Phone System Features & Terms

Co lines-These are the incoming phone lines from your local telephone company.

Extensions-Stations-These are the actual telephones. They are extensions of the telephone system. They look like telephones and work like telephones, But only work with the control unit and will not work if they are plugged into a regular telephone line from the telephone company. So, if you ever move, Don't forget the control unit.

Voice Mail-Auto Attendant- voice mail systems with the auto attendant is like having a receptionist 24 hours a day without paying labor costs.    The auto attendant is an answering service that answers incoming calls with a company greeting,plays a list of options to a caller, and transfers calls to the different departments, then to mail boxes if that extension is not answered, or back to a main directory.      The auto attendant can be turned off during business hours and answered manually.  The person answering the call can transfer calls to the different departments and mail boxes. The voice mail system is a separate unit from the telephone system, it is wired into an extension port on the telephone system and is programmed to answer after a determined amount of rings.   Voice mail comes in different sizes 2 port,4 port, 6 port and up,  it depends on the amount of incoming traffic your company has.

Ports: The term port means circuit. For instance, a 2 "Port" voice mail system has 2 circuits to handle call traffic. The number of ports on a voice mail system is directly related to the number of users that can be in voice mail at the same time. An example the "Norstar Startalk Flash" voice mail system is 2 port and 24 mail boxes and is expandable to 4 ports and 48 mailboxes. The term "port" is used when describing a telephone system it refers to the combined number of lines and extensions. An example of this would be the "Meridian Norstar Modular ICS with XC software ". This telephone system supports up to 272 total system ports.

Things to think about before purchasing a office phone system.

Many companies today have purchased telephone equipment that was just right for there company only to find out that as there company grow there phone system could not.   Estimating your future growth today may not cause you problems in your telephone system later. These are questions you need to consider when purchasing a telephone system.

What is the maximum number of phones that I can have on my business phone system?  
What is the maximum number of phone lines (co lines) for my phone system? 
Can I add phone equipment to increase the number of phones or phone lines?  
Can I add features to my phone system such as voicemail?

          "Well I need 4 phones so I must need 4 lines, right?"

NO!    Picking phone lines really depends on the number of calls you receive in a day, how many phones lines will be used at the same time. If you were running a sales office and you had 4 phones lines with 4 sales people and they were all on there phones, new callers would get a busy signal.  You would more likely need 6 to 8 phone lines.   A fax lines can be shared with the credit card terminal,shipping terminal or anything else, But not at the same time.

Hunt Group,Rotary Lines- Meaning if line 1 is busy it will roll over to line 2 an on down to your last line. Don't put the fax line in the hunt group, Because if all lines are busy the next caller will get the fax machine. "Not good for business."
When ordering your CO lines from your local telephone company order them in a hunt group, i.e.  Ordering 6 lines, put 4 in the hunt group 1 for the fax and 1 for a modem or 5 in the hunt group and share 1 line for the fax and the modem.

Meridian Norstar phone systems   are one of the best on the market. "We think the best business phone systems".

Nortel Networks has been designing communication systems for over 50 years. Product lines such as the Meridian Norstar are designed with usability and longevity in mind.

Nortel’s Norstar phone systems provides you with an expandable system that will support your companies growing needs. With usability and reliability combined.

About the Meridian Norstar Phone Systems