Tech Connect

We recently agreed to work with the Cedar Rapids Gazette to write a column for their Sunday magazine called “Business 380″. The column is called “Tech Connect” and will be published every 4-6 weeks. Here is a pdf of our first one:  Converged Technologies. Watch for new topics in the weeks to come.

Security Video Cameras

NEW! Increase security for your employees and your inventory with a video camera system provided by Keystone IT. The system includes low cost IP video cameras that use a computer network to record video images on the hard drive of a standard computer. These low cost systems allow for local or remote monitoring (even on a smart phone). Images from multiple cameras can be displayed simultaneously on a standard monitor. Search and playback by time and date is easy. Up to 16 cameras can be supported by free software on one computer.

Virtual Phone System

A virtual phone system, also called a hosted VoIP phone system, is the perfect telephone solution for most small businesses. Get all the features and benefits of phone systems used by Fortune 500 companies without having to make a capital investment. Keystone IT can provide you access to a robust phone system for as low as $30 per month. Included with the $30 is all of your local and long distance calling!

A virtual phone system from Keystone can help you project a professional presence, lower your phone bill, improve productivity, and improve your customer service. No long term contract is required, so the risk is negligible and the benefits are large.

Reduce Junk Mail and Increase Performance

Since “junk” email (a.k.a. spam) volume now accounts for about 95% of all email in the USA, it’s important to have a powerful defense against these unwanted emails. Spam messages not only waste the time spent daily deleting them, but they can also contain system-damaging viruses.  These viruses then require increased support costs and cause unnecessary headaches.

To combat this problem, we have been researching and testing email filtering solutions. We recently chose MX Logic to be our email filtering partner. Through this partnership, we can now offer their industry leading solutions to our clients for their onsite email servers, and we use it for our hosted email service.

An important side benefit is that if you have your own email server, the MX Logic service stops spam from ever hitting your email server. This reduces the load on your server and increases the available bandwidth from your internet connection. In addition, it can eliminate workstation performance issues related to overloaded email client spam filters and workstation virus protection programs.

Give us a call to find out how we can start eliminating the spam and put your focus back on what is important for your business.

Complete Telecommunications Provider

Keystone IT has nearly completed its transition into a complete telecommunications provider. We now are a reseller for: high speed wireless and wired internet services; VoIP trunks; T1 lines; PRI lines; on premises PBX for Voice over IP phone systems; hosted PBX for Voice over IP phone systems; and vFax services. These are more than a bunch of acronyms. These are technologies that allow us to tailor a phone system and/or to provide complete telecommunications support for small to medium sized businesses. The process is underway for us to become a Competitive Local Exchange Carrier, a “CLEC”, which will allow us to become a complete telecommunications solutions company.

Keystone IT obtains VMWare reseller status

We are now a reseller for VMWare. This software allows us to use one computer to perform multiple “server” functions. This powerful software is the future of computing in businesses. Since one computer can do the server functions of many physical computers, you can save on electricity to run the machines as well as lower cooling costs. Backups and hardware upgrades become far simpler. This is the “Green” way to go! In addition, VMWare allows us to remotely manage the serving functions very easily and quickly. A great solution for most small businesses.

Buy Here Fair was a success!

The Buy Here Fair was a very successful event for us. We had the opportunity to talk in depth with potential customers and to demonstrate our phone system. We were the only phone company exhibiting at the fair that had a live extension from our VoIP phone system using the hotel’s free internet connection. Several new potential customers were lined up for future discussions.

CONTEST WINNER: Susan Rangus was the winner of our computer drawing.

Thank you to everyone that attended the fair!

Buy Here Business Fair 2009 – Come see us!

We will be a participant and exhibitor at the Buy Here Business Fair 2009 sponsored by the Iowa City Area Chamber of Commerce:

Buy Here Business Fair
4 to 7 p.m., Thursday April 23
The Holiday Inn and Conference Center
1220 1st Avenue, Coralville
Complimentary admission, open to the public.
Enjoy food, prizes and games.

Enter our Computer Giveaway!
The highlight of our participation will be a business card drawing for a desktop computer. All visitors to our booth will be able to enter the drawing by dropping a business card in a box for a chance to win.

Did You Know?

That with trixbox Pro you get Heads Up Display (HUD) for free? And that with HUD, employees can individualize how they want the phone system to handle their calls, including unifying their office phone, a home office phone, their cell phone/smart phone and email? It’s all made easy with this intuitive interface. If these kind of productivity tools are what you need, call us at (319) 688-9319 or view the HUD interactive demo.

Wireless Internet Connectivity Available!

Keystone IT is now partnered with TTS to offer internet connectivity to customers in Iowa City, Coralville, and Cedar Rapids. This next generation wireless internet offers better than wired service with up to 20 megabit symmetric connections (so upload and download speed is equally fast) with incredibly low latency jitter and 99.9% or better packet delivery — enabling true VoIP quality performance.

Base Pricing:
1 megabit standard: $69 per month (1 STATIC IP)
1 megabit burstable to 5 megabit: $99 per month (1 STATIC IP)
1 megabit burstable to 5 megabit: $199 per month (8 IP ROUTED SUBNET)
5 megabit burstable to 10 megabit: $299 per month (8 IP ROUTED SUBNET)
10 megabit burstable to 20 megabit: $699 per month (16 IP ROUTED SUBNET)

Installation:  1-5 megabit: $199 | 10 megabit: $995

All connections are symmetric. Upstream (sending out) is just as fast as downstream. In contrast, cable upstream is usually 256K, with DSL offering “up to” 768K. With our connections, businesses can now send out as much data as they bring in!

Contact us today to learn more: (319) 688-9319.