While COVID-19 closures force companies to resort to remote work, the type of network on which they operate becomes an essential, albeit overlooked, component of the switch.
Switching to remote or hybrid paints does not begin with the addition of e-commerce and delivery, even with the routing of incoming calls to employees’ cell phones, however, it all starts with the network paintings in which corporations operate. Company in Grand Rapids with an exclusive technique to run remotely.
“We’re trying to supply apps, say a functional phone, to our consumers over the last few years,” owner Todd VanBelkum said. “What we discovered was that they had horrible networks, so the quality of the phone was poor. . . . what happens is a little after the fact – the programs don’t work. Now solve the disorders and check to help us figure out how to make it work. »
VanBelkum, founded in 1959 through Nick VanBelkum as a sales and service organization for dictation machines, his son and current company owner, Todd VanBelkum, said his father had joined the company at the end of days when the generation of voice recordings was just a wax cylinder. .
Over the years, VanBelkum has noticed radical changes in generation and communication programs, adding voice recordings for doctors and lawyers, cassettes and CDs, and VanBelkum has continued to evolve and expand new responses for its clients. , the company moved on to communications.
VanBelkum has been synonymous with generation, data, phones, video surveillance and more, but recently the company has focused less on an express generation and more on adopting an existing business practice and migrating to a completely virtual or hybrid world.
“It’s to put it in three words, ” said VanBelkum. ” We have a little history. “
More than 60 years later, VanBelkum remains a family circle business, with Todd’s son Dallas VanBelkum on board for a few years on the physical infrastructure side.
“I’m just driving more installation and design on site, looking to publicize our call before the structure starts, rather than arriving at the last minute, as IT does,” Dallas VanBelkum said.
VanBelkum now has a team of five installers running on those larger infrastructure works, adding cabling, cameras, access and more.
“In Ad, for example, a lot of new constructions in Ada are installed and there is no conduit for several Internet providers,” VanBelkum added. “If I’m a company, I can’t have just one Internet provider, we have to have a high school . . . Now, after the facts, they make holes in the construction to verify that the Internet provider is involved in the construction. If we do it early, we can design all this. “
For simplicity, a network is divided into five portions. Todd VanBelkum said that when other people think of a network, they only think of WiFi. While WiFi is a component of the network, other portions come with wired, wireless and electronic Internet Service Provider (ISPs), such as switches and firewalls.
“If one of those details doesn’t work properly, your app may be affected and you may not be able to make a phone call or participate in a video conference, no matter what the mission’s essential detail is,” VanBelkum said. “You can’t take pizza orders!”
As for remote work, many other people also have a mediocre network at home, Dallas VanBelkum said.
“With the Internet service provider’s modem, all your devices, such as phones, can take them home and plug them in,” Dallas VanBelkum said. “We can identify VPN (virtual network) connections to the company’s primary network. “
Todd VanBelkum said the company’s technique is not so much selling gadgets to consumers as simply running the network for them.
“If you touch your ISP, they will possibly only provide you with the Internet channel, but they don’t supply any of the parts that make it work,” he said. “Our purpose is – if your consumers want a voice or device that connects to office resources, we will provide it as a service. “
VanBelkum also warns consumers about the dangers of having a ‘flat net paint’. Most corporations think they can connect new devices, such as cameras, to an existing network paint, and everything will work perfectly. That’s rarely the case, he said. In addition, this jeopardizes other, more critical parts of the business if they operate on a flat network.
A flat network is a network in which all devices that communicate with the world from one site communicate with each other, resulting in slower connectivity and poor security. Many ransomware attacks occur because a low-security device on a network has been hacked, allowing the hacker to access the entire network.
“We can take devices from your network, such as your phones or other low-security devices, and segment each one detail according to its function,” Dallas VanBelkum said. “Just create other routes for each of the sets. of trafficArray. . Now those things can no longer communicate with each other, so if you had an aquarium thermometer on your network so simple to hack, you won’t be able to access through it to hack some other device on the network.
Todd VanBelkum said his company had the merit of having decades of delight in finding phones run on a network, which he said was the hardest thing to run well on a network, and the company is benefiting from this delight in software programming.
“With phones and video conferencing, it’s real-time, so if you lose data on a video call, you’ll have problems,” he says. “Voice is a priority, so we’ll give you the first circular journey. . . we made phones, now VPN tunnels? It’s easy. “