UC Experts relies on Combell’s ultra-solid redundancy

How do you build communication systems trusted even by emergency response centers? UC Experts from Mechelen does it every single day. As specialists in Voice over IP (VoIP) and Unified Communications, they combine deep technical expertise with a strong partner-driven approach. Thanks to a custom-built managed hosting environment developed specifically for UC Experts, Combell guarantees the very highest uptime for their cloud infrastructure.

This time, we sat down with owner Tim Buts and colleague Kevin Breugelmans (Senior Engineer & Trainer). As members of the UC Experts team, they prove that telecom is about much more than just a phone sitting on a desk.

The impact of their work becomes especially clear in environments where there is zero margin for error.

Not only self-employed, SMEs, and (inter)national enterprises rely on UC Experts for their Belgian PBX solutions – emergency call centers, ambulance services, and fire departments also depend on the reliability of UC Experts’ infrastructure.

“Telephony can never fail,” Kevin emphasizes.

“If you’re unreachable, panic starts immediately. Our stability, partly thanks to Combell, is no coincidence. It’s the result of years of expertise and a consistent focus on quality, both technically and organizationally.”

The great thing about Combell is that there’s always room for open dialogue. We’re not customers, but full-fledged partners.

Tim Buts, owner of UC Experts

From traditional phone systems to Unified Communications

The telecom world is going through a fundamental shift. Traditional phone systems and ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) are disappearing, copper networks are being phased out, and well-known manufacturers are putting an end to legacy solutions.

“Manufacturers are stopping support for traditional phone systems. Major players missed the train to innovative technology. As a result, many companies are now being forced to rapidly search for alternatives,” says Tim.

“Unified Communications – integrated communication such as calling, video calling, chat, and IT integrations – is the way to go.”

Where hardware and analog lines once took center stage, today everything revolves around IP, networks, cloud environments, and integrations with IT systems.

“It’s like a traditional car mechanic suddenly ending up in an era where everything is electronic: you have to keep learning,” Kevin notes.

UC Experts sees it as their mission to guide partners through that transition. They don’t just provide products, they strongly focus on education and support.

“Many partners still have a huge legacy install base. It’s our job to take them along on that journey, support them as much as possible, and provide the right knowledge,” Kevin explains.

Who are the customers of UC Experts?

UC Experts mainly works together with IT integrators, telecom installers, and Managed Service Providers (MSPs). Their partners, in turn, serve thousands of Belgian SMEs and organizations across a wide range of industries.

“Our customers are IT and telecom companies. VoIP is based on IP, and IP is tied to IT. Those worlds go hand in hand,” says Tim.

End customers come from many different sectors, including emergency services, hospitality, retail, and real estate.

“Ambulance services, as well as fire and police departments, use our solution. Many end customers are in hospitality, where telephony is obviously absolutely critical. One phone call can save lives,” says Kevin.

“But real estate companies also need to remain reachable: one missed call can cost them hundreds of thousands of euros. Neither our partners nor we want to be responsible for that,” he stresses.

One phone call through our solution can save lives.

Kevin Breugelmans, Senior VoIP Engineer at UC Experts

More than a distributor

UC Experts describes itself as a value-added distributor. “I proudly dare say that we are a distributor with real added value,” Tim says.

“We’re not a traditional hardware distributor. Partners don’t call us simply to buy a product – they contact us to think through a solution together.

For example, we help work out specific cases, brainstorm about architecture and technical choices, or formulate answers to complex customer questions. We always do this in their own language and with knowledge of the Belgian market.

We call ourselves experts in Unified Communications – it’s literally our company name. That means we have to live up to that name one hundred percent,” Tim emphasizes.

“That’s why our training sessions are so important,” Kevin adds. “During those two days, we provide our partners with a strong foundation. To help them get started properly later on, we try to teach them as much as possible.

And if partners later encounter a question or issue, our helpdesk is there to solve it together with them.

Only a minority of tickets that come in here need to be escalated to the manufacturer. That means we have enough in-house expertise to solve most things ourselves.”

As a distributor of 3CX and RedCactus, as well as well-known UC hardware brands such as Snom, Fanvil, Gigaset, and Yealink, UC Experts offers partners much more than individual products.

By combining this with SIP trunks, mobile subscriptions, fiber connections, and hosting, they have become a true one-stop shop for their partners.

Rock-solid cloud infrastructure ensures low latency

Cloud telephony is sensitive. It’s not just uptime that matters, call quality is equally important. VoIP traffic often runs over UDP (User Datagram Protocol), a fast protocol without a confirmation mechanism like TCP (Transmission Control Protocol).

“Voice traffic starts somewhere and has to arrive at the other side. Period. There’s no ‘check’ like with an email that gets confirmed,” Tim explains.

“That makes latency dangerous, delays, in other words. The faster packets move from A to B, the fewer hiccups occur along the way. Fortunately, with a partner like Combell, we keep the latency of the central platform as low as possible,” Kevin says.

From sleepless nights to worry-free hosting

In the beginning, UC Experts hosted its platform itself. But as the number of environments grew, that became increasingly unsustainable.

“We went from 50 to 1,300 instances. If a certain percentage of those experience problems, dozens to hundreds of businesses are immediately affected. Everything has to work every single day,” Tim says.

Kevin nods: “When we still did everything ourselves, all the work – from server renewals to monitoring – ended up on our shoulders.

Sometimes we even had to get out of bed at night because something needed to be fixed. Honestly? Back when we hosted everything ourselves, you closed the door at night thinking: hopefully nothing goes wrong tonight.”

When we hosted everything ourselves, we never fully slept peacefully. With Combell as our partner, we do.

Kevin Breugelmans, Senior VoIP Engineer at UC Experts

Combell: Belgian, stable, and scalable

In 2018, UC Experts started looking for a structural solution. It was important that the infrastructure was located in Belgium, had direct interconnects with major providers, was GDPR compliant, and offered high uptime. That’s when Combell came on board.

“For us, the hosting and data had to stay in Belgium. A UC environment contains valuable data. Who calls whom and when? That data must be hosted correctly – and above all, ultra-securely,” Tim makes clear.

The highest possible uptime

The final choice was a fully custom-developed – and Belgian – managed hosting environment.

This gives UC Experts strong guarantees in terms of first-class hardware, ultra-solid redundancy, high availability, and the highest possible uptime.

“Because this solution was specifically set up for UC Experts, it gives us the flexibility to maintain control over our own environments,” says Tim. “Another major advantage: we can rely on premium support day and night.”

Infrastructure that scales with ambition

For critical environments, “it usually works” is simply not enough. That’s exactly why UC Experts expects the highest guarantees from Combell in terms of redundancy and high availability.

“We have to assume that something could eventually go wrong,” Tim says. “When that happens, you want an environment to automatically take over without end users noticing anything. That level of certainty requires infrastructure that grows together with our ambitions.”

No cumbersome ticket flows, just trust

For critical telephony environments, fast and reliable communication between partners is equally important. UC Experts relies on a direct line to Combell’s experts.

“Slack ensures that we immediately reach the right technical people, without going through complicated ticket flows,” Kevin says. “Sometimes it’s even the CTO personally keeping us informed.”

“When upgrades happen overnight, we can immediately see the next morning that everything was executed correctly. That creates trust,” Tim confirms.

UC Experts looks ahead: automation and AI

Telephony is evolving toward further automation, reporting, and AI-driven applications. UC Experts is exploring deeper integrations with ERP and CRM systems, extensive dashboards, and AI-powered call analysis.

“Every year brings new releases and functionalities. We need to keep investing in knowledge and innovation,” Tim says.

Partnership as shared DNA

Why does UC Experts continue to work with Combell despite alternatives abroad? A shared partnership mentality appears to play a crucial role.

Owner Tim summarizes it this way:

“The great thing about Combell is that there’s always room for open dialogue. If something comes up – pricing, specs, or growth plans – we can simply discuss it with our account manager. We’re not customers, but full-fledged partners.”

When upgrades happen overnight, we can immediately see the next morning that Combell executed everything correctly. That creates trust.

Tim Buts, owner of UC Experts

Talk to us about your cloud infrastructure

The UC Experts case clearly shows how important infrastructure becomes once communication turns business-critical.

Communication today is pure IT. And once communication becomes critical, the underlying infrastructure needs to support that same level of reliability.

With Combell, you can count on:

• Scalable virtual infrastructure
• Belgian datacenters
• High performance and low latency
• Premium support
• Flexibility to evolve alongside your growth journey

Discover how our custom-developed solutions make your infrastructure scalable, high-performing, and future-proof. Are you building a platform where uptime is not an option, but a requirement?

Our experts are happy to think along with you.