Voxcom has been named by Business Review Weekly (BRW) magazine as one of Australia’s fastest growing companies.

The BRW Fast 100 list ranks Australia’s fastest growing, public and private, small and medium businesses. The quality of the BRW Fast 100 2011 was as high as ever, as businesses and entrepreneurs from all of Australia’s major vertical industries presented the solid business practices required to deliver significant growth in a downturn.

Voxcom attributes it’s success to three primary factors:

• Legendary customer service that is fast, friendly and local (based 100% in Melbourne, Australia)
• A national private network which delivers all of the benefits and cost savings of voice over IP (VoIP) without the downsides
• A value proposition which delivers guaranteed cost savings to our customers while being true to our values.

Voxcom continues to set itself apart from the large carriers by offering Australian businesses a solution based approach to their telecommunications needs rather than a “cookie cutter” product based approach.

As the large carriers continue to outsource their customer service offshore, Voxcom is committed to supporting the local economy and providing customers with a local service experience.

In a positive move for consumers who are increasingly mobile, today the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) announced it would make calls to freecall 1800 numbers free for mobile users.

While traditionally landline callers can call 1800 numbers for free, mobile users are typically charged a timed “per minute” fee to call 1800 numbers.

The proposal will also see call charges to 1300 numbers changed to reflect pricing parity with fixed lines. Fixed line callers traditionally pay an “untimed” local call fee to call 1300 numbers, however mobile callers are typically charged a timed “per minute” rate.

This is excellent news for both consumers and holders of 1300 and 1800 numbers and is likely to increase take up of 1300 and 1800 numbers among businesses.

As reported by news.com.au some of the other big winners are young Australians in need who’ll be able to get free access to vital services such as Kids Helpline.

Voxcom applauds ACMA’s proposal which is an important step toward more transparent tolling of landline and mobile telecommunications services.

Several news sources are reporting that Telstra are moving up to 300 jobs to India. Earlier this year its new chief executive David Thodey wouldn’t rule out some call centre jobs going offshore as the telco looked to cut costs.

The Australian
ZDNet
IT News

Last night ABC’s Four Corners program aired this special presentation on the national broadband network (NBN)

Optus CEO Paul O’Sullivan has suggested splitting up the NBN into geographical regions to level the playing field. This is similar to what the US Government did in the mid ‘70s to break up the monopoly telco AT&T into “baby Bells” (smaller regional phone companies) to increase competition.

The wisdom of creating a new government owned monopoly telco is questioned by many in the industry. The fear is that competition could suffer as Telstra’s $11 billion deal with NBN Co would give it a huge advantage in buying market share as customers move to the NBN.

If Telstra is given an advantage in the new NBN world, it could severely impair competition for many years to come. This is an even greater risk with the NBN as it is expected services delivered via the NBN such as TV, broadband, voice and cloud services will be much more sticky than they are today where it is relatively easy to change providers.

Mike Quigley (NBN Co CEO) and Mike Kaiser (Principal of Government Relations and External Affairs) recently presented an update on the NBN rollout at the Communications Alliance Broadband and Beyond conference.

Their presentations are available online here.

While most of the competitive phone companies charge for calls in 1 second increments instead of 30 seconds, as is common by most of the large phone companies, Telstra has shocked the industry by going back the other way.

Now instead of charging in 30 second blocks, which in itself is a classic telco rip off tactic, they’ll now be charging in blocks of 60 seconds!

So a 5 second call that goes to voicemail will be billed for 60 seconds.

While consumers rightly feel ripped off, it is understandable from Telstra’s perspective. What can they do to report increased revenue numbers when their market share keeps going down? Raise prices of course!

In this video post we discuss five tips that will help you choose a VoIP/phone company for your business:

Queensland Flood Disaster
This post is for businesses is affected by recent flood events. In response to the unprecedented flood disaster in QLD, Voxcom is making the following rapid response services available to all affected businesses:

Emergency Voicemail-to-Email
This service can instantly free up your mobile phone from redirected business calls and can send callers to a pre-recorded voice message followed by voicemail.

Voicemail messages are delivered to your specified email address as .WAV attachments. This will allow your business to keep lines of communications open and allow you to respond to customer voicemail in a systematic manner. This is quick and easy to implement and will have your business telecommunications functioning again within minutes.

Emergency Fax-to-Email
Similar to the above, this solution allows you to keep receiving all inbound fax messages and have them redirected to your email address as .PDF attachments. Faxes can also be sent directly from your email account.

Emergency Conference Calling Service
This service allows you to quickly establish a conferencing service without the need for prior booking. Our service can handle up to 200 conference participants at a time, can be setup in minutes and available for use immediately. We have in-dial numbers in every major capital city including Brisbane and Gold Coast.

To arrange any of the above please call our customer care team on 1800 869 266

Voxcom will prioritise the installation and replacement of PBX phone system equipment to businesses in Brisbane QLD flood affected areas. If you are a business that has been affected by the recent flooding crisis and need your phone system repaired or replaced, please contact our customer care team on 1800 869 266.

We have PABX and IP PBX hardware spares in stock. QLD flood affected businesses will receive priority as spares are in limited supply. Currently we have spares on hand for the following phone system vendors:

• Cisco
• Avaya
• Epygi
• Zultys
• Digium / Asterisk

We are also able to get Alcatel, LG Aria, Commander and Nortel spares on short notice.