In an earlier posting, I explained what basic information would be required in order to offer your phone system for sale. Too often, we are offered equipment, but can’t respond because we have incomplete information. 

And, to recap, the market for used systems is soft, there being more seller than buyers. Yes, you may have paid a substantial amount for it, for spares and maintenace, etc, etc, but the principles of supply and demand apply. Please don’t be disappointed if you have few takers, or sell at a low price. This is just the way things are. 

So, who will buy? I’d recommend two approaches. 

Firstly, there are a number of established telecomms industry organisations (“traders”) which can be found via Google, typically by search terms such as “buy used phone system”. They buy, refurbish, and remarket. What they pay to you may not be close to what they sell the items to others for, so if you see similar stuff to yours advertised at a “good” price, don’t expect to receive even a fraction of that. Much stock is now slow-moving these days, and it’s unsafe to buy speculatively in a falling market. Which is one reason why we buy very little these days. A number of the long-estblished players left the scene or diversified several years ago, as it was impossible to survive on trading used systems. It’s tough. Don’t be disappointed by low prices. 

Meanwhile, if you would like us to do this bit for you, and find a buyer for you from our long-established network of traders, then we would be happy to do this, but will charge a modest broker’s fee. 

Once again, information is vital. The buyer needs to know exactly what they are getting, and you need to know the terms of purchase, that is, if they are buying “as found” or “in working order”. Generally, most traders are perfectly ethical, but good communication and clear specification is essential. And be aware that some electrical equipment, having been switched on constantly for several years, may not take happily to being switched off, and throw some kind of electonic sulk, refusing to boot up again. 

Many traders will offer collection from your premises as part of the transaction. If not, then press them for this, as they will have perferential rates with their couriers. Again, to avoid dispute and non-payment due to damaged or missing goods, ensure that items are packed well for shipping. Used boxes are fine, but ensure that everything is packed securely, and items such as hard drives (often found in voice mail units) are removed and placed in shock-proof packaging. This all takes time, but is worth it. 

Settlement will normally be by return, once the equipment is checked against your specification, inspected, and tested. This may take a couple of weeks, depending on their workload.

So, that’s the general procedure when selling to a trader.

I’d also recommend eBay. You may wish to ask an “experienced eBayer” in your company to do this for you, as they will understand ettiquette and procedures, as well as have a feedback rating. We’ve been trading some of our equipment via eBay since 2001, so know some of the opportunities and challenges. It’s certainly worth trying, but has to be approached slightly differently than selling to the telecomms industry.

What’s good about eBay? Well, what may not sell to the trade, may possibly sell to an eBayer, although this may take time, and a rolling “Buy It Now” is more sensible than an auction. We’ve been surprised and delighted at what has sold! And you’ll be paid straight away, as well as being protected by eBay’s terms and conditions.

What’s not so good? Occasionally, someone might buy the equipment without determining suitability, or having the skill to install it. They then might point the finger back at the seller, claiming faulty goods, even though the problem lies with their own ability, not the item itself. We’ve actually refused to sell to some buyers when it has become clear through the questions they are asking that they have not a clue as to if the item is suitable for them, nor how it can be brought into service. Sadly, we’ve seen eBay buyers given slightly too many rights in recent times, at the expense of ethical sellers. And, as I’ve said above, this can be a long game. Our own eBay shop will hold items for a couple of years before sale. And you will have to arrange your own shipping for often outsized and/or heavy items. Calculate with care! Each telephone will weigh around one kilogramme. On-line shipping sites such as Parcel2Go may be able to help. 

So, those are the two principle routes to market. As always, we’re happy to receive systems for selective reuse and recycling free of charge if all else fails.

Drop us a line on 0870 720 0028 or info@telecomgreen.co.uk

Having traded in used telephone systems since 1999, we’re familiar what helps sell a system, that is, what a potential seller needs to tell a buyer. So we thought we’d share it! I’ll do this in two parts, the first being about fundamentals and market conditions, the second (to follow) about who might buy, and how to find them)

Now, there’s no commercial angle on this for us. We’re not asking you to sign up for anything, etc, etc. Simply, the same questions are asked of us repeatedly, so it’s much more simple to list what people need to know. 

In trying to get someone to buy your used phone system, often known as PBX, or PABX, the vendor (you!) needs to be aware of one major factor. The market is very poor indeed. No, it’s even worse than that. Simply too much used phone equipment and too few buyers. So, as often happens when I’m called by a seller, I need to point out that my reluctance to make an offer is not some kind of bargaining trick, but a real reflection of the state of affairs; Simple supply and demand. So how on earth did it get this bad? 

The last five years has seen a rush to a new generation of VOIP (voice over IP) systems. VOIP has been pushed as “the latest and best thing” by resellers. Perfectly serviceable and reliable systems have been replaced by shiny new hardware that has not always delivered what it has promised, or been properly supported by vendors. There’s been a thought that “If Skype works on my laptop, surely a phone system is simply a bigger version of that?” No. It’s not that simple. 

So, there are less traditional systems out there working, so therefore, less of a market for refurbished phones and main equipment to be installed onto them. More supply, much less demand. Hence why prices have fallen through the floor. 

However, we’ve been pleasantly surprised recently by being able to match buyer with seller on a few occasions. Our roots in this industry go back to 1996, so we know of the main players who buy, refurbish, and remarket used PABX. We get regular requests for equipment from the trade. So it’s always worth giving us a try, and there are other ways to find a buyer, which I’ll deal with in a later post. But there are things we, and any other potential buyer, needs to know… 
What Is It? When someone calls and says “I’ve got a used phone system, would you like to buy it?” I have to resist the urge to be a little bit sarcastic, and compare the question to “Would you like to buy my car – it’s a white one”. Information is vital, and the more information, the better. Make and model of the system, lines and extensions capacity, type of telephones (usually readable on the underside), colour and condition (many telephones turn yellow in the sun, and this decreases value), how many extensions it used to serve. A decent emailed specification will increase the chance of finding a buyer. It’s certainly worth spending the time to do this. 

Pictures! These will tell the potential buyer much. In particular, if it’s possible to take the front cover off, open the door, or otherwise carefully expose the control unit’s cards and hardware, all the better. It’s the equivalent of lifting a car’s bonnet. A trained eye can spot things from a photo immediately. In the course of our work on major PABX de-installation, we take hundreds of photos, and rely on them heavily, despite our experience in this business. 

Fiddly Bits. Lots of used phone systems arrive at our premises for potential reuse with vital, seemingly inconsequential (but irreplaceable) bits missing. Wall brackets, bespoke cables, adapters, dongles, clips,“thingies”. Missing bits lower value even further. Always ensure that whoever removes the system from the wall, or assembles the various bit for collection, leaves nothing out. 

Passwords, Records, etc. As above. It’s frustrating to be locked out of a system for want of a missing password, key code, etc. Simply bung all supporting documentation in! 

I’m sorry if this sounds hard or complicated, but I’m always on the side of the seller in trying to recover some value of their formerly valuable hardware. I hate seeing it go to waste. Reuse is the best form of recycling, but any potential new owner needs to know what they will be reusing. Meanwhile, there is an even better way of disposing of your equipment.  And it’s most certainly NOT this one…

When asking for directions in Rural South West Ireland, a lost traveller was told by a local, “Well if I were you, I wouldn’t be starting from here”. Sadly, if you’re reading this, it may be too late, and you are, indeed, “starting from here”. But my earnest recommendation to anyone wanting to replace their phone system is to use it in part-exchange against their new one. Your supplier will be eager to close the deal,, so make disposal a bargaining point. Their installer will probably have to remove the central control unit anyway, and collect old phones from desks, so there’s not much extra work involved. They will have more than enough margin in the transaction to cover any disposal costs. So, make it their problem, not yours. A condition of the sale. Be bold. It’s not uncommon to do things this way.

However, if this opportunity has past, and you need help, even for recycling, you are more than welcome to drop us a mail, or call on 0870 720 0028. We love matching sellers to buyers, and might just be able to help. And apart from us, I’ll list some other “routes to a buyer” in a following post.  

If you don’t want to read on, and just need us to attend to a problem, simply give me a call on 07786 541542. However, if you want to benefit from knowing how not to get stung for a large-ish bill, please read on…

We’re aware of a costly problem that some home customers encounter which turns out to be expensive. It’s quite simple to avoid.

There is a specific “boundary point” in your home where your telephone line provider’s responsibility ends, and yours begins. Here it is.

Quite simply, the bit that fixed to the wall goes to the outside world, and to the national phone network. Any faults with that are the responsibility of Openreach (the former BT engineering division who will come to your house on behalf of your provider). In the front of this socket is a faceplate that plugs into the wall-mounted bit. This brings your various extensions from around the house to one point and connects them onto the line.

Now, if you have a dead line, or some kind of noise, interference, or any other kind of problem, you need to determine if this is your fault (your wiring), or theirs. This is done by taking off the faceplate, and plugging a known working telephone straight into the socket that is behind it. Your wiring is then disconnected from the network, and can cause no mischief.

If the problem goes away, then the fault lies with your wiring or devices.

If it does not, then the problem lies outside your house and is not your responsibility. You need to report it to your provider, who will arrange for their desingated engineer (usually working for Openreach) to call if necessary.

Here comes the costly bit; The risk of a bill to you for a visit comes if you ask for an engineer to call, and a fault is discovered on your extension cabling, not theirs. Quite fairly, they have to charge for their time and resources. This can be from £132.00 upwards. Ouch.

So… you need to be absolutely sure that the problem is not with your wiring, sockets, and devices before getting them to come to you..

Has this been helpful? We are more than happy to diagnose problems ourselves, and charge less than your provider or Openreach.

If we can help, then let us know via info@telecomgreen.co.uk, 07786 541542, or even by leaving a comment below. We’d be pleased to help, and hate people getting nasty bill surprises.

We’re based in Eaglescliffe, Stockton on Tees, and deal with, amongst other things home phone extension faults, and broadband problems.

Even after many years in the telecomms business, I’m still utterly amazed that broadband works at all, let alone at the speed it does when everything is hunky-dory. Even the most cynical of my colleagues are secretly impressed that we can enjoy downloads speeds of 17mb and above down a line that was originally designed to handle old-fashioned dial-telephones and voices.

Most folks would believe that their broadband runs over something you’d see in a science fiction movie. Nope. It’s a pair of wires, half a millimetre in diameter. That’s it.

Now, to get from the local exchange to you, they make a journey that might surprise you. The pyschedelic seaweed you see below is part of the story. This is a street cabinet, one of those green metal boxes in the street that you occasionally see engineers working on. The white/red/pink round things are push connectors filled with vaseline. Yes, it really is that crude.

It’s not quite so chaotic as it might seem, as the chaps who deal with these things have crafty, electronic ways of identifying which wire comes from where.  As do we.

The journey continues…

Despite appearances, the next picture was not taken in the 1920s, but a few years ago, in my neighbourhood, and it remains in place to this day The round, white things are probably at least fifty years old, and are out of use, but the wires around them are busy at work carrying broadband and telephone signals. Yes, broadband comes to you using telephone poles, often on the last part of its journey, and vulnerable to birds, ladders, trees, high trucks, and strong winds.

Eventually, the signle pair of copper wires, 0.5mm in the middle, will arrive at your house on the back of the BT/Openreach master socket. Here’s the back view of one we removed from disconnected BT lines in a buidling about to be refurbished.

And then your broadband signal has to navigate around the cabling in your house, much of it hidden, and only as good as the person who put it in, and may not have done it to professional standards.

Not surprisingly, on this journey from the telephone exchange, your broadband signal can encounter all kinds of challenges, including dirty or broken joints or cables, intermittant interference, birdy poo, rats, and tree branches. Hence, sometimes it does not work. Or, worse still, has the occasional electronic sulk or go-slow.

This is where we can help. We’re able to rule out any faults at your end of the wires, so that any problems can be referred back to your provider. One of the most frustrating problem to face it the to and fro of “it’s your fault/no, it’s YOUR fault” between the customer and the broadband company. We can at least rule out your end from being the trouble.  Leave a comment here, drop us a mail at rob.govier@telecomgreen.co.uk or give us a call on 07786 541542 if you think we might be able to help.

Broadband faults and home phone repairs in Eaglescliffe, Yarm, Stockton on Tees, and Middlesbrough! Not forgetting North Yorkshire! Yes, we now offer a fault finding, cabling, installation and repair service for domestic users and small businesses close to our base

Many telecomms companies don’t want to deal with smaller jobs, whereas we love the fact that we’re not having to thunder 200 miles down a motorway in order to get to the work! “Round the corner” suits us just fine.

We’ve been trading in used phone system equipment, as well as recycling old phones for almost thirteen years, and have increasingly developed skills in installation, cabling, programming and supply of systems. So, as the market continues to evolve, we’ve started marketing this service.  We’d didn’t look for this work, but it seemed to find us, as customers appreciated our ability in putting things in, as well as taking things out.

The humble domestic phone line was never designed to carry huge chunks of high-speed data. I’m utterly amazed that broadband works at all. And sometimes it doesn’t. So, we can help with taking a look at just why, which may be for a number of reasons. You may be in a dispute with your broadband company, who claim that their service to you is just fine, whereas the speed is pretty lousy. It might just be their fault. But how do you prove it?

We’ve been helping customers small and not so small with these kind of problems for some time now, and are aware of most of the basic   issues that can slow broadband down.  Some are easy to spot and fix.  Some take a little more time…

Furthermore, if your provider sends an Openreach (formerly BT) engineer to your house, and the problem is to do with your own internal cabling (that is, not their fault), then they will charge you for their visit. At least £130. Ouch. Beware.

So, if you think we can help, give me a call on 07786 541542 or 0870 720 0028. Or leave a comment below. Or email rob.govier@telecomgreen.co.uk

Reasonable rates, old-fashion values of courtesy and service, but modern solutions.