D-LINK® VOICECENTER™ solves phone system headaches for EL PASO CHURCH

Del Sol Church Replaces Problematic, Costly PBX Phone System With User-Friendly D-Link VoiceCenter Solution.

FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif.— D-Link today announced it is providing a state-of-the-art Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) solution for an El Paso, Texas church that once had to scour eBay to find replacement parts for its aging PBX phone system.

The Del Sol Church was operating an older, traditional digital PBX system that was quickly becoming technically obsolete. As time wore on, it became increasingly difficult to replace parts and phones.

“When a card started to fail, we’d have to scour eBay to find a replacement part,” said Creighton Bell, director of technology for the church. “Same thing with the phones. If someone broke a handset, we’d have to just hope that we could find a vendor out there that could replace it. Then we would have to wait for shipping and endure several days of downtime waiting for replacement equipment. It just wasn’t working for us.”

In searching for a cost-effective, easy-to-deploy, easy-to-support VoIP system, Bell discovered D-Link’s VoIP solutions. “We were in the process of upgrading the core backbone between the buildings,” said Bell. “We were using D-Link switches for the project and noticed some information about VoIP systems on the D-Link company Web site.”

The Del Sol Church opted for the D-Link® VoiceCenter™ for Microsoft® Response Point™ 10-Phone Kit (DVX-2000MS-10) and seven additional DPH-125MS phones. D-Link VoiceCenter is IP-based and designed for small to medium-sized businesses (SMB) with support for up to 50 users.

“VoiceCenter provides numerous advantages over traditional PSTN (analog) phone systems while retaining the reliability of PSTN phone lines for accepting inbound and making outbound calls,” said Bell. Unlike previous generations of complicated, hard-to-use IP-based products, VoiceCenter is easy to install, manage, and maintain, making it an ideal solution for organizations -- such as the Del Sol church -- seeking a full-featured, cost-effective phone system.

Users of D-Link VoiceCenter can access nearly every feature of the phone system by pressing the blue Response Point button located on the phone Users can reach anyone in their company directory or Microsoft Outlook contacts by simply saying the person’s name: “call Joe Smith.” They can also transfer, park and retrieve calls the same way. Voicemail features allow users to retrieve, forward and archive messages from their phone or e-mail. Male and female voices are recognized without needing to voice-train the system.

Del Sol began using D-Link’s VoiceCenter in October 2007, and immediately experienced relief. For starters, the system was “very easy to install,” according to Bell. “That’s one of the strongest features. The components easily attach. There’s an Ethernet line on each phone that connects into a local area network (LAN) port. It doesn’t require a rocket scientist.”

“We installed the phone at two of the Del Sol Church campuses, the ones that are networked and have office staff. We completed deployment of the 17-phone system in less than a day,” Bell said.

“If you can set up Christmas lights on a Christmas tree, you can set up a D-Link phone system,” he added. “The devices are easily configured using Windows software. They spot each other across the network.”

Each phone user controls the call routing rules from a simple Windows applet. “The users don’t have to call a phone guy or a computer guy to set it up or change things,” said Bell. “It’s really nice. You don’t have to read a book. In fact, there was no documentation when we started the beta program. Our D-Link representative said we didn’t need anything. He said, ’your mother could set this up,’ and he was right.”

D-Link Product Information

DVX-2000MS-10 VoiceCenter IP-based Phone System

* A Microsoft® Response Point™ Phone System
* Designed with simplicity in mind: easy to install, use and manage
* Scalable - add up to 50 phones and phone lines to a network
* No fees of licenses required for adding more phones or gateways
* Auto phone and gateway discovery feature makes installing hardware quick and easy
* One-touch voice-activated dialing and voicemail access
* Automated attendant for directing incoming/transferring/parking/retrieving calls
* 3-way call-conferencing
* Voicemail to email forwarding
* Incoming call notification on PC
* Microsoft Outlook contact integration
* Two-click backup and restore