On the back end, the Zultys solution revolved around an MX250 Enterprise Media Exchange?an IP server that combines the features of a PBX, voice-mail server, voice gateway and Internet gateway. On the front end, Zultys deployed Zip 4x4 phones, which essentially integrate the traditional business phone with a 100-megabit Ethernet switch. With the system, Consani’s consultants can plug their IP telephones into any Ethernet Internet connection and talk away. They also can quickly program the devices to forward calls to cell phones. When dentists ring, the calls come through the MX250, which automatically routes them over the data network to the appropriate extensions. What’s more, because the phones can behave as routers, traveling consultants can plug computers into them as well, piping data and voice over the same connection from remote locations.

"VoIP has become our entire network," quips Consani, who notes that the most challenging aspect of the transition was teaching employees to adopt an entirely different method of communication. "Now that we [can always] answer our phones, our clients get the impression that we’re working harder, that we’re in the office a lot more, and that there are more of us."

An increasingly professional image isn’t the only ROI that Consani Seims has experienced from its foray into VoIP. First, because the Zultys VoIP system is easy to manage from any phone on the network, Consani and his wife, Debi, the company’s office manager, say they recover up to 10 hours a week that they formerly spent handling technical issues with their old PBX. More important are the cost savings. Consani says that he was willing to spend up to $200,000 on a new telecom system, and notes that he’s spent no more than $60,000 on hardware and software to date. Factor in additional thousands of dollars in long-distance savings between offices, and Consani estimates that VoIP has scored him a quarter-million-dollar ROI. Those kinds of figures should make anyone smile.

The Wild, Wild West

Pay a visit to Nevada City, Calif., and you’ll feel as if you’ve stepped back to the summer of 1849, when men with gold pans and golden dreams descended on the town to prospect for treasure. The Nevada Theater, built in 1865, still shows movies on Sunday nights. The National Exchange Hotel, circa 1880, still rents clean beds for the night. Indeed, downtown Nevada City today looks very much as it must have looked back then, complete with hitching posts, old-fashioned storefronts and other relics of the days gone by. And until recently, Nevada County’s telecom infrastructure was a relic too?before Desktop Services Manager Bill Miller stepped in and addressed a crisis situation with VoIP.