NEWSLETTER

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I have spent the last year attending meetings and roundtables on subjects such as “going green” and “sustainability” and have been deluged with wonderful ideas, suggestions, and products that can, in fact, help me be a better steward of the world I move it. 

Unfortunately, most of them are either inapplicable in my environment or cost more money that I make to implement – or, in short, are great ideas with no practical use for me;  I imagine that I am not the only small business person who feels that way.

At the same time, I have been undergoing a parallel effort to determine what, if any changes we can make at UniTech to become more “green” – I figure if you can’t do the big stuff, maybe a lot of little stuff will make a difference….

What I have learned that may or may not be true in other worlds, but could be useful:

1. We use a ton of cardboard and nobody wants it. 
2. We have the potential to waste/discard a lot of telephone/computer cabling that can be recycled.
3. Refilling ink cartridges does not destroy printers, and in fact most companies that refill them are useful sources of printer information and warranty their product against repairs.
4. It makes me smile to pay a little bit more for recycled paper products – and they are in fact very little more.
5. Driving slower not only improves gas usage, it makes you calmer at the end of the day.
6. People don’t care if you send them electronic invoices, as long as you clear it with them first.
7. Energy efficient light bulbs don’t put out nearly as much light, but if you mix and match you can come up with a workable solution.
8. Washing coffee cups and water glasses doesn’t take that much time.

While the changes we are making aren’t sexy, and exciting, and certainly won’t make a difference on any global scale, they have reduced our trash pickup by at least 75% - and make us feel like we’re trying.  The things I have learned that made a difference in our office and may make a difference in yours:Recycling and separating has to be easy, or people won’t do it.  And the plastic grocery bags are the worst.  We finally bought these little plastic wall holders from Ikea for a couple of dollars each; they aren’t ugly and you just stuff the bags in them; when the container is full, throw all the bags in one and throw it in your car and take it to the store with you the next time.  Most grocery stores and WalMart will take back plastic bags.People will use coffee cups and glasses if they are obviously, sparkly, no doubt-about-it clean; if you use water bottles again make sure there is a container nearby to dispose of them in.  The same goes for soda cans.  Companies make clever little boxes for offices just for this purpose, or just label small trash cans.Paper is the devil.  It’s everywhere!!  I actually print on both sides of most of it, and recycle all of it.  A small irritation I discovered – shredded paper is not considered recyclable by the City of Phoenix, so we actually shred it, bag it in small amounts in the also-irritating grocery bags, and use it for packing when we ship equipment in for repair or to our customers. The biggest impact we made in our sustainability effort deals with metal and cardboard.  As a telecom company, we do two things:  We pull a lot of telephone/network cabling, and we install and de-install a lot of hardware.  This results in our biggest waste issue:  cardboard, cable ends, and unusable or old equipment.   Historically, the practice in our industry (or any construction-related industry) is to just throw all this excess in the on-site dumpsters.  About a year ago, we decided to stop doing that and seeing if there was a more sensible way to reuse or reclaim some of this material, and recycle any we could of the remainder.  Almost overnight, our shop garage started looking like a construction dumpster… so new rules had to be put into place.Whenever possible, we give away old phones and ends of cable boxes, but our supply always exceeds the demand.  The biggest problem is the boxes of cable that are too short to be used for anything; each box made of cardboard, has anywhere from 10 to 50 feet of cable inside, and has either a plastic or metal spool that the cable is wrapped around.  We have to remove the cable, remove the spool, and flatten the cardboard; things we never really even thought about before.  About 6 months ago, we got a big wooden box and started throwing all the bits and pieces of cable in it just to see how much we accumulate.  The old equipment just lies around until someone claims it, and the cardboard was requiring a trip to the city dump about every month just to get rid of it. The point of this long-winded description?  It all came together when we kept hearing  stories about copper being stolen for its value.  Which resulted in us calling a local recycling company, Arizona Environmental Recycling, who sent a representative out to visit with us and discuss their recycling business.  We set up an account with them, and now whenever our copper bin is full, we send a truck to their yard and not only do we get paid for the copper, they also take our cardboard, and any old phone equipment that we will never be able to give away.  They don’t pay money for anything but the copper, which wasn’t the point anyway - - we are just trying to somewhat-easily not add to the local landfills.  The check for the copper covers the cost and time of all the material breakdown and getting the delivery made, so we make a difference without spending a lot of money to do so.I know this has very little to do with phone systems and technology, but its just one story of how you can make a difference more than you think you can.  Maybe next year we’ll invent something really sexy – like solar VoIP services carried over wind-driven phone services….

June 2008 - Sustainability and our Small Business

As mentioned in the last entry, we have added phones to our free equipment inventory. The following is a list of what we have in stock at this time:

Partner MLS 12 and 6 non-display phones

White MLX 10DP phones

Black MLX 5D and MLX5 phones

Spirit 6 and 24 button phones, both black and white

0200 Cards for Partner (used to add 2 lines to older systems)

Partner II Expansion Modules

Miscellaneous ATL cards for Legend; will not work on Magix

Cable pieces, ranging from 20 to 95 feet, both CAT3 and CAT5

If you are interested, please call us or email us to get a copy of the flyer that describes how this program works.

Free Equipment Summary

Free Phone Giveaway..

To all of those of you who are still using Spirits and Merlins - thank you for helping us go green!! For those of you using older Merlin Legends and Partner systems - we would like to invite you to join our premiere green initiative. We are adding non-display MLS sets, white MLX sets, ATL boards, 0200 Partner boards, and selected other vintage equipment to our “Free Stuff” program. The program is basically just what it says - if we have something you need, we will give it to you for free.

This allows us to reduce our contributions to the local landfills and gives both us and our customers an opportunity to put a name with a face. To date, we have given away approximately 40 telephone sets and untold “near empty” boxes of cable. Now if only someone needed cardboard….

Have you Checked your Phone Bill Lately?

It’s not exactly “going green”, but I have been doing a lot of work on T1’s, DSL, Cox high-speed Internet, and regular line billing issues lately. And it seems to me that the “price” many businesses are paying for less-costly bandwidth is a lack of attention to detail that ends up in a LOT of mis-billing. Strangely enough, it is very rarely in the client’s favor… I have uncovered errors in almost every analysis we have done; both with existing long-term clients and those we have just been introduced to. Many errors are due to service changes where lines are missed; for example, a client installed a new T1 and their old vendor neglected to disconnect their ISDN line. In a world where you receive many bills for services, and some of the explanations are unclear (have you looked at your home cable TV bill lately? I don’t understand it even after its explained to me, so I just give up) there are way too many opportunities to just move on to more important things. If you haven’t had someone look at your overall communications costs lately, please do so; it is a service we provide at no charge.

Our VoIP Experience

VoIP - we finally took the plunge and installed the Avaya One X Quick Edition VoIP system in our office. I miss my Merlin Magix (it’s still hanging on the wall in case I choose to go back) but I think its more a matter of my knowledge level than anything else. Some things I really like about the system? Ease of installation - wow - after a couple of hours going through the web-based programming, you would never need an installer again. And forget all the little wires we punch down every time you need a phone moved/added/etc. This thing just plugs into your network and goes. I don’t have a POE switch, so I have to have external power to each phone, but other than that the ease of use is second-to-none. It has some size limitations and the cost per phone is a little higher than the Partner ACS, but for small operations looking for ease of use and self-installation, it would be hard to beat. I am going to be learning about SIP trunking next…maybe in a later newsletter.

Headsets and other Phone Toys…

The number one most requested item on our WEB site is the headset compatibility guide. We are seeing more and more people using headsets, especially the Plantronics wireless CS55. If you have a Legend or Magix, you will need a different lifter to use the CS55 effectively, and if you choose to go wired and have a Partner, there is a base we can provide that allows you to use the headset without having to lift the reciever (which the standard M12 Plantronics amplifier does not do.) And..if you have a Legend, Magix, or Definity, there are buttons that can be programmed that allow you to use the headset without lifting the receiver, as well. So that is the abbreviated version of headsets and Lucent/Avaya equipment; you can always call us for more information.

Other phone toys? (Only I would get excited about things you can do to your phone..) If you don’t have background music, call us. There is an inexpensive cable (less than $10) that can be added to any Partner system and most IP Office systems that allows you to connect your music source to your system, or keep posted for an upcoming vendor profile for America on Hold, a local studio that produces personalized background recordings with a promotional message for your business.

A little more costly “toy” - unified messaging - can be installed on virtually any existing telephone system as a voice mail replacement. Unified Messaging allows your voice mails to be forwarded to your email as .wav files, which allows you to check for messages in one place, and save important messages on your computer as necessary. Many systems also have a built in fax board capability, allowing faxes to be received on your server.

Newsletter Blogging??

This is our first (I hope of many) blogs. We are trying our hardest to be a reliable source of information and advice. The industry is so exciting, and can be so overwhelming, so receiving good, objective advice is more important than ever. Please let us know how we can help you