plain fantastic."
Steve Burns, independent IT consultant
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For Nina Knepper, office manager for Vox Entertainment, it was like a nightmare -- and she couldn't wake up. Having recently acquired a new building a few blocks from her company's main office, Knepper had ordered a new Voice-Over-IP (VOIP) system to connect the two facilities. "I didn't want our customers to be aware of the transition," explains Knepper. "From their perspective, I wanted it to be seamless, like they were dealing with one big, virtual office."
Knepper used her phone vendor's authorized representative to install the new VOIP system. "What I realize now," says Knepper, "is that the installers were not as skilled as they should have been." In particular, they told Knepper that her offices' DSL connectivity would be able to handle the needs of the new VOIP system.
That turned out not to be true.
From the moment the new system went live, there were problems. "Calls were being dropped," says Knepper. "People were being disconnected in mid-call." Adding to her stress was the reaction from within her company. "My staff doesn't know the meaning of the word 'patience'," she says, laughing. "They were hammering on me constantly for a solution."
That solution arrived in the form of a meeting set up by Knepper between her VOIP installer, her independent IT consultant, and networking expert David Ashworth from Cyberverse, Inc., Vox's Internet provider. "I got all of them in a room," says Knepper, "and said, 'Okay; talk to each other and figure out what's wrong.'"
Ashworth quickly identified the problem as a bandwidth limitation. "When Vox added their second office, we recommended a second DSL connection to go with the one they already had," says Ashworth. "But we didn't know about their plans for VOIP." Compared with a conventional phone system, VOIP offers high-end features and significant cost-savings. "But you need the bandwidth to support it," explains Ashworth.
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There wasn't any fingerpointing; they just got down to business and helped us solve the problem."
Nina Knepper, Office Manager, Vox Entertainment
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To solve the problem, Cyberverse recommended replacing Vox's DSL with two T1 lines: One from the main office to Cyberverse (to carry outbound Internet and VOIP traffic), and a second to connect the two offices.
Knepper was sold on the idea, but it took some doing to convince her superiors. "They had questions, and I think that's understandable," says Ashworth. "They'd already made a significant investment, and the system wasn't working as they'd expected. But I told them this would be their best solution, the right solution, and that they wouldn't have to come back to us afterward with problems."
Two weeks after the new T1s were ordered, the system went live. With Cyberverse on hand to help, the installation went without a hitch, and the VOIP problems vanished. Steve Burns, Vox's independent IT consultant, wrote to Cyberverse afterwards, "Thanks for sticking by VOX and offering such a 'beyond-the-call' level of performance. Your post-sale service and approach to customer care were just plain fantastic."
For Nina Knepper, it was the end of a nightmare. Looking back on the experience, the thing she appreciates most about Cyberverse was the company's positive attitude. "They weren't just good at their own end of things," she explains. "There were a lot of cooks in the kitchen on this, and Cyberverse was very flexible about figuring out how to work with them. There wasn't any fingerpointing; they just got down to business and helped us solve the problem."
"Overall," says Knepper, "working with Cyberverse has been a very good experience."
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