Last Updated (Tuesday, 30 November 1999 00:00)
Written by Micki Kaufman
Thursday, 19 August 2010 03:10
Nearly all businesses today have a need for both telephone and broadband Internet service. Most businesses installed telephone first and Internet later. That’s led to a mix of line services to meet specific needs. Is there a better solution?
Today’s digital technology allows you to have both telephone service and broadband Internet access coming in on a single line. That often offers considerable cost savings over two separate services. But what about quality of service?
You might cringe at the thought of combined telephone and Internet if you’ve had a bad experience with VoIP over residential broadband. Usually it’s the phone service that suffers. Voices get garbled, you may hear an echo on the line, people start talking over each other with a delay in the speech, and calls can even be dropped. That’s what can happen when you just plug a VoIP phone or adaptor into a shared broadband service with uncontrolled bandwidth.
There are much better solutions available for business users. VoIP telephony can sound excellent and be as stable as traditional analog telephony. The trick is to carefully engineer the line to ensure adequate bandwidth, jitter, latency and voice packet priority.
A service called Integrated T1 does just this. A single T1 line with 1.5 Mbps dedicated bandwidth in both directions connects the business location to the service provider. There are no other users sharing this line. A specialized router called an Integrated Access Device converts analog telephony signals to digital packets. Those voice packets are assigned a portion of the line bandwidth to ensure they don’t get overwhelmed by data packets from Web sites and other Internet services. This bandwidth is assigned dynamically. As more phones are in use, more bandwidth is reserved for phone calls. When calls hang up, that bandwidth is reassigned for broadband Internet access.
Integrated T1 service works best for smaller businesses that need 6 to 12 phone lines plus modest broadband Internet service. It is possible to add more bandwidth as the business grows by bonding additional T1 lines.
Another service that combines voice and data on a single line service is called SIP Trunking. SIP is the signaling protocol used by enterprise VoIP telephone systems. You may already have a VoIP telephone system in your office. If so, you can get both voice and broadband Internet service over a SIP trunk. Like Integrated T1, SIP trunking manages quality of service to ensure that data and voice packets don’t interfere. SIP trunks, however, can have much higher bandwidth that T1 lines. Large SIP trunks can carry hundreds or even thousands of telephone calls.
Are Integrated T1 or SIP Trunking the right solution to give your company a substantial cost savings? Find out with a competitive service quote from Enterprise VoIP. You may be paying far more than you need to with your existing mix of telephone and broadband services.
Today’s digital technology allows you to have both telephone service and broadband Internet access coming in on a single line. That often offers considerable cost savings over two separate services. But what about quality of service?You might cringe at the thought of combined telephone and Internet if you’ve had a bad experience with VoIP over residential broadband. Usually it’s the phone service that suffers. Voices get garbled, you may hear an echo on the line, people start talking over each other with a delay in the speech, and calls can even be dropped. That’s what can happen when you just plug a VoIP phone or adaptor into a shared broadband service with uncontrolled bandwidth.
There are much better solutions available for business users. VoIP telephony can sound excellent and be as stable as traditional analog telephony. The trick is to carefully engineer the line to ensure adequate bandwidth, jitter, latency and voice packet priority.
A service called Integrated T1 does just this. A single T1 line with 1.5 Mbps dedicated bandwidth in both directions connects the business location to the service provider. There are no other users sharing this line. A specialized router called an Integrated Access Device converts analog telephony signals to digital packets. Those voice packets are assigned a portion of the line bandwidth to ensure they don’t get overwhelmed by data packets from Web sites and other Internet services. This bandwidth is assigned dynamically. As more phones are in use, more bandwidth is reserved for phone calls. When calls hang up, that bandwidth is reassigned for broadband Internet access.
Integrated T1 service works best for smaller businesses that need 6 to 12 phone lines plus modest broadband Internet service. It is possible to add more bandwidth as the business grows by bonding additional T1 lines.
Another service that combines voice and data on a single line service is called SIP Trunking. SIP is the signaling protocol used by enterprise VoIP telephone systems. You may already have a VoIP telephone system in your office. If so, you can get both voice and broadband Internet service over a SIP trunk. Like Integrated T1, SIP trunking manages quality of service to ensure that data and voice packets don’t interfere. SIP trunks, however, can have much higher bandwidth that T1 lines. Large SIP trunks can carry hundreds or even thousands of telephone calls.
Are Integrated T1 or SIP Trunking the right solution to give your company a substantial cost savings? Find out with a competitive service quote from Enterprise VoIP. You may be paying far more than you need to with your existing mix of telephone and broadband services.
Last Updated (Tuesday, 30 November 1999 00:00)
Written by Micki Kaufman
Wednesday, 18 August 2010 02:10
Are you familiar with the term “fiber lit building?” It’s a fairly new concept. A fiber lit building is one where fiber optic service is already installed? How do you find them? Just use this handy resource...
The Ethernet Buildings Lit Building Locator is something of a mapping service. Think of it as a treasure map. The treasure itself is the availability of large bandwidth services without the need for expensive construction costs. If you have a need for higher levels of bandwidth, the lit building is where you want to be.
What kind of bandwidth are we talking about? With fiber optic connections, there really isn’t much of an upper limit. You’ll run out of money before you tap out all the bandwidth that can be brought in on fiber. A fiber strand can easily support Gigabit Ethernet or 10 GigE. With wavelength multiplexing, dozens of 10 Gigabit services can be multiplexed onto a single fiber. Most cables have many strands, even dozens or a hundred individual glass fibers bundled together.
Now, in a practical sense terabits per second of bandwidth probably won’t be provisioned to buildings where you would rent space. Even so, it’s nice to know that you can get DS3, OC3, 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet or Gigabit Ethernet bandwidth to support your organization. Those are typical services running over fiber optic connections. Which ones are available will depend on what has been installed in a particular building. If you need a different service, even if it isn’t current installed, you may well be able to request that protocol and bandwidth level with minimal or no construction costs assessed.
How do you find out where the lit buildings are and what type of services are available at them? Simply run a quick inquiry using the Lit Building Locator for a location map. You can then request pricing for particular services of interest.
The Ethernet Buildings Lit Building Locator is something of a mapping service. Think of it as a treasure map. The treasure itself is the availability of large bandwidth services without the need for expensive construction costs. If you have a need for higher levels of bandwidth, the lit building is where you want to be.
What kind of bandwidth are we talking about? With fiber optic connections, there really isn’t much of an upper limit. You’ll run out of money before you tap out all the bandwidth that can be brought in on fiber. A fiber strand can easily support Gigabit Ethernet or 10 GigE. With wavelength multiplexing, dozens of 10 Gigabit services can be multiplexed onto a single fiber. Most cables have many strands, even dozens or a hundred individual glass fibers bundled together.
Now, in a practical sense terabits per second of bandwidth probably won’t be provisioned to buildings where you would rent space. Even so, it’s nice to know that you can get DS3, OC3, 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet or Gigabit Ethernet bandwidth to support your organization. Those are typical services running over fiber optic connections. Which ones are available will depend on what has been installed in a particular building. If you need a different service, even if it isn’t current installed, you may well be able to request that protocol and bandwidth level with minimal or no construction costs assessed.
How do you find out where the lit buildings are and what type of services are available at them? Simply run a quick inquiry using the Lit Building Locator for a location map. You can then request pricing for particular services of interest.
Last Updated (Tuesday, 30 November 1999 00:00)
Written by Micki Kaufman
Tuesday, 17 August 2010 02:10
If you are a company with dozens, hundreds or thousands of locations, what you’d really like to deal with is a national local phone company for your telecom needs. But national local is an oxymoron, right? Can there even be such a company?
There is and it’s called Ernest Communications. This organization is unlike no telephone company you’ve dealt with. It’s focus is large nationwide multi-location accounts needing telephone lines, data lines, wireless mobile, or all of these.
What type of businesses fall into this category? National or regional chain stores come to mind immediately. Also, hotels, motels, gas stations, financial services, healthcare, real estate offices, insurance companies, entertainment venues such as theaters, and quick service restaurants. You can probably think of more categories, including the business you are in.
Any company depending on franchises, branch offices or service centers is in the business of supporting a multitude of small local operations. Every one of them has communications needs. Now, would you like to deal with a hundred or thousand separate local service providers or one larger company that has the staffing, expertise and products to handle all your business. Not only does this make your life easier by having a single point of contact, but you’ll likely save money due to the economy of scale.
Ernest Communications has taken advantage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to gain access to the nearly 200 million local lines that make up the Public Switched Telephone Network. Ernest provides your local telephone service plus they include most of the common custom calling features such as Call Waiting and Caller ID. Directory Assistance and IntraLATA toll charges are included in flat rate and blended rate plans. They’ll block all 3rd party and casual billing charges. Long distance rates are competitive.
Nearly all locations now require reliable broadband as well as telephone services. Ernest can provide high speed Internet access with speeds from 1.5 Mbps to 45 Mbps with performance governed by Service Level Agreements (SLA). You’ll get professional installation and 24/7/365 monitoring, which is not always the case with other providers.
Does your company have enough employees at one or more locations that you use a key telephone system or in-house PBX? Ernest can provide you with the ISDN PRI digital telephone lines that you need.
Many companies also now depend on wireless communications as well as line services to get the job done. Think about field service and sales people. Ernest has perhaps the only nationwide wireless solution designed specifically for business use. You’ll be able to choose from a variety of handsets, smartphones and mobile data devices, including BlackBerry devices. You also have your choice of shared, pooled, bundled and pay-per-use plans.
Getting your telecom services from a single provider has the advantage of giving you a single bill that combines all your voice, mobility and data services. Plus you have the ease of management that comes from having a single point of contact for moves, adds, changes and deletes that are part of normal business activity.
Could your regional or national multi-location business simplify operations and save money by working with a nationwide communications company? Why not get a competitive quote for your voice, data and mobility services and see for yourself. Our Telarus consultants can help you with this, plus any of your higher bandwidth or international communications needs.
There is and it’s called Ernest Communications. This organization is unlike no telephone company you’ve dealt with. It’s focus is large nationwide multi-location accounts needing telephone lines, data lines, wireless mobile, or all of these. What type of businesses fall into this category? National or regional chain stores come to mind immediately. Also, hotels, motels, gas stations, financial services, healthcare, real estate offices, insurance companies, entertainment venues such as theaters, and quick service restaurants. You can probably think of more categories, including the business you are in.
Any company depending on franchises, branch offices or service centers is in the business of supporting a multitude of small local operations. Every one of them has communications needs. Now, would you like to deal with a hundred or thousand separate local service providers or one larger company that has the staffing, expertise and products to handle all your business. Not only does this make your life easier by having a single point of contact, but you’ll likely save money due to the economy of scale.
Ernest Communications has taken advantage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to gain access to the nearly 200 million local lines that make up the Public Switched Telephone Network. Ernest provides your local telephone service plus they include most of the common custom calling features such as Call Waiting and Caller ID. Directory Assistance and IntraLATA toll charges are included in flat rate and blended rate plans. They’ll block all 3rd party and casual billing charges. Long distance rates are competitive.
Nearly all locations now require reliable broadband as well as telephone services. Ernest can provide high speed Internet access with speeds from 1.5 Mbps to 45 Mbps with performance governed by Service Level Agreements (SLA). You’ll get professional installation and 24/7/365 monitoring, which is not always the case with other providers.
Does your company have enough employees at one or more locations that you use a key telephone system or in-house PBX? Ernest can provide you with the ISDN PRI digital telephone lines that you need.
Many companies also now depend on wireless communications as well as line services to get the job done. Think about field service and sales people. Ernest has perhaps the only nationwide wireless solution designed specifically for business use. You’ll be able to choose from a variety of handsets, smartphones and mobile data devices, including BlackBerry devices. You also have your choice of shared, pooled, bundled and pay-per-use plans.
Getting your telecom services from a single provider has the advantage of giving you a single bill that combines all your voice, mobility and data services. Plus you have the ease of management that comes from having a single point of contact for moves, adds, changes and deletes that are part of normal business activity.
Could your regional or national multi-location business simplify operations and save money by working with a nationwide communications company? Why not get a competitive quote for your voice, data and mobility services and see for yourself. Our Telarus consultants can help you with this, plus any of your higher bandwidth or international communications needs.
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