Your Ally In The Android vs iPhone Battle

LG’s first Android phone is a winner right out of the gate. The LG Ally for Verizon Wireless offers an impressive array of features and the ability to customize your phone with tens of thousands of apps from the Android Market.

Is texting or email an important part of your mobile activities? If so, you’ll love the ability to use real keys instead of poking at a glass screen. The LG Ally offers both a 3.2 inch touch screen and a slide out full QWERTY keyboard with nicely sized physical keys. You’ve got 5 home screens to customize, so just go nuts with those Android apps.

This is also a social networking phone. The included LG Socialite widget lets you manage your Facebook and Twitter accounts simultaneously. Why have to choose when you can have both? What fun is voicemail unless you can view and manage it on your cell phone. This one has that capability.

As you can see, the LG Ally has some unique capabilities. But it also has all the standard Internet and multimedia capabilities that you expect in an advanced smartphone. Text message and multimedia messaging are built-in. So is an email client that supports push Gmail and Exchange. The Android Webkit HTML5-based Web browser puts the Web at your fingertips. Verizon’s 3G EVDO Rev A network and WiFi access connect you to the bandwidth you need to access the Web with ease.

You’re all set up to capture what you see with the 3.2 Megapixel digital camera. This one has modes similar to many higher priced digital cameras. You get night mode, macro mode, panorama, smile detection and beauty shot. Flash and auto-focus are part of this camera, as well as the ability to use it as a camcorder to capture videos that you can share with friends or your social network right from the phone.

Other useful features include integrated GPS that provides spoken turn-by-turn directions and real time traffic updates, MP3 player that lets you download MP3s from the Amazon Music Store, streaming multimedia support, Stereo Bluetooth so that you can stream your music in high quality to headphones and other compatible devices, and a lot more.

Does the this sound like the type of smartphone you’ve been looking for if you could afford it? Well, you can. Right now the LG Ally is free when you order it with new Verizon Wireless service. That deal may not last for long, so go for it this is the phone for you.

If you prefer, you can check out all the Android phones and other cell phone special offers now available through Cell Phone Plans Finder.

Cash In With Custom Toll Free Numbers

Do you know that the most valuable asset is in many businesses? Beyond the employees, of course. Perhaps surprisingly, it’s their toll free number.

What’s so important about a toll free number? It’s not that the numbers themselves are magic. It’s the tremendous investment, both in advertising cost and sweat equity, that go into making that number synonymous with the business. You see them advertised on television, on the radio, in print and online. The catchier the toll free number and the more you associate it with a particular business, the more value it has. Do any of these examples happen to ring a bell (so to speak)?

1-800-flowers
1-800-contacts
1-800-petmeds

Note: These aren't just numbers that come to mind, they are also among the top ones listed by Google for "1-800". This shows that toll free numbers even help you get noticed on the Internet.

How about your business? Do people have an easy way to get in contact with you? Will they remember when it comes time to acquire your goods or services? Or will they just get out the yellow pages and call some ad they happen on or walk into the nearest store that looks like it might have what they need?

If you’ve got a substantial business or aspire to be one, getting an easy to remember toll free number can be just the hook you need. It’s even better if the number spells out the name of your business or what you do. These are called vanity numbers for obvious reasons. But the term vanity is much too shallow to describe the value of these assets. They should probably be called golden numbers or licenses to print money.

Now, the big question. How do you find these numbers? They must all be taken already, right?

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Of course, some of the best are taken. Toll free numbers didn’t just pop up yesterday (I’ll tell you about an exception in just a second). But there are many, many combinations that are available and ready for you to order right now. Don’t get a headache straining your brain to come with clever slogans or strain your eyes starting at the telephone keypad. Make the search easy with a FREE toll free number search.

Just enter the name of your business, product, service or something like that. That’s good enough to get started. This search tool will automatically convert your text to numbers and then search a database of millions of toll free numbers to the closest matches. You’ll see a list of possibilities displayed. Pick one of those or try some other phrases to see what pops up.

Now here’s something not too many people know. There’s a new toll free number becoming available soon. You already know about 800, 866, 877 and 888 prefixes. They’re all toll free. On October 1, 2010 at exactly 12:00 PM EST the prefix 855 will be released by the FCC. It’s going to be like a land rush, and perhaps more valuable. If you’ve got something in mind but your number combinations are all taken, then you want to reserve your 855 toll free number now.

Want to have some fun and perhaps buy yourself a valuable asset in the process? Go ahead and try some toll free number searches now. It doesn’t cost anything to look and you never know what you’ll find.

Business Ethernet Vs T1

Small and medium size businesses have been big users of T1 lines in the last few decades. Now there is a new service that is challenging the price and performance of the venerable T1 line. That service is Business Ethernet.

Business Ethernet, also known as Metro Ethernet, Ethernet over Copper and Ethernet over Fiber, offers scalable higher bandwidths, lower cost per Mbps, and increasing availability. It’s called “Business Ethernet” to emphasize that Ethernet isn’t just for LANs and carriers anymore. It’s being rapidly deployed into the SMB arena.

What’s so great about Ethernet? It’s now the universal standard for computer networking. Nearly every desktop PC, router, switch, and cabling infrastructure is designed to support Ethernet. Manufacturing economies of scale ensure that it will be tough, indeed, for another other technology to bee the price/performance of Ethernet.

The proliferation of Ethernet has also caused telecom carriers to rethink their public networks. T1 lines, DS3 bandwidth and OCx services are all based on circuit switched standards established to transport telephone calls. Ethernet is a packet switched technology that can be carried on circuit switched networks. With most networks now packet switched, it only makes sense to make the telecom networks packet switched also.

Packet switching end-to-end offers some interesting possibilities. If the LAN, MAN and WAN all support Ethernet, then you can establish level 2 switching to interconnect multiple business locations. Each location has its own LAN and they are tied together with MAN and WAN Ethernet services. You are extending your company network to encompass the connections between locations as well.

Business Ethernet is a scalable service. That means you can order a range of bandwidths for your connection, also called a port. As long as you stay within the capacity of the port, you can often get bandwidths in small increments including 1 Mbps. That way, you can order just the amount of bandwidth you need today, but can quickly upgrade with a phone call to your provider when business increases and you need more. It’s a great strategy to optimize costs and still get the performance you need right now.

How about the cost comparison with T1? It varies somewhat with location and the amount of competition for your business, but it’s not unusual to get 3 Mbps Ethernet for what you pay now to get a 1.5 Mbps T1 line. A popular service is 10 Mbps Ethernet. That costs about what you were paying for T1 a contract or two ago.

One service of particular note is Ethernet over Copper. This technology uses special terminal equipment installed by the service provider to bond multiple copper pair for your telecom connection. This gives bandwidths up to 50 Mbps over already installed copper wiring so you don’t have to pay for a new fiber installation. T1 lines can also be bonded, but the bandwidth tops out at 10 or 12 Mbps.

Which service is right for your business? They’re both professional grade and highly reliable digital line services. Why not get a set of competitive quotes for T1 vs Business Ethernet and see which will save you the most money?

Finding An Ethernet Internet Provider

You’ve heard that Ethernet Internet service offers advantages over traditional telecom services, such as T1 lines and DS3 bandwidth. But where do you go to find an Ethernet Internet provider? You go right here...



The Ethernet Internet Finder is your one-stop service for locating Ethernet Internet providers and getting competitive service quotes. It’s affiliated with Telarus, Inc., the renowned telecom services broker, and connects to their patented GeoQuote software and suite of expert consultants. All you do is enter some basic company contact information and you are good to go. Try to enter the main telephone number at the business rather than a cell phone, as the system uses this information to help find service availability and pricing.

Don’t worry about getting charged for any of this. The Ethernet Internet Finder is free to use for any serious business purpose. The friendly consultants will go over the range of services available for your location and make recommendations for how you can get the most bandwidth for the least cost. Yes, you need a location that is listed for business use for this to work. If you are working from a home office or want residential service, we recommend “Can I Get DSL?” to find your best options for DSL, Cable, 4G wireless, fiber to the home, and satellite broadband.

In case you are not familiar with Ethernet Internet access, this is a fairly new bandwidth service that is growing by leaps and bounds. It provides an Ethernet connection from your local area network, which is already running Ethernet, to the Internet, which is highly compatible with Ethernet. Traditional telecom connections were designed to transport telephone calls and are not as efficient as what’s known as Metro or Carrier Ethernet. There are also many new providers who specialize in Ethernet and IP networks that are anxious to compete for your business.

As a result, you can generally save money when you switch to Ethernet Internet service. How much? It’s not unusual to get twice the bandwidth for the same cost using Ethernet at 3 Mbps vs a T1 line at 1.5 Mbps. The higher the bandwidth, the lower the price per Mbps.

Also, new Ethernet over Copper (EoC) technology can deliver 10 Mbps Ethernet connections to your business using existing twisted pair copper wiring. You don’t necessarily have to bring in new fiber optic service to get the bandwidth you need. How much bandwidth can you get and for what cost? The easy way to find out is to use the Ethernet Internet Finder now.

MPLS Bandwidth A Bargain

MPLS networks are becoming more and more of a standard telecom service offering. If you have multiple locations to link, you need to know about MPLS. Why? Because you could be saving a bundle over your current connectivity solution.

You’ve heard of cloud networks? MPLS is a cloud networking technology. This is different that cloud computing or cloud storage because MPLS is only about making connections. Whether you do anything within the cloud is another matter. This is about transport, or getting packets from point to point.

MPLS networks are privately owned and operated. If you want to get on the MPLS network, you’ll need to make arrangements with a MPLS service provider. It’s not like the Internet, which is open to anyone and everyone. The advantage of this premium-grade bandwidth service is that the MPLS network operator can guarantee bandwidth and quality of service.

But doesn’t premium-grade mean premium price? Not really. You need to compare apples to apples. In this case, you need to compare what you pay to use the MPLS network with what it costs to maintain the same quality connections another way. Traditionally, that other way has been proprietary company networks constructed from dedicated point to point lines or Frame Relay Networks.

Frame Relay is actually the ancestor to MPLS. It was developed for the same purpose. That was to connect geographically diverse locations with reliable and secure data links. Frame Relay networks served us well for decades. But they were designed in an era of much lower bandwidths, prior to the onslaught of audio, video and massive file sizes.

MPLS is the upgrade to Frame Relay. It can handle anything you need to transport in any format. The letters M-P-L-S stands for Multi-Protocol Label Switching. Multi-Protocol means that this network can handle voice, data, video and even TDM services such as switched circuit telephony. The built-in quality of service mechanisms ensure that each service gets the network characteristics it needs. You don’t have to worry about large data transfers causing your phone calls to drop.

The bargain pricing offered by MPLS networks is that the cloud is efficiently utilized to handle traffic from multiple clients. That way, you are only paying for what you need. You can always add more locations or bandwidth if the need arises. Try doing that with proprietary networks.

Does MPLS offer a cost savings for your operations? Find out with a MPLS network competitive price quote. It’s fast, easy and free.

HTC Aria Social Networking Smartphone

Need a friend on the cellular networks? Don’t get a dog. Get FriendStream. It let’s you stay in touch over Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. You’ll be connecting with the HTC Aria, one of the newest and hottest Android smartphones.

It starts with a single block of jet black aluminum that forms the smooth and seamless case of the Aria. Small enough to fit in your shirt pocket. Powerful enough to use for both business and personal needs. Its large 3.2 inch touchscreen features pinch-to-zoom, which automatically reflows text for easy reading as you zoom in and out of websites.

Yes, this is an Android smartphone. It runs Google’s Android 2.1 operating system and HTC Sense user interface. You can create and save multiple customized home screen layouts. You’ll be able to access thousands of apps and widgets on the Android Market. The Aria comes to you preloaded with Google Maps, Gmail, Google Talk, search and YouTube video access. Being on the AT&T 3G network, you’ll be able to surf and talk at the same time. That’s not true on all cellular networks.

The HTC Aria is set-up for messaging. The Email client accesses and syncs your corporate Email, Push Gmail and POP/IMAP regular email accounts. Or use your Web-based email account. There’s an HTML Web browser that gives you PC-like viewing and navigating of the Web with pinch and zoom capability. Multimedia messaging lets you send and receive picture and video messages. You’ll take some nice ones with the built-in 5 Megapixel autofocus digital camera that doubles as a camcorder.

The Aria is loaded with connectivity. It works on the worldwide GSM standard networks at 850, 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz. It also supports UMTS on 850 and 1900 MHz. You’ll be downloading at 3G speed over the AT&T HSDPA network. Want even more speed or to save your data plan? Use the WiFI capability with AT&T HotSpot support.

Mind you, this is a small phone that weighs-in at just 3.9 ounces. Dimensions are 4.1 x 2.3 x 0.5 inches. Yet it sports 384 MB of RAM and expandable to 32 GB using plug-in microSD memory cards.

Like Music? you can stream stereo music to and from A2DP compatible Bluetooth devices. The MP3 player supports AAC, MP3 and WAV formats. It’s also a high performance streaming multimedia phone. Watch full length TV shows with AT&T Mobile TV and stream music and videos.

Does this sound like the kind of high performance phone you’ve been looking for but not sure you can afford? Relax. You can get the HTC Aria for AT&T for FREE when you order it with new cellular service online.

Of course, there are many more free and low cost cell phones available to you right now. Check out the current specials and see what meets your needs. You’ll probably have a hard time picking just one.

XO Nails Down SIP Trunking Savings

How would you like to save over $88,000 a year for your business just by switching to SIP trunking service?

Not so fast, you with the pushcart. To save this kind of money, you have to have the size of operation that spends that kind of money. I’m getting the number from the new Enterprise SIP Savings Estimator offered by XO Communications, a major competitive voice and data carrier.



What kind of business saves the big bucks? In this case, one with 1,000 employees located in 10 locations and making half their phone calls within the company. This is not at all unusual for Fortune 500 corporations. In fact, I’ll bet there are many companies in your city that meet this criteria. Perhaps you even work at one. If you are in charge of information technology or telecommunications, this is something that can make you a corporate hero. With nearly all businesses turning over every rock to find cost reductions, SIP services are well worth investigating.

What’s special about SIP and how does it work the savings magic? SIP or Session Initiation Protocol is the switching protocol behind most VoIP implementations. In fact, when you hear the term SIP, you can bet the discussion involves VoIP telephony to some degree. The selling point of enterprise-level VoIP phone systems is that they are big money savers. But the question remains, “how?”

One big source of savings comes from the fact that we are in the digital age and companies large enough to have multiple business locations have those locations tied together with a WAN or Wide Area Network. Some do this with T1 lines and their own proprietary network topology. Others use a private cloud network, once Frame Relay and now MPLS, to create a mesh network that ties all locations together.

But what about telephone? The local PBX telephone system dominates with analog or ISDN PRI trunk lines for outgoing calls. Here’s where the savings come in. Right now you may need to use the public telephone network to make a call from a branch office to the main office or another branch. You pay for each of those calls. But, if you can press you data network to do double duty and transport voice as well as data, you can keep those internal phone calls on your own network and pay no toll charges at all. It’s almost free, since the data network has to be in place anyway.

SIP trunking is a technique that carries both voice and data on the same network. You don’t even need to connect your phone system to the public network. You can install a SIP trunk to a service provider that handles that at lower cost that you may be paying. The SIP trunking provider can also give you broadband Internet service over the same trunk without computer traffic interfering with voice traffic.

Oh, but you need to be a major corporation to save using SIP services, right? No, not at all. Most medium size companies and many small companies can also save money with SIP trunking in place of the separate phone lines and broadband services they buy now. How can you know if it makes sense for your operation? Easy. Get a competitive quote for SIP Trunking services and see just what the cost savings are. You may be surprised at what you’ve been missing out on.

Covad and ADTRAN Make Everything Ethernet

The age of Carrier Ethernet is upon us. All the excitement these days is directed at IP core networks and Ethernet access solutions. So, does that mean that legacy TDM services must be abandoned in place? Not at all. With the right equipment, DS1 and DS3 circuits can be repurposed for Ethernet transport. Carrier Covad and equipment maker ADTRAN are doing just that.

Covad is now deploying ADTRAN central office and network termination equipment to expand their Ethernet service area. Covad currently serves 44 states and 235 major markets with a core network that spans the nation. Their specialties have included business DSL, data T1, high bandwidth fixed wireless, bonded T1, and integrated voice and data with SIP, PRI and analog handoff. All of these are designed to serve the small and medium size business market. Ethernet is a natural addition to the Covad portfolio.

What’s special about the ADTRAN Carrier Ethernet solutions? It’s that they can pretty much press any existing line service into transporting Ethernet from the service provider to the end user. A service aggregation unit is installed at the central office to connect with the carrier’s Metro Ethernet and IP Core networks. For Covad, this is the Total Access 5000 MSAP (Multi-Service Access Platform). The aggregation unit brings in GigE or 10 GigE carrier bandwidth connections and apportions it to subscribers.

What makes this system so flexible is that the transport from CO to subscriber can be any of the common circuits already in place. These include DS3 and bonded DS3 bandwidth, T1 and bonded T1 lines, e.SHDSL bonded pairs. DS3 and T1 (DS1) are legacy service that are been used by many businesses for years. Ethernet over TDM or EoTDM allows service provider to keep those circuits in place and use them to provide Metro Ethernet or Carrier Ethernet services over an extensive area.

EoC or Ethernet over Copper has become very popular recently because it offers higher bandwidths and lower prices than traditional digital line services. The e.SHDSL technology can boost speed to 5.7 Mbps per e.SHDSL loop compared to 1.5 Mbps for T1. However, this is a distance limited technology that is typically extends no further than 9 km from the carrier’s point of presence.

An appropriate network termination unit is installed at the customer location. The companion product is the NetVanta 800 Series. These are configured for 2, 4, or 8 bonded e.SHDSL pairs, up to 3 bonded DS3 circuits for a maximum of 134 Mbps, or 2, 4 or 8 four-wire T1/E1 loops. In many cases, bonding multiple copper pair can bring in the bandwidth needed by businesses without the high cost of pulling-in fiber optic cable for a new installation. In many cases, fiber isn’t available nearby and isn’t really an option. Even so, 10 or 12 Mbps and up to 45 Mbps over existing copper wiring offers the requisite bandwidth at very reasonable costs.

Is your business straining at the limit of your current T1 line or dissatisfied with business DSL service? If so, you may find that Ethernet service from Covad and other top carriers is just what you need. Why not find out how much bandwidth you can get for your telecom dollar? It takes just a second to inquire and a knowledgeable consultant will be in contact quickly with prices and install times. Inquire about Carrier Ethernet for your business now.

Medical Records Head To The Cloud

It’s been predicted for some time that the medical industry is going to have to move to electronic records soon to have any hope of containing the ongoing cost spiral. That move is now underway. No less than Verizon has built a cloud service to store medical records online. So what is this service and what does it portend for the future?

Verizon Business calls its service The Verizon Health Information Exchange. No snappy acronym there, but it does have a tone of significance. The idea is to store patient records in a standardized format within a Verizon data center. Access will be via the Web. Also, health care providers that subscribe to this service will be able to easily share patient records.

There are several important advances here. Electronic medical records are not new, but there are multiple incompatible formats. That’s the tower-of-babel problem we used to have with computers. The entry of a major service provider like Verizon offers hope that their standards will become industry standards, much the same way as IBM nailed down personal computer standards just because of their sheer size.

Another breakthrough is the adoption of Web-based access. Web browsers have matured as secure portals for shopping, banking and other sensitive applications. Mechanisms, such as encryption, are available to ensure patient privacy. By using a common Web browser instead of a proprietary terminal or software package, users will have an enormous range of options for using this system. That includes PCs and MACs, iPads, mobile phones, and perhaps embedded systems built into medical equipment like scanners or X-ray machines. The mobile opportunity is especially interesting for physicians on-call or out in the boonies.

Another option allows medical providers to keep their records stored locally like they do now, but permit access through the cloud so that other doctor’s offices or hospitals can access those records when needed. This should make it easier for wary medical providers to put a toe in the water before fully committing to send everything to the cloud.

Health care automation and electronic medical records are ushering in a new age of faster and more informed health care. Hopefully, easy access to comprehensive medical information for each patient will help reduce the need for every provider to run the same battery of tests, reducing costs across the board. Before this can happen, though, systems for easy record sharing, like the Verizon Health Information Exchange, will need to proliferate. At the same time, many providers will need to upgrade their access bandwidth so that they can quickly upload and download large files that include detailed images.

Recycle Your BlackBerry Phone For Cash

It’s time to take your old BlackBerry phone out of service. You’ve signed a new contract and have a brand new BlackBerry or other smartphone on your existing phone number. The trusty old model doesn’t do much anymore. It doesn’t have service or a number. But it’s still in too good of shape to just toss in the trash. Isn’t something as high tech as a BlackBerry worth money?

You bet it is. Depending on which model you have, the condition it is in and how old it is, you could be looking at some serious cash... if you can find a buyer. What a pain that is! You have to run ads or auctions, then hope somebody is in the market for what you are offering at exactly the time you are offering it. Then you have to deal with people coming over or by mail. It sure would be nice if you could just sell these things.

You can. There is an electronics recycler that offers cash for used BlackBerry phones and most other models of cell phones and smartphones. Which models do they want? Let’s take a look.

First, visit the Gazelle recycling site. Then, click on “BlackBerry RIM” under “Browse by Manufacturer” just below the search bar. Wow! There are 71 BlackBerry models in demand. These include models from the Series 5000, 6000, 7000, 7100, 7130, 7200, 7500, 7700, 8000, 8700, Bold, Curve, Pearl, R, Storm and Tour. Does that include yours? If not, just run a search and see if your BlackBerry RIM phone shows up. The models I’ve mentioned are just a snapshot, as new entries are being added all the time.

When you find your particular model of BlackBerry phone, just click on it and you’ll be taken to an offer page. To find the appropriate price for your phone, just answer a few simple questions about whether it makes a call successfully, is free of water damage, is in poor, fair, good or perfect condition, and whether you still have the AC adapter and original cables. Then click on the orange “Calculate” button and find out how much they’ll pay you.

If you like the answer, you can click “Add to Box” to accept the offer. Then you get to check out or sell another gadget. That can be another cell phone or a video game, movie, laptop computer, MP3 player, digital camera, PDA, gaming console, GPS device, camcorder, desktop computer, LCD monitor, calculator, camera lens, satellite radio, external hard drive, streaming media, projector, home audio or Blu-ray player. Now that you know how many electronic devices can be recycled, I’ll bet you can come up with a rather large box full.

Speaking of box, what happens next is that they send you a pre-paid shipping box. Just carefully pack your items inside and send it in. Once the condition of each item has been verified, you’ll get a check in the mail. How sweet is that?

By the way, this takes only a few minutes and can turn into something of a treasure hunt and you go through the house rounding up all your old unwanted gadgets. Why not give it a try right now? Get started recycling your BlackBerry Phone and other devices for cash.

What To Do If You Hate Your Internet Service

I regularly get inquiries with comments that go something like “I can’t get any broadband” or “I hate my slow Internet access.” Unfortunately, most of these come in as requests for quotes on high bandwidth services that are totally inappropriate. So, is there any real hope for the frustrated individual or small business Internet user? You bet there is.

Broadband access is a hot potato right now. So much so that the government is spending billions to help service providers extend their coverage into small towns and rural areas where broadband is largely non-existant. This will help... eventually. But no way is there enough money available to create the kind of universal access we have with telephone service and electricity. In the real boonies, your best bet is wireless.

Before I get deeper into this, are you sure you don’t have broadband options? New build-outs are always underway and there might be something that serves your address that you don’t realize has arrived. Before you do anything else, check for broadband availability using a broadband finder service like the appropriately named “Can I Get DSL?” This free availability check will give you a list of DSL, Cable, Satellite and 3G mobile broadband services for your location.

Notice the inclusion of 3G cellular wireless. Cell towers have become so prolific that you can almost always get a signal, even out in the country where no one is stringing broadband wires. Nearly all cell towers are now transmitting both voice and data on different channels. If you have a smartphone, that’s how you get your Internet access. But you can also get a wireless modem aircard and a data-only plan so that you can put broadband on your laptop computer. Yes, it is also possible to plug one of these into a desktop computer, but beware. There is such a shortage of wireless channels that service providers impose a relatively small download cap. It’s generally either 2 GB or 5 GB depending on the service you order. Most people find this more than adequate for mobile use in checking email and browsing websites. But if you go downloading big software files or movies, you can hit that limit pretty quickly. Go over and you’ll pay overage charges that can be eye-popping.

A faster and less restrictive wireless service is 4G WiMAX, now in some 40 cities. Someday WiMAX may be the answer to rural broadband needs. But for right now, it is rather tightly deployed around major population centers. If you can get it, you’ll enjoy 3 to 6 Mbps downloads with unlimited usage. In fact, this service is advertised as being suitable for both desktop and mobile usage. The strong signals penetrate most structures, so you don’t need an outside antenna. WiMAX 4G isn’t available everywhere, but it’s worth your while to check 4G wireless availability and see if it has come to your town yet.

Another wireless option is the WISP or Wireless Internet Service Provider. These are strictly local operations set up by entrepreneurs to cover smaller towns or subdivisions located too far from the city to get wired services. You’ll have to check your phone book or newspaper ads to see if one is nearby. If so, you can get DSL or Cable speeds delivered wirelessly line-of-sight to an antenna that mounts on your roof. Some of these look like a small satellite dish tipped downward.

Speaking of satellite, two-way satellite broadband is an established technology that will work just about anywhere you can get power and a clear view of the southern sky. Satellite has gotten a bad rap because of relatively high prices, low bandwidth caps and horrible latency. The latency is due to the radio signal having to travel some 22,500 miles up to the bird and back down. It introduces a half-second or so delay into everything. For email or Web browsing, that’s probably no big deal. Just forget about real-time gaming, VoIP telephone or video conferencing. You’ll drive yourself nuts waiting for responses. Even so, for many users, satellite is a decent option. Service prices have come down recently and are similar to many DSL and Cable prices.

A lucky few also have the option to get their broadband delivered by fiber optic cable. The Verizon FiOS service offers large bandwidth and the possibility of bundling telephone and television over the same passive optical fiber.

If none of these will do the trick, you may be tempted to look into business bandwidth solutions. Don’t do it unless you can pay $300 and up per month for T1 lines running 1.5 Mbps and even more for DS3 and Ethernet. Most providers won’t even install service unless your property is zoned for business. If you do have a business location and are willing to pay what rock solid reliable business bandwidth services demand, then by all means request a business broadband service quote and see what options are available to you.

Why Colo Bandwidth Pricing Is Lowest

Want to see something that will make you jealous? Get a pricing quote for colocation bandwidth.

Sickening, isn’t it? Or is it? Sure, the cost per Mbps at the colo center is much less than you are paying to bring in the same bandwidth to your server racks. Even if you can get a serious cost reduction on your line services by using a telecom broker like Telarus, you’ll still pay less when you co-locate. Is that fair?

Sure it is. The cost reduction you find at colocation facilities comes from a couple of sources. First, there are likely to be a lot more carriers serving that facility than your building. They flock there because they know that they’ll find lots of bandwidth hungry customers all in one spot. These carriers can hear the cash registers going ka-ching! all the while they are bringing in their fiber optic lines. Of course, that ka-ching! sound is ringing in every carrier’s ear. Pretty soon they are battling to get the most customers with the highest bandwidth requirements. That drives prices down and encourages even more customers to move into the “carrier hotel,” as colos are often called.

Beyond fierce competition from multiple service providers, bandwidth costs are low because connection costs are trivial. You know the last mile connection? Yes, the line from your facility to the carrier’s closest point of presence? If you are using copper or SONET fiber, chances are that the last mile is being leased from the incumbent local telephone company. They put the cables in the ground and they expect to get paid for their use, especially if they are being used by a competitive carrier. Inside the colocation center there is no last mile. You have a hard time running a mile of cable even if you wrapped it around the building a few dozen times. That last mile is reduced to the last 100 feet, and it is often installed by colo center personnel. They simply run a drop, fiber or copper, from the carrier “meet me room” to your rack. Plug it in and you are connected.

Lots of competition and easy connections are the reasons behind those mouth watering colocation bandwidth prices. The question becomes, “how can you get in on the action?”

The obvious answer is to move to the colo facility. But what about the costs of space and utilities? They’re probably lower than what you pay now, especially if you are renting. Economy of scale keeps the cost of electricity, HVAC, security, fire suppression, and backup power at reasonable rates. You can even outsource the installation and maintenance of your equipment to the colocation center technical staff. They’re always on duty anyway. Is your staff?

Before you brush off the idea of packing up and moving your high bandwidth server equipment to a colo center, run the numbers. Compare costs of facilities and bandwidth and see which makes more sense. It can be a real eye-opener... and cost saver.

Why Are VoIP and SIP Trunking So Popular?

If your old PBX system is getting long in the tooth and it’s time to start considering a replacement, you’ll do well to look into replacing that PBX with an IP PBX and those phone lines with a SIP Trunk.

Why are these new technologies catching on so fast when traditional telecom equipment and analog or ISDN phone lines work just fine? The answer is new features combined with cost savings while maintaining call quality.

You might be getting a headache right now, thinking about the capital investment and installation expense required to change out all those phone sets that are still getting the job done. Breathe easy. You don’t have to swap out any of your old phones unless you want to.

There are good reasons why you might like a new VoIP SIP phone. For one thing, they plug right into your computer network and don’t need separate telephone wiring of their own. You manage them like any other device on the network. Since a SIP phone can plug into any network jack just like a PC, it’s much easier to manage moves, adds and changes. You want to move to a different office? No problem. Just take your phone with you and plug it in to the network jack in the new office. The phone still has its own MAC address that identifies it as yours, so it doesn’t matter where on the network it sits.

But what about the old phones you want to keep? Just connect their phone wires to your new IP PBX. You’ll need to order interface cards with FSX ports to make the connections, but the IP PBX doesn’t mind a bit. You can even have a mix of SIP phones connected to your LAN and analog phones connected to FSX ports. The IP PBX will treat them all as individual telephones. Of course, the SIP phones may have extra features like displays or the ability to coordinate with computer terminals, but they’re still telephones.

By the way, you don’t necessarily need to have a PBX system on your premises anymore. VoIP has opened the door to hosted PBX, where the call switching hardware is located at an offsite supplier who provides telephone services at an attractive price. It’s a way to avoid the often hefty capital investment required for a new in-house IP PBX system.

VoIP telephony has become popular in business environments with lots of phones, primarily because of the ability to converge the LAN network to support voice as well as data. That makes it possible to keep the phone system truly off the public network for all locations that are reached by the corporate LAN. It’s only when you need to talk to outside parties that you need public phone lines. Or do you?

Yes, you do. But you don’t have to provide those lines yourself. What a SIP trunk does is extend your internal network to a service provider who then connects to the public phone system. Economy of scale generally means that telephone calls over a SIP trunking service are less expensive that terminating them yourself to analog phone lines or ISDN PRI trunks connected to the phone company. SIP trunking services also generally provide dedicated Internet service over the same SIP trunk. After all, it is just a network extension. As long as quality of service is maintained, you can get your telephone and Internet services from the same provider over a single SIP trunk and realize a cost savings.

Are you interested in exploring the expanded performance and cost savings available with VoIP and SIP Trunking services? You may be surprised at what you can get for much less than you are paying now. Enter a quick Enterprise VoIP quote request now with a brief description of your needs and you’ll get a fast response and personalized service.

Ethernet In The First Mile

Both legacy telco and competitive fiber optic networks worldwide are in the midst of a major upgrade from switched circuit to packet switched networks. With IP core networks proliferating, it seems natural that Ethernet WAN services have become more available and lower in cost. But, what is it you are using to connect to Ethernet transport services and private IP-based cloud networks? It’s not T1, DS3 or SONET telco-based connections, is it?

In many cases, that’s exactly what businesses are using. There’s nothing wrong with any of these switched-circuit time division multiplexing technologies. They’re highly reliable and much less costly than they were even a few years ago. But, you should know that there are advantages to using Ethernet itself in the first mile.

The first mile, also called the last mile, connection is often the most costly and hardest to come by. This is the physical wire, optical fiber, or wireless circuit that connects your building to your service provider’s closest point of presence. T1 lines have been highly popular because they need only two pair of ordinary twisted copper phone line to bring in the service. Even small business locations have a couple extra pair of copper in the bundle that connects them to the telco central office.

Did you know that Ethernet is also available using the same twisted pair copper that supplies your T1 service? A big reason to switch to Ethernet is that higher bandwidth may be available to you over copper. Common speeds are 3 Mbps and 10 Mbps Ethernet. Higher speeds of 20 Mbps up to 50 Mbps may also be available, depending on how close you are to the carrier POP (point of presence). The lower speeds up to 10 Mbps are readily available, but above 10 Mbps you need to be within a mile or so of the POP. Higher speeds degrade rapidly as distance increases.

The next step up is fiber optic Ethernet. EoF or Ethernet over Fiber offers speeds from 10 Mbps right on up to 10 Gbps. That’s a huge range and it’s scalable. You simply make sure that you install a port that is capable of handling the highest speed you anticipate needing. Then, you order service over that port that is only what you need right now. Say you have a 100 Mbps port installed. You might start out with 20 or 40 Mbps and then upgrade when business needs justify the increase. Since the port is capable of 100 Mbps, you can often get up to this level of bandwidth by simply placing a phone call to your service provider.

In addition to bandwidth, Ethernet offers simplified interfaces that are similar to what you are using on your LAN already. Most often this is a common RJ-45 jack provided by the carrier. Just plug in and go. But best of all, Ethernet tends to be the most cost effective competitive bandwidth service you can buy. You can choose to get more bandwidth for the money you are spending now or run at the same bandwidth and get a cost savings.

Sound good? Why not investigate First Mile Ethernet Services for your business? There are multiple carriers that would like to bid on your connection and you’ll get those bids fast.

4G Wireless Expands Across The Nation

If you’ve been frustrated by the lack of low cost broadband at your home or business, help is on the way. In fact it may have already arrived.

CLEAR, the innovator of 4G Wireless broadband using the WiMAX standard, is now available in more cities. These include:

Washington DC Metro
Grand Rapids, Michigan
St. Louis, Missouri
Rochester, New York
Syracuse, New York
Eugene, Oregon
Merced, Oregon
Salt Lake City, Utah
Richmond, Virginia
Tri-Cities, Washington
Visalia, Washington
Yakima, Washington

What’s all the excitement about 4G? It’s not only the next step up from 3G wireless, but a service that actually takes the place of wireline broadband in many cases. You get high bandwidths of 3 Mbps to 6 Mbps download with occasional bursts up to 10 Mbps. Unlike WiFi, WiMAX 4G has the power to cover an entire city and even provide desktop computing bandwidth. You get what looks like a DSL or Cable modem, except there is no broadband wire to connect. The signal comes through the air.

Also unlike DSL or Cable, you can have an extra modem that plugs into your laptop computer for broadband on the go. Forget trying to find hotspots when you need them. Just wake up your computer and you’ve got broadband Internet wherever you are. That’s the beauty of wireless. Best of all, you can have both fixed and mobile service on the same account if you want to.

This has got to cost, right? Would you be surprised to know that prices start at $30 a month for unlimited broadband? Perhaps even surprised and delighted?

I thought so. Well, don’t wait a minute longer. Check and see if you can get 4G wireless at your home or business location, or both. If you can, you’ve got an unbeatable combination of fixed and mobile service for a lot less than your other options... if you can even find them at all.

Recycle Video Games and Gaming Systems

So, how many video games and gaming systems do you have? Not just the two or three that you are using now. How many different systems and how many games for each system are there hidden in the nooks and crannies of your house or apartment? Too many to count? I thought so.

Now, how would you like to quickly and easily convert some of those games and game consoles that you aren’t using anymore to cash? Yes, cold, hard cash. Well, actually it’s a check and it’s neither cold nor hard. But it is money. It’s money that you can use to buy anything you want, including the latest in video games and gaming systems.

Did I happen to mention that this is quick and easy? One of the reasons that we all have a bunch of systems and dozens upon dozens of games scattered here and there is that unloading them can be a lot of trouble. Unless you have a local store that buys this stuff, you are faced with the onerous chore of running classified ads and dealing with whoever shows up at the door and whenever they decide to show up. Or, you can take pictures and run auctions, hoping for the best. Oh, it didn’t sell? That’s depressing.

Forget all that grief. Sell your used video games and game systems to an online recycler and be done with it in minutes, not hours or days. The process is about as easy as you can get and it’s even fun. Think of it as a treasure hunt. You’re on the hunt to see what you can get for stuff that’s just taking up space right now. All you need to do is run a quick search for the game or game platform that you own. You can also just browse through the selections if you have the time and enjoy the trip down memory lane.

Once you’ve found your game, just answer a couple of quick questions about the condition of the game disc or cartridge and what accessories you have. Then click the “Calculate” button and find out how much you’ll get paid for what you have. Each one takes a matter of a few second. If you like the offer, you can add it to your “box” which is like a shopping cart in reverse. All done? Go ahead and request a free pre-paid mailer. When it comes, pack your items in it and send it on its way. Once the condition of your submission have been verified, you’ll get a check in the mail. It could be enough to buy a new game. It might be enough to buy a whole new system. It all depends on what you have and what condition it is in. The newer and cleaner, the better.

What type of games and gaming systems can you sell? If you have anything for Atari, Microsoft Xbox or Xbox 360, Nintendo GameBoy or GameBoy Advance, Gamecube, DS, DS Lite, Wii, Sega Dreamcast, Sony Playstation 2 or 3 or PSP, you may be in luck. This is not a comprehensive list, so even if you have something else, it is worth your while to take a few seconds and see if you can get paid.

By the way, electronics recycling is not limited to video games and consoles. The most popular item to recycle is cell phones. There are hundreds of millions of them out there and many could be easily converted to cash. Also, digital cameras, desktop and laptop computers, LCD monitors, projectors, streaming media devices, home audio Blu-Ray players, satellite radios, camcorders, camera lenses, MP3 players, external drives, PDAs and even movies. Round up all your electronic stuff and send them in. You may be sitting on a small fortune and not even know it.

HDBaseT Looks To Unseat HDMI

If you’ve used HDMI cables for digital video connections, you’ve probably noticed a couple of things. They are eye-popping expensive and limited in length. Anything more than a few feet long is hard to come by and really, really pricey. Standard networking, on the other hand, can span hundreds of feet and has become very affordable. Even pre-built Cat5e or Cat6 cables are quite reasonable. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just use your computer networking cable to distribute video? Well, pretty soon you may well do just that.

The development that makes such an idea practical is called HDbaseT. It even sounds like a networking standard. The standardization work is being done by the HDBaseT Alliance, an industry group founded by LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Valens Semiconductor.

The idea of replacing HDMI cables with their specialized connectors and construction with good old LAN cable is really quite appealing. But this is even better. HDBaseT is intended to provide what’s called 5Play convergence. One standard Cat5e/6 LAN cable with good old RJ-45 connectors on each end will deliver up to 5 separate services. These include uncompressed high definition video with audio, 100BaseT Ethernet, power for remote devices, plus control signals.

How much power? How does 100 Watts sound? That’s way more than we even expect from PoE or Power over Ethernet implementations that now exist. With 100W, you can power television receivers as well as remote security cameras.

What’s more, HDBaseT has room to scale. The base standard, HDBaseT 1.0 can carry uncompressed video/audio up to 10.2 Gbps, but is capable of scaling up to 20 Gbps. It can transport 100 Mbps Ethernet, but is capable of scaling up to Gigabit Ethernet speeds.

The HDBaseT Alliance announced finalization of the HDBaseT 1.0 specification on June 29. It’s expected that products with HDBaseT technology embedded will start appearing before the end of the year, with major adoption in 2011. The home video distribution market is all but crying for this type of solution. With the old analog TV, coaxial cable was cheap and easy to install and could easily cover the needs of a premises. HDTV and HD video need the same ease of distribution.

HDBaseT will also likely become important in B2B markets. Such applications as video conferencing, digital signage, security, and even video production can benefit from the flexibility and performance of this technology. Network convergence is getting more and more popular. HDBaseT looks like the right standard at the right time.

Is There a Broadband Stimulus Job For You?

The government is deploying another $795 million of the broadband stimulus funding, and just in time. The United States has been lagging other countries, including Japan and Korea, when it comes to the amount of bandwidth available to businesses and consumers at any reasonable price. At the same time, we are in what has been dubbed “The Great Recession,” with unemployment stuck at unreasonably high levels. Could there be a win-win here?

It looks like there may well be benefits for both today’s jobseekers and the long term prosperity of the United States. One report estimates
that the new high speed internet build-outs will create as many as 5,000 jobs right away. That may sound like a pittance, considering the millions looking for work, but it’s a move in the right direction. It’s also likely that the benefit from these jobs will multiply as new broadband resources come online. Once the bandwidth is available, there will be the urge to put it to good use. That means more computers, more wireless networks, more demand for video, more cloud services, and so on. It’s the nature of investment. There’s a multiplier effect as we gain new capability.

I deal mostly with business bandwidth. Since getting involved in this field nearly 7 years ago, I’ve seen a steady increase in demand for higher and higher speeds at lower prices. I originally launched T1Rex.com to sell competitively priced T1 lines. These have been the staple of small and even some medium size businesses. But a T1 line tops out at 1.5 Mbps. Seven years ago that was still considered a goodly amount of bandwidth. Now many, many businesses are moving up to 10 Mbps Ethernet. The pricing is similar to what T1 lines used to cost and the bandwidth is high enough to support rapid file transfers, fast Internet browsing and real-time video. What’s just as attractive as the speed and the price is the fact that 10 Mbps Ethernet can be delivered on existing copper wiring.

We’ve got a copper-based infrastructure that needs to move to a fiber infrastructure. All that copper is thanks to an earlier government initiative to ensure that every business and home had access to reasonably priced telephone service. All that’s happened is that those analog phone lines have been re-purposed for digital transmission. It’s the same copper. Some of it has been in the ground for a century.

But copper has its limits. Ethernet over Copper is good for up to 50 Mbps if you are within a mile or so of the central office. If you are out in the boonies or have the need for more bandwidth, you really need fiber. That’s no problem downtown. It’s a big problem as you move away from the densely packed city cores. Why no fiber where there’s lots of copper? It’s because the lower the population density, the more expensive per drop it becomes to bring in fiber optic services. It quickly becomes too expensive for businesses and ridiculously expensive for consumers.

This is what the broadband stimulus is intended to help fix. The idea is to build out what is called the “middle mile.” That’s the span from the provider’s main points of presence to smaller towns, neighborhoods and industrial parks. From there, it’s not so costly to hook up the “last mile” to actual users. That last mile or fraction thereof might be fiber, wireless, or even high speed copper.

We really need to think of our broadband infrastructure as a standard utility. No one thinks twice about expecting electricity and telephone service to be available. In most areas, water, sewer, and natural gas hookups are a given. Fiber optic lines need the same status. Bring in a bundle with both copper and fiber strands and you’ll have the best of both worlds. What’s more, our nation will have the 21st century resource to continue being a leader in science, business, education, and health care. It’s what we’ll need if we expect to maintain our lifestyle in a world where other nations are deploying broadband Internet as a strategic resource.

For Free Phone Aficionados Only

Are you insistent that you next cell phone be free? Yes? Then we’ve got a site for you. It’s the free phones section of Cell Phone Plan Finder. What’s it about? Free phone and nothing but free phones. So, if you absolutely, positively insist that your next cell phone be free of charge when you order your service contract, have a look at some of these free phones...



Note that this is just a screen shot of a few selections. There are 23 free phones available as of this writing. They’re matched with major cellular service providers, such as Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, AT&T and Sprint. So, what can you get?

Well, you can get a slew of BlackBerry models, including the Bold, Curve, Storm and Tour. There’s the Motorola BACKFLIP and Cliq XT with MOTOBLUR. The DROID by Motorola and the DROID ERIS by HTC, Nokia Nuron, T-Mobile Sidekick, Motorola DEVOUR, and LG Ally, among others. The Sharp KIN ONE and KIN TWO are also listed, but I don’t know how long those are going to last.

All in all, these are very popular cell phones that you’d gladly pay for in cellular and big box electronic stores. But don’t do that. They’re free online, while supplies last. Just visit the free phones section of Cell Phone Plan Finder and make your choice. You can even compare models side by side if you wish.

Pssst. If you aren’t absolutely insistent on getting a free phone, there are many more smartphones and basic cell phones to choose from at Cell Phone Plan Finder right now.

Happy 4th of July

Yo! Happy Independence Day from T1 Rex’s Business Telecom Explainer and the Founding Fathers:



Best wishes for a safe and happy 4th,

John

Toll Free Number Availability Now

You’re thinking about getting a toll free number for your business, but, oh, the grief involved in trying to find one that’s available and then having to send in a bunch of paperwork and waiting a couple of weeks or a couple of months to get service. Is that really worth it?

NO. It certainly is not, and why should you? There are toll free numbers all set up and ready to go right now. All you have to do is pick the one you want from a list of choices and then take about 5 minutes to get your service started. You do all this online at Kall8’s Instant Online Activation site. No need to wait for standard business hours. Get your number tonight, on the weekend, any holiday, or any time at all. The process is totally automated and self-service. As soon as you are set up, you can start using your new toll free number.

So how much does this all cost and what do you get? How’s $2 to get your 866, 877 or 888 toll free number? Not bad, huh? For every month that you want to keep that number, your credit card will get charged another $2. When customers or prospects call you on that number, you’ll pay just 6.9 cents a minute for the length of the call. Rates are a bit higher for Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, Guam and Saipan. I’ll bet you didn’t even know that you could take toll free calls from those locations, did you?

Sounds cheap enough, but what do you get in the way of service? First of all, you get the ability to change your ring-to number at will. That’s a powerful feature if you aren’t always at the same phone. For instance, many professionals and small business owners on the go will have the toll free number ring to their cell phone when they are not in the office. That way, they will never miss an important call... or that all-important chance to close a sale. If you are going to be in the office all day, change the ring-to number so that all incoming toll free calls will ring your office phone. At night, set it to ring your home phone. You’ll never have to “check in” to see if you got any important calls. They’ll come directly to you wherever you are.

Of course, you get voice mail with your toll free number. After all, there are always some times when you can’t answer the phone. But, this voice mail can be checked online or you can even have voice messages sent to you as email attachments. The same is true with FAX messages. Just have your clients send the FAX to your toll free number. The Kall8 system will turn it into an electronic image and send that to you as an email attachment. Or, you can get your FAX messages online at any time.

There are many other features, such as conference calling, call blocking and forwarding, and Caller ID, and they are all included for the same price: $2 a month plus the cost of calls. You can check those out at your leisure on the Kall8 site. I don’t want to bog you down in details, because you want a toll free number right now. Well, don’t wait a second longer. Select your toll free number and order for instant availability. You can begin accepting calls on your new toll free number in, literally, a matter of minutes.

OC3 Bandwidth Costs Just A Fraction Of What It Did

If you are a use of high bandwidth fiber optic connections, you know that these line services don’t come cheap. Well, actually, they do come cheaper these days. But you have to know what to look for and where to look.

Take OC3 bandwidth, for instance. Optical Carrier level 3 is one of a family of fiber optic carrier services using the SONET (Synchronous Optic NETwork) protocol developed for the major telephone carriers and later offered to large business organizations. OC-3 is actually the lowest commonly available SONET service and runs a at a transmission speed of 155.52 Mbps. Of that, 148.608 Mbps is dedicated to payload, with 6.912 Mbps needed to support the overhead of transmission.

Time was, just a few years ago, that OC3 was considered an enormous amount of bandwidth. It was only ordered by major Internet service providers, colocation hosting facilities, television distribution companies and other large corporations. Medium size companies got by with DS3 at 45 Mbps, roughly 1/3 the capacity of OC3. Smaller companies had their needs met by T1 lines running 1.5 Mbps.

Today, OC3 bandwidth is no longer consider as the ultimate business telecom service. Leading edge companies have moved on to Gigabit bandwidth levels and even 10 Gbps is not out of the question. Two factors have been driving that change. One is expansion of the carrier market with many new competitive carriers running their own fiber optic networks. The other is the demand for higher bandwidths by such needs as cloud computing services, HDTV video, CAD/CAM design and manufacturing, scientific supercomputer simulations, and electronic medical records transmission.

While OC3 offers about 155 Mbps, the next level, OC12, offers 622 Mbps, OC48 steps that up to 2.5 Gbps and OC192 provides 10 Gbps performance. These are all SONET switched circuit TDM technologies. Their competitors are IP packet switched networks offering 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet, 1000 Mbps Gigabit Ethernet and 10,000 Mbps 10GigE.

With so much competition in the fiber optic arena, prices have come down dramatically over the last decade. In fact, if you haven’t checked competitive pricing in a few years, you may be shocked at how many options you have and at the low lease prices available. But... you may not find these low prices at all unless you check with a bandwidth broker who has access to dozens of competitive service providers. We work with Telarus, Inc., arguably the most innovative and fastest growing telecom services broker today. Their dedication to customer service and extensive automation tools make it easy for you to inquire as to services and pricing and get an answer quickly. Go ahead and simply state your business bandwidth needs now and see how glad you are that you invested the 30 seconds or so that it took to submit that online inquiry.