Applications

Sprint ISDN is ideal for a wide variety of business applications. Companies of every size and in every industry boost productivity and manage costs by:

Sprint ISDN features functionality, speed, call quality and simultaneous multi-use capabilities that boost users' productivity while saving you valuable time and money, compared to standard analog service.

A 10-agent independent agency that represents several major insurance carriers switched from analog to ISDN BRI service to integrate and speed its communications. Agents spend much of their time talking on the phone with clients, but they often couldn't handle client questions or policy service matters in one phone call. With limited lines, they would have to hang up, do their research and call back, frequently missing the client. With one BRI line assigned to each agent, the need for callbacks happens much less often. Agents can talk with clients while using a dial-up Internet connection to query insurance carrier databases for answers about rates, underwriting rules, claim status and the like. Multiple call appearances mean agents don't miss important client calls when on the phone. Customers are getting better, faster service and agents are getting more done in fewer calls. In a key system environment, ISDN can be used to carry the key trunk.

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Companies of all sizes are finding the Internet essential for communications, managing supplier and partner relationships, serving customers and reaching new ones. Sprint ISDN provides fast, reliable, low-cost connections to effectively use the Internet for business applications like:

• Providing company information
• Providing marketing material to customers
• Reducing operating costs
• Highlighting promotions or special deals
• Selling products online

A retail store has developed a Web site and has begun engaging in e-commerce. The store currently has a single line, so when a customer is referencing the store's Web site, employees cannot access the site at the same time, causing great inconvenience for the store's employees. The store can purchase an ISDN BRI line, which will enable them to access the Internet and use the phone at the same time.

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Telecommuting and Remote LAN Access

Companies and workers are embracing telecommuting as a win-win solution that boosts productivity, reduces costs and helps attract and keep good people. Under Clean Air laws, companies in large metropolitan areas see telecommuting as a way to help lower pollution levels by reducing traffic. Sprint ISDN BRI enables teleworkers to communicate with colleagues, customers and the company LAN as effectively from home or their remote office as from their company desk.

A major computer solutions company widened its appeal as a desirable employer and good environmental citizen by enabling more than 400 of its engineers, programmers and managers to work from home. Company-supported ISDN lines in employee homes provide a high-speed connection to the corporate LAN plus versatile voice, fax and data communications. Employees have greater flexibility in choosing their work schedule and location without sacrificing the computing speed and functionality they enjoy in the office. The company is able to recruit and retain top employees in the tight high-tech labor market while cutting costs and absentee rates.

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ISPs use Sprint ISDN PRI to speed subscriber connections and reduce their costs. PRI allows you to aggregate both digital ISDN BRI and analog modem dial-up connections with one link and phone number. This eliminates the need for separate hunt groups and the costs for additional modem racks and T1 lines to support analog service. ISDN's out-of-band (D channel) signaling speeds connection set-up, resulting in increased subscriber satisfaction and the ability to handle more subscribers per channel.

A small but growing ISP is adding its 250th customer. The traffic is outstripping the capacity of the 30 B1s with modems that the ISP currently uses to support the calling demand of its customers. The new access router the company is considering can be ordered with 1.544 Mbps interfaces, which can be configured in software to use ISDN PRI.

For this ISP, the next step will be to replace the B1s with two PRIs. The 48 B channels will provide for the required growth, higher speed data access (up to 64 kbps per channel for end users with ISDN BRI lines) and faster call set-ups. This will eliminate busy signals and provide customers with a higher level of service.

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Sprint ISDN PRI provides a versatile PBX trunk solution for connecting a business's PBX to a Sprint central office. ISDN PRI dynamically reconfigures B channels to handle changing traffic needs, which can save you the expense of the extra trunks required in a traditional trunking solution.

An electronics manufacturing company extended the capabilities of its PBX and reduced costs by more than 20% by switching from private line to ISDN PRI trunking. Instead of maintaining separate dedicated trunk groups for direct inward dial, direct outward dial, data, incoming toll-free and special services, all services were consolidated on fewer multi-purpose ISDN PRI trunks. Before the change, customers often experienced busy signals when calling during peak periods. Now with ISDN's dynamic ability to allocate channels to any function, as needed, customers nearly always get through and are able to conduct their business.

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Sprint ISDN PRI, in conjunction with a PBX, enables a call center to leverage network intelligence to improve productivity and customer service while reducing costs. D channel signaling delivers telephone numbers of incoming calls, which computer telephony integration (CTI) devices can use to automate call handling.

A large health insurance company wanted to improve productivity and customer service at its 80-agent call center. Policyholders, as well as hospitals, HMOs and other health care providers, call the center to check on coverage, eligibility and claims. The agent receiving a call had to ask the policyholder's name and then key it in to retrieve the record from the central mainframe. By changing to ISDN PRI service with CTI equipment, the center substantially improved call handling. The new CTI system uses network-provided calling number identification and also captures caller-entered information. It then accesses the mainframe database and sends a screen pop to the agent simultaneously with the call. Agents can provide more responsive service and handle more calls per shift. Also, policyholders can key in queries and receive fax-back responses without involving an agent.

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Sprint ISDN service is the ideal solution if you need to back up networks carrying mission-critical traffic like financial transactions, customer orders and sales information. Network downtime is costly, risks loss of customers, and can bring business operations to a halt. At a fraction of the cost of a separate leased line, ISDN service is available as needed when disaster strikes to reestablish lost communications.

A financial services company relies on frame relay service to link its corporate headquarters and branch offices. Transactions must flow smoothly and without interruption in order to keep pace with business and not lose sales to competitors. When the company went looking for the best means to back up its wide area network, it chose ISDN PRI because of its speed and low cost. If a router detects a network failure, it automatically dials an alternative connection using ISDN PRI. Business continues almost without interruption while network service is restored.

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Face-to-face meetings via videoconferencing can significantly reduce travel costs, and promote faster consensus-building and decision-making. Sprint ISDN is exceptionally fitted to videoconferencing — to the desktop or the conference room. Using PRI or multiple BRI lines, channel bonding enables dynamic bandwidth allocation to support the high transmission rates (typically 64 kbps to 384 kbps) that video requires. And when not used for video, channels can be assigned to other data or voice uses. Using PRI's D channel, your employees can exchange supporting information (e.g., text and graphic files) while videoconferencing.

ISDN provided the ideal solution for improving customer service and cutting costs in a large regional bank's mortgage department. Each of the bank's 100 branch locations had just one dedicated mortgage loan officer. When the loan officer in a branch was not available, customers couldn't be served, even though loan officers in other branches often were idle. Bank managers decided to centralize the loan specialists and place videoconferencing kiosks in each branch. Dial-up ISDN service (BRI in small branches, PRI in larger) connects kiosks to the central location. Customers can interact face-to-face with a mortgage loan expert via these terminals. More customers are served, and the mortgage department needs fewer loan officers because workload is evenly distributed.

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Security protection often requires integrating and transmitting information from multiple surveillance devices such as video cameras and intrusion detectors to a monitoring center. Sprint ISDN provides the high-bandwidth, versatile communications that you need for these systems to protect your personnel and property.

A city school system dramatically improved classroom safety and security and cut insurance costs by using ISDN BRI lines to connect surveillance systems at its 44 schools to a central monitoring station. Using BRI's three channels, security cameras provide continuous video feeds over one channel, while alarm control information from motion detectors, heat sensors and other sources are sent on a second channel. Technicians at the central station monitor school activity around the clock. After the security system was installed, burglaries, vandalism and other crime were quickly brought under control, and the school administration qualified for lower insurance rates, saving thousands of dollars each year. With the system's help, security officers can identify weapons, drug activity, fights and trespassing, so they can act quickly to impose appropriate control. A bit uncomfortable at first about the continuous surveillance, students and teachers now feel safer in their classrooms and on school grounds.

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Credit card sales are the lifeblood of commerce for businesses in all markets. The ability to efficiently verify credit and process transactions with card companies is often key to making a sale and building good customer relationships.

A growing retail gift company with several stores cut customer wait times and improved checkout processing by switching to ISDN BRI for credit card transactions. With analog service, purchase approvals could take minutes, often waiting for a free line when clerks were on the phone. With ISDN, a channel is always available, connections to credit card companies are made virtually instantaneously and approvals come through in seconds. Checkout lines are shorter, and clerks have more time to give customers personalized service.

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