Closed Captioning providers face demanding challenges that include stringent laws and mandates, staff stationed remotely and the obligation of 24/7 coverage.
One of the country’s largest providers of traditional news and television captioning as well as real-time streaming media captioning services came to Perle looking for a solution to increase efficiency of their dial out phone lines. In their existing system every PC had a modem which was then connected to a POTS (Plain Old Telephone System) line which meant that each employee at a PC could not dial out on more than one line at a time. Valuable phone lines were being wasted and the company knew they needed to have a system whereby each PC could access all lines concurrently. Presently they were confined to the physical limitations of the modem located in each PC. Another less important yet inconvenient issue was the multitude of cables running from each PC to the phone lines. With remote employees stationed throughout the country, a 24 hour operation and cutting edge technology providing captioning for emergencies, translations, and audio/video conferences they needed to maximize their dial out capacity.
Solution
With the addition of the Perle IOLAN STS 24 and Multiplexer to take advantage of an underutilized T1 line, a 24 modem rack, and Perle’s TruePort COM port software along with a communication application installed on each workstation, users can open any number (up to 24) of COM ports concurrently to dial out.
PCs are connected to the network along with the Perle IOLAN STS 24 via the Ethernet. Perle’s built-in TruePort software creates multiple virtual local COM ports per host PC. The Perle IOLAN hunt group feature allows the virtual COM ports to attach to the first available serial port. The serial ports of the IOLAN STS 24 are connected to the serial ports of the modems in the modem rack, each modem is then connected to the POTS lines which are connected to the Multiplexer. The Multiplexer is also connected to the T1 and converts the T1 channels to analog POTS lines.
Results and Benefits
Currently the company has remote employees accessing up to four modems simultaneously (this can be increased to 24 if required). Each modem will dial different numbers and there is the ability to dial/disconnect each modem remotely and individually. With Perle’s TruePort this configuration setup for a hunt group, will have no restrictions on concurrent users. By sharing resources the company’s outbound calling is no longer restricted by the physical limitations of the modem equipment and they have gained much more efficient use of their hardware. The dedicated T1 line is much more cost effective than the POTS. At the same time productivity has increased and bothersome cables have been eliminated.
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