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VOICE MESSAGING SERVICE NYNEX Voice Messaging Service is a variety of voice processing services that can be combined to provide solutions for call answering and call distribution for business customers. Four Service Levels have been designed to meet your particular needs: Voice Messaging Service Call Answering Voice Mail Call Processing Optional VMS Features Benefits of VMS How to Get VMS VOICE MESSAGING SERVICE Currently Centrex and Intellipath II customers can subscribe to any number of mailboxes with one or more types of services, such as Call Answering, Voice Mail, Automated Attendant, and Information Mailboxes. For our New York customers, the service is available on a month-to-month basis for up to 25 mailboxes, or with a 12 to 120 month service agreement for customers with over 25 mailboxes. Some features are available on certain service agreement periods only; some features are restricted to Service Level III and/or IV customers. One SMDI link connects VMS with the switch and is required for each switch. A common hunt group is provisioned in each switch for all residence and small business (both POTS and Centrex/Intellipath II) customers. All these customers use the same access number to retrieve their messages. Exchange usage charges are incurred when a call is forwarded to a mailbox and when a user retrieves messages. No line or port charges apply. Larger business customers (over 25 mailboxes) need to order their own hunt group for Call Answering and Voice Mail. The size of the hunt group is determined according to a traffic engineering table. Call processing applications should be supported by their own hunt groups which are sized according to expected traffic. Return to top. CALL ANSWERING Call Answering works much like an answering machine. When the station user does not answer or is busy on the line, the calls are forwarded to the person's mailbox. Service Level I customers (less than 26 mailboxes) can only subscribe to VMS on a month-to-month basis and will incur usage charges for all calls forwarded to their mailboxes and for every call to retrieve messages from their mailbox. This is the only additional expense over the mailbox rate. Service Level III and IV customers (26+ mailboxes) pay for the number of CTX or Intellipath lines in the hunt group and for mailboxes based on the service agreement. CTX or Intellipath lines for the hunt group can be either new or spare from existing contract with the same line rates plus UCD charges. Call Answering is available in three sizes: Basic Mailbox Up to 30 messages stored for up to 30 days; each message can be up to three minutes long for Service Level IV and up to two minutes for Service Level I and III. Limited Mailbox (Service Level IV only) In New York: Up to 20 messages, stored for up to 15 days, up to 2 minutes long In New England: Up to 15 messages, stored for up to 15 days, up to 2 minutes long. Expanded Mailbox (Service Level IV only) Up to 60 messages stored for up to 60 days, up to 6 minutes long. Among the many standard features of Call Answering are a System Tutorial that helps the users and the callers to choose the right option, always presenting them with a menu; Login/Password Access to help ensure confidentiality; and Future Delivery, by which up to 5 messages can be programmed to be delivered to other system users for up to 30 days in advance. Return to top. VOICE MAIL Voice Mail works just like Call Answering, except that a voice mail mailbox is not integrated with a station. Voice Mail is a stand-alone service reachable by dialing an access number followed by the mailbox number. There is no connection to a phone service. Voice Mail is beneficial to people who spend most of their time on the go (traveling sales people, dispatch, etc.). Voice Mail users can communicate with all other types of mailboxes on the system. Return to top. CALL PROCESSING Automated Attendant is usually the first application that callers hit in the Call Processing scheme. Automated Attendant allows the user to program a menu of choices. For example: "If you know your party's extension you can dial it now, or press 1 for dial by name; press 2 if you want Sales Department..." Subsequent layers of menu choices are also possible to further narrow down the destination such as a particular group in the Sales Department. Each time the caller is presented with a choice of options one Call Processing mailbox is required regardless of number of choices presented. VMS will transfer the caller to an extension or to a department (receptionist, representative or hunt group of some sort), thus freeing the VMS port for the next call. Another option of VMS allows transfer of callers to an Information Mailbox. Information Mailboxes can be Listen Only or Listen-and-Reply. In the latter, the caller has an option of leaving a message after listening to information. For example, information may be given on some product, and callers are told that if they need additional information or want to buy the product, they can leave their name and address and the product will be sent to them. Call Processing requires dedicated ports equal to the maximum number of simultaneous conversations that the application is expected to process. A two port minimum is required by the tariff. The maximum number of ports is limited by the current system capacity. Return to top. OPTIONAL VMS FEATURES Community Mailbox allows a group of users to receive the same message from a Community VMS subscriber. For example, a teacher can record a message and send it to all parents who have community mailboxes. A message in Community Mailbox will trigger an interrupted dial tone. Company List allows users to set up and manage up to ten company lists of mailboxes for simultaneous messaging. Each mailbox that has access to the lists can add or delete members. Group List enables users to create up to three lists with up to 25 mailboxes each with Basic or Limited mailbox service, or up to six Group lists with up to 25 destinations in Expanded mailbox. Guest Mailbox allows users to create up to three guest mailboxes in a host mailbox with individual passwords maintained by guest mailbox owners (family members, vendors, etc.). The guest mailbox users can only communicate with the host mailbox. Guest mailbox is a standard capability of a mailbox, and there is no extra charge. Forms offer callers a series of questions in a specific sequence designed to generate specific responses. The caller's voice or Touch-tone responses are stored in sequence for access by the subscriber. This feature is available on a customer-specific pricing basis only and where facilities permit. Extended Greeting allows users to record a personal greeting of up to three minutes long. Outside Notification provides for active message notification to a predetermined location, which may be a telephone number or a pager. This feature can be turned on or off by the user. Users can also schedule the notification to be active at certain times of day. VMS can notify the user of either any message left in the mailbox, or only when an urgent message is left. VMS supports many paging protocols so please consult a VMS System Administrator for availability. Networking permits voice messaging between subscriber mailboxes at different sites. VMS is able to network with other customer sites served by premises based systems, as long as that site has the same technology utilized in the central office (Octel or Centigram). Networking with dissimilar systems may be possible via AMIS interface, which is supported by both Octel, Centigram, Unisys and some other major vendors. There is no common protocol in the voice messaging industry. Networking is available on a customer specific basis where facilities permit. Dial-by-Name is available with a customer change feature so that the customer can maintain the names database. This may require additional ports due to increased holding time. The system prompts the caller to spell the last name of the person on the Touch-tone pad and looks for a match in the names database. If more than one name matches the keys, the system offers the caller a selection from a limited list of matched names. The names are played as recorded by respective mailbox owners. Return to top. BENEFITS OF NYNEX VMS VS. ON-PREMISES SYSTEM Reliability NYNEX purchases hundreds of systems with hundreds of thousands of users and therefore can justify redundant system components. It is hard to cost-justify that much redundancy for customers buying their own systems. Full Functionality NYNEX has many large and small business customers using the same platform. NYNEX buys systems fully equipped with sophisticated features. This way customers can subscribe to the required features when they need to rather than paying for them up front. The cost of the software is shared by multiple customers on the system. Customers buying their own systems tend to only pay for the features they currently need. Then they have to bear the total cost of the software and hardware, and future system upgrades can be expensive. System Growth and Upgrades, Technological Obsolescence NYNEX VMS customers can start small and grow incrementally, one mailbox at a time, as their needs increase. Buying a customer premises system is a multi-year commitment. Purchasing or leasing a voice messaging system demands system engineering specifying starting size and predicting growth of number of mailboxes and functionality. Some of the systems bought just a couple of years ago cannot be upgraded to some of the latest technological advances. Since NYNEX competes with the rest of the market and upgrades its systems regularly. NYNEX VMS customers can try different applications at their own pace with a minimal commitment (as short as one month). Maintenance Cost and Availability of Personnel NYNEX VMS comes with 24-hour-a-day maintenance included in the mailbox rate -- no surprises, we're always here. With an on-premises system, the customer must dedicate technical personnel for system maintenance or outsource the support. The availability and quality of end-user support should not be taken lightly. Very often important messages are expected at unconventional hours, and they could be of great impact on the business. Capital Investment Voice messaging systems are not cheap. An average industry cost is $4,000 per access port. There is, however, no capital outlay with NYNEX VMS. Single Point of Contact for All Your Telecommunications Needs Normally, voice messaging vendors specialize in nothing else -- but NYNEX can sell and maintain all of your telecommunications services. We offer one-stop shopping, a single point of contact for all your questions and problems. Return to top. GETTING VOICE MESSAGING SERVICE Service Levels Service Level I: 1 to 25 mailboxes (Call Answering, and/or Voice Mail). The only VMS charges that apply are the mailbox charges. The service is available on a month-to-month basis only. Usage charges will be incurred when calls are forwarded to VMS and when users access their mailboxes to retrieve messages (when measured lines are used). Service Level II: 1 to 25 mailboxes (Call Processing [2 minutes] and Information Mailboxes [2 minutes] only). Service periods (only one per account) or month-to-month for Access Ports. Available in New York only. Service Level III: New York: 26 to 199 mailboxes (any combination of Call Answering, Voice Messaging, Call Processing and Information Mailboxes). New England: 1 to 199 mailboxes (any combination of Call Answering, Voice Messaging, Call Processing and Information Mailboxes). Service Level IV: 200+ mailboxes (any combination of Call Answering, Voice Messaging, Call Processing and Information Mailboxes). This product/service is available in New York and New England. For more information, please call you local NYNEX business office. To receive ordering information on this product, choose the option that best fits your needs: Or, see more products.