atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums VOIP Phones & IP PBX VoIP & Cloud Phones, Hosted PBX, General IP Phones Beware of VOIP?

I don't buy into everything he says, and sorry to be linking to Sandman again, but this IS an interesting read if you are looking into or moving toward VOIP. Like I said, I don't go with everything Mike says, but it's good reading, and gets people thinking.

https://www.sandman.com/VoIPresearch.html

I think most of what he is saying is SAGE advice and should be well healed . It's the Gumby like character on the diving board I can't figure out .

I'm sorry, but most of this article sounds to me like the griping of an old time tech who is unable - or in this case perhaps more likely, unwilling because of financial interests - to grow or keep up with the new technology and wants to convince you to do the same!

I used to be into restoring old Cadillacs - late 50s to mid 60s. To me he sounds like the same kind of bitching and moaning I used to hear from old time car mechanics about fuel injection, electronic rotors and abs breaks.

Is anything he said false - well I know from personal experience that 911 for example works JUST FINE on Vonage lines for example.
But it's mostly the anecdotal ad homs and straw-men!

For every single customer he points to with issues, I can point to one for whom it's working just fine! And even without his admission that
trying to get tech support from a traditional service provider is not ANY easier (that's one of the major reasons that customers are flocking to alternative providers - most frequent comment I get is "well it can't be any worse then what I am getting from Verizon now and it's half the price) all you have to do is read Ed's continued soap box about his Verizon nightmares.

Are there issues with VOIP? YOU BET?
But what exactly is new about that? They're different issues from the past, but if legacy systems were/are as bullet proof and easy as he seems to claim then WHAT THE HELL are we doing being telephone technicians, besides ripping off our customers by charging them money for working on equipment that never breaks, has no compatibility issues and can do everything the customer always wants . Or for that matter what the hell is he doing being in business selling equipment that is almost exclusively related to solving hard, unique and weird issues that come up with the very same legacy systems he claims are ever SO supperior to the new fangled solutions???????

I agree with you there Corywn. It seemed as if he was rambling on and jumping from topic to topic and covered just about everything bad you can imagine.

There was one decent paragraph about users going from a key system to a PBX environment that really hit home though. It was near the end. That's exactly what we are going through with a hospital that we recently cut over. Even after seven full days of training, much of it one-on-one, they still can't comprehend the requirement to transfer or park a call now.

Mike has some truly unique ideas and certainly unique products, but I have to say that I was a bit disappointed in his story.

It seemed as if he was rambling on and jumping from topic to topic and covered just about everything bad you can imagine.

He'd fit in really good here.

I knew there was something I liked about Mike Sandman.

-Hal

Corwyn,
Well said!
You have saved the rest of us misled folks alot of typing!

Oh! I figured HAL would appreciate every word!! :dance:

Has anybody ever heard of the apple and oranges analogy? Well Sandman has the entire Dallas Fruit Market in that article. VoIP is the most misunderstood acronymn in the telephony business today. Voice over Internet Protocol is a multitude of standards that boils down to one thing: packetizing voice (speech) at point A using CODEC's (Coding>Decoding, another acronymn) and the 7 Network OSI Layers in transferring to Point B and completing the process. Most people don't understand there is VoIP that is managed (within an organization's network infrastructure) and un-managed (which utilizes the IP cloud most commonly referred to as the world wide web) for point to point voice networking in the case of hardware considerations. The un-managed network infrastructure is the one that has created the biggest black eye for VoIP! Then the telephone system hardware is dragged in and blamed for poor performance when actually somewhere the network infrastructure is improperly adapted or configured (lack of bandwidth, QoS, antiquated level two and three switches, routers, etc, etc.) Then there are the VoIP services from the CLEC's, ILEC's, LEC's, and recently RBOC's. There are more VoIP services being utilized by the carriers than most are aware of. I read an article a few weeks ago that predicts total VoIP utilization by all carriers around 2008 eliminating copper POTS lines. Then the gas gets thrown onto the VoIP fire with SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) standard which is heavily being adopted at a fast pace by everyone today. CBeyond which is headquartered in Atlanta and has numerous cities for available service, introduced SIP at the end of 2005 for availability. Our business is transgressing towards a software environment and this is more apparent everyday. I hope Mike has the opportunity to read this thread and understand the full VoIP spectrum has not been reviewed. (That's my dollar for today, any chance of change?)

Very well said. No change. You definitely said a dollar's worth.

I started reading the Sandmans comments. Not done yet. Some good, some bad. From what I did read I think he is taking a simplistic reactionary approach.

Thanks Punch Down. A whole lot of stuff seems to get thrown in the VoIP basket. I'm learning to sort it out. Actually had a visit this AM from a Verizon Business rep. Interesting. For example, according to the Verizon man, not all VoIP call traffic travels over the Internet. If I make a call from my PBX, connected to Verizon SIP circuits, they stay in the Verizon network, just like my TDM traffic. That rings true to me. Not like making a Skype call where God only knows where it travels.

Does anyone have a good story to tell about a SIP trunking application working.

That's why I posted Sandman's comments on here, so they could be discussed and responded to. Sometime when someone has a bully-pulpit, such as Sandman does with his website, it doesn't leave much opportunity for discussion. Plus, it will probably get more exposure here. That's why a forum like this is such a great resource. I don't mean to knock Sandman and his comments. As I mentioned before, some have merit. I just wanted others to be able to read them and comment, as has been done, and hopefully will continue.

Mike sent me an email about this:
Thanks Mike

DAMN, I knew there was something I liked about Mike! :thumb:

-Hal

I think the topic should be BE AWARE OF VOIP. It does have it's limitations. I agree with his article that voice transport between sites is a great benefit. Installed 30+ systems last year with this scenario. Works fine. VoIP to the desktop I.E. VoIP sets have less than spectacular results. One customer had Comdial IPrimo sets at their main location for 2 years. Never had an issue. Opened a branch office and the problems started. After assisting us and helping in the implementation of QOS the sets would intermittently experience latency and jitter to the point of being almost cartoonish. Packet sniffers proved a breakdown in their routers occasionally. After 2 weeks of dicking around with it the customer just said pull the IP sets and give TDM digital sets. No more problems. Put in a new car dealership today. After going head to head against Cisco we were awarded the bid because of the some of the most bizarre things that Cisco rep said they couldn't do. The most basic was a call presented to an attendant. They wanted to see visually that a salesman wasn't at their desk and wanted to transfer to their cell phone as they were out on the lot. Used an MP5000 Comdial with Impact Attendant..gave them everything they wanted. After seeing that Cisco also required dual runs to separate voice and data endpoints the original cost savings (50% reduction in cabling) was gone. Factor in a 90 warranty for their gear, trouble with providing more than a few analog ports for faxes, modems, credit card machines, etc. and the VoIP solution looked less appealing even to the IT department. Limited feature set and basic TDM functionality like BLF buttons and all call page are a challenge for the new VoIP platforms.

We have been installing more and more voip/softphone applications on people's laptops . The service works great as long as they are connected to "our" network . For people that travel alot and connect through a drop in their hotel room the voice quality varies widely . This is not the fault of our softphone application but a limitation of the network they are connecting to . I only see this getting worse not better in the near future as more and more voice packets are being sent and received over the internet . How much more can this virtual tunnel grow without a broad leap in technology ? Personally I am going to take a wait and see attitude in off local network voip services .

The varying voice quality your laptop users are experiencing is the result of an "Un-managed network" I mentioned in my earlier post. The below link is for a free Webinar on VoIP challenges I just found:

https://www.phoneplusmag.com/webinars/calendar_webinars.asp/view/upcoming

Thanks punchdown

That was the point of my post . How well are the VOIP providers managing their networks along with the other facilities offering internet access . When is the tunnel going to experience gridlock ? I think the ticking has already started .

May I suggest something? Could you please break up long posts using the return key to make paragraphs?

It is very hard to read posts that go on for a dozen lines. You are making sense and it would be nice to understand what you are saying, it is just very difficult to follow line by line, and the inventor of the paragraph concept has done the world a wonderful service.

Not trying to bitch, just asking to make it easier to read what your are saying. Thanks, Bunnie

Bunnie your post has absolutely nothing to do with the subject. Please stay on topic. If you have a problem with the way individuals post pose it in the general forum. I learned along time ago if I didn't care for something I didn't spend my time trying to convince everyone else they are wrong. If I see a particularly painful post I skip it for lack of interest. Just like TV..don't like what's on change the channel.

Like it or not VOIP is here to stay and if we all want to stay in business we need to be able to work and intergrate with it otherwise customers will find someone else who can...

... if we all want to stay in business we need to be able to work and intergrate with it...

You know, I keep hearing this chant and it may have some truth to it but it's not the way some of us want or are able to go.

You can’t say I’m a grumpy old man against progress and change, I’ve been through plenty of it in my time. I started out with 1A2's and when electronic systems were introduced I had no problem "integrating". The reason was that the technology was developed by our industry for our industry and there was no argument that it made our jobs easier, more profitable and was better for the customer.

The problem now as I see it, is that this industry is headed for a convergence, even a takeover by the computer-centric IT industry. The challenge is not only the technology, (how many of us have the acumen to become MSCNE’s or CCNE’s) but one of basic philosophy. Do we want to become part of an industry whose cornerstone is planned obsolescence, poor reliability and an attitude of “buy it now, we’ll make it work with the next release”? Do we want to have to rely on people who couldn’t run a cable to save their life or have no idea what a POTS line is no less how to test it?

-Hal

Did I click on the wrong Favorites button to end up in English U812 class ?? I would think that Bunnie could have copied, cut, pasted, edited with desired paragraph spacing and read any long articles faster than typing a post ??

hbiss

Has a valid point of manufacture's forcing vendors and customers into "convergence" or they cannot upgrade their system , or after this date this TDM product will no longer be supported , or this TDM product line is no longer being manufactured you can only purchase this IP based product to fit into this niche of system size .

Sure, just look at what Avaya has done. They are discontinuing the Magix and even running a sales incentive and contest to "turn those old key-hybrid customers into IP Office customers".

And if you have a potential customer that is too big for a Partner what can you offer them?

-Hal

Hey, Hal, maybe a Vodavi?

:rofl:

About all I can to this post without being edited is: If you don't believe in the product line you are selling then it is time to find a new product line.

Mike, just because someone is a dealer for a manufacturer doesn't mean that he has to push everything that manufacturer has to offer.

There aren't too many manufacturers out there that haven't got at least a few duds in their product line.

Hey, how many Transtalks have you sold lately?

-Hal

I agree with Hal,
Never ,never, never just stay with one manufacturer, your just tiring your hands, I won't even consider Avaya for large or VOIP customers.

As far as the article, I don't buy into it.

DTMF I am with you about the Avaya but for 11 years now my only telephone system line has been Comdial. I made this decision when first starting on my own because I as a tech was tired of having to deal with the multitude of other manufacturers plus working on each individual system and having manuals for each. Then comes the part about inventory, just have one label on the shelves helps tremendously. Then comes the tech's, don't ever see a large percentage of them who can be cross experienced in multiple manufacturers, let alone the expense of certification that the tech takes with him when he leaves. I rode the storm out with Comdial last year and the storm before that, and thought the big tsunami was it in 2005. I was told my selection for Direct Channel Partnership was due to cert's, inventory, loyalty (can ya believe they even recognized it) demo systems and annual sales figures. So idealistically my focus on one product has streamlined the effectiveness of what I do here in Dallas. Sure, I have other buddies who tell me they give two or three different manufacturers system proposals and let the customer pick according to his taste, whether it be about money, features, appearance or whatever. But damn there is alot of work involved in the preparation of just one proposal in itself, especially large switches and various other items.

punchdown, good post.
I'm not sure if the gentleman who wrote the article is dealing with www or a private managed network. I have never dealt with the internet voip and don't plan to,as far as managed networks across WAN's, our voip system has been just as reliable and just as good of quality as any of the old technology.
It is funny to hear techs talk so bad about Voip, either they haven't dealt with it, they don't want to learn it or they don't understand it or they just don't know how to do it. Either way, voip does work very well in a managed private network, as far as the WWW I could care less as how many companies use the WWW for connecting to other locations? Maybe some but not many, AND one of the main reasons being they don't use the WWW is because you can not rely on the WWW, bad quality, disconnects, security, etc.

Well two different choices and it looks like they both work. I guess I'm lucky in that I have done most all systems so it really isn't a problem to keep up and work on them.

Very well said.
I recall 6 or 7 years ago getting a call from a data guy who I had worked with in Ft Worth. He went to work for Cisco as they were developing their IPT product. He had all kinds of questions about how phone systems work. I remember thinking, they're gonna shove a square peg into a round hole at all cost. Then Avaya, and everyone else, started moving all their resources to IP. It seemed like they were doing it simply out of fear, fear of being left behind or being perceived as irrelevant.

I see now it is inevitable. There are some advantages to VoIP (or would it be better to say IPT / IPTelephony?). My concern is that it will go the way of the internet where we discovered a really cool idea but took it too far. Like discovering the wheel and trying to use it to fly, eat off of, take the kids to school, just everything. It's a great wheel so why not? If we can sort out the proper uses for IPT then that will be fine. However, a vendor trying to convince me to throw out a paid for, working TDM switch in favor of a new IP solution is ... well, that won't fly.

Richard

I think this just goes to show how desparate they are. They invested the farm and now they will do anything for the payback. Convince customers that they need it then discontinue their own competing product so that the customer will have no choice.

I would love to see the sales figures for the Magix and the IP Office for the last 24 months. I'll bet anything the Magix wasn't doing bad and the IP Office wasn't doing good.

-Hal

AS I understand it, my local competitor who sells the IP Office almost never sells IP phones on the thing.

I really don't understand why this becomes such a hot button issue. Why do some people think you're old & stupid if you don't see how great VoIP is?

I'm 36 years old and and started my own interconnect when I turned 21. I have a degree in General Electronics and a degree in Computer Engineering Technology. Telecommunications is my business but I can hang fairly well with the computer guys.

I have tried VoIP, experimented with it and implemented it. It is good for some things such as connecting remote offices through a private network.

But, I think what me and the rest of the old farts have a problem with are:

1) More than likely you have to upgrade your network infrastructure to begin with. Cabling, Routers, POE Switches $$$

2) Reliability. All of your eggs are in one basket. If the network dies, so do your phones.

3) Quality. After years of working on TDM, you develop a ear for call quailty. All of the VoIP products I have seen have a slight echo and sometimes a really bad sound due to compression or limited bandwidth. It can be lived with but, when you're use to better quailty sound, it is hard to go backward.

4) Lack of Certain Features. A different server for MOH? Paging?

5) Most of all, no one has ever told me of the advantage of VoIP. Several have tried, but I don't see the real value to spending 2-3 times more on a VoIP system.

I understand the economics of sending calls over an IP pipe between offices. But, I do not understand why it would be better to spend the money to upgrade your cabling, then your routers, then your switches just to get READY for a VoIP system. Especially, when I have TDM switches that have been running for 15 years.

Please don't tell Ed I borrowed his soapbox without asking.

Gimme back my soap box! I agree with you about this issue from your perspective. I am a big fan of VoIP for the reasons you mentioned. I am also not a big fan of it for same reasons. Now sit back, get yourself a cold beer and a box of tissues. I have a long one to tell. So here's my story:

I took my car to a neighborhood service place to get my car inspected on a Saturday. They were the only place in town that would do it, and as usual, I waited until the last minute. I don't normally use this place, but hey, they were willing to do it so a trip across town was worth it to me.

As I sat in the "Internet-friendly" waiting room, I continued to hear staff complaining about the "new phones" not working. Without being too obvious, I strolled over to the office area and saw that they had, you guessed it, Avaya IP phones. I took another look around the facility and saw that they had three phones in the service bays, three in the office and two at the front desk. I then noticed that there was another building behind them with three more service bays. Same thing there, three more IP phones.

It didn't take long to figure out who was in charge of the place. He was running around all over the place making sure everyone was happy. All the while, people were complaining about how they couldn't get the phones to work.

When he came over to me to see how I was doing, I couldn't help but to ask him what was going on with the new phones and why. In that five seconds, it was as if I lit a pool of gasoline. His face turned red. He immediately began ranting and raving about what a poor decision he made in purchasing this system.

My response was "why do you feel this way"? After he unloaded about how nothing works (typical customer unloading about new phones that they don't understand), I tried to explain that maybe they just need training since they were just installed the day before. He replied that they had been fully trained twice, once two days before the cutover, and again the afternoon when the system was being installed. Training was straight-forward, and in reality, an auto repair place only needed a key system with decent intercom capabilities. That's what they had with their Partner system that was there just a few days earlier.

The problem was, the building in the rear of the property was not a part of their original facility. They had just bought it a few months earlier and didn't think about phones. They were expanding rapidly and the service bay space was the major issue; phones weren't even thought of. They managed to limp along using single-line cordless phones on separate CO lines they had brought in by Verizon. It was cumbersome, but it got them by until they could get some proposals together from local vendors. A semi-logical approach.

See, they bought their Partner directly from AT&T years ago and somehow, the local AT&T, then Lucent, then Avaya shop took care of it for them. They were paying through the nose for this maintenance, so they figured they must stay with them. They didn't even call anyone else. When they were told that Avaya really couldn't sell to them directly anymore, they put them in touch with a "local" dealer sixty miles away.

Because it was a separate building, the "vendor" couldn't offer them a single system. They could have run an aerial cable across the 80 feet of parking lot, but they weren't capable. For this reason, they told the customer that they would have to network two systems together via Telco T1's at significant cost, or (here comes the rabbit out of the hat), buy an Office IP system and use cable modem at each end! Brilliant idea.

$Five figures in hardware later, plus the monthly cost of three figures per month for two cable modem service accounts, they were "all set". Oh boy was that an understatement.

I explained to the guy that maybe he should have explored running a tie cable between the buildings and spending half on the phone system. His response was "but they told me it couldn't be done". OF COURSE THEY DID! They didn't know how to do it, plus they had an agenda; to sell them an IP "solution". It didn't provide a "solution" for this customer. When I explained that we very frequently run aerial or underground tie cables for situations such as this, he was almost in tears. He couldn't believe that if he had just pulled out a phone book and made a few calls, he wouldn't have the mutiny with his employees that was occurring AND would have had saved a bunch of money. He didn't need Internet access in the remote building, he only had it because he needed it for the phones to "work". Sure, they were able to put the cable Internet access to work at the main building by allowing their customers to use it while they wait, but they certainly didn't need it in the other building. Now, at the rate of $nearly four figures per year, per building to support the three phones in the remote building, this thing will probably be one for our "book of biggest customer blunders".

The customer was wrong by not shopping, but the vendor, or should I say "partner" is truly the party at fault. They capitalized on an industry buzz word and scared a customer into buying something they truly didn't need or can justify.

The long and short of it is that people are very frequently strong-armed into believing that VoIP is the only way to bridge gaps and provide cutting-edge technology. Technology for a car repair joint? Four lines, a hold button and paging is all the "cutting-edge" these people were interested in!

He's pretty much stuck with it now, so there's really no turning back. I tried to console him by letting him know that once the lease is up, he can give me a call and we can do it right.

Perhaps the sad part of this story is that they had two (that's right, TWO) 2" conduits installed between the buildings for future use. The "vendor" told them that it was too great of a distance to use them for phones, plus at 80 feet, doing this might end up providing them with "less than acceptable performance". 80 feet?

I think I have said all that needs to be said on this topic. VoIP has it's place, just not everywhere.

Larry, I think you summed it up pretty well.

-Hal

I really don't understand why this becomes such a hot button issue. Why do some people think you're old & stupid if you don't see how great VoIP is?

I'm 36 years old and and started my own interconnect when I turned 21. I have a degree in General Electronics and a degree in Computer Engineering Technology. Telecommunications is my business but I can hang fairly well with the computer guys.

I have tried VoIP, experimented with it and implemented it. It is good for some things such as connecting remote offices through a private network.

But, I think what me and the rest of the old farts have a problem with are:

1) More than likely you have to upgrade your network infrastructure to begin with. Cabling, Routers, POE Switches $$$

2) Reliability. All of your eggs are in one basket. If the network dies, so do your phones.

3) Quality. After years of working on TDM, you develop a ear for call quailty. All of the VoIP products I have seen have a slight echo and sometimes a really bad sound due to compression or limited bandwidth. It can be lived with but, when you're use to better quailty sound, it is hard to go backward.

4) Lack of Certain Features. A different server for MOH? Paging?

5) Most of all, no one has ever told me of the advantage of VoIP. Several have tried, but I don't see the real value to spending 2-3 times more on a VoIP system.

I understand the economics of sending calls over an IP pipe between offices. But, I do not understand why it would be better to spend the money to upgrade your cabling, then your routers, then your switches just to get READY for a VoIP system. Especially, when I have TDM switches that have been running for 15 years.

Please don't tell Ed I borrowed his soapbox without asking. [/QB][/QUOTE]


I guess I will jump in here a bit. I think that FIRST and FOREMOST what we have to realize is that most IT/network guys out there are the equivalent of trunk slammers!

How many posts are there on this forum about
"sparky" FUBARing the telco wiring?! Well multiply that by a dozen and you start to get the feel for the IT/Network industry.
Secondly you seem to use the term VOIP as a generic term for multiple things - service providers like Vonage, VPNs where multiple sites are connected and LANs so it's kind of hard to follow where your complaints lie.

So REALLY - Your objections are somewhat moot.
By the numbers -
1) well what's the difference if "sparky" FUBARs the wiring or if "wanna be Bill Gates" FUBARs the network. How does this represent the quality of your favorite legacy PBX or VOIP ?

2) I'm not sure what YOU mean by "if the network dies" Do you mean your
1) internet service provider?
2) do you mean your switch, router or hub?
3) do you mean data servers?

3)Maybe this is an inherent issue with ms based system like Avaya IP and Cisco, but I certainly have never experienced this. Please list an example.

4) Again, this seems to be an issue you have with a specific brand or version.

5) Well VOIP is NOT for every application, just like any specific legacy system is not a correct fit for every user. That's why there are dozens of major players in the legacy PBX world. If you don't want to see the opportunities VOIP offers you, I certainly won't teach you. It makes for less competitions and more profit for me :rofl:

And Ed, I rest my case. :toast:

Seems like every friggin quote I give is against an IP system the customer doesn't need and can't afford.


-Hal

Now I was feeling realy good this afternnon and then Corwyn had to go throw a bunch of reality into my soup.

Here's a question for you all. Before VOIP, do you remember being beaten over the head with CTI? Every customer was going to buy into Unified Messaging, Email Readers, desktop call control. Then you go out and put in a few and the email reader tried to read everthing including headers and footers. Then we got mad at the French for not supporting us on various world issues and then we all stopped using our email readers because it sounded like the French guy on TV. Then the customer who bought into the whole ball of wax decided to replace all of his PCs with the latest and the greatest and now none of his CTI stuff works and he's going to have to spend a bunch on upgrading his application server. CTI did not catch on as well as was expected because the applications were nice but not essential and the price never came down to a level that would allow it to be main stream. Who buys CTI now? Customer who have a legitimate need. The buzz word of the future will be CONVERGED. = The convergence of telecom, CTI, VOIP regardless of the underlying prcessor and operating system.

Deleted because it wasn't very nice.

-Hal

Man, Ed AND Hal agree with me. I really am becoming and old fart. :toothy:

Using that old wagging finger again, eh Hal?

Man, I thought this would bring some good discussion, but never had any idea it would be such a hot-button topic. I think it's good that's it's being discussed. It allows others to see different view-points, how the topic and various products are being presented by some manufacturers, and how it is received by various people.

Thanks for the story, Ed. What a nightmare for that business!

Remeber 12-15 years ago when ISDN (the 2b+d type)was going to be the end of all telephone service? Then Frame Relay, then ATM..

Like was said above, it seems to me that some manufactures bet the farm on VoIp and now are trying to force the market to give them a return. Demoed a VoIP phone 2 weeks ago via a "hosted pbx" service. In my home office at the time the set up was one PC and their phone taking 60K of bandwidth on a full T-1 down, half up. During the download of one file, the phone cut to silence for over 5 seconds! 60K for voice could not make through 1.54 M shared by 1 lowly PC! Its got to get better than this to recommend it to my business customers.

I realize there are many flavors VoIP and IPT are technically different. The problem is the industry buzzwords are used interchangable so customers don't know what they need/want. Cable TV firms, internet firms, all offering dial tone that is far from as good as POTS.

My 2 cents for today.

Yeh, how times do we this. "My phone is dead!" "Is it really? Do you have lights work?" "Well yeh, but it's not working..." We've all been thru that scenario.
It would be nice if we could all get on the same page about the definitions. Is it VoIP? Is it IPT?
Wouldn't VoIP refer to the transport of the call (packets) weather it be over a private network or over the internet? IPT or IP Telephony. That can cover a lot of ground. It would really be a better term to cover the whole genre rather than VoIP.
Help...

Richard