You might be wondering; how does this change affect your Careline service? Well, we’re here to help you understand.

What is the Switch off about?

Openreach, the UK’s largest telecoms & broadband network provider, is switching off copper cables in 2025, because it is part of a national effort to modernise the country’s telecommunications infrastructure. Copper cables, which have been in use for over a century, are not capable of providing the faster broadband speeds and higher bandwidths required by modern digital services.

What does this mean for you? It means that you will no longer be able to use your traditional landline phone and broadband service as you do today. Instead, you will need to switch to a digital service, such as fibre broadband and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) also known as digital voice services, to ensure that you can still make calls and access the internet.

How does the digital switchover affect Careline?

With the digital switchover, there may be questions about the performance of Careline’s service, especially as your alarm system is connected to a traditional phone line. While certain adaptors can be used to facilitate the transition to the new digital system, it’s essential to note that these alarm systems weren’t initially designed for this purpose.

Is there an alternative version of Careline’s service?

Absolutely! The Careline’s Digital Alarm Unit serves as an alternative to the traditional Careline service. The Digital Alarm Unit is a state-of-the-art system. Simply plug it into a power socket, and it’s ready to use. The unit is equipped with a SIM card (used in mobile phones), where it can contact Careline’s dedicated team swiftly when assistance is needed. Additionally, this system operates even during power outages, thanks to its 40–70-hour backup battery.

How and when should you transition to Careline’s Digital Alarm Unit?

Transitioning to Careline’s Digital Alarm Unit is a straightforward process. To get started, please reach out to Careline Community Service via phone at 01553 616200 or email careline.operators@west-norfolk.gov.uk. Their dedicated team will guide you through the transition smoothly. To ensure a seamless switch, it is advisable to make the transition before the digital switchover takes place, allowing you to have your new equipment ready well in advance.

In summary, the digital switchover is transforming the telecommunications landscape, impacting traditional care industries alarm systems. Careline’s Digital Alarm Unit offers a modern and dependable solution to ensure your safety in the digital era.

For any inquiries or assistance with the transition, do not hesitate to contact Careline Community Services. RLS Computer Services and Careline Community Service are dedicated to your well-being, no matter how technology evolves.

Further Reading

https://www.careline-cs.org.uk/products/careline-home-alarm/

Careline Digital Switchover Information Flyer

Great news! Hosted voice is an excellent solution for businesses that want a reliable and flexible communication system and RLS can now provide you with a cost effective solution to your telephone needs. Here are some additional benefits of using hosted voice:

• Easy scalability: As your business grows, you can easily add or remove phone lines without any hassle.
• Cost-effective: With hosted voice, there are no expensive hardware or maintenance costs, making it an affordable solution for businesses of all sizes.
• Improved productivity: With features like call forwarding, voicemail, and remote access, your team can stay connected and productive from anywhere.
• Enhanced customer experience: Hosted voice allows you to provide your customers with the best possible experience by ensuring that their calls are always answered promptly and professionally.

By implementing hosted voice in your business, you’re taking a big step towards modernizing your communication system and improving the way you do business. Congratulations on making the switch to RLS Hosted Communications!

Further Reading

PSTN switch off 2025

Embrace the benefits of VoIP today

So, you’ll have to make the transition to an all-IP service at some point between now and 2025. But there’s a carrot as well as a stick here. It might sound like just another problem you have to solve, but look at it another way and the ISDN switch off is a fantastic opportunity to make your business more effective.

If you want to improve communications and collaboration in your business, there are good reasons to embrace the change. VoIP is a significant upgrade on ISDN and PSTN, and the sooner you move the sooner you’ll start to see its benefits. Here are some of the benefits:

VoIP is perfect for homeworkers

If you’ve got employees working from home during the pandemic, and if you intend to retain an element of flexible or hybrid working when it ends, VoIP is the right solution at the right time. All-IP communications let workers take their work phone number wherever they go. Using softphones on computers and smartphones (even BYOD) saves on equipment costs and gives staff access to the same smart call handling features wherever they are.

If you choose to integrate VoIP with a Unified Communications (UC) solution – which combines voice with video, chat, SMS, conferencing and more – employees effectively take the office home with them. UC offers a range of sophisticated communication and collaboration tools, and makes them available to anyone with a suitable internet connection.  

VoIP is two solutions in one

VoIP can benefit your business in a number of ways. Most obviously, it’s two solutions in one, delivering voice and data on the same network. It can help simplify your infrastructure, and with it the time you have to spend on maintenance and administration. Some VoIP solutions – like Hosted Voice – do away with on-premise equipment altogether, eliminating a significant security, storage and maintenance headache.

VoIP is flexible

You can create the VoIP service that is exactly right for you. For example, a Hosted Voice solution enables organisations say goodbye to on-premise infrastructure altogether, but that might not be the best choice for everyone. If you’ve recently invested in new telecoms equipment, the switch to IP won’t make it obsolete. Just choose an IP solution, like SIP Trunking, that will combine with existing phones and your on-premise PBX to work as before.

And VoIP is flexible in another important way, too. It scales up and down easily to meet your business needs. In fact, many VoIP services let you add users at the click of a mouse through a self-serve online portal. With cloud-based solutions, adding or taking away features and permissions is just as simple.

VoIP is cost-effective

That flexibility has another advantage: it’s part of what makes VoIP so cost-effective. There’s no need to invest in extra capacity to make sure you can cover future growth or peaks in demand. Simply add or take seats away as the needs of your sales cycle or expansion plans dictate. Never pay for capacity you can’t use.

The use of cloud infrastructure and softphones also takes away equipment purchase and maintenance costs, and call charges are often lower with VoIP than with ISDN or PSTN. And in many cases, a standard per user per month charging model cuts the overall cost of communications and simplifies budgeting.

The ISDN alternative that’s right for you

As you can see, there are plenty of reasons to switch from ISDN to All-IP telephony. At the same time, not all VoIP services are the same. To get maximum benefit you need to choose the right type of IP telephony for your business needs.

That’s where we come in. We’re a BT Wholesale partner, so we offer a full range of IP telephony solutions, covering the requirements of every business size and sector. We can also advise you on the connectivity you need to ensure the smooth and efficient running of your VoIP service.

With VoIP, you don’t have to take a one-size-fits-all solution and hope for the best. If you’re a sole trader or start-up, basic IP telephony bundled with reliable broadband may be the best fit. If you’re a larger organisation – from SME to enterprise – the flexibility of hosted voice or SIP Trunking, combined with sophisticated call handling features and UC compatibility, could give you a competitive edge. The great thing about many VoIP services is that you can upgrade features as soon as you decide you need them.

So, whether you want a basic service or something you can build a full suite of features and integrations on, the benefits of IP telephony far outweigh the inconvenience of switching away from ISDN. That’s why many organisations are acting now, rather than waiting for 2025. If you want to start enjoying the benefits of an agile, efficient and cost-effective VoIP service ahead of your competitors, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

For the past few years, the world of work has been dominated by something so small it can’t even be seen with the naked eye – yes, we mean coronavirus. Thanks to the pandemic and the lockdowns that came in response, businesses have had to embrace remote working. Video calling apps like Zoom and Teams have quickly become household names. And many people have had an extended taste of working from home.

But now that vaccination programmes have been established and restrictions have been eased, is remote working simply going to fade away? Will everyone ultimately return to the office and go back to normal? Or is there now a new normal, which includes remote working?

To give you some insight into this topic, let’s look at what industry experts and businesses were saying about remote working at the height of the pandemic and what they’re saying now.

Past predictions

In the early months of the pandemic, experts were already predicting that remote working could be here to stay. In November 2020, McKinsey Global Institute published an analysis that suggested, “Hybrid models of remote work are likely to persist in the wake of the pandemic”.

Research firm Gartner published similar findings in July 2020, which showed that 82% of business leaders were planning to let staff continue working from home. 47% said it would be a permanent arrangement.

Similarly, in October 2020, a survey of 1,000 businesses by the Institute of Directors showed that 74% of managers planned to maintain the increase in remote work.

The European Commission, meanwhile, confidently declared in September 2020 that “Teleworking is here to stay”. It suggested, as many did at the time, that the pandemic had accelerated a trend that was already happening. And it pointed to the potential cost savings from remote working – including the fact that many employees would happily take a pay cut to work from home.

The remote working picture today

Fast forward a couple of years, and what are people today saying about remote working? Are businesses still enthusiastic about letting people work from home, or has the opportunity to meet people face to face again lured them back to the office?

Writing for Barron’s in January 2022, economics professor Nicholas Bloom says remote working is going nowhere – with hybrid working being the most popular flexible arrangement. He predicts that in future, 50% of employees will work fully in-person, 40% will work hybrid, and the remaining 10% will be fully remote.

Indeed, support for flexible and remote working still seems to be high. A survey by the Chartered Institute of Management in February 2022 showed continued adoption of hybrid working – with more than 80% of managers working flexibly.

Recent research by PwC, however, suggests there might have been a slight drop in support for remote working. Of the businesses it surveyed, 43% said they now offer hybrid work opportunities. And 30% say they’ve made remote working permanent for roles where it’s possible.

Regardless of whether remote working is more or less popular with businesses than it was in 2020, it’s clearly still seen as a permanent fixture by many. In a round-up of expert opinions, Forbes makes the bold prediction that, “Remote working is here to stay and will increase in 2023”.

So what next?

As predicted, remote working has stuck around – particularly in the form of hybrid working. Many businesses are open to the idea of letting their employees work flexibly, but there are some jobs and some tasks that simply cannot be done remotely.

Businesses that reject remote work completely do so at their own risk. Not only will they miss out on potential cost savings, they may find they’re unable to attract the best candidates. The majority of workers want more flexibility, and many employers are responding to that desire.

Doing remote working the right way

Despite the potential benefits, remote and hybrid working should be approached with a plan in mind. Organisations need to balance the pros and cons of allowing people to work from home. It shouldn’t be implemented just for the sake of it.

Businesses also need to have the right infrastructure in place to support remote working. If employees are working remotely, they need to be able to communicate and collaborate effectively with their colleagues. 

Technology is the key to making this work. As well as video calling apps, workers can use instant messaging, cloud software and shared spaces to stay in touch with each other and work on projects together. And thanks to cloud-based phone lines, they can make and take calls from a single phone number, no matter where they are or which device they’re using. That provides a seamless experience not just for a businesses’ employees but their customers too.

If organisations get these things right, they can reap the rewards of remote and hybrid working while keeping staff happy. Although face-to-face work will continue to be important, the last few years have opened the door to the benefits of remote working – and now everyone has seen what’s behind that door, it’s unlikely to close again.

Need help going hybrid?

We offer a range of solutions that can help. Our cloud-based phone solution Wholesale Hosted Communications (WHC) makes it easy to embrace remote and hybrid working, allowing you to access calls from anywhere, on a variety of devices. You can even make WHC calls in Microsoft Teams using WHC Teams Direct Connect. Or if you need a whole new video calling and collaboration tool, you can add Cisco Webex into the mix. Call us on 01553 776937 or email info@rlscomputers.co.uk, so we can discuss your needs and find you the right solution for your business.