Our automatic dialing system which we developed for Gandía Integra enhances the capacity of the surveying platforms that use the survey program, as it reduces the time required for telephone management. In turn, the Asterisk (PBX) telephone exchange (included in the product) enhances the telephony capabilities of the company, since it has unlimited expansion capabilities thanks to its modular architecture which allows multiple control units to be clustered to work as a single unit with twice the capacity. This avoids the need to upgrade the machines when they exceed their capabilities, as is happening with other conventional telephone switchboards.
Asterisk PBX has by default not only the same functionality as the most advanced products on the market, but also offers other features that no other switchboard can currently offer.
The system is designed to support large numbers of simultaneous users, even remote operators via the Internet, since it supports multiple IP telephony systems as standard, and also a large selection of codecs with varying levels of bandwidth consumption.
For This reason, as well as being an autodialer, it is a complete, advanced telephony solution that averts investment in telephone switchboards and a connectivity infrastructure that can not be reused, and whatsmore on lower-level hardware.
Arquitecture
For the interconnection of telephone lines and telephones, telephone cards are usually required. The initial investment depends on the client and their current infrastructure.
A good example would be an ISDN PRI PCI card (30 lines) Which is about €1,000. This is hardware and would therefore constitute a single payment.
The product is installed on a PC or server (recommended architecture 64 bits with an AMD Opteron).
The system is parameterized for high performance, guaranteeing it uses its full hardware capacity.
Integra on Linux
The installation of Integra on Linux by Eurogarán is taylor-made and adapted specifically to obtain the best out of the hardware, which makes the system faster and there fore increasing its capacity for a higher workload. The principal advantages of this system are its robustness, its grand capacity to be upgraded without provoking downtime for its services and its low incidence rate, also reducing costs considerably by permitting a higher amount of of connected users (over a few hundred on a system with Opteron processors).
It s a highly secure system, which can receive internet connections without worry, given that it is intrinsically immune to viruses and has highly advanced protection measures, including an integrated firewall.
It comes prepared for remote maintenance from Eurogaran's offices, which guarantees a rapid response to incidents. Eurogaran's monitorization software is directly connected to the technicians' mobile telephones, avoiding having to wait when an intervention is needed.
Switchboard
Eurogaran's Asterisk PBX telephone switchboard is a telephone system software installed on Debian GNU/Linux that offers, as default, all the telephone features of the most powerful switchboards on the market as well as other newer features which are exclusive to this system. Like its huge capacity for integration with computer systems of any kind. It's opensource software and therefore has no need for paid licences, only the cost of the installation. it comes with the autodialer included at no extra cost.
It has guaranteed compatibility with practically all existing telephone systems (some through telephone cards or gateways), whether they are IP, analogue or digital telephones, apart from some proprietary systems.
The system can also be extended however much is necessary through hardware extensions or adding other systems which coexist to work as a single switchboard (clusterization), therefore machines are never discarded which can't be upgraded to exceed their capacity, which is what happens with conventional switchboard software.
Characteristics
The system is usually implemented internally between IP telephone-based offices, which avoids the need to install telephone wiring for internal extensions throughout the company, since connectivity is achieved over the company's network. This system allows the amplification of the networks capacity by just adding an extra ethernet switch with more ports to the network, which also facilitates the ability to place a telephone anywhere there is an ethernet port.
For those companies who already have internal telephone cables, there is no need to abandon them, as there is a large range of products which can convert an analogue phone into a digital one or digital to IP, at quite a low cost.
Asterisk has its own IP protocol called IAX which facilitates its deployment and avoids complications when connecting over the internet, which can be caused by other protocols like SIP or H323 when they have to pass through firewalls or NAT systems.
It supports a large mount of codecs, which permit up to 63 simultaneous conversations over symmetric 1 Mbit/s lines.
It's an easily programmable system which is highly adaptable to clients' necessities
Standard Features
The following features come as standard:
- Programmable voice menus.
- Operator queues.
- Unlimited voicemail boxes.
- Call transfer.
- Call parking.
- Multi-conference.
- Video-conference.
- Messaging.
- Directory service.
- Call redirection.
- Call waiting and Call on hold.
- Music or other message while waiting.
- Call Monitoring and recording.
- Answerphone detection (AMD).
- Integration with TTS engine (speech synthesis).
- Integration with telephone systems.
- Integration with computers.
- Web statistics according to customers' needs
3 PRI (primary RDSI) can be managed without problem on a single machine (60 digital lines in Europe) although we do exhaustive parameterization to ensure maximum utilization of hardware resources.
The auto dialer has three different prediction modes
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Call prediction specification (The ability to specify more anticipated calls than the quantity of active operators)
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Call prediction percentage specification (Percentage of extra calls over the amount of operators).
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Progress mode: The next call is prepared and queued ready for when the operator finishes the current survey.
Auto-dialer
The automatic dialing program simultaneously calls a list of given numbers and automatically disregards unanswered calls, engaged numbers, answering machines, non-existent numbers, and only passes a call to the operator once it has connected.
If Integra is on Linux, it can be installed on the same machine as the automatic dialer and the telephone exchange.
Automatic answer phone detection
The detection process requires the system to distinguish between the answer-phones' messages and the a real person. This detection process requires the analysis of the first few moments when a call is answered, this usually means there is a pause (of around 2,5 seconds) before the call is passed to an operator. The answer-phone is detected according to how many words are spoken before the phone hangs up, and also the frequency. This method, which is also one that other products use, isn't 100% reliable, and why many companies choose to deactivate it and leave the work to the operator. With our system, this process is completely configurable, can be activated or deactivated at any given moment, can be adjusted depending on which type of lines the platform is using, and their level of quality etc.
Hardware Requirements
It is necessary to connect the lines to be used directly to the server, either via IP, conventional analog telephone or digital phone, which in the last two cases involves the acquisition of networking hardware, which will vary depending on the characteristics of current telephone technology that company uses. The same goes for the phones, which can be connected via an IP based telephone system (IP phones connect directly, analog telephones with adapters). This infrastructure will vary according to each particular case.
Software phones can be used with headphones plugged directly into the computer's USB ports or to the PC sound card of the interviewer's computer.
Advantages of Integra on Linux vs Integra on Windows
Robustness and Reliability
Systems that run on Linux are far more robust and reliable than Windows machines. Windows machines begin losing speed from day one and continues to be corrupted as time goes on, whereas with Linux, 10 after the installation, the system is exactly the same, performance wise, as at its first installation.
In addition, GNU / Linux does not hang, and has regular bug fix updates (usually daily), so they tend to evolve faster and remain far more stable.
Configurability
The Linux kernel and the programs that run on it are usually free software, which allows a level of parameterization which is far more refined than proprietary systems like Windows. Therefore, a Linux-based installation can be finely tuned to an extent that is impossible on a Windows-based system. The Linux system can be adapted to perform better under specific conditions that would otherwise be considered suboptimal.
Features which are not being used can also be disabled which leaves an optimal system that does not waste time on tasks that are unnecessary and use vital rresources.
The Linux kernel can be adapted to the hardware to get maximum performance, which can not be achieved with Windows.
Speed and Load Capacity
Linux systems are much faster than Windows, even if both were installed with standard defaults. This makes a generic installation of Integra on Linux far responsive than on Windows due to it's default load capacity, even without tuning the system. However, Eurogaran fine-tunes the system to get the most out of the hardware, which translates to even more power and performance. We have never had an Integra system frozen on a Linux server due to lack of resources. We can document cases in which a web server was constantly receiving over 700 concurrent connections at one time on a web server without any problems or speed reduction, and all completely transparent to the operator.
We have simulated performance tests with over 1000 operators on a modest machine with no adverse effects .
Security
Linux-based systems are designed with safety as one of the main points. Therefore, standard Linux has mechanisms that prevent the spread of viruses, making it very difficult infect. Whats more, the few viruses that were developed for Linux only worked on a specific operating system and were eliminated quickly due to constant security updates. Windows, on the other hand, regarding security has always been lacking, which makes it vulnerable, constantly to every type of threat. This obligates the user to install various protection programs, but never results in a completely secure system. The security measures actually hinder the system further as an average 3rd party firewall and antivirus combination will eat up to 30% of the system resources.
Updates
Debian GNU/Linux usually releases updates and upgrades daily, which means for a regularly updated, secure system. There are also thousands of developers working together to improve and update the system, correct any errors as well as staying on top of possible security issues. Meanwhile there are hundreds of thousands of users reporting incidents and contributing to the code with patches and suggestions. The update program that Eurogaran uses guarantees that the clients' server is continually updated periodically whenever necessary, and that the updates generate the least possible disruption for the client (avoiding service downtime as critical updates are only performed outside of work/production hours).
With Windows you are lucky if you get an update every 6 months. There are reported bugs which after two years still have not been resolved. Normally the solution which you are given is to "reinstall" or something similar. This is beacuse they can't have the same amount of people as Debian available, as many of the Debian developers are voluntary, and all the volunteers receive and act on feedback from each other, resulting in a system with an unprecedented quality.
In addition, the Debian GNU / Linux update system is very powerful, and allows updates to take place without stopping any services the vast majority of the time. You are notified at the beginning if any critical updates will require a restart, so you have greater control over the process. This is how Eurogaran can offer low-cost maintenance that includes updates.
Adaptación
GNU/Linux systems are based primarily on Free/Open Source software, which provides access to the source code and allows developers access to customize any specific part of it.
Variety of software
Debian GNU/Linux currently has over 26.000 software applications, which makes it far more complete than Windows. There are programs for every type of task and it also has an installation/update system which makes it very easy to to download and install applications from secure servers over the internet, which puts all this easy to get, affordable software within your reach.
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