Sadly an old favourite TV presenter of mine, Tony Hart died recently. Many people will remember him for his great drawings, projects and so on, but probably most importantly the music that accompanied the gallery segment of “Vision On”. Who knew the name of it until now? Well, it’s called “Left Bank Two” by “The Noveltones”.
But it got me thinking – Music on Hold. Can I use that as a music on hold track in my PBXs? How do I license it? Who do I pay? Do I have to pay anyone? (Yes!)
It appears to be a complicated matter, but an email and a phone call from the very helpful people at De Wolf set me straight. I need to buy a copy of the track, then for each installation apply for an MCPS (Mechanical Copyright Protection Society) license (at a cost of £35 for each 30 seconds!) and, if the music is ever going out to Joe random public, apply for a separate PRS (Performing Rights Society) license too. (These start at about £95 per year for a small number of incoming lines and go up from there) Some premises may already have a PRS license, so extending it to their music on hold may not be that difficult.
The MCPS and PRS have recently formed a new brand called “PRS for Music”. Their website is here.
So if you want “The Gallery Tune” on your PBX, then it’s certianly possible, it’ll just cost you (but not a lot in the grand scheme of things).
So as of this afternoon, customers, clients, users of VoIP telephony provided by Drogon Systems can now make 999 calls!
Well – Once their installation address has been verified, checked, double-checked, sent-in, sent back again and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters…
I digress, but getting the address right would appear to be crucial to the whole process.
It seems that the Emergency Handling Authority have a very precice idea of what an address is, and it’s not something like “Please Mr. Postie, give it to the Hendersons in the street with the papershop in the town with the big Abbey.” I was quite surprised at the requirements.
For a person they want a “Title”. Is this Mr, Mrs, Ms? No, it’s Sir, Lady, Lord, etc. Then they want the name, and initials must be specified with full-stops, then any honours. You know, OBE, KBE, and so on. (does this mean that titled people get a better class of 999 service? It does make you wonder!) Then the address and how do you specify an address in the UK? Just how many different ways are there? Well, only one according to the EHA and it has 4 parts: Premises, Thoroughfare, Locality and Postcode. These 4 lines of information will exactly specify any address it seems. (Thoroughfare? I ask you. What century are we living in today?)
Businesses? It’s the same in the address department (complete with thoroughfare), the name must be the company name, and there is a separate part for Ltd or plc (and llp) There is also 10 pages of mandatory abbreviations for company names too. If you’re business name is “Wholesale Watchmakers, Weaver and Travel agent”, it should then be “Whsle Wtchmkrs, Weav and Trvl Agt”. I wish I were making this up!
But there you have it, we submit the data, wait for it to be checked and validated, then enable 999 on the clients system and off they go. The validation process takes about a week or less and that’s that!
As of January 2009, Drogon Systems is now a member of the ITSPA – Internet Telephony Service Providers Association. Their website is here.
The ITSPA is the trade association for all matters regarding Internet Telephony in the UK. They liase with various governmental bodies (eg. the Home Office, Ofcom, DTI), as well as their European couterparts.
As a member, Drogon Systems will be adhering to their code of practice, and looking to sign up to their new “Quality Mark” scheme announced at the awards ceremony in December.
Of-course today, the 2nd of January is still a bank holiday in Scotland. Sensible people those Scots, of which I am one too, so maybe I’ll just go back to bed 
However, from myself and Drogon Systems, lets hope for a happy and prosperous 2009!
So 2009 – what’s it going to hold for us all? Out Internet providers are squabbling over how fast they can get data to us – Virgin and Be claiming 50 and up-to 45Mb/sec respectively with BT continuing to roll-out their wholesale ADSL2+ product (up to 24Mb/sec). It’s little help if we’re getting data off slow sites though, or if they then throttle the speed after we’ve downloaded our quota for the day in 10 seconds rather than 10 minutes now. Personally, I don’t mind data caps, as long as we know up-front what they are so can make a choice as to who to choose based on our expected data requirements.
From a VoIP point of view, which is what I really care about right now, you’ll be hard-pushed to really come close to most limits on monthly data transfers, but what we do need is upstream speed and an ISP who’s own network has little or no contention inside it. That does narrow it down somewhat, so if you’re going down the VoIP route, do listen to your supplier – they’ll have a good idea of who’s good and who’s not, and if it’s a business service you’re after, do be prepared to pay a little bit more for the service.
Here at Drogon Systems, we’re expanding our network infrastructure with more servicers going to the co-lo facility this month, as well as some upgrades being carried out. The DSX is about to undergo a major software upgrade which will add in a host of new features, and who knows what else. As long as people keep making phone calls, we’ll be here to help them make those calls!