10 Gig E WAN Comes To The Enterprise

Amazing as it sounds, 10 Gigabit Ethernet wide area network connections are now possible for business applications. Perhaps even more surprising are the number of businesses that can actually use this level of bandwidth.

Gigabit Ethernet is just starting up the growth curve for major corporations and high technology companies who's products and services depend on creating enormous data sets and being able to deliver them instantly to their customers. What kind of companies are those?

For anyone engaged in video production or editing, Gigabit per second pipes are no extravagance. Even short video productions chew up hundreds of Megabytes in a matter of minutes. Uncompressed high definition video can do that in seconds. It matters not if you have Terabytes or Petabytes of storage available if there is no practical way to transfer those productions in any reasonable amount of time.

Medical imaging is another high demand generator of data. MRI, CT, and X-Ray images create large files for each picture and image set. As the medical profession moves more and more from physical to electronic files, the amount of data will surely multiply and then multiply again. It's now possible to have a physician in Asia read a medical image from the U.S. during what is the middle of the night for us, but standard business hours in India or China. Being able to use medical consultants worldwide depends on having rapid communications for both text and images.

Scientific research and Engineering are fields that have moved away from notebooks and analog gauges to computer-aided drawing, manufacturing and modeling. Complex projects, such as new building design, collaboration on aircraft design, and drug research increasingly use faster and faster supercomputers. The faster computers generate data that much faster. Can you really expect to use yesterday's bandwidth solutions to maintain cutting edge productivity?

It is high bandwidth applications such as these that are driving companies and organizations to faster LANs within their operations and faster WAN connections outside. With Ethernet the common denominator among network protocols, it stands to reason that Carrier Ethernet solutions are a better match than the traditional SONET fiber optic services. They are also often cheaper. Competitive carriers with regional and nationwide networks optimized for IP services such as Ethernet and MPLS, are highly efficient at delivering high bandwidths over fiber connections. Gigabit Ethernet is often a given for any lit building. But 10 Gigabit Ethernet, 10 Gig E, is now emerging as a reasonable service to install for high volume and multiple users.

Do you have a high bandwidth demand that you can't meet or feel you are paying too much for? If so, check out the availability and pricing of 10 Gigabit Ethernet connections for your business location.

Talking Cheap on the QT

There's a new telephone service available that offers cheaper rates than you'd expect for both domestic local and long distance calls, and also international phone calls. No need to keep it quiet. There's plenty for everyone. If you want to save money on your residential telephone service and you haven't been thrilled at the deals from other VoIP services, you should have a look at QT Talk.

The QT Talk North America Plus service is unique in that you get unlimited calling to the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico plus, and here's the plus, a special low rate to one of a selected group of international destinations.

How cheap is cheap? Your introductory rate is just $12.95 per month for the first 3 months. Then just $19.95 a month after the 3 month promotion period. Plus, don't forget the international special offer. If you make calls to any of these destinations, you'll get special rates. Calls to Mexico are 6.9 cpm (cents per minute), Philippines 14.9 cpm, Pakistan 10.9 cpm, Bangladesh 7.9 cpm, India 2.9 cpm, and Vietnam 9.9 cpm. Rates to other destinations are surprisingly cheap, too.

Many features are included as part of the basic service, not add-ons like you may be used to with landline service. Among the features you'll enjoy free are speed dialing, call forwarding, simultaneous ring, call waiting, caller ID, call return caller ID block, do not disturb, last number redial, conference calls, online account management and the choice of keeping your current phone number or getting a new number for your QT Talk service.

Like all VoIP phone services, your call quality is highly dependent on the quality of your broadband Internet connection. If it is flaky, you can expect calls to break up and drop. If it is solid, you should experience good service on voice as well as data. To give you an idea of how well you are set up for VoIP, QT Talk offers a free VoIP Quality Test that you can run from your PC. It works like a speed test, only it rates your connection in terms of jitter and packet loss that would degrade a VoIP call.

You don't need a special phone to use this service. QT Talk will send you what's called an ATA or Analog Telephone Adaptor. This connects your regular landline telephone to your router or broadband modem so you can use your broadband Internet connection for both computer and phone service.

Sound interesting? If so, learn more, read the FAQs and terms of service, and order your QT Talk VoIP service quickly and conveniently online.

It's a Sidekick and a Running Mate

The new T-Mobile Sidekick Slide is a messaging addict's best friend. You might want to say it's your favorite "side kick." Since you can't stand to be out of the loop regardless of what you're doing, slip this in the pocket of your sweat pants and take off on your daily jog. If anything happens during that hour or so, you'll be connected. You might consider it your favorite "running mate."

I should mention that this mobile device is a cell phone, although that may not be its most heavily used application. The T-Mobile Sidekick Slide is a rapid access messaging machine. Rapid access because the slide feature presents a full QWERTY keyboard with just a flick of your thumb. Turn it sideways and you have something resembling a miniaturized computer. It has a large 320 x 240 pixel 16 bit full color display. Just below is the QWERTY keyboard with actual buttons, not virtualized pictures on a screen like that i-something-or-other.

The Sidekick Slide is what you might call messaging-intensive. SMS text messaging is just the start of it. There's also multimedia messaging so you can send and receive picture messages. A built-in instant messenger supports AOL, MSN and ICQ. You can also acess Web-based email accounts including Yahoo!, Gmail and others with a Sidekick plan.

What's a Sidekick plan? It's the messaging and Internet access service plan for your T-Mobile Sidekick Slide. It's different than a voice plan. The voice plan provides traditional cellular phone service with a basket of monthly minutes. The Sidekick plan gives you messaging and Web access. If you want both you can order both. But you do have the option of ordering just a Sidekick plan if you rarely make or receive telephone calls. In this case you can still use your Sidekick as a phone. You'll just pay by the minute for phone calls.

What else does this handy little gadget offer? How about a 1.3 Megapixel digital camera that takes photos good enough to print? You'll also get a MP3 player so you can listen to your favorite music while you're waiting for the next text message to arrive. There's 128 MB of internal memory available for user storage. You can add additional memory for more music and photos by adding a 4 GB microSD memory card.

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.

Lower Rate Long Distance Options

Want to save money on your phone bill quickly and easily? Simply switch to a lower cost long distance service.

What? Didn't that ship sail years ago? How can you expect to save money on phone service without buying a bundle or changing to VoIP?

Surprisingly, the newest technology options aren't always the cheapest. Good old analog telephone service works just fine for many users. It's especially good if you have only one or two phone lines and your Internet service is a bit flaky.

Not everybody needs unlimited local and long distance calling. That's because not all of us hang on the phone all day. You may think you're getting peace of mind by having no limits on how much you can talk and not change your monthly phone bill. But how much of a premium are you paying to have that luxury?

Try this. Keep a phone log for a week. Just write down every time you pick up the phone to make a call and how many minutes you talk. Don't worry about incoming calls. With most standard landline plans incoming calls are free.

So who did you call and for how long? Are most of your calls local? How long are they? Or, do you mostly call out of state? This isn't just a game. Your calling pattern really makes a difference.

Here's a suggestion. Check out the cheapest service from your local phone company and see what it costs. Now, use the domestic long distance rate finder tool to price out competing long distance plans. You enter the first 6 digits of your phone number, which identifies the phone company office you are using. Then, from your log, enter the number of minutes you call in-state long distance and state to state on a monthly basis. If you logged for a week, just multiply those numbers by 4 to get a monthly estimate. Click the "Get Long Distance Rate Now" button and you'll see the results.

Since I'm not a big caller, I entered 60 minutes for in-state minutes and 120 minutes for out of state calls. The best deal for this arrangement on a residential line is Pioneer with a total bill of $6.22 for long distance service per month.

You see correctly. It's $6.22, not some enormous bill. That's with 3 hours of calling. There are months when I'm not on the phone calling long distance numbers even that much.

Click on the total bill amount (it's a link) and you'll get a breakdown of the cost. For the search I just ran, it's $3.24 for the 60 interstate minutes (state to state) and $1.14 for the 30 intrastate (in-state) long distance minutes. Add the federal taxes and fees plus a 99 cent monthly and the total adds up to $6.22. This doesn't include state or local excise taxes, which are too many and varied for this tool to deal with. These tend to be the same for every service, so comparisons between carriers will still be valid.

What's with the 99 cent fee? That's due to low usage. If you spend more than $15 a month for long distance calls, that fee disappears. Some carriers charge these fees. Others don't. It doesn't matter, because what you are looking for is the lowest total cost each month. A competitive carrier like Pioneer has such low per minute rates that it often makes them the best deal.

So, do you have a local landline phone service you like, with reliable service, good voice quality and a low monthly bill? You don't have to give it up to save money. Just switch to a different long distance provider. You can order quickly and easily online and the long distance carrier you choose will make the change in conjunction with your local phone company. See, it is quick and easy. Now, find out how much you can save on your long distance phone bill.

T1 Sales Support Services

For anyone who wants to be involved in the lucrative business of business voice and data sales, such as T1 data lines and ISDN PRI service for PBX telephone systems, there is a brokerage service that can make the process easy and successful.

The VAR Network, operated by Telarus, Inc., is a comprehensive support system designed to link telecom carriers and other service providers with VARs, or Value Added Resellers. VARs usually act as independent manufacturers representatives for business telephone systems, network switches and routers, video conferencing equipment and the like. Most often a VAR's business includes both sales and service, offering the customer a turnkey package and ongoing maintenance.

As hardware and software oriented businesses, many VARs have not expanded their list of services to include the telephone lines or WAN network services that customers need for a complete business solution. More often than not, a customer would be delighted to have a single point of contact for both the equipment and connectivity that they need. Especially if the VAR was able to present a suite of competitive services rather than simply a reference to a single telecom vendor.

The VAR network does this for independent business people who do not necessarily have the in-depth expertise, the inside contacts with multiple carriers, nor the inkling to get in the middle of sometimes involved negotiation and contract paperwork. The VAR network's consultants have all of those tools at their disposal and telecom service sales are all they do. A VAR can easily hand-off the contractual process for line sales to the VAR Network and be confident that they will do everything in their power to close the order.

Other than the satisfaction of making sure the client gets a good deal on their telecom line services, what's in it for the VAR? Monthly residual income, that's what. For every month that a client pays their billed service, the VAR gets a percentage of the amount involved. It might be the same amount every month in the case of a T1 dedicated Internet service. Or, it might vary from month to month in the case of an ISDN PRI telephone trunk where usage varies. Regardless, there is money to be made for the VAR from every sale.

Why pass on this potentially lucrative income stream or try to go it alone in building relationships with the dozens of competitive carriers now in the field? Why, indeed, when membership in the VAR Network is free of charge and you'll get a monthly check as your customers buy, use and pay for their services?

Sound too good to pass up? It is. Learn more and sign up now with the VAR Network.

4G Wireless Quietly Encroaching on 3G

To hear the cellular carriers describe it, the mobile world is going 3G wireless as the defined cutting edge technology available today. Meanwhile, a competing and faster technology is being slowly deployed, city by city, across the country. What's really going on?

It's actually little more than the usual pattern of technological improvement. It starts with an invention, in this case wireless data service, followed by steady improvements as time goes on. We saw this with the personal computer. Today's PC shares a lot of commonality with the one's of decades ago. You still have a CPU, disk drive, RAM, ROM, monitor, keyboard and mouse. But the speed and capacity of today's machines are orders of magnitude above the best you could buy years ago.

Mobile data is on a similar growth curve. WiFi hotspots are something of a unique product with a very limited coverage area, which is unlikely to change. Wide area mobile service is really the domain of the cellular carriers. By building an extensive network of towers and transmitting stations, they have wide footprint of wireless coverage for telephone calls. Piggybacking a data service on this same infrastructure is a logical and cost effective move.

What started as dial-up speed data service for mobile phones has been steadily improved down two paralleled paths, mirroring the two most popular types of cellular service. CDMA, used by Verizon Wireless, Sprint and Alltel, offers EV-DO and EV-DO Rev. A cellular broadband. GSM, used by AT&T and T-Mobile, offers EDGE and HSPA broadband. The latest incarnations are considered third generation or 3G. Access is now available through many if not most cell phones, wireless aircards used as adaptors for laptop computers, and built into the latest netbook computers.

The 3G services aren't done evolving, but they soon will be. AT&T wants to double it's current 3 Mbps peak speed over the next couple of years. Verizon and Sprint are on a similar upgrade path, perhaps a little faster at deployment.

But one carrier isn't waiting for the 3G marketplace to mature. They're already moving ahead to 4G. That carrier is Sprint, in combination with Clearwire. Since the company carries the Clearwire name, those not watching this closely might not realize that it's related to the competitive cellular business.

The 4G technology is WiMAX, which stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access. It doesn't interfere with current cellular operations or use the same transmission frequencies. It's being launched in parallel with today's 3G networks. In a few cities you can have your choice of 3G or 4G. Download speeds for the 4G WiMAX service are typically 4 to 6 Mbps with bursts beyond 15 Mbps.

WiMAX also isn't being touted as a cellular technology. There's no cellphone service or handsets. Instead, WiMAX is being offered as a broadband Internet service for home or business, with a mobile service available through plug-in aircards like those used for 3G cellular. You can also get VoIP telephone service bundled, similar to what is offered by cable and telephone companies.

Where is WiMAX 4G service available? It's been deployed in Baltimore, Portland OR, and just recently Atlanta. The plan is also to launch service in Chicago, Charlotte, Dallas / Ft. Worth, Honolulu, Philadelphia and Seattle this year. By the end of 2010, Clearwire expects to be service 80 major cities in the U.S.

AT&T's 4G service will be based on LTE or Long Term Evolution technology. Verizon is planning a similar approach. LTE won't get started for a year or so, but it will follow a similar approach to WiMAX in that it will use different channels than those in use for 3G, so that both 3G and 4G services can exist simultaneously.

There is some thought that once 4G technologies mature, 3G will be phased out. Perhaps the current cell phone technologies will follow suit. The trend is toward converged IP networks for everything. That suggests that VoIP running on 4G networks along with data service on the same channels will be the new wireless communications technology.

LAN to WAN Ethernet Connections

Within the LAN, or Local Area Network, the Ethernet protocol is ubiquitous. But once you have a need to connect beyond the corporate confines, you need a method to connect to telecom transport services. This has always required a protocol conversion due to the differences between the LAN and WAN environments. No more. Now you can connect seamlessly from LAN to WAN with Metro and Carrier Ethernet connections.

The advantage for packet based networks, especially IP networks, is that entire network topology runs on the same technology. This improves transmission efficiency and reduces the latency involved in converting between protocols at each end of the circuit. By extending Ethernet into the WAN, or Wide Area Network, it is possible to treat a multi-location network as if it were a single large network. That's true even if the various interconnected LANs are hundreds or thousands of miles apart.

So, what is available in the way of LAN to WAN Ethernet connections? There are two basic technologies available. Both are typically found in metro areas where competitive carriers offer Ethernet services on their own IP-based networks.

If your business is located within a few miles of a carrier POP, or Point of Presence, you may be able to get EoC or Ethernet over Copper access. New modulation technologies combined with multiple twisted copper pair allows carriers to provide Ethernet service via multi-pair telephone cable. This is the same cabling that is already installed at nearly all business locations, originally to provide multi-line analog telephone service. T1 and ISDN PRI services make use of the same cable to bring in digital voice and data services. Now Ethernet can be provided by bundling multiple dry copper pair driven by terminal equipment at each end of the loop.

What bandwidths are available from EoC technology? Anything from 1 to 45 Mbps, depending on the carrier's facilities and the distance to the POP. Ethernet over Copper bandwidths decrease rapidly over distance, so higher bandwidth services are available close to the POP. Even if you are a block away, though, it still can make economic sense to use existing copper facilities rather than install new fiber optic conduits.

Higher bandwidths, up to Gigabit Ethernet or even 10 Gig E, are available on fiber optic Ethernet connections. If your LAN is running at 1000 Mbps and you have a Gigabit Ethernet over fiber connection to a data center across town, the effect of sending data over the WAN is completely transparent.

Normally, the WAN presents a bottleneck for packet transmission. That's due to the high cost of WAN connections relative to LAN connections. Using traditional T-carrier or SONET line services, a company may well have to settle for a tenth the throughput over the WAN as on the LAN. That may not be true with Ethernet connections. Competitive carriers are pricing Ethernet WAN bandwidth a much lower cost per Mbps than other technologies. At higher speeds, the savings can be as much as half or better.

Would your company benefit from switching to high bandwidth Ethernet services? You owe it to yourself to find out how much you can save with LAN to WAN Ethernet Connections.

Triple Play Helps Wireline Fight Satellite

The consumer television service market is all but saturated. It used to be that TV service meant calling the guy with the suitcase full of vacuum tubes. Now service means programming delivery. Your choices are over-the-air, cable, satellite, telco (AT&T) and fiber optic (Verizon).

The recent shutdown of analog transmission was met with a yawn by all but a small group of consumers who made no effort to buy a converter or a new digital TV. Now they're scrambling to the electronics department to get a converter box, or on the phone with the cable company or one of the satellite companies, DirecTV or Dish Network, to get their TV working again.

Once this blows over, where will things stand? Right where they were before the conversion. There's so much programming that's not transmitted on the airwaves that most people opt for an alternate TV service. Satellite has the advantage of being available where cable doesn't run and over-the-air signals are weak. Cable has the advantage of giving you a solid signal in storms that knock out satellite signals. But cable has another trick up its sleeve. That's something called Triple Play.

What's triple play? It's a bundle of television, broadband and telephone service from a single provider. This is something unique to "wireline" services. Those are, as you might suspect, services that run a wire to your home or business. That wire might be a traditional twisted pair copper telephone wire that also carries broadband and TV, as AT&T's U-Verse service does. It may be a coaxial cable, the universal connectivity mechanism for cable TV companies. Or it might now be a fiber optic connection as provided by Verizon's FiOS.

What can wireline do that satellite can't? Both DirecTV and Dish Network have designed their systems to be one way transmissions from constellations of satellites hovering in geosynchronous orbits to small rooftop dishes. For broadcast television, even hundreds of channels, that's all you need. For pay-per-view movies, you need a phone line or Internet connection to connect back to the satellite company.

You can get broadband service by satellite, but not on the same dish you are using for TV. It's a different band of frequencies and requires a transmitter at the dish to make it two-way. You need to get satellite broadband from a different company.

Satellite is no good at all for telephone. The problem is a time delay, called latency, that's the result of the satellites being tens of thousands of miles above the Earth. The speed of light and delays through the equipment introduce a half-second or so delay between the time you say something and when the other party hears it. You have to treat satellite voice communications like using a walkie-talkie and wait before you speak.

Both the cable companies and the telephone companies realize that their circuits have the ability to give you the triple play option of TV, broadband and telephone. So they offer attractive bundles to get a competitive advantage over the satellite TV companies. How good are the deals? A quick way to find out is to check the Triple-Play offers available for your location. Then compare with what you spend for a combination of TV service, broadband Internet and local and long distance landline telephone service from separate providers to see if the offers will save you money.

AboveNet Leads in High Bandwidth Ethernet Connectivity

There's a major transition underway in high bandwidth telecom services. It's a move from traditional SONET / SDH technology to Ethernet IP technology. There are good reasons for this evolutionary, or should I say revolutionary, change. They are rooted in the decades-long transition from analog to digital communications and the near universality of Ethernet as the network protocol of choice. Could we be at a tipping point for Ethernet in fiber optic communications? AboveNet makes a good case for just that.

AboveNet is a high bandwidth provider serving fifteen major U.S. markets plus the United Kingdom. They specialize in fiber optic MAN and WAN connectivity from 100 Mbps to 10 Gbps for companies that need this kind of bandwidth at lower costs than traditional telco solutions.

In their white paper, "Advantages of Ethernet vs Sonet, A Compelling Choice," AboveNet makes the case that cost is a major driver but not the only reason to switch from SONET / SDH to Gigabit Ethernet (Gig E). Ethernet is a better match with today's networks that are increasingly IP based. SONET is a TDM technology based on channels rather than packets. It works as a metro and long haul carrier for packet based networks, but with an inefficiency caused by the protocol conversions back and forth from TDM to IP. This can result in added latency and increased risk for data loss, as well as higher costs.

What may be lost to history is that SONET, the Synchronous Optical NETwork, is a product of telephone company research. At its foundation is the 64 Kbps data channel or DS0. There are thousands of them all multiplexed and synchronized to create SONET fiber optic high bandwidth services. Why such an arrangement? Each of those small channels is just the right size to carry one digitized telephone call. That was the original impetus for SONET. It was to efficiently transport high volumes of telephone calls from one telephone exchange to another.

SONET, of course, has grown from it's switched circuit telephony roots. With appropriate protocol conversions, those DS0 channels can be aggregated to transport IP packets as well as PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) voice. SONET has been the dominant technology for long-haul networks and fiber optic MAN and WAN connections. It's design includes redundant paths with a 50 mSec failover time to make it a highly reliable transport service.

But telephony as well as everything else in electronic communications is going to IP or Internet Protocol. VoIP is replacing analog and TDM telephony for business and residential users. At the enterprise level, there are enormous cost savings possible with converged voice/data/video networks. Why create an all-IP network based on Ethernet within the enterprise, only to have to convert it to TDM-based SONET for transport between locations or to a distant IP service provider?

Carrier Ethernet, the flavor of Ethernet specified for metropolitan and long haul networks, has the advantage of being IP at its core. No conversions are necessary from LAN to MAN to WAN and back to LAN at some remote location. This seamless connectivity reduces latency and improves network efficiency by eliminating conversion steps.

AboveNet operates its own network with over 2 million fiber miles worldwide and a reach of more than 1,800 lit buildings. Their services included MAN and WAN connectivity, plus managed services for WDM Wavelength, Metro Ethernet, WAN Ethernet and IP transit.

If your organization has a need for high bandwidth services and you want to acquire them at the best possible price, then consider getting competitive quotes on fiber optic services from AboveNet and other highly competitive carriers. This telecom brokerage service is free to serious business users, with complementary consulting on your corporate requirements.

Time to Move to HD Video Cameras

The sound of "Taps" you hear faintly emanating from your TV is for the end of the analog television era. It started with Herbert Hoover and ended with a giant thunk, as TV stations yanked the power supply breakers on their high power analog transmitters. Off to the recycler they go. With them should go the 4:3 video format. Yet, it eerily persists.

If you watch TV throughout the day, you'll notice that many program still have the black windowpane bands on either side of the picture. That includes everything from network shows to local newscasts. Odd, isn't it? Analog transmission is gone, but the programming is still analog.

Actually, the programming itself may well be digital in nature as it comes from the distributor. All satellite TV and an increasing amount of Cable programming is digital. What is changing more slowly is a move from the analog 4:3 aspect ratio to the new digital 16:9 wideband aspect ratio. Nearly all TVs being sold have 16:9 screens. So do many laptop computers and desktop displays. At some point 16:9 screens will be all you can buy for any application.

The reason that 4:3 programming persists is that so many viewers still have their old TV sets connected to converter boxes, satellite receivers and Cable TV set-top converters. To them, it's like nothing has changed. But it will, as the number of people with HDTV and HD computer screens grows, while 4:3 programming is replaced by 16:9 programming. When people with the older sets start seeing a majority of their programs with black bands top and bottom, called letterboxing, and those with new sets see the side bands disappear, replaced by full screen programs, the tipping point will have been reached.

The same is true for video you make yourself. Camcorders have used the 4:3 aspect ratio to be compatible with standard TV sets and computer screens. Now that we're in a wholesale upgrade to digital TVs with their 16:9 screens, it's time to be considering HDTV for your next video camera. Fortunately, that doesn't have to mean spending a fortune just to get a clearer picture that fills the screen without having to stretch it one way or another.

Consider the Flip Video MinoHD solid state camcorder. This is a HDTV compatible camcorder that fits in your pocket or conceals in your hand at just under 4 x 2 inches, and a little over half and inch thick. It records up to 60 minutes of HD quality video on its internal 4 GB of memory. No hard disk, no CD ROMs, no tapes. Actually, nothing mechanical at all.

But is it really HD? Yes. The MinoHD has a resolution of HD 720p (1280 x 720, 16:9 widescreen) at 30 fps (constant frame-rate) using progressive scan, not interlaced. Flip out the USB connector and download your HD video to your editing software on a PC or a Mac. You can preview video directly on a TV, but it will be in standard composite video format, not HDTV.

The more sophisticated Flip UltraHD camera has a built-in HDMI connector that you can plug right into your HD television to watch HD video with no computer involved.

Of course, there is a wealth of high definition camcorder offerings that give you additional features such as optical zoom, 1080P HD video, longer recording times, image stabilization and larger viewing screens. It's a tradeoff of size, features and cost, much like anything else electronic.

Managed Services Give Small Companies an Edge

As "the great recession" drags on, companies of all sizes struggle with the issue of how to maintain competitive electronic based services while staying within a constrained, if not declining, budget. Managed services offer a possible solution, especially for smaller companies that have little in the way of IT staffing and no ability to hire.

What's the secret of managed services? The name pretty much spells it out, as long as you realize you are not the one doing the managing. Let's consider your telephone system. One approach is to do a study, buy a good sized traditional or IP PBX system, acquire the needed wireline connectivity, order cartons of SIP telephones, network wiring, and a staff to install and maintain the complex system.

That's how big companies generally do it. Really big companies may have one staff for the telephone system and a separate and larger staff for the corporate computer network. That's a lot of people and a lot of infrastructure. But what else are you going to do?

An alternative approach is to outsource everything to a managed services provider. Your in-house involvement is pretty much managing the manager to make sure they have the latest requirements and any moves, adds or changes. Just about any service can be managed by an outside provider, but telephone and computer networking services are common. Any services that don't need a vendor's physical presence can be handled from long distance, since on the network across the country is as close as next door. For those needs that do need someone on-site, a VAR or Value Added Reseller can be hired separately or through the MSP or Managed Services Provider.

A simple MSP arrangement is a Managed T1 Router. The company that provides the router is the same one that provides the T1 data line. Your line would normally be terminated to a network interface in your telecom closet. It would be up to you to buy a router with the correct T1 interface and configure it to work to the line specifications.

A larger company with a dedicated staff has no problem with this. But what happens when things go wrong at a smaller company? It could be the line. It could be the router. It could be at the provider's end. Who's going to sort that out? You are, in conjunction with the telco company and the service provider.

But if you contract for a managed router service, the service provider has responsibility for everything from their end, through the line, and through the router they provide at your premises. They don't have control or visibility into your network, but up to that connector they have full visibility and control. You may be gone for the day, but the network operations center will often find and fix problems before you open up the next day.

A hosted PBX system provides a similar service for telephone operations. There is no physical PBX at your premises. All you have are VoIP telephone sets connected to a broadband network that runs to the PBX service provider. The equipment at their end does everything from connecting to the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) to connecting interoffice calls, to call forwarding, automated attendant and conference calling bridge. An extra advantage of this approach is that your offices can be scattered all over the country and still act as if they were in the same building.

There are managed services for telephone, broadband Internet, multiple location networks, video conferencing, Web servers, and similar needs. You can do any or all of these things in house, but if you want to see how to maintain your competitive edge without the staffing and capital expense, look into managed service options now.

Mozy Wants To Be Momma's Backup

Mozy, the company that is pushing remote backup storage for consumers and small businesses, has identified a special niche for their service. It's new mothers.

Why new moms? It's because new mom's have new babies. What is nearly as important as the baby? Why, pictures of the baby, of course. Momma's brag book, not to mention Grandma's, is likely to be chock full of pictures preparing for the new arrival and those one-in-a-lifetime snapshots as baby joins the family. There's a million "firsts" for each and every child. You've captured them all in your handy digital camera. Now, wouldn't it be a tragedy if they all suddenly went "poof" and were gone?

You may be thinking, "Oh, how can that happen? Those pictures are safely on my computer."

Yeah, right.

Actually, you won't hear a "poof" sound when they all vaporize. It will be more like a grinding sound. That's the hard disk drive self-destructing as the head crashes into the platter and gouges out all that precious data.

Computer drives are highly reliable, good for thousands or tens of thousands of hours spinning quietly out of sight and mind. But drives, like any mechanical device, can and do fail. I, personally, have had one fail just out of warranty a year after the iMac was purchased and another fail in my trusty Compaq five years down the road. It's not a matter of if a hard drive will go bad. It's strictly a matter of when. Sure, many computers go to the landfill or, hopefully, the recycler with perfectly good disk drives. But many others give up the ghost unexpectedly when you are in the middle of reading a Web page, writing that first novel, or downloading a set of new photos.

You've probably seen the Mozy ads on television. Things fall out of the sky, lawnmowers run over laptop computers left in the grass, and so on with the silly stuff. Yeah, I suppose some of that really happens. But it's far more likely that a computer failure will catch you in more mundane circumstances - when you least expect it.

You may still not think that the threat is any big deal. After all, the pictures are still in your camera and you back-up your hard drive constantly.

Is that really true? Check your camera. You offloaded those pictures to your computer last week and deleted them from the camera's memory so you could be ready to take more. Did you back-up the drive as soon as you downloaded those pictures? No. You were too busy then. Besides, you want to get some more stuff on the drive to make it "worthwhile" to run a backup.

The truth is that we're all a bit lax about protecting our digital data. Days can turn into weeks or months before we back anything up to CD-ROM or another drive. Chances are that there is a lot of irreplaceable data, in the form of words, pictures, videos, and perhaps even Web page designs that are spinning around, Russian roulette style, on your computer's one hard drive.

What Mozy offers is online backup to their own highly reliable server farm. They encrypt your data so that it stays private during transport and storage. Whatever disaster befalls your computer, from a tornado or flood to theft or a simple hard drive failure, is unlikely to hit the Mozy data center at the same time. You need to recover everything that you've saved on your machine? You just have Mozy send it back to you.

The best part is the automatic backup software they provide. The real problem with backing up data is not that it is so hard to do. It's that it is so hard to remember to do. Let Mozy run in the background to find your new data and send it to the storage facility without you having to remember to do anything.

Here's what to do. Visit Mozy's site to sign up for service. Then, take all the pictures you want without worrying. Mozy's got you covered.

MiFi Hotspot Comes to Sprint

Wait! What's that slim silver box? Is that a cigarette case in your pocket? If so, how retro is that?

No? It's actually a WiFi hotspot? How avant-garde is THAT?

The silver case is actually the new Novatel MiFi 2200 Personal HotSpot for Sprint PC wireless service. A WiFi hotspot? Yes, indeed. OK, so where do you plug it in and where's the RJ-45 network connection?

You don't plug it in. It's wireless and portable. There's no power cube, no network cable, no stubby rubber antenna. All you see is a silver case that could be concealed in your palm or shirt pocket. There's a button on the front to activate it and LED indicators so you know the operational and battery status. But make no mistake about it, this is really a WiFi hotspot that performs as well or better than the ones you find in the coffee shop.

What's inside that slim silver case is a cellular transceiver that connects to the Sprint PCS data network. It runs the EVDO Rev 0 and Rev A mobile broadband protocols, with fallback to the slower 1xRTT if necessary. Peak download speed is 3. 1 Mbps. That's a LOT faster than what I've been seeing on the free restaurant WiFi services.

The other component inside the box is a WiFi transceiver that works with just about any Wi-Fi enabled device from laptop computer to gaming console to digital photo frame. Like any good hotspot this one reaches out 10 meters or 30 feet. You may not care about a 30 foot radius if you've got it in your shirt pocket, but your eager friends will. That's because this hotspot will support up to 5 simultaneous users. Be kind and share with family and friends. Or hog it to yourself. Security includes WPA2-PSK, WEB and SPI Firewall. That should keep the unworthy wretches from slowing down your connection and using up your 5 GB monthly bandwidth quota. Wretches, meaning those people who use to speak to you before you started bogarting your broadband.

Oh, there's one other important component inside your MiFi 2200. It's the 1150 mAh Li-ion battery. Like a cell phone or digital camera, this battery is both small and potent. You'll get up to 4 hours of continual usage for a single Wi-Fi client. Standby time is up to 40 hours. How do you recharge it? With the included wall charger or through a USB cable connected to your computer. That could be the same computer that makes use of the cellular broadband service provided by the MiFi. It's a symbiotic relationship.

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.

Can iPhone 3G S Be The Universal Gadget?

What do we love? Electronics! What do we hate? Having to tote a bag full of devices. What do we really want? A universal gadget. Just one device that does everything, thank you.

What are the requirements for this universal gadget? It has to be a cell phone, an unlimited channel television and DVR, a high resolution digital camera, a camcorder, an audio recorder, a navigation system, a gaming console, a broadband Web connected computer, a messaging system, a productivity device, a radio, a library of books, a digital music player with your complete collection of tunes, a stock trading platform, a watch and alarm clock, weather radar and information, newspaper and shopping service.

That's a pretty long list, but perhaps it still leaves a few things off. Throw in some medical monitoring equipment and maybe a postal scale, car diagnostic code reader and so on. You can really get far fetched if you try. The odd thing is that today's far fetched is tomorrow's killer app.

That's why the newly introduced iPhone 3G S is likely within striking distance of universal gadget status. Let's take a look at what's been added.

All the iPhones have been cell phones. Hence, the name. They will likely keep the GSM cellular standard into the foreseeable future, although there will come a day when all wireless networks will be IP-based and phone conversations will be VoIP instead of channelized. In the meantime, voice and data are separate functions and have separate service plans. Apple has improved the data bandwidth as AT&T has improved their network. It's 3G now with a potential doubling of speed to around 7 Mbps peak in the next year or two. A future iPhone will incorporate LTE connectivity for wireless Internet that's as fast as the popular Cable broadband services.

With 3G data service augmented by speedier WiFi connectivity when at home or in a commercial hotspot, the iPhone serves as a mobile computer. This one is perhaps good enough to replace the luggable laptop for much of the time, and fend off competition from the emerging netbook market. The iPhone 3G S has double the operating speed, so that applications will behave more like what you'd expect on a computer. Memory has also been boosted to a maximum of 32 GB.

You carry a digital camera, right? In an effort to have your phone also be your camera, Apple has upped the resolution on the new iPhone from 2 MP to 3 MP and made it autofocus. It's also a camcorder now, a feature expected in high-end cellphones. You can do simple editing in the phone and then send your creations on to your friends or a service like YouTube.

Location based services are becoming the norm for travel. The 3G S iPhone has GPS with maps and directions. They've also added a compass for those days when you feel the urge to dress in khaki and a scarf and head out for parts unknown. Your navigation system is now in your phone. Hang it from the windshield if you wish.

Most of the other functions mentioned earlier aren't really a function of hardware. They can be provided as Internet services, since you have continuous connectivity. That includes things like a weather station. Sure, you can wear a beanie with a propeller and call it an anemometer. But why not just connect to The Weather Channel and get your local information. You can also get weather radar, which is beyond the ability of most people to carry with them as a hardware implementation.

Voice control and voice recording are more functions being touted for the new speedier iPhone. The voice memo feature is neat, but lots of phones have that already. What Apple mentions is that you can record in stereo with an external microphone. That suggests using your phone as an portable recording studio or podcasting platform. Fancy applications for those can't be far away.

So what's missing? Television? There's no dedicated over the air TV reception, but you can get a Slingbox app so that you can control your Cable or Satellite receiver from a WiFi hotspot and watch hundreds of channels on your phone. Or control your home DVR remotely and watch those shows you recorded but haven't had time to view yet.

Radio is in a similar situation. No FM receiver, but do you really need one? Listen to streaming audio on the Internet. Or use the iTunes capability of the iPhone to listen to your own mixes.

Honestly, we're getting close to the day when you can carry a cell phone in your pocket as your only electronic gadget and be happy with the performance. Apple is getting closer with the new iPhone 3G S, but there's plenty of competition from LG, Samsung, Palm and others to keep raising the bar. This should be a great product, but when the contract runs out you'll be salivating for the even newer and better model that's no doubt in the works.

Juniper Has Routers For The 100 Gbps WAN

In the ever expanding need for speed, Verizon and Juniper are up to something big. It's 100 Gbps fiber optic connections.

Carriers have been dabbling with 100 Gbps transmission for some time now. It's an order of magnitude above the standard 10 Gbps pipes that are common on long haul networks. There are also 40 Gbps transport systems in use. Now it looks like 100 Gbps is getting ready for deployment. Juniper's contribution is an interface that will handle this bandwidth directly. Currently, carriers have to aggregate multiple links to achieve that speed. Verizon has demonstrated a 111-Gbps channel over 1,040 km.

So, what's all this bandwidth going to be used for? You can pretty much bet it isn't desperately required for telephone calls, email or casual Web browsing. The bandwidth crunch that's upon us is all about video.

If you've ever had the pleasure of editing and exporting movies or other video, you know the feeling of shock and horror that you felt when you first realized that moving and manipulating video files takes minutes and maybe hours, not seconds. I got a taste of it this weekend when I found that the 10 minute movies my digital camera took so easily require long rendering times when you try to do anything with the raw files. For those of us used to working with Web pages, still photos, text and code, the amount of disk space and bandwidth even simple video files can chew up is absolutely astounding.

Now, consider that the entire world is moving not just to video everything but to HD video everything, and you can understand why the telecom carriers and Internet Service Providers tremble at the thought of the Internet going from HTML to HDTV. It's not just an incremental increase in traffic. It's a large and generally unplanned step change.

It's not just Cable broadband and DSL providers that are inundated with video traffic. Wireless carriers are getting their share as the new 3G touchscreen smartphones are bought in significant numbers. Video clips from YouTube just whet the appetite. Now with Slingbox capability on the iPhone as well as laptop computers, people expect to access their satellite receivers and DVRs from anywhere they happen to be. The transition of broadcast TV from analog to digital is truly the tip of the iceberg. The lion's share that's represented by the underwater part of the berg is IP video destined for wireline and wireless broadband transmission.

Little wonder that both WiMAX and LTE networks are going ahead, recession or no recession. Little wonder, too, that Juniper's 100 Gbps is being heralded as not just the solution to today's bandwidth demands, but a stepping stone to Terabit transport channels. Could they be more than a few years away?

Samsung Memoir Phone Captures Memories

You know how it is. The most important things happen when you don't have a camera. That's why you've been thinking about getting a new cell phone with a built-in camera. Sure, the picture quality won't hold a candle to your fancy digital camera. But at least you'll have something for the memory book. A little blurry beats a blank page any day.

Well, forget that. Now you don't have to settle for either carrying a cell phone or a digital camera. The Samsung Memoir gives you both. This new touch screen phone is intended to satisfy both amateur and professional photographers alike. Imagine, an 8.0 Megapixel camera right in your phone.

The Memoir goes way beyond mere Megapixels. In addition to a resolution that rivals most of the digital cameras that you'll actually keep with you, this one features auto-focus, a real xenon flash, 16x digital zoom and 6 shooting modes. You get 12 preset scene options including panorama, smile detection and blink detection. Yes, this camera knows when someone blinked so you can get the shot right. It looks like a camera and it acts like a camera.

So far, so good. But here's where the sum is better than the two parts. Having a phone and a camera in a single package not only gives you better portability, but features neither gadget provides alone. For instance, the Samsung Memoir connects to the T-Mobile 3G data network. That gives you the option to quickly and easily upload the pictures you take to Flickr, Kodak Gallery, Snapfish and Photobucket.

There's also a GPS capability built-in. Sure, you'll get the same turn by turn directions that other smartphones offer. But you'll also have the ability to do Geo-Tagging. That's where the integrated GPS can be used to tag your photographs with the location where they were snapped.

Picture and video messaging? Of course. Just add this optional service to your calling plan and you're good to go.

I did say video messaging. The Samsung Memoir not only takes astounding high resolution still photos. It's also a great camcorder that can record up to 1 hour of video capture. For this capacity just add up to 16 GB in the expandable memory slot to supplement the built-in 100 MB of memory.

Don't forget the huge 1.6 x 2.6 inch high resolution color main display. That's puts a lot of lesser cameras to shame, and a lot of phones as well. This one supports over 262,000 colors. Yes, it's touchscreen for easy operation. The TouchWiz user interface makes this display easy to customize as well.

But, just a second. I don't want to be carrying a brick around just to have both a phone and a high performance camera in one package. Fortunately, there's no need to. The Samsung Memoir is a mere 0.6 inches thick. That's what they used to call a really thin phone. How they packaged a 3G touchscreen phone with a 8 Megapixel digital camera in a 4.2 inch x 2.1 in x 0.6 in. case is pretty amazing in itself.

Did I mention that the Memoir is also a cell phone? It is, and a versatile one at that. It's internationally compatible so you can take it around the world. This is what's called a quad band GSM phone for use on the most common cellular airwaves worldwide. It's also compatible with T-Mobiles myFaves service when you order a suitable wireless plan.

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.

VoIP is For Smaller Companies Too

Enterprise VoIP solutions are generally seen as too sophisticated and way too expensive for small business. For the most part, that's true. In exceptional cases you may find that the feature rich IP PBX systems available today are a productivity booster for your sophisticated, if small, operation. For everyone else who just wants good voice quality telephone calls at a modest cost, SMB (Small and Medium Business) VoIP solutions may well fit the bill.

VoIP ranges from using your computer as a telephone all the way up to systems that are indistinguishable from standard network switched technologies. The home business user may be very happy with a VoIP telephone service that piggy-backs on the Cable or DSL broadband they already have for Internet access. These services don't require you to buy a special telephone. Instead, they provide an adaptor, sometimes called an ATA or Analog Telephone Adaptor, that works with the phone you have now. You simply plug your phone into the adaptor, connect the adaptor to your router or broadband modem, and you're set.

When you pick up the phone you get dial tone just like you have now. The phone rings just like it always has. The difference is that the bundled price of local and long distance service is often much less than you pay for traditional analog telephone service. Are you interested in VoIP as a replacement telephone service or for a second phone line? If so, you can use the service finder at Affordable VoIP to compare service offers and pick the one that's right for you.

Businesses that are large enough to have multiple employees and their own business address usually need a multi-line system so that more than one person can be on the phone at a time. Typical of these small businesses are real estate offices, insurance sales, warehouses, restaurants, retail stores and so on. What's also typical these days is that most businesses have a need for both telephone and Internet service. There are two good solutions that will give you both phone and Internet service with the voice quality and reliability you need.

The first solution is called Integrated T1. The integration comes from a combination of telephone and Internet on the same standard T1 line. Usually T1 is set up for either voice or data. But an integrated solution gives you both. A dynamic T1 line goes even further and automatically assigns any bandwidth not being used for telephone calls to broadband Internet. Even a heavily loaded Integrated T1 line with a dozen calls in progress will still give you Internet access similar to may DSL services. Being a combined service, you get a price break by ordering a single T1 line instead of two separate ones for telephone and Internet.

The second solution is call SIP Trunking. This is a fairly new service and works very much like a dynamic T1 line. Both voice and data packets travel on the same SIP Trunk from your business to your service provider, where they are separated into phone calls destined for the public telephone system and Internet access routed to the Internet backbones. The term SIP refers to Session Initiation Protocol, the term used for signaling in a VoIP telephone system.

Would an Integrated T1 or SIP Trunking solution be best for your company? The way to find out is to get pricing for each approach and compare cost and benefits. A simple online query will get the ball rolling and a friendly consultant will help you pick the right service for your business needs.

High Bandwidth Dissimilar Line Bonding From Mushroom Networks

How would you like to build your own fiber optic bandwidth broadband service without paying through the nose for SONET OC3 or higher level service? Can you do it by kludging together whatever you can find in the way of DSL, Cable broadband, T1 lines, DS3 bandwidth, or wireless Internet service? Not very well, and you know it. But what if there was an appliance available where you simply plug-in five or six of your favorite high speed connections of any type and it smoothly merges them into one screaming high bandwidth service?

"Impossible," you say. "We tried that with our routers and it didn't work at all."

Well, what you need is not another router. You need the new and improved Truffles from Mushroom Networks.

Last year, we thought the Truffle BBNA6401 was just the nuts (or fungi) for both WAN reliability and bandwidth expansion up to 50 Mbps. The "BBNA" stands for Broadband Bonding Networking Appliance. It could also mean Broad Band Network Aggregation, which is how the device works. It bonds broadband services to aggregate or combine their bandwidth into the equivalent of one faster line.

T1 line bonding is commonly available from competitive carriers. For every line to bond-in, you get an additional 1.5 Mbps of bandwidth. There are a couple of restrictions. It's usually only practical up to 10 or 12 Mbps and all the lines have to be identical and from a single supplier. The carrier supplies you with premises equipment that is similar to the equipment at their central office. That's what runs all those T1 lines in parallel so that you experience the equivalent of a single higher bandwidth line service.

The Truffle looks at that approach as keeping companies in the dark and feeding them fertilizer. Instead, they manage the bandwidth of the lines rather than the lines themselves. By keeping track of what requests go out which lines and what responses are received, the Truffle can mix and match any broadband service into a common bandwidth pool. It doesn't really matter what the characteristics of individual lines are. A DSL and T1 line can be paired, then aggregated with a cable modem signal, a satellite receiver and a wireless cellular aircard. Your composite bandwidth is the sum of the speed that each line transmits and receives.

You can see the advantage of this approach for growing bandwidth incrementally. You start with whatever you can get. Then add services as they become available or you can afford them. In addition to speeding up your WAN connection, you also get a boost in reliability. That DSL line may be moderately fast but flaky. The cable modem is cheap and screams with speed, but drops the connection a couple of times a day and some days goes down for hours. T1 lines are rock solid but the cost per Mbps is way more than with the shared "consumer" grade services. DS3 is fast and reliable but lease prices are in the 4 digits per month. Since it is unlikely that you'll lose every service at the same time, broadband bonding can give you solid connectivity all the time with high bandwidth most of the time.

In addition to the latest speed upgrade, Mushroom Networks now offers several flavors of Truffles for various size businesses and applications. The Porcini BBNA is intended for SMB and enterprise clients, apartments, hotels, hospitals and multi-tenant buildings that want to aggregate several types of Internet connection into one high reliability broadband service. The PortaBella BBNA is for portable or mobile applications. It aggregates the bandwidth of up to 5 USB wireless modem aircards. There's even an optional service offered that makes this solution suitable for high quality video streaming.

Cellular Netbooks Are Downright Cheap

Is most of your computing done on the run? If so, you may be interested in a computer that's optimized for mobile use. That's one of the new netbooks with built-in 3G cellular Internet access.

What's so special about the netbook computer? After all, laptops aren't all THAT big and they do a nice job at the coffee shop.

Sure they do. In fact, if there were no netbooks a laptop with a wireless modem aircard would do the same job. Well, if you don't mind lugging a big padded bag with a big heavy computer with more stuff inside than you really need.

Mobile computing is what netbooks are optimized for. They're about half the size and weight of a standard laptop computer. They have much larger screens than smartphones and full QWERTY keyboards with decent size keys. That puts them a step above smartphones and messaging centric cell phones when it comes to Internet access. They also have hard disk drives, fast processors and enough RAM to run a standard operating system. Two popular models run Windows XP Home Edition.

What netbooks don't have is CD ROM or DVD drives. They're optimized for operation on the Internet, not running sophisticated image manipulation software or playing DVD movies. You can get your multimedia experience online, as needed. Because they're Internet machines, netbooks are gravitating toward having built-in 3G cellular wireless connectivity to augment the standard WiFi access.

What 3G wireless gives you is the ability to use your computer on the Internet wherever you happen to be. Cellular towers transmit both voice and data signals. The wireless modem aircards in netbooks pick up only the data signals, so they are not useful as cell phones. But they will let you browse the web and send email while parked in your car, on the bus or at a client's place of business. Ready to close an order? Pull out your netbook and enter it online while sitting next to the customer.

If you want to buy a netbook, you'll find them priced less than laptops but still in the $300 to $600 range. You can get your netbook for a fraction of that by ordering it along with a cellular data plan. How cheap? How about $49.99 for an Acer Aspire One bundled with a 2 year AT&T 3G wireless plan. The carrier subsidizes the cost of the netbook just like they do on cell phones. You need to commit to a 5 GB monthly data plan for $60 per month.

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. You can also buy these machines without a data plan for more money and simply use the WiFi connectivity in hotspots.

If you would rather have a smartphone or other cell phone with Internet access, such as a BlackBerry, check out the free and low cost options available at Cell Phone Plans Finder right now.

T-Mobile 3G Aircard For PC and Mac

Would you like to be able to connect your laptop computer to the T-Mobile 3G mobile data network? How about free access to T-Mobile HotSpots? Ah, what you need is the T-Mobile webConnect USB Laptop Stick.

This "stick" is a wireless modem aircard with a swiveling USB connector. It plugs into a USB port on your PC or Macintosh computer. For PCs you'll need to be running Windows XP or Vista. For Macs, it's OS X 10.3.9 or higher.

An advantage of this aircard is that it gives you access to the Internet just about anywhere you can get a T-Mobile cellular signal. That's much of the U.S., although you should check the coverage maps to make sure you'll get a strong signal where you expect to be. In strong 3G signal areas, you'll be connected at speeds comparable to DSL or Cable Modems using the HSDPA protocol. In weaker areas, you'll still get EDGE 2G connectivity for broadband or near-broadband speeds.

You'll also be connected to T-Mobile WiFi HotSpots with unlimited free access. Normally you have to pay a fee to connect to these in Starbucks coffee shops, Borders Books, FedEX Kinko's Office and Print Centers and various airports and major airline clubs. But buy this aircard and data service plan and you'll get the HotSpots thrown in free.

Note that the built-in T-Mobile Connection Manager finds you the best connection for where you are, be it 2G, 3G or WiFi, and makes the connection. That greatly expands your ability to operate at broadband speeds just about everywhere.

But there's even more. The webConnect USB Laptop Stick features a built-in microSD slot that supports up to 8 GB memory cards. Use this instead of another portable flash memory drive when you are on the go.

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.

Set Up Secure Remote Computer Access

Have you wondered how to connect to a remote desktop while you are on a business trip, working from home or at a remote office or on a business trip? There's any easy way to do this and you can give it a try for free.

The technology you are looking for is called remote access. It's where you establish a secure link so that one computer can use another as if you were sitting right in front of the distant monitor and keyboard. With remote access, you don't have to worry about having the same applications and files on your desktop and laptop PCs and then keeping them in sync. You simply use your laptop to remote log into your distant desktop and then run applications, upload and download files and even print remotely. You colleagues may wonder why the printer is running in your dark office, but you'll know and you can pick up the printouts when you get back.

Remote access capability might sound like it's leaving a way in for hackers and others who would do you harm. But set up with a password protected encrypted connection and you actually have a security advantage. A lot of business data loss isn't caused by outside forces breaking through your firewall. It's from employees who download sensitive data to their laptop computers so they can work while traveling or at home. Inevitably, some of these machines get left in taxis or otherwise acquired by outsiders. Your precious customer files and business documents need to be kept securely at the company office and nowhere else. If you need access to the data, use your office computer or remote access capability. But leave the files themselves where they should be.

The same is true for personal information. Do you really want to be carrying a laptop with all your banking, brokerage, medical and tax information or other sensitive data? Somewhere between the bus, the airport, the taxi, and the hotel room there could be an opportunity to set the machine down and forget it or have it snatched by someone who thinks it's worth a few dollars. Imagine their surprise when they find a wealth of personal info to sell to the highest bidder. Don't carry this information with you. If you need to get to it while you are on the go, use your remote access to view your files and download only what you need.

So, how do you set up secure remote access? One easy to use program that does it is GoToMyPC. It's a system consisting of a small software package that you download to your desktop computer and specialized servers at GoToMyPC. You leave your desktop computer running and connected to the Internet while you are away. When you want access, you log-in to a secure Web site running on the servers. You're not directly dialing into the desktop itself. The connection is brokered by GoToMyPC and is encrypted end to end to make it secure.

From your remote vantage point, your browser sees what you'd see if you were sitting in front of your desktop PC hundreds or thousands of miles away. You can open folders, run applications, upload and download files, and print just as if you were there. Everything is compressed and optimized for speed, so you won't experience time lags in your session.

Does this sound like something that would work for you? If so, learn more and get a Free Trial plus 10% Off on GoToMyPC Remote Access.