Skytel Systems

Being a passionate car racing enthusiast and a technology ace, Ahmad Eied has gained the expertise to successfully adapt to rapid changes and take calculated risks. Bringing the same fervour while steering his company, Eied, Founder and CEO at Skytel Systems, takes a strategic approach to understand and learn about the market challenges and trends in the telecommunication space.

Based in RTP (Research Triangle Park), NC, Skytel has created a niche in the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) arena by offering turn-key VoIP systems, technology consulting, managed and professional IT services, and on-time technical support for companies nationwide. Skytel helps its customers align to the rapidly changing VoIP space by thinking out-of- the-box about their phone systems and utilizing the technology advancements to their relevance. “Today, VoIP users are demanding a high level of integration above and beyond the legacy features like voice mail to e-mail, find me, follow me, and plug and play phones,” says Eied. With mobility taking center stage, VoIP users are looking for HD video conferencing, real-time collaboration, SMS applications, desktop sharing, and virtual meetings. Skytel understands the market needs and brings advanced technology to manage available voice lines and data bandwidth.

The All-in-One Technology Partner

Unique to Skytel is its amalgamation of expertise, both as a VoIP provider and Managed Services Provider (MSP). “We manage not only our clients’ phone systems and traffic routing, but their entire infrastructure. We are an all-in-one technology provider for businesses,” adds Eied. In the VoIP front, Skytel’s cloud-based hosted PBX integrates with business applications such as MS Office 365, Google, Sales Force, and Oracle. Additionally, all of Skytel’s phone traffic is fully HIPAA encrypted and compliant, making its hosted phone service an ideal fit for medical facilities and providers. Skytel securely locates client’s phone server on its Tier 3 data center and the phones make a secure connection back using virtual private network. Skytel has G729 codec installed for all clients to ensure highest call reliability at no charge. All the features for this solution ranging from call forwarding, recording to call snooping, is included.

Skytel goes an extra mile to ease businesses in times of Internet Service Provider (ISP) interruptions or server crashes by building a high degree of redundancy into its hosted solutions.

Here at Skytel, we do not embrace the pay per break-fix scenario, rather, our business model provides unlimited, proactive 24 X 7 X 365 support

Over the years, they have been building strong associations with a number of ISPs and installing internet connections from up to four different providers for clients highly dependent on reliable and continuous phone communication delivering essential services to the public at large. The company invests a lot of its time leading up to the client’s sales department discussing firewall configuration, switches, and internet speeds to ensure the presence of secured Local Area Network (LAN) before installing VoIP. Skytel has installed firewalls on its physical hosted servers that sit behind the company’s hardware firewalls delivering maximum data protection. By monitoring all the hosted servers 24/7, Skytel can easily recognize if a server is being over-utilized and identify a company making unusual calls during non-business hours.“This is what makes the cloud environment great. It is adaptive, versatile, and robust which enables our engineers to proactively build complex solutions enabling customers to continue business as usual even in times of utility outages,” states Eied.

Facilitating a Smooth Transition to Cloud

Founded as a MSP, Skytel’s Cirrus Managed Cloud Services brings six decades of experience in supporting business technology—both on-premise and in the cloud. The company’s highly skilled engineers take care of all of client’s technology needs regardless of whether it’s terminating a virus from a PC, deploying a server, backing up their data, or proactively monitoring their network. As Eied puts it, “Here at Skytel, we do not embrace the pay per break-fix scenario, rather, our business model provides unlimited, proactive 24 X 7 X 365 support. Our U.S. based technical support is ready to travel to client’s premises, day or night.” Skytel’s Cirrus is the perfect solution for clients transitioning to a cloud-based environment, as it offers the necessary tools enabling businesses to do more than just succeed in an extremely competitive marketplace. The company eliminates the need for clients to invest in new infrastructure, maintain complicated systems, and in many cases hire in-house technical experts while moving to cloud. Skytel’s approach toward offering reliable, scalable, secured and affordable services has won it 99.99 percent service level agreement (SLA) for the last seven years.

Playing the Dual Role

Today, many of Skytel’s clients consider the company as an extension of their own business.

Skytel plays the dual role of a technology consultant and an advocate for its clients when it comes to choosing vendor services for the client businesses. “Clients rely heavily on our expertise when selecting industry-specific software, client/user licenses, and overall ‘best practices’ to adopt or discard when managing their sensitive data,” expresses Eied. By integrating Skytel’s real-time, enterprise communication applications, customers are empowered to communicate and collaborate more effectively, boost workforce productivity, and most importantly, strengthen their client/customer relationships. For instance, one of Skytel’s long-standing client’s, large national pizza chain, has been able to increase its sales two-fold using Skytel’s solutions. The solution that the corporate franchise of the pizza chain had was a premise-based solution which was not VoIP and the business was dependent on traditional phone lines that amounted to $10,000 per location as a one-time cost. On top of that, the franchise paid an astronomical amount in maintenance fees. On being approached, Skytel was able to reduce one-time cost to $800 from $10,000 and up the sale by installing its hosted solution.

"We manage not only our client’s phone systems and traffic routing, but their entire infrastructure. We are an all in one technology provider for businesses"

Eied believes that the best method to determine the right ingredients to build a successful portfolio is to stay in line with the industry trends and anticipate what lies ahead. “I always encourage my team to take each client that we bring on-board as ‘a learning experience’. We listen closely to understand what is most important to our clients while selecting a VoIP provider, but more importantly, why is it important to them, and subsequently, fulfils them.”

Skytel has big ambitions for the future as the company is working on a product soon to be launched in the market, which will make communication with co-workers one touch away. The company has taken the familiar mobile technology and raised it to a new level that will allow cell phones to communicate solely on the Skytel Systems Network. It is simple network architecture with a single protocol and provisioning interface for all voice and a data service which is designed to enable co-workers, in different locations, dial an extension and have a conversation via Skytel’s network and not their cell service providers. Along with providing all the features that a regular phone offers, this innovative product by Skytel will stand ahead of the competition for its ability to integrate 100 percent into the phone systems without the need of any application. Skytel is also planning to build a retail store within its office premises especially for its cell phone division. Another truly unique innovation of Skytel is the SMS service that can be added to a phone number with minimal effort allowing interactive chat sessions using Skytel’s free chat client for computers and mobile phones. By offering state-of-the-art, customized solution, Skytel is not only meeting the customer expectations, but taking communications to a higher level.