Vanity Numbers for Small Businesses

What's in a number? If it's the phone number of your business, a lot may be at stake. Your business presence depends on people being able to reach you. If they can't remember your number, maybe they'll call one they can remember. Like the number of your direct competitor. That's the problem vanity numbers can help you solve.

So what is a vanity number? It's a special telephone number. It has the same quantity and sequence of digits as any other phone number. But these numbers are special. They're organized to be easier to remember.

There are two types of vanity numbers to be aware of. The most popular are the numbers that spell out a word or phrase. This is similar to vanity license plates that spell out someone's name or a phrase. You can be just as creative with phone numbers as you can with license plates.

So how do you spell out something when all you have to work with are numbers? Ah, that's the secret of the dialpad. The dialpad is the matrix of 12 buttons on every modern telephone. They arranged 3 across and 4 down. These buttons are also called the touchpad or touch tone pad, after the name "Touch Tones" which are the electronic tones that replaced the rotary dial. If you are old enough to remember rotary phones, you know that the dial had both letters and numbers for each finger hole. The hole for the number 1 contained only the number 1. The hold for number two contained the number 2 plus the letters A, B, C. You probably also remember that some of the first phone numbers used letters to indicate the phone exchange, such as AD for Adams. It was just an easier to way to remember numbers.

Well, guess what? The modern dial pad is also labeled with both letters and numbers and we can still use them to make phone numbers easier to remember. Number 1 is the only number to have only a number assigned to it. Number 2 has A, B, and C. The number 3 includes D, E, and F. The number 4 has G, H, I. Number 5 includes J, K, L. Number 6 has M, N, O. Number 7 includes P, Q, R, S. Number 8 has T, U, V with it. Number 9 wraps up the alphabet with W, X, Y and Z. The operator digit is the number 0, not the letter O. That accounts for 10 of the 12 buttons. The other 2 buttons are the star * and the pound sign # which have special uses and are not part of your telephone number.

Now, which is easier to remember: The numerical toll free number 1-877-327-4325 or 1-877-3-BRIDAL? If you're running a bridal shop, which do you think would be easier to associate with your business? Some other examples are 1-866-89-BIBLE, 1-866-6-BEEPER, and 1-866-684-DEAL. I didn't just make these up. They're actual toll free numbers available for use as of this writing. You'll find a list of available low cost toll free numbers here. If these examples are taken by the time you read this, rest assured there are plenty more to choose from.

The other type of vanity number is easier to remember because of its numerical arrangement. These are sometimes called repeaters or premium numbers. How about 1-866-262-1500? It's easier to remember than just any collection of numbers because it ends in two zeros. Here's one where there's an easy to remember pattern: 1-800-301-1010. Yes, these are also real numbers that are on the market right now, at least as of this writing. As you might guess, there are a limited number of phone numbers with these special patterns and they command a premium price.

I'm using toll free numbers as examples of vanity numbers because they have a special value for small businesses. It's another case of encouraging customers and prospects to call you instead of your competitors. A local call is a local call for everyone. But as soon as you get to the next town or state, a call becomes a long distance call. If your prospect or client has to pay for the call, are they just as likely to call you? Or will they pick someone nearby where the call is free to them? If you're running a mail order service, you know how important toll free numbers are to customers. For consultants, travel agents, Realtors, financial advisors, and even bridal shops, a toll free number can also spell the difference between sale and no sale.

Fortunately, vanity numbers for small businesses are still a bargain unless you want one of those exotic premium numbers. At Agile800.com, you'll find a collection of vanity number available for immediate assignment to your business at fees of just $15 or $20 each. That includes numbers like 1-877-7-ALUMNI, 1-866-84-BOATS, and 1-866-329-DEBT, plus dozens of others. Remember, these particular numbers may or may not still be available when you read this. Good ones tend to go fast.

Ready to pick your perfect vanity number or at least check out the selection? You can learn more about making toll free numbers work for your business, plus all the service features that can help you capture and retain more customers, when you visit Agile800.com now.

Digital Signage Networking

The newest outdoor advertising in town looks more like an enormous plasma TV than a billboard. It's actually an LED matrix display the same size as the large outdoor billboard it replaces. Unlike the billboards with replaceable vinyl banners, this new billboard can change messages as often as every few seconds. It also glows for easy readability both day and night.

Digital signage is the new term for all types of electronic displays including LED video billboards, time and temperature signs at banks, crawling stock tickers, ballpark scoreboards, and flat panel TVs showing ads in grocery stores. The largest examples are the 120 foot tall rounded LED display at the NASDAQ-AMEX Marketsite Tower in Times Square and the enormous overhead LED video screen called the Fremont Street Experience in Las Vegas.

These gigantic electronic signs are made up of replaceable modules containing high brightness Light Emitting Diodes instead of light bulbs. All-electronic LEDs are low maintenance and can last 70,000 or more hours before needing replacement. They can be addressed individually like pixels on a computer monitor. Clusters of different color LEDs can display millions of RGB (Red, Green, Blue) colors. From normal viewing distances, the LED pixels produce a smooth picture that can be refreshed at video rates. In essence, the billboard has become a TV screen.

While smaller digital signs and simple one color matrix displays are intended for a single business location and programmed locally, many of the larger multicolor billboards are suitable for general commercial advertisements. Signs that have similar resolution to the paper and vinyl panels they replace can serve the same purpose, but with vastly expanded options. Many are used to display a series of different advertisements on a rotating basis. But the potential is there to update images on demand. For instance, a store located near a large billboard could offer 1 hour special sales. A bakery could tell drivers to take the next exit to get in on the hot batch of pastries just coming out of the oven. Billboards could feature breakfast specials to freeway drivers in morning rush hour and dinner specials during evening drive time.

This ability to advertise by day part has long been a staple of radio and TV stations, but now comes within the ability of outdoor advertising as more and more billboards are converted to digital signage. The LED display can also show moving images, even video and TV. The challenge for creative ad departments is now to leverage this new capability appropriately, so the message gets through in the time available to view it.

Another challenge is to replace the fleet of trucks that go around updating billboards once a week, a month or longer, with high speed network links so that the electronic billboards can be updated on a real-time basis. This requires a private or virtually private network with reasonable bandwidth and high reliability. Some operators use satellite Earth stations or fiber optic cables, depending on what is available. Another option is T1 data lines, which are almost universally available even in remote locations. T1 service is highly reliable, comes with a service level guarantee, and offers a bandwidth of 1.5 Mbps for rapid download updates. The reverse channel can be used to monitor billboard performance or perhaps send video camera images of traffic conditions at the site.

T1 private lines or VPNs (Virtual Private Networks), running on T1 dedicated Internet connections or MPLS networks, offer the opportunity to control an entire inventory of outdoor ad locations from a central point. Advertisers can then pick the locations, times, rotation schedule, and creative updates as needed for their campaigns. New content can be uploaded from advertiser to ad agency to the desired signs almost as fast as it can be created. That's the promise of digital signage networking.

If you can benefit from high reliability digital connections for digital signage, radio or television program transmission or other electronic content, give our team of connectivity experts a chance to help you get the best bandwidth solutions at the best prices. You can enter a simple quote request online or call the toll free number listed on T1Rex.com

Voicemail Service for 800 Numbers

Can you make good use of toll free service with voice mail? A stand-alone toll free service may be your best bet. The one we've got in mind bundles voicemail, voice and fax messages sent to your email, online account control, and detailed call reporting for a bargain price. Your account can manage a single 800 number or an entire suite of them.

The first thing you should know is that 800 numbers, the ones where the caller gets to call for free, have been expanded due to popular demand. Not that long ago only big companies could afford them. Large corporations, catalog sales companies, and all those infomercials you watch at 3 in the morning when the pepperoni from the pizza you had at 10 is keeping you up. Those are the traditional users of 800 numbers. But thanks to competitive toll free service providers, small retailers, consultants, insurance sales offices, real estate agents and similar professionals and small office users can all have their own toll free numbers. You can certainly have an 800 number, but you can also get 866, 877, and 888 prefixes at even greater savings.

Inbound toll free service, the technical name for "800" service, is a phone number in the form of 800-xxx-xxxx. The prefix 800, 866, 877 or 888 replaces the area code portion of the number. That tells the service provider to bill the party being called, rather than the caller, for the cost of the phone call. So why would YOU want to pay for calls you don't originate? Only if you really, really want to encourage people to call you. The reason that catalog companies have toll free numbers is that many people are turned off by the idea of have to pay for a call to order something or even contact customer service. Catalog retailers have found that they get lots more orders when it doesn't cost the customer anything to call in. The low per minute rates for toll free long distance service are often easily offset by increased sales opportunities.

If you are in the sales, marketing, consulting or other professional category, you realize that calls from customers and potential clients can be extremely valuable. That's especially true when customers have the option to easily contact competitors if it's too expensive and/or difficult to get ahold of you. That's where toll free numbers bundled with voicemail can really save the day. The toll free number gets rid of the stigma of being out of the local area. Every call is a free call to the client, regardless of where you happen to be. Bundled voicemail means that you'll never miss a call because you're unavailable. If you don't pick up, your voicemail does.

The toll free service we recommend has some advanced features that make it especially useful to mobile professionals. First of all, you can manage your "ring to" number at will. That's the number of the phone that will ring when someone calls the toll free number. It can be any convenient landline or mobile phone. Some users set their toll free number to ring to their office phone during business hours and to their cell phone at all other times. Others pick a phone and let voicemail get the calls when they aren't around.

Another valuable feature is the ability of the system to send copies of your voicemails to your computer. You can be having lunch while checking your emails at a WiFi hotspot and an email will come in with a voice message attached. The recording is formatted to a .WAV file, so you just click it and listen to the message. Of course you can call-in to get your messages over the phone, if you want.

Just as handy, the system is able to receive inbound FAX messages and route them as email attachments to your computer. Not only can you listen to a customer voice message away from the office, you can read the fax they sent to your toll free number. On the road you can avoid that trek to the hotel desk to see if any FAXs have come for you, and perhaps read by the staff or a competitor having a peek.

Now here's the really amazing part. You can get all this service for perhaps less than you pay for your long distance calls. A common 866, 877 or 888 toll free number costs $2 to activate and $2 a month for service, including the 24/7 online management and advanced voicemail / fax reception. Incoming calls, including fax messages, will cost you 6.9 cents a minute for calls to or from anywhere in the 48 US states and nearly all of Canada. Alaska, Hawaii and rural Canadian areas are a bit more. Calls from the USA can terminate overseas at international rates, making it possible for those in other countries to have a U.S. telephone presence. You can also get 800 numbers and special vanity numbers for an extra cost.

Would this low cost toll free service be valuable in expanding your business opportunities? If so, learn more and pick your number for instant activation at Agile800.com.

Sprint's EV-DO Rev A Speeds Wireless Broadband

Sprint's one-two punch to other cellular broadband providers is EV-DO Rev A today followed by WiMAX next year and beyond. Punch number one has just landed in San Diego, where Sprint has announced the upgrade of its Power Vision Network from EV-DO Rev 0 to Rev A. What does this mean for users? It's city-wide wireless broadband with DSL or better speeds on both upload and download. Greatly expanded upload speeds and new wireless access devices are being targeted to mobile professionals.

EV-DO (EVolution, Data Optimized) is a high speed data transmission standard for CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) cellular phone systems. The big players in the U.S. are Sprint / Nextel and Verizon. Cingular uses a different technology called GSM and their own set of data standards. What EV-DO does is use some of the channels available on each cellular tower to transmit and receive data rather than phone calls. Originally, data was a low speed tag-along service good for sending emails and similar textual data to cell phones and laptop computers. There's almost universal coverage by Sprint and Verizon for this service. But both companies are in a battle to provide true broadband or 3G data access on their cellular networks.

EV-DO has been growing in popularity with the proliferation of multimedia phones and the ability of the carriers to sell on-demand video and music downloads. But it has another important application in enabling laptop computers and handheld mobile computing devices to connect to the Internet on the go. Standard EV-DO Rev 0 speeds range between 400 and 700 Kbps depending on how busy the network is. That's plenty for most Web browsing, email, and remote login to corporate networks. The Rev A upgrade will only marginally improve that to 450 - 800 Kbps, although the peak burst rate is 3.1 Mbps. The big improvement is in the upload rate from the current paltry 50 to 70 Kbps to a more broadband-like 300 to 400 Kbps. Sprint is touting this expanded capability for applications such as IP video telephony, high-performance push-to-talk, multi-user video conferencing, real time gaming, and video streaming of content and live Web cams.

Another interesting development is the Linksys Wireless G-Router for Mobile Broadband. It's a WiFi based router with a Type II PCMCIA slot to hold a cellular aircard. Pop in a Sprint EV-DO aircard and you have a wireless broadband network that you can take with you. Sprint is touting it as a way to keep an entire company team connected away from home, such as at corporate retreats, remote warehouses and construction sites.

One has to wonder if Sprint is on the verge of establishing a more comprehensive universal wireless broadband network than the spotty coverage provided by WiFi hotspots and municipal networks. While the initial rollout has been in San Diego, there are 22 other major metropolitan areas destined to get EV-DO Rev A coverage yet this year. That's an estimated 40 million people. Initial coverage is planned for airports and business districts, but the entire Sprint cellular network should be upgraded by 3Q 2007.

What are the hottest cell phone deals available right now, including free cell phones? Use the Cell Phone Plan Finder to check out the top phones and associated wireless service plans.

Cheap Internet Service is a Business Liability

There is the enthralling promise of better, faster and cheaper with digital networking. Then there is the crushing disappointment of connections gone bad. See if any of this sounds familiar...

You spent a bundle on a new VoIP phone system with the idea that you'd get all sorts of advanced PBX-style functions and screen pops when customers called for service, and still be saving money on your phone bill within the year. Then you watched helplessly as calls dropped, voices were so garbled it sounded like talking under water, and the PC screens went dead.

You're running out of supplies because the system automatically orders restocking...except the line's been dead for two days and intermittent for the last month. Maybe you won't run out of stock after all. None of the credit card machines can connect to accept purchases.

That big prospect says "thanks, but no thanks" when they can't receive your drawings and specs for the new development. Your competitor's files arrived without incident hours ago. The new $100K contract is now theirs.

Have you experienced anything like this recently? If so, your in-house system may be working as advertised. What's happening is that you've become a victim of cheap Internet service. Victim? How can that be? Broadband Internet is the heart of the Information Superhighway, right? Yeah, right.

Truth is that there is good connectivity and bad connectivity. Companies that are just beginning to adopt networking technology that extends beyond their organization are especially vulnerable to getting the bad variety. Why? It's the siren call of bargain broadband. For instance, which sounds like the better deal for your operation: Broadband Internet with 3 Mbps download speed for $50 a month or 1.5 Mbps for $500 a month?

Oh that's easy, you say. Give me the $50 solution. We'll, you got it. That's why you're so happy you could cry right now. That $50 solution could be costing you $500 or $1,000 a month in lost profits, lost customers and lost sales opportunities. Just how patient are your customers when their Web browser freezes as they try to order from your website, their emails get returned as undeliverable, and the phone lines won't connect?

It's not necessarily that you've been snookered by an ISP that's trying to take your money and withhold service. It's more likely that you're misapplying the service. The $50 solution is almost always a DSL or Cable Internet connection. These are offered as "information services" by telephone companies with DSL, and cable companies with Cable broadband. The reason they are so reasonably priced is that they aren't the main service offered on those lines. They are an extra service that comes along for the ride. This service is not regulated by the government. It is offered on a "best effort" basis by the provider.

What this means is that your low cost broadband is not guaranteed to be up and running for any percentage of the time. You are sharing what's known as a high speed "backbone" connection to the Internet simultaneously with dozens or hundreds of your peers. If there is a problem with the equipment that does that sharing, called multiplexing, or the provider just needs to make adjustments or work on the lines, your connection goes down. Cable companies are notorious for this. While they work on improving someone's TV reception, everybody sharing that part of the cable run finds their TV and Internet connections cutting in and out. It may only be a few minutes a day, or the whole system may go down for hours at a time.

You'll get your 3 Mbps download, but not all the time. The speed will vary depending on how many other people are using the line. You might even get 6 Mbps at times or a tenth of that at other times. If you are any distance from the local phone office, your DSL speeds are likely to be under 1 Mbps, maybe even half that. Plus, unless you qualify as a "residential" user for a home office, you'll pay business rates that are perhaps $100 to $250 for that $50 broadband connection.

Now lets consider that 1.5 Mbps connection for $500 a month. Sounds pricey at first glance. But look closer and you'll find that this T1 line runs at 1.5 Mbps upload and download continuously. It's not shared. It's a dedicated connection to the Internet backbone, which is itself likely running at optical network speeds in the 1 to 10 Gbps range. There's nothing to slow you down. T1 service is also a regulated service provided by telecommunications providers, including incumbent and competitive phone companies. When you sign your contract it includes an SLA or Service Level Agreement that specifies the availability of your connection and provides for remedies if the telecom company doesn't comply. Being a regulated service, if the line gets cut or equipment fails, the provider is going to hop right on the problem. You'll get rapid and personal attention to your issues.

The sobering lesson that first-time business broadband users learn is that consumer broadband connections don't cut it for business. Certainly not if the outages have consequences in the form of lost business and customer dissatisfaction. Only if you are otherwise technically self-contained and use the Internet on a casual basis or for the convenience of data transfers that aren't time critical, does "best effort" broadband make any sense as a cost saver. Otherwise it's likely going to be a profit reducer when the lost sales are deducted from the line savings.

If you are caught up in the sea change of technology that is sweeping the small and medium business market, SMBs from branch offices to quick service retailers, sales and marketing organizations, and independent professional offices, you should take a serious look at protecting your capital investment and good name by installing professional grade telephone and wide area networking connectivity. The most common and cost effective connections are T1 lines that are available for voice, data or a combination of the two. You can get T1 dedicated Internet service or T1 private lines to interconnect your branch offices. MPLS networks give you anywhere to anywhere mesh connections to securely and reliably interconnect far flung business locations.

T1 connections are priced on an individual basis, depending on location. In major cities with considerable infrastructure, some T1 lines are now priced at $399 a month or less. In remote locations, the cost can be considerably higher. To make a good business judgment on whether T1 service is right for you, why not let our team of experts go over the various options and provide you with a set of competitive quotes? No cost or obligation for this service. Just use the handy online form or call the toll free number available at T1 Rex.

Health Care Robots Beam Doctors to Hospitals

Say "Ahh," Will Robinson. Your doctor is a robot. No, not one of those flailing garbage cans with dryer vent arms and Vise Grips for hands. This robo-doc is really your real doctor, available to examine and treat you thanks to the miracle of "Virtually There" technology.

Virtually There technology is a new form of remote telepresence being offered by InTouch Health of Santa Barbara, CA. It's in the news because nearly two dozen Michigan hospitals are installing InTouch Health's RP-7 robots as part of a new stroke treatment program they call the Michigan Stroke Network. Robots treating strokes rather than causing them? That's the latest thinking in the world of telemedicine.

The driving issue is that neurologists are in short supply. Patients arrive at emergency rooms showing symptoms that might or might not be caused by a stroke. Decisions have to be made quickly. Strokes are especially dangerous because diagnosis and treatment needs to happen as soon as possible to avoid severe disability or even death. Ideally, there would always be at least one neurologist in every emergency room around the clock. But such is not the case, especially in the smaller hospitals.

That's where the RP-7 steps in, or rather rolls in. RP-7 has a large video screen that serves as a face. It also has digital video cameras and microphones, pan-tilt-zoom (PZT) for the head assembly, wireless communications, and a drive system with collision avoidance. This puts it way ahead of conventional video conferencing systems.

Video conferencing has long been the basis of telemedicine, also called remote medicine. These systems installed in patients' homes or remote medical centers allow doctors to consult from a distance and at least converse with the patient and other health care providers. Telemedicine also includes being able to remotely read instruments such as EKG heart monitors. As broadband Internet connections proliferate, the opportunities for remote health monitoring, diagnosis and treatment expand.

RP-7 is also designed to do more than allow specialists to observe and chat with patients. The system is designed to capture images from EKG strips and light boxes, and connect to medical instruments such as the digital stethoscope, otoscope, or pulse oximer. Data streams can then be monitored by physicians at distant hospitals, from their home offices, or even while sipping a Latte at a coffee shop.

Doctors can drive the RP-7 robot remotely, although its unlikely they'll be racing them down the hospital corridors in the wee hours. Even negotiating the often crowded hospital environment can be trickier than pursuing an interesting rock on Mars. To make this easier, the robots use a Holonomic drive that runs on three spherical balls rather than wheels to easily maneuver in tight spaces. The SenseArray System 360 has infrared collision avoidance sensors positioned around the waist and base of the robot.

So don't be surprised if you hear the soothing voice of your doctor, only to look up to find him or her smiling at you through a monitor screen from a thousand miles away. The telemedicine robots will give you access to specialists and perhaps someday your personal physician from anywhere you happen to be. The next logical step should be to add arms, and hopefully heaters to warm up those traditionally icy metal robot fingers.

T1 Rex offers highly competitive high reliability bandwidth solutions for health care facilities, including hospitals, clinics, doctor's offices and remote facilities. Get complementary consulting and competitive quotes from our team of experts now.

Motorola RAZR V3 Gray with myFaves for T-Mobile

T-Mobile has two new products that give you something special in cellular service. First is a new pearl gray version of the venerable Motorola RAZR V3 razor phone. This RAZR is set up to use the new myFaves service from T-Mobile. Get a myFaves plan and you can call 5 contacts free. These are not limited to other T-Mobile users. You can choose your top five numbers from among other cellular carriers and even landlines.

Let's quickly review the RAZR V3. This one is outfitted in a smooth business gray finish while retaining Motorola's pioneering technology. It's packaged in a tough anodized aluminum shell that easily flips open and closed. It's has a slim 0.5 inch profile and is packed with the features you need on the go.

On the outside of the case you'll find an information display that glows a cool blue. It includes caller ID, so you can see who's calling with the phone still folded shut. Flip open your razor phone and you have a 2.2 inch TFT color display that shows over 65,000 colors. It's coupled with a VGA quality digital camera with 4x digital zoom. The camera can also be used in video capture mode with up to 15 seconds recording time.

This is a quad band GSM phone, meaning that it is capable of operating on the international standard GSM cellular networks in 100 countries. In addition to voice, this phone supports text, multimedia and instant messaging. The extra large phone book includes up to 1,000 entries with up to 4 numbers per entry.

Hands-free operations are supported with speakerphone and Bluetooth communications. You can clip a Bluetooth wireless headset on your ear and stow the phone when it's safer or more convenient to do so. Voice activated dialing is also included. You can even record a voice memo when writing materials aren't handy.

Note that not all T-Mobile cell phones support the myFaves service. This one does. If you find yourself making most of your calls to the same friends, family or colleagues, myFaves could wind up saving you money. T-Mobile estimates that most of its customers call the same five people 65% of the time. A basic myFaves plan costs $39.99 for 300 anytime minutes, but that number is concervative. The people on your myFaves list don't count against your anytime minutes regardless of whether you or they initiate the calls. That includes calls to and from landlines.

What are the hottest cell phone deals available right now, including free cell phones? Use the Cell Phone Plan Finder to check out the top phones and associated wireless service plans.

PBX T1 PRI vs VoIP T1 Service

Digital business telephone systems can be based on one of two important technology standards. These are TDM or Time Division Multiplexing vs VoIP or Voice over Internet Protocol. Both are digital standards, as opposed to the analog single line or Key telephone systems found in very small phone systems. Generally, TDM is associated with PBX or Private Branch Exchange systems traditionally found in medium and larger size businesses. VoIP is the newer technology thought to need completely different equipment and more likely chosen for brand new installations. But there is more of an overlap in these technologies than you might think.

Legacy PBX phone systems are often designed with very specialized hardware and programming chosen for high reliability. The phone sets may be either analog or digital and are individually connected to the PBX system on their own wiring network. The advantage of having a PBX system is that it is your own little phone company within the company. Users can call each other using just 3 or 4 digits and there are no line or per minute charges. It's only when someone makes a call outside the company that you incur local or long distance charges. Those outside calls are made using a group of shared phone lines on a first come, first served basis.

The outside phone lines are most often supplied to the PBX system using a T1 PRI digital line service. T1 PRI bundles up to 23 local or long distance lines together into one digital line service. There are actually 24 channels, with one reserved for signaling and data such as Caller ID. PRI is also known as primary rate interface. What's important about T1 PRI is that all of the channels are completely separate just like analog phone lines. If a channel isn't being used, it just sits there idling until needed. This channelization prevents crosstalk of one call into another and degradation of voice quality or dropped calls from signal interference. T1 PRI is the highest call quality you can get by virtue of it's strict design characteristics.

If T1 PRI is the gold standard, then why have anything else? The reason is cost savings. Remember that unused T1 PRI channels do nothing although you are paying for the entire line by the month. The other cost that might be saved is having a separate telephone network with its own wiring plus an incompatible computer network. Combining the two networks is called convergence. The slower speed telephone network is converted to a format compatible with the higher speed computer network so all of the signals can travel together on one set of wired. That format is called Ethernet or IP for Internet Protocol. As you might guess, IP is also the standard used on the actual Internet.

A phone system designed to run on an IP network is called VoIP for Voice over IP. Instead of having separate phone lines or channels, the digitized voice is loaded into the same type of data packets used for transmitting computer data. In a sense, VoIP packets are computer data as far as IP networks are concerned. It is up to the network operator, usually the company's IT department, to ensure that both voice and data have the bandwidth needed to maintain quality of service.

The conversion from regular telephone signals to VoIP can be made by an IP PBX system or can be done right inside the phone set, often called an IP phone or SIP phone. SIP is a particular protocol used by many but not all IP PBX systems.

Notice that in a VoIP phone system the PBX has become an IP PBX. Some systems use other terminology such as voice gateway or soft switch. When VoIP calls connect to standard telephones, those called need to be terminated to the PSTN or Public Switched Telephone Network. The termination can be analog phone lines or even T1 PRI digital phone lines connected to electronic interface cards that plug into the IP PBX. Two IP PBX systems are connected together using an unchannelized T1 line.

Just to mix things up a little further, legacy PBX systems can also be converged onto computer networks by adding a IP conversion card to the PBX system. The resulting IP datastream can be conveyed on a unchannelized T1 line across long distances or connected to a LAN router or switch. Again, once converted from TDM to IP format, voice quality is no longer automatic but must be engineering into the local or wide area network.

As you can see, there is quite a bit of mix and match possible when creating a new business telephone system or upgrading a legacy system. If you have a project in mind be sure to get recommendations and competitive quotes through our telecommunications VAR Network. If you already have your system, find out how to save on T1 and PRI telephone service costs now.

Nokia E62 Thin Mobile Productivity Device

Say, is that new mobile device a BlackBerry or a Palm? Wait a second. From the side it looks as slim as a RAZR phone or BlackBerry PEARL. What is it?

You've not seen this before. It's the all new Nokia E62 mobile device for Cingular Wireless. The silver chassis has a resemblance to the Palm Treo, with a full QWERTY keyboard located below a large rectangular color screen. The full keyset might also have you thinking this is a BlackBerry product. Oh, it supports BlackBerry email all right. But it's a Nokia. Call it a PDA, a mobile productivity device or a smartphone if you like. It handles all of these tasks and more.

The first technology advancement you'll notice is the form factor. The Nokia E62 is just 0.6 inches case thickness. This puts it in the same league the BlackBerry Pearl and the slimmer cell phone designs. Other dimensions are 4.6 inches tall and 2.8 inches wide. This is a 5 ounce package for easy portability.

What you won't notice is a protruding antenna. Communications electronics are completely internal, including quad band GSM cell phone capability, Cingular EDGE cellular broadband ( to 144 Kbps) and Bluetooth wireless. This Bluetooth supports both wireless headphones and synching your calendar over-the-air. In fact PC synchronization options include USB cable, infrared, Bluetooth and over-the-air via BlackBerry Server.

Email deserves special mention. The full featured email supports both BlackBerry Connect and Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync. This is in addition to the the standard POP3 email. Up to 10 accounts are supported.

Equally valuable to road warriors is the ability to both view and edit email attachments in Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Viewing support is provided for PDFs. Zip file support is also included.

SMS and multimedia messaging come standard. Also included are instant messenger clients for AOL, Yahoo! and ICQ. The E62 allows you to send a slideshow to other SMIL (Synchronized Media Integration Language) compatible phones. Web browsing is done using a full HTML web browser. The phone book is organized to allow multiple numbers per name, email addresses, web address, IM handle and more for each of your contacts.

The full QWERTY keyboard will be appreciated for extensive text creating and editing. The color main display measures 320 x 240 pixels and displays over 16.7 million colors. An enhancement to the display electronics is an ambient light sensor that will adjust display brightness to save battery life.

All of these features run on a Symbian 9.1 operating system with Java application platform. The processor is a Series 60 r3 Texas Instruments processor running at 235 MHz. Built-in memory is 80 MB with miniSD card expandability to 2 GB.

Battery life wasn't compromised to include this advanced technology in such a slim package. Talk time is rated at up to 330 minutes or 5.5 hours. Standby time is up to 336 hours or a full two weeks away from the charger.

What are the hottest cell phone deals available right now, including free cell phones? Use the Cell Phone Plan Finder to check out the top phones and associated wireless service plans.

XO Communications Braces For Optical Bandwidth Rush

XO Communications is bracing itself for the optical bandwidth rush that's nearly imminent. Optical bandwidth rush? Are you kidding? Didn't bandwidth demand go poof with the telecom bubble? Yeah, well that was then and this is now.

The telecom bust that ended the last century is the stuff of legends. It persists despite the recovery of the stock market and a transformation in business practices that's processing and bandwidth intensive. Just the business recovery alone could be enough to sop-up previous excess bandwidth build-out. But consider what else is happening. B2C and even B2B purchasing is moving more and more online. Design, manufacturing and customer service is outsourcing, often offshore. Paper based contracts, specifications, drawings and manufacturing instructions are all going electronic with direct electronic transfer preferred. Sarbanes-Oxley regulations are upping the demands for reporting and storage of financial data for public companies.

Every one of these activities is driving processing power, memory, electronic storage and LAN bandwidth. But as these IT infrastructures build up, the pressure increases to move massive amounts of data rapidly beyond the corporate walls. This is what is starting to fuel the bandwidth rush. Right now you see it in an expansion of T1 and T3 private lines between locations or to an MPLS network cloud. The copper line infrastructure is readily available and inexpensive. Higher bandwidth options are not universally available or are SONET based TDM circuits that require extensive engineering and long provisioning times.

XO is also betting that fiber is the future. But not just more of the same fiber optic rings and point-to-point OCx connections. The future, as XO is planning for it, is based on high bandwidths, readily available, in multiple formats and rapidly provisioned. To make this possible, they've just brought a new generation inter-city fiber optic network online. The core network is running at 100 Gbps now, with expansion planned to 400 Gbps. That network spans 18,000 route miles to connect 75 major U.S. metropolitan markets. In addition, XO owns 9,100 route miles or 1 million fiber miles of local fiber networks in 37 metro markets.

Even more important than all this interconnecting fiber and the 4 to 10x bandwidth increase in network capacity, is the high density digital switching system provided by Infinera. Infinera's DTN system consists of 100 GB pluggable line cards based on photonic integrated circuits that make digital processing of analog wavelengths and their sub-wavelength signals more efficient that previous designs. The result is rapid provisioning and upgrades to customer services.

What WAN services are available? XO's legacy DS1 through OC-48 intercity data services are expanded to include private line services at OC-192 speeds, Gigabit Ethernet, 10Gig Ethernet, and 40 Gbps Ethernet services, standard 2.5 Gbps and 10 Gbps optical carrier services, and generalized MPLS or GMPLS network intelligence.

With optical transport services as easy to come by as copper based lines, the floodgates will open for IP based remote storage and emergency backup, project design and simulation electronic data transfers, large scale call center operations, design center to corporate HQ to warehousing to factory links that run at the full LAN bandwidth, high definition video and digital movie / animation transmission. In short, electronic data that has been typically transferred by sending tapes and optical discs can now be sent cross-country over network lines. In many cases, the bandwidth is in place to make real-time transmission possible.

If your company is feeling the need for greater bandwidths at lower costs, let our team of experts provide a complementary review and proposal. You can call the toll free number or make an online request in seconds at our GigaPackets service site.

Become a VAR Partner to Enhance Your Technology Business

Does your technology related business depend on finding new customers to grow revenue or even maintain your present business level? Time consuming and expensive, isn't it? How would you like to at least partially ease that pain by joining a network of qualified buyers and sellers, all looking for a great deal?

What sort of network is that? It's new. The VAR Network is an automated real-time online system developed to link buyers and sellers of B2B technology products and services. By highly automating the system, the VAR Network makes connecting buyers and sellers far faster, more efficient and cheaper than ever before. In fact, it's so efficient that there are no fees to join, submit requests as a buyer or receive leads as a seller.

So what kind of business is this appropriate for? Suppliers of technology products and services to other businesses. In that category is business telephone systems, PBX, retail point of sale systems, wiring installers, security cameras, monitoring and burglar alarms, local area networking for small and medium businesses, enterprise level IT services including VoIP, routers, servers, remote support, ISPs, WISPs, WiFi hotspots, industrial control, networked copiers and related technologies.

Ah, but there's a catch, right? If this is any good, it can't be free. We'll it is free for buyers to encourage them to look online for the technical support services and capital equipment they need. For sellers, there is a fee but it is charged as a small percentage of businesses billed. In other words, you pay something to the VAR Network only if you actually receive business leads that convert into billed sales. There are no costs involved in registering your business as a VAR Partner, receiving any number of viable leads, and taking whatever time is required to successfully close those leads.

The other thing you should know is that the VAR Network is owned and developed by Telarus, Inc. They're a major broker of telecommunication services and parent company of Shop For T1, the online telecom line service broker used by T1 Rex. Being a Telarus service has another major benefit. In addition to matching equipment buyers and sellers, the VAR Network has access to the GeoQuote system and its suite of nearly 30 competitive T1, PRI and DS3 line vendors. That gives buyers one-stop shopping for their system and WAN / telephone lines. It also gives VAR partners an opportunity to profit by offering competitively priced telecom line services to their customers.

If you think that this type of B2B networking would help generate additional sales for your company, then it behooves you to visit our new T1 VAR Partner Network site to get the full details, learn about the success companies similar to yours have had, compare with other business lead generating services and join the network in a matter of a few minutes. The sooner you get in, the sooner you start gaining a new edge over your competitors.

Motorola KRZR K1m Krazor Next Generation RAZR

Motorola's KRZR is the next evolution of the RAZR. Razor becomes Krazor or Krazer, though some people are calling it the Kruzer. We'll see what nickname sticks. Is it a cross between craze and razor? Judging from the craze that has been the RAZR family of mobile phones, the KRZR is likely to live up to this moniker.

The KRZR is more evolution than revolution. It sports a distinctive metallic glossy shell in the familiar squared-off flip-phone design. It's slightly longer and slimmer than a RAZR, giving a sleek appearance and making the RAZR appear a bit boxy by comparison. The KRZR maintains the thin profile pioneered by RAZR with a slight increase in thickness to about 0.7 inches. Weight is a modest 3.6 ounces.

It's easy to see the technology heritage of the KRZR K1m, now available for Verizon Wireless on their CDMA network that includes EV-DO high speed data downloads up to 700 Kbps. Support for VCAST video on demand and music store are native. The KRZR includes touch sensitive external controls for the built-in music player. It also provides support for GPS services, including Verizon's VZ Navigator. No excuses now for getting lost in an unfamiliar city. VZ Navigator gives you turn by turn directions when you subscribe to this feature.

The touch sensitive etched keyboard is clearly RAZR developed technology. In fact, people unfamiliar with the new KRZR design will probably ask where you got that really cool looking RAZR phone. Many other RAZR cues are also visible, including the relatively large main display the smaller external color display. Both display over 65,000 colors. The standard digital camera is 1.3 Megapixels with a 4x digital zoom. It takes reasonably high resolution snapshots or will run in camcorder mode for video capture. If you find yourself needing to take lots of high resolution photos, memory is upgradable using microSD/TransFlash format memory cards up to 1 GB.

Other familiar high end features include voice drive menus that require no phone pre-training, Bluetooth wireless communications, speakerphone, voice memo, thousand entry phonebook with up to 5 entries per contact, text and multimedia messaging, and mobile Web browsing using the built-in WAP 2.0 browser. Battery life has been improved to 250 minutes of talk time and 440 hours on standby.

The KRZR upgrade seems more about style advancements than futuristic technology development, at least for now. Remember that the original RAZR sported only a VGA camera and limited multimedia functions when it was introduced. Derivative models added megapixel photography, iTunes, VCAST music store, and multiple colors. The challenge now will be maintaining a feeling of having the latest cool cellular look when your RAZR V3 appears a little dated next to your friend's KRZR K1m.

What are the hottest cell phone deals available right now, including free cell phones? Use the Cell Phone Plan Finder to check out the top phones and associated wireless service plans.

Nokia's Wibree vs Bluetooth as PAN of Choice

Nokia has launched a consortium to promote yet another wireless transmission standard they call Wibree.

Wibree? Why not. This isn't an example of a big manufacturer looking to establish a proprietary standard so they can hog the market for lower power wireless devices. This initiative is an open standard for a new low power PAN or Personal Area Network.

But, wait a second. Doesn't Bluetooth fill that niche? It does now, but there are good reasons for yet another standard. Nokia's incentive for going back to the drawing board is to develop radio chip sets that use an order of magnitude less power than Bluetooth while retaining a 15 to 30 foot operating range and a data rate of 1 Mbps in the 2.4 GHz ISM band. Those were the original Bluetooth specs, although Bluetooth 2.0 bumps up the bandwidth to 3 Mbps.

Nokia believes the low power consumption will enable applications that use the small button type batteries to gain wireless access. These would be things like digital watches, toys and sports sensors. Perhaps this will also include in-the-ear headsets much like the invisible hearing aids. Who knows, maybe a combination hearing aid / wireless headset will be a hit with the legions of rock music deafened baby boomers now addicted to their cell phones.

Does Nokia really have the hubris to think they are going to blow away the billions of Bluetooth devices deployed or in the pipeline? I don't think so. In fact, Nokia is suggesting a dual-mode chip that will support both Bluetooth and Wibree. This is similar to the way that WiFi chipsets support both B and G standards. Technology advances generally start off including both old and new standards, at least for awhile and sometimes forever. Consider that some new personal computers still offer parallel printer ports, floppy disk drives and PS2 keyboard & mouse connectors, in addition to DVD, CD-ROM, USB, and FireWire.

Another interesting feature of the Wibree link layer specification is a scheduling mechanism that transmits Wibree traffic in-between Bluetooth transmissions. This makes it even more likely that the dual-mode radio chips are going to proliferate, certainly in Nokia products. Other features of the proposed standard include encryption, ultra low power standby operation, and simple device discovery. Initial user profiles will include sensor, human interface device (HID) and watch.

Nokia expects to have their commercial version of the Wibree interoperability specification available during the second quarter of 2007. They've already got no less than Epson on-board, along with Nordic Semiconductor, CSR and Broadcom Corporation.

The HID human interface emphasis seems particularly interesting. Sports watches that take your pulse and blood pressure and running shoes that track your pace and distance seem like only a start. Perhaps soon you'll not only be able to track your kids whereabouts by cell phone, but also know what's going on using a camera and microphone in their watch and how they are doing physically by biometric sensors. On the other end of the age spectrum, this technology could also be valuable for elder care. A more sinister application would be EEG sensors monitored through a corporate Wireless network, so the boss would know who's REALLY sleeping during those endless staff meetings.

Shut Up That Screaming Cell Phone!

A U.K. company has figured out how to stem the crime wave in cell phone thefts. Give the thieves a splitting migraine. You think having to suffer someone's screaming brat in a restaurant or grocery store is bad? How about a cell phone that starts screaming and won't stop until you yank the battery? That'll fix 'em.

In their recent, Synchronica describes their advance as "wailing phones." If a wail, it's a Banshee-like blood curdling scream from beyond the grave. Perfect for Halloween, unnervingly annoying any other day of the year. If this thing goes off in public, people will immediately jump to the conclusion that there is a demon captive in your coat pocket or purse. Not exactly the attention you want if you're a crook on the run.

Here's how it works. As a company, you subscribe to the Synchronica Mobile Manager service. This service offers online management of your wireless devices using a Web-based interface. As soon as an employee notices that their phone is missing, management can immediately lock the phone, wipe clean any personal data, and turn on the Synchronica Scream Feature of the service. At that point the only viable option if for the perp to chuck that phone into the nearest river or stuff it behind the pumpkin display at the grocery.

Even without the thing screaming and attracting all sorts of attention, the pinched phone has lost its value. There is no way for any evil-doers to get access your list of A-list celebrity contacts, email addresses of the board of directors, or compromising photos. Just like a classic Mission Impossible tape, that info self-destructs...minus the smoke, plus the screams.

Imagine the unsuspecting soul who happens to find the BlackBerry that fell out of your pocket in the taxi. They have only a few moments to relish their treasure trove with visions of an immediate sale on eBay. Then the thing screams in their face and won't stop. I'd stuff it under the seat and get out of the cab. How about you?

This screaming phone idea is so good, I think that Synchronica should port it to car alarms. Does anyone even look up anymore when that infernal beeping starts in the parking lot? I'll bet they'd jump if that innocent looking Lexus let out a scream that could wake the dead. It would probably be a good idea to have many different versions, so potential witnesses would always be surprised and immediately take notice if not run to the poor car's defense.

Good news for those of us in the crime ridden Colonies. Even though Synchronica is a UK based company, they do have an office in Washington, DC. Perhaps their next invention can be a personal protection system for Congressional Pages. "One more email like that, Congressman, and I'm really going to scream."