Flat Rate Toll Free Numbers

How would you like to have a toll free number for your business without the worry that you’ll never know how big your bill will be each month? What you are looking for is flat rate toll free service. Your bill is the same every month and you’ll get dozens of features included at no extra cost. Best of all, there’s no risk to try it because you can get a 14 day free trial of flat rate toll free service.

The flat rate service from iTeleCenter is just $49 a month for unlimited calls. You pay no per minute charges, no extra fees for features, no activation fees, no surcharges or hidden fees, no confusing plans and no contracts.

What are some of those special calling features? You get professional grade business phone service such as an auto attendant with main greeting voicemail to email or text transmission, multiple extension mailboxes, online faxing, follow-me call forwarding and 30 additional features.

How about the numbers available? You have two choices in how you pick your toll free number. The first way is to simply select from a list of 10 assorted numbers that are available. These have the prefixes 800, 866, 877 and 888. If you see one you like, just click on the radio button and proceed to order it. If not, then click the “generate more numbers” button and you’ll get a new list.

The other method is to search for a custom vanity number. What is a vanity number? That’s a phone number that spells out a word or phrase using the letters that appear on the numbers of the telephone dial. You can specify any available toll free prefix, or limit your search to 855 or 866 or 877 or 888. You can also use * for wildcard digits. Those are digits where you really don’t care what number comes up. Let’s try a couple of examples and see what we get.

Say you’re in the water conditioning business and want a memorable toll free number to advertise. We’ll say any prefix is OK and that we want the term “water” to be in the toll free number. Enter “water” into the search box and press the search button. Voila! Here’s what we get. There are 10 different toll free numbers available and they all spell out water within the number. You can choose from (877) 95WATER, (855) 60WATER, (877) WATGER88 and another seven options. Don’t much care for these? Click on the Generate More Numbers button and you’ll get another 10 options. These include (855) WATER08, (855) WATER30 and seven more that are similar.

Got the idea? You may want to play around with this search engine a bit to get something that relates to your business and is easy to remember. Note that 855 is a newly added toll free prefix. You’ll likely have more options with the 855 prefix than the others because it has only been available for about a year.

What makes this system better than old-school toll free number ordering is both the interactive vanity search feature plus instant availability of your chosen toll free number. That’s right. You select the number you want and then place your order online right away before anybody else gets the same idea. That starts your 14 day free trial period. Play around with the features, decide how much of an asset this is for your business, and keep using that number as long as you keep your toll free service.

Do you think that a toll free number will increase your opportunity to make more sales and keep customers happy? If so, you can have one for your business right now. It only takes a few minutes to select a number and get it in service. Go ahead and start the 14 day free trial on flat rate toll free service.

Copper Ethernet Line Prices Instantly!

You’re no doubt aware that Ethernet over Copper is making a strong challenge to be the bandwidth service of choice for businesses. How much of a challenge? The bandwidth increases and cost reductions are making it hard to choose anything else if EoC is available. Just how much can you get and for what price reduction? Why not check Ethernet over Copper prices instantly!



Through the magic of the Telarus GeoQuote automated pricing system, it’s now possible to get Ethernet quotes immediately any time you want. Simply use the handy input form you’ll find at CopperEthernet.com and you’ll be automatically set up to get Ethernet over Copper pricing.

How accurate are these prices? They could be considered budgetary pricing, although they are quite accurate. GeoQuote mimics the same procedures that carriers use to make service price quotes. If you go directly to a carrier, however, you’ll probably have to wait a few days or more to get the results back. You’ll also be limited to one provider's offers. Why settle for one quote when you can get several or more to compare?

Telarus is an award winning telecom and network services broker that has agreements with dozens of service providers. You get the same or better pricing through the GeoQuote system as you could by spending hours on the phone calling around for competitive quotes.

It is well worth your while to talk to a Telarus bandwidth consultant, as there are often short term special deals available that don’t show up in the automated results. Your consultant can let you know what’s on “sale” so you can make the best buying decision. At the end of the quote process, you’ll have the option to call Telarus toll free for further discussion or just click a link and a consultant will call you promptly.

You should also know that Ethernet over Copper isn’t the only service that’s available for instant price quotes. If you wish, you can explore options for T1 and bonded T1 lines, business Cable broadband, fixed wireless broadband, Satellite bandwidth, fractional and full DS3 services and Ethernet over Fiber. Yes, quotes are available for fiber optic services from 10 to 1000 Mbps using the same instant pricing process.

Are you anxious to see how much you could be saving over your current telecom services contract? Take just a minute from your busy day and get Copper Ethernet line prices instantly. After you see the results, you’ll probably want to take a few more minutes and call in an order.

Multi-Carrier WAN MPLS Solution

Businesses that want to link their many far-flung locations have had several options available. They could set up their own private point to point lines, go with a Frame Relay network or sign up for MPLS network service. Which of these offers the best cost solution? Let’s have a look.

When companies and small and growing, the temptation is to grow the network along with the company. If there are only two locations, the logical move is to order a point to point T1 line or higher bandwidth service. This directly connects the new locations with dedicated private bandwidth. When another location is set up, add another private line back to headquarters. If you want the two remote locations to talk directly, you can add a third private line between them.

You can see how costs grow rather quickly when you try to create a mesh network using dedicated private lines. Pretty soon you have a rats nest of connections and a soaring telecom bill. What happens then is someone in IT decides that it makes more sense to have only one private line to each location and arrange them in a star network with headquarters at the center. The headquarters router will take care of directing traffic among all locations. This is better, but you are still paying more than necessary.

That conundrum is what led to the development of Frame Relay networks. The idea is that a shared WAN network is more cost effective than every company creating its own private WAN. The Frame Relay network is one of the original clouds. You simply connected to the network from each of your locations and long haul traffic was routed through the cloud. If a cloud is running correctly, you have no sense that there is other traffic on the network while you are using it.

MPLS or Multi-Protocol Label Switching takes the concept of Frame Relay and improves upon it. Frame Relay networks reached the height of their popularity in an era where bandwidth demands were generally lower and most traffic was data packets. MPLS is designed around fiber optic core networks with a regional or nationwide footprint. There are class of service tags included in the labels that encapsulate the user packets. These ensure that time sensitive applications like VoIP telephony or video conferencing get the special treatment they need to work successfully. As the name implies, MPLS can transport any protocol. Multiple customers can transport different protocols simultaneously and they won’t interfere.

Since MPLS networks can handle any protocol, have enormous bandwidth at their disposal and have inherent security because of the proprietary nature of the network technology, doesn’t it make perfect sense to connect to an MPLS network to link business locations?

Yes it does. Your best cost solution for a given performance level across more than two locations is likely to be an MPLS network solution. The one fly in the ointment is that any given MPLS network doesn’t necessarily go everywhere you want it to. You may be able to connect some of your locations to the network but not others. There are some massive MPLS networks that can connect nearly everywhere, but they can also command top dollar. Is there a better solution?

The approach that can give you the connectivity you need with at the best pricing is a multi-carrier or meshed MPLS network. It’s a network of networks. In other words, several MPLS networks are joined to cover all of your business locations at the best price point for each.

Where do you find this type of service? Obviously, contacting any particular carrier will only get you access to their MPLS network. If you want to interconnect them, you have the tricky issue of network to network interfacing. That’s a job better left to telecom network specialists. One company, AireSpring, has the expertise to make this happen and the carrier relationships to gain access.

Does your company need to interconnect multiple business locations? Telecom broker Telarus has access to the best rates on MPLS networks, including Meshed MPLS from AireSpring. Get availability and pricing for MPLS solutions. You are probably spending too much right now.

GigE and FastE Bandwidth Services

Bandwidth upgrades are a matter of course these days. Many companies are moving from T1 line speeds at 1.5 Mbps up to 3x3 Mbps or 10x10 Mbps Ethernet. Often there is little or no additional cost involved in doing so. But what if these bandwidth levels are still to low for your needs? Are there any opportunities at the 100 to 1000 Mbps level?

Carrier Ethernet is now the service to pursue at medium and high bandwidth speeds. These service levels have been dominated by DS3 or T3 lines at 45 Mbps and SONET OCx for higher line speeds over fiber optic cable. Ethernet bandwidth has a cost advantage for this need and also provisioning flexibility.

It’s common knowledge that low and mid-band Ethernet services are readily available over twisted pair copper wiring. In other words, the same telco wires that you currently use for analog business phone lines and T1 lines can also be used to transport Ethernet protocol. The service requires specialized equipment at each end and multiple copper pairs. This is Ethernet over Copper. Bandwidth levels vary from 1 Mbps on up 100 Mbps and beyond. A 200 Mbps service is available in some areas and a new 400 Mbps asymmetrical Internet access is being rolled out.

Most companies opt for Ethernet as a last mile connection to the Internet, metro or wide area MPLS network with bandwidth up to 50 Mbps. This is a direct replacement for their existing copper wire T1, bonded T1 or DS3 connections. By moving up the speed range to 100 Mbps to 400 Mbps, Ethernet can directly replace such fiber optic services as OC-3 at 155 Mbps and perhaps OC-12 at 622 Mbps.

All of this is done over up to 8 bonded copper pair at distances that don’t exceed a few thousand feet to a few miles from the telco central office. This is no problem in densely populated business districts, but as you move out into the burbs, small cities and rural areas, service becomes less available. Ethernet over Copper has a definite distance limitation.

Fast Ethernet at 100 Mbps may be available over copper, but Ethernet over Fiber is a better bet. The beauty of fiber is that once you have it installed and your building is “lit”, just about any bandwidth is possible. That includes FastE, of course, at 100 Mbps, GigE or Gigabit Ethernet at 1,000 Mbps and 10 GigE or 10 Gigabit Ethernet at 10,000 Mbps.

Ethernet over Fiber is available from traditional telephone companies, but it is also available from competitive carriers who have built their own IP-core regional and national networks with Ethernet as a standard service. These companies can bring Ethernet right to your building without having to lease any telephone company facilities. This gives them the ability to offer more bandwidth for less money. You may save half or more for equivalent service levels at the higher bandwidths.

A new wrinkle is Ethernet over Fiber offered by Cable MSOs. This fiber was bought and paid for by the Cable Television industry, but has so much extra bandwidth available that these companies are offering access to their fiber optic networks to businesses and other organizations that need anywhere from 10 to 1000 Gbps. That includes Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet at prices that are up to half the cost of other fiber providers.

The options are many and the prices are very attractive right now. There is lots of bandwidth to go around, which may not be true when the economy takes off again. If you need to speed up your networks, you can lock in some excellent deals. Check prices and availability for GigE and FastE bandwidth services appropriate for your business location.

Ethernet over Copper Reviving The Local Loop

There’s been a decline in utilization of local loops as of late. Most of it is the result of residential users dropping their analog phone service in favor of going totally wireless or a combination of wireless and VoIP. This has given some phone companies the idea that local loops should just be decommissioned totally. There have even been feelers to the FCC on this idea. Sadly, the idea of decommissioning copper is coming at exactly the same time as technology advances are breathing new life into the local loop.

Someday all telecom connections to the building may be fiber. That day is not today by any means. Something like a mere 12% of all business locations are currently lit for fiber optic service. Some could be but the demand isn’t there. Others might be except for the construction costs. Others still are nowhere near a fiber point of presence and won’t be in the near future.

That leaves copper as the most popular way to bring telecom services into a facility. The standardized connection is the local loop. This is a pair of small diameter plastic insulated copper wires that are twisted together to reduce noise and crosstalk pickup. One end of the copper pair terminates at a network interface device mounted on or inside the building to be served. The other end runs to the nearest central office location up to a few miles away.

Residential local loops or subscriber lines typically have two copper pair or four wires in a small diameter cable. Business locations can have dozens of individual pairs in a binder cable. Each pair can carry one analog telephone line. Two pair can provide 24 digital phone lines or a broadband data line. A dry pair has no signal at all. It is an unpowered circuit between two points. This local loop is owned by the incumbent local phone company but can be leased by competitive carriers.

What competitive carriers are doing is deploying a new bandwidth technology on the local loops that they lease. It’s called Ethernet over Copper for good reason. The last mile connection is two or more local loops connected to EoC equipment at both ends of the line. One electronics box is mounted at the central office. The other is installed in your building.

What does Ethernet over Copper offer? It’s a way to deliver higher bandwidth than you can generally get with T1 lines, another user of the local loop. T1 lines are provisioned on one or two copper pair and deliver 1.5 Mbps of bandwidth. You need an interface box called a CSU/DSU to convert that to an Ethernet protocol that will connect to your LAN. Often the CSU/DSU is a circuit card that plugs into an edge router rather than a separate box. With Ethernet over Copper, that circuit interface is unnecessary. The signal from your service provider is already in Ethernet protocol.

EoC services are available from 2 Mbps on up to 200 Mbps. The 2 and 3 Mbps levels are good replacements for T1 lines as they offer more bandwidth at about the same price. Many companies are now upgrading to 10 or 20 Mbps as more sophisticated online applications are bandwidth hungry. Also, more content from the Internet is now video which benefits from higher bandwidth connections.

The higher Ethernet over Copper bandwidths can replace DS3 services (45 Mbps) and even fiber optic lines at the OC-3 (155 Mbps) level. In addition to a considerable savings on the monthly lease cost, these bandwidths can help a company avoid fiber optic construction costs and still get the line speed they require. By the time fractional or full Gigabit bandwidth is needed, your building may be lit for fiber optic services.

EoC is strictly a business location service as of now. Cable broadband serves the residential market that hasn’t kept a local loop in service for DSL. Businesses, however, have more demand for copper wireline circuits than ever before. Plunging costs on T1 lines and EoC services are causing even small convenience stores and other retailers to rethink satellite links in favor of higher bandwidth, highly reliable and reasonably priced copper-based connections.

Could your business benefit from more bandwidth at lower prices that you’d expect? Find out what Ethernet over Copper bandwidth services are available for your location or locations and how much they cost with an immediate online quote. You may be surprised that you can easily upgrade without having to pay more.

VoIP Trunk Service Providers

Any business with more than a few outside phone lines knows that trunk lines are the way to go. The next question is what type of trunk service to get. You might think that with a VoIP telephone system, the obvious choice is SIP Trunking. But is it? Take a closer look at what’s available and then decide.

The idea of telephone trunking originated with the phone companies back when Ma Bell ran the industry. When phones were new, a couple of wires were all you needed to connect from your location to the local phone company. Then everybody wanted a phone and businesses started installing switchboards to handle all the lines they needed. You know those old-timey photos of phone line congestion in the cities. That’s what happens when you build out one line at a time.

The mass of subscriber lines was gotten under control using multi-pair cable, often buried. But long distance lines between switching offices were another matter. The more simultaneous calls you carried, the more wires were needed. That gets expensive fast when you’re talking about dozens or hundreds of miles. Wouldn’t it be nice if one pair of wires could carry multiple conversations?

That’s the origin of the trunk line. The early systems were set up like radio stations on the dial, except over wires. Each call modulated its own carrier frequency that was spaced far enough in the spectrum from adjacent carriers so that they wouldn’t interfere. This was analog carrier telephony. The switch from analog to digital technology came with the T1 line. It’s been around for at least half a century and is still going strong.

T1 telephone trunks are divided into 24 separate channels, each transporting one two-way telephone call. All the dialing and switching is done on these channels, just as it would be on analog phone lines. You can get devices called channel banks to convert T1 to and from 24 analog phone lines at your office. The T1 line itself is two twisted pair running from your building to the nearest phone company central office.

The advantage of T1 lines as telephone trunks is that save a lot of wire and can save cost, too. There is no economy of scale when you buy your phone lines one at a time. Soon you have a dozen or two at the price of a dozen or two times the cost of one line. If you convert all those lines into a T1 telephone line (trunk), you’ll generally save money even if you only use half the capacity of the T1. If you need dozens of lines for your call center, T1 can save you a bundle.

Chances are that you won’t need a channel bank unless your phone system is completely analog. Most PBX systems have T1 ports already installed. Even the new IP PBX systems designed for VoIP telephones usually have T1 ports where you just plug in one or more T1 lines for your outside telephone service.

A closely related service that is even more popular than T1 telephone trunks is ISDN PRI. This service runs on a T1 line and is very similar to a T1 trunk. The difference is that only 23 channels are used for individual phone lines. The remaining channel is used for all the dialing, switching and data such as Caller ID. The switching is faster than with T1 telephony and most everyone wants Caller ID anyway. The port for this is called a PRI, ISDN PRI or T1 PRI an it is likely installed in your system now.

The other digital trunk option that is becoming popular thanks to VoIP is the SIP Trunk. SIP is the switching protocol used with IP telephones in a VoIP system. A SIP Trunk, which might also be carried on a T1 line, is not broken up into channels. Instead it is more like your local area network that transports Ethernet packets.

This is one of the big advantages of a SIP Trunk. It can connect directly to your network without having to convert from one protocol to another. In fact, just like your network carries both VoIP phone traffic and computer data traffic, a SIP Trunk can provide both telephone and broadband service from your service provider. This is the preferred arrangement, as it allows the provider to establish class of service controls to maintain voice quality regardless of other network traffic.

As you might suspect, an IP PBX system works well with a SIP Trunk. But SIP trunks can also be ordered with customer premises equipment that offers a T1 or ISDN PRI digital handoff or even analog phone lines.

Which type of telephone trunking service is right for your business? Compare prices, availability and options of T1, PRI and SIP Trunks to see what makes the best economic as well as technical sense for your particular situation.



Etching of phone lines in New York City circa 1890 courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Disruptive Metro Ethernet over Fiber Pricing Arrives

Ethernet over Fiber (EoF) has been gaining popularity with large organizations as a replacement for more expensive SONET fiber optic services. For smaller and medium size companies, the mere mention of the term “fiber” suggests pricing that is way over budget. Today that’s all changed. The era of affordable fiber optic bandwidth has arrived.

What’s responsible for prices per Mbps or Gbps that can be half of what you’d expect to pay or less? It’s a source you would never expect... Cable TV. Cable? Isn’t that for consumers?

Yes it is. But behind the scenes there’s another Cable network you probably didn’t know even existed. It’s a professional fiber optic core network that’s the equal of any carrier and with a service footprint larger than most.

When we think of Cable TV, we think of the coaxial wire that plugs into a set top box or cable modem. At one time, all cable networks were constructed almost completely of copper coax strung on poles around town and trenched through the back yard. That was the era of Analog Cable. What’s happened over the years is that this network architecture has evolved into a combination of fiber optic and copper called HFC or Hybrid Fiber Coax that supports the newer digital services.

HFC uses fiber optics for the long runs that bring service into a business or residential neighborhood. It also runs between cities for large Cable MSOs (Multi-System Operators) like Comcast. Most of the traffic on that fiber is television video, but there is so much bandwidth available that it also easily transports data from 10 Mbps on up to 10 Gbps.

Comcast has recognized that their nationwide network runs past businesses as well as consumers. Many smaller businesses take advantage of the excellent pricing on Cable broadband brought in on coaxial cable to a cable modem. It’s quite possible to get 50 Mbps or even 100 Mbps asymmetrical shared bandwidth for the same pice as a T1 line.

Asymmetrical means that the download speed is much higher than the upload speed. Typically that’s a 10x bandwidth difference. This is common for Internet access, but different from business telecom services that are generally symmetrical or the same speed for both upload and download.

Comcast’s Ethernet over Fiber bandwidth services are symmetrical and intended for Enterprise applications. There are 4 services you’ll be interested in. They are Ethernet Dedicated Internet (EDI), Ethernet Private Line (EPL), Ethernet Virtual Private Line (EVPL) and Ethernet Data Network / Meshed Network (EDN). All of these services are available in bandwidths from 10 Mbps to 10 Gbps.

Ethernet Dedicated Internet gives you the Internet access you need to support large employee user bases and connectivity with customers worldwide. Dedicated means that the bandwidth you order is always available for your use. That differs from shared bandwidth that is common for consumer services and wireline cable modems.

Ethernet Private Line (EPL) is a point to point connection service. You may be using T1 lines for linking two business locations now and wishing you had more bandwidth. EPL using Ethernet over Fiber can give you the higher bandwidth you need immediately with nearly unlimited growth potential for the future.

Ethernet Virtual Private Line (EVPL) is another Ethernet private line service. It is similar to EPL, but allows multiple Ethernet services on the same physical line and UNI (User Network Interface). These come in on EVCs or Ethernet Virtual Connections. What the virtualization does is let you run Ethernet Private Lines out to each of several business locations without having to pay for multiple fiber or wireline terminations at headquarters.

Ethernet Data Network / Meshed Network (EDN) lets you establish a large Metro or Wide Area Network to interconnect LANs for your branch offices or other business locations. As a meshed network, you have any to any connectivity. This is similar to might set up with a Frame Relay or MPLS network.

Are you ready for fiber optic bandwidths but not fiber optic service prices? Depending on locations, you may be in position to benefit from the enormous cost advantage of HFC based Ethernet over Fiber bandwidth services. Get pricing and availability before you sign up for anything else.

SIP over MPLS for Enterprise VoIP

SIP Trunking is widely popular for smaller businesses who can save on their monthly telecom bill by getting both their telephone and Internet broadband services on a single integrated line. SIP Trunking is also a cost saver for large corporate headquarters or call centers that need many outside phone lines and already have converged voice and data LANs. But what about the organization with multiple locations?

The answer may well be SIP over MPLS. You may already have an MPLS network in place for sharing data files between branch offices and headquarters. Cost tradeoffs almost always give the advantage to an MPLS network over a suite of point to point data lines of equivalent bandwidth. With MPLS, you only need a last mile connection to each of your locations. As the name implies, these are point to point pipes measuring just thousands of feet to the nearest central office. The major distance spans are handled by the fiber optic core of the MPLS network.

There are also security advantages with MPLS versus IP networking, such as the Internet. MPLS uses proprietary labels to direct traffic, not the IP header information that is often the target of malicious activity. The network is privately operated and not accessible by the general public. You need to be a contracted customer with defined locations and connections between them that are managed by the network operator.

What you may not realize is that MPLS networks can handle voice traffic as well as data. The name MPLS actually stands for Multi-Protocol Label Switching. The network can handle nearly any protocol and is perfect for packet switched services of all types. For larger organizations, MPLS provides the WAN connections you need to link a few or many converged voice and data networks.

Do you currently have data connections between your sites but stand-alone analog or PRI telephone lines at each? That works, but you are probably paying toll charges to call between offices. There’s no economy of scale if each facility is relatively small and in a different city or state than the others. By consolidating your telephony, data lines and perhaps broadband connectivity with a single provider you can likely realize a considerable cost savings while maintaining call quality and network speed.

The MPLS labels or tags do their magic by not only specifying packet destinations, but also class of service. This keeps data file transfers from damaging the much more fragile real-time demands of voice and video. If you have company wide VoIP now and conversations get distorted or calls drop when the network gets congested, traffic engineering is what you need. MPLS networks are engineered with committed rates for your services, as well as those of other network customers. That ensures that you have the bandwidth you purchase regardless of what anyone else is doing. Contrast that commitment with the best-effort information services, such as the Internet, where performance is all over the map.

With SIP over MPLS, your telephone calls within the company stay on-net and off the public switched telephone network. You don’t pay toll charges for office calls that stay on your network regardless of whether they are from desks twenty feet apart or branch offices thousands of miles apart. It’s even possible to include international locations on the same MPLS network to truly integrate your company communications. When calls go off-net to outside landlines or mobile phones, those terminations are handled by your SIP Trunking service provider. Since the network is converged, there is no need for a separate telephone network and your support needs may also be reduced.

Does your organization have multiple locations that could be more efficiently run by a voice and data MPLS network? Get pricing for MPLS Network Services quickly and easily to compare with your current bills.

Managed Security Moves To The Cloud

When cloud services are discussed, it’s most often Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service, or Software as a Service. You can now add Security as a Service to the list. Integra is offering a suite of Cloud Security Services, starting with Cloud Firewall Service.

Managed security is attractive to many companies that don’t have full time IT staff or don’t want to get into the acquisition and maintenance of their own security appliances. Instead, they buy this service by the month with the provider installing a security device on the premises. Security in the cloud is a bit different. Not only do you not have to make the capital investment in security hardware or maintain it, but the hardware is invisible to you as well.

Integra Telecom is uniquely positioned to provide this type of cloud security because they are both a facilities based telecom carrier as well as a cloud services provider. Most providers are in one business or the other. The advantage of this dual role becomes apparent when you see just how the security is being accomplished. Integra builds a firewall between the public Internet and your network. What’s different is that they do this off in the cloud, not at the edge of your LAN. A major advantage is that you can also include your VPN or VPNs and MPLS network connections between business locations behind that firewall.

The actual security component is a Palo Alto Networks Enterprise Firewall. Their solution is a rack mounted appliance that supports firewall throughput up to 10 Gbps with up to 4,000,000 sessions and 20,000 SSL VPN users. You could buy one of these and install it in your own data center, but you can gain the benefit without the management headaches by letting Integra do this for you in their cloud.

Integra’s Cloud Firewall Service goes beyond mere port blocking for network protection. Their solution is application aware so it can block unauthorized traffic based on policies for a particular application. Application visibility, control and reporting is part of the standard level of service designed for smaller organizations. The mid-level “plus” service adds intrusion detection and protection, URL filtering, policy customization, report customization, and an optional VPN client for remote users. The premium level of Cloud Firewall Service adds network anti-virus and anti-spyware protection along with file and data content filtering.

Like many cloud services, this firewall service offers the opportunity to increase the protection of your network while reducing the total cost of ownership. Is it any wonder that the cloud is moving in to envelop just about every business? There are also advantages for smaller companies to assure compliance with legal and regulatory requirements without having to staff up a separate security department.

When considering managed security, it is well worth your while to take a systems approach that treats network security as tightly integrated with public and private network connections. Integra is well versed and equipped to provide connectivity as simple as dedicated Internet access and complex as private multi-site converged voice, video and data networks.

Could your business benefit from managed network security in the cloud? Why not get competitive pricing and options for cloud services that make sense for the requirements of your particular organization? Then see if doing it yourself still makes more sense.

Instant Ethernet Fiber Network Quotes

Fiber optic bandwidth is in higher demand than ever before. More companies are now involved in video production and distribution, medical imaging has gone electronic, and IT in the cloud is bandwidth demanding. If only it wasn’t so difficult and time consuming to find out what fiber services are available and how much they cost...

How does instantly online sound? Too good to be true? Not anymore. The Telarus GeoQuote bandwidth search engine has been upgraded yet again. This time it includes the ability to get instant online quotes for Ethernet over Fiber in bandwidths from 10 Mbps on up to 1 Gbps (GigE). It’s not for residential users, but for business locations that need professional grade bandwidth. If that’s your company, go ahead and run an Instant Fiber Network Quote now...



GeoQuote is a patented software system developed by telecommunications broker Telarus, Inc. over the last 9 years. This breakthrough technology first made it possible to get T1 line quotes online in a matter of minutes by automating the same methodology that carriers themselves use to determine line prices. It was revolutionary in the last decade, when such price quotes often took days or weeks to obtain. Now that capability has been expanded to include Business DSL, Business Cable, Fractional T1, Internet T1, Bonded T1 lines, Satellite broadband, Fractional and Full DS3, Ethernet over Copper and Ethernet over Fiber.

To us the system, you simply enter some basic contact and location information, pick the service you are interested in, and push the button. The GeoQuote servers go to work crunching the database information appropriate to your particular business location and then deliver a list of services along with pricing.

How accurate is GeoQuote? The pricing should be considered budgetary, although it is highly accurate. What might be missing is any buildout costs peculiar to your particular situation. These have to be assessed on a case by case basis.

Not all locations have fiber optic service available. If that is true for your location, the system obviously can’t return a price for Ethernet fiber. However, you likely will qualify for another service such as Ethernet over Copper, DS3 or bonded T1. Also, there are services that may be available but must be manually quoted. That includes high bandwidth fixed wireless, SONET fiber optic services like OC-3, OC-12 and OC-48, and multi-location MPLS networks.

Not to worry. The product specialists at Telarus are skilled at working with the dozens of service providers offering business bandwidth. Let them give you a call to talk over your requirements and you’ll likely find that you have many more options that you thought possible and at lower costs that you’d expect. If you want to make contact or run an instant quote, do so now through our Fiber Network Quotes site.

PRI Phone Line Connections

Traditional analog business phone lines are useful in very small retail and office locations and any business where just a few outside lines are all you need. Once you accumulate more than half a dozen, it’s time to look at a telephone trunk like option like ISDN PRI.

ISDN PRI stands for Integrated Services Digital Network Primary Rate Interface. Now you know why they abbreviate it. ISDN is a set of standards for how to transmit phone calls digitally on ordinary telephone wire. PRI is the larger of two major options. The other, BRI or Basic Rate Interface, provides two telephone lines, one telephone and one 64 Kbps data line, or a 128 Kbps data line. It’s mostly used for low speed data connections or to transmit high quality audio for broadcast and production.

PRI is the business telephone trunk service that is highly popular for use with PBX phone systems. PRI is transmitted on a T1 line using two twisted copper pair. Chances are you are already familiar with T1 lines for dedicated Internet access at 1.5 Mbps. ISDN PRI, also called T1 PRI, uses the same T1 line technology. In fact, T1 lines were originally designed to transport telephone conversations in bulk between telco switching offices.

What do you get with ISDN PRI service? A single trunk can support up to 23 separate phone conversations, each in its own time division multiplexed channel. Think of these as the equivalent of 23 outside lines. Each line can be set up for local, long distance, incoming only, outgoing only, toll free or some combination. There are actually 24 channels on the T1 line. The last one is reserved for switching signals to support the other 23 plus data such as Caller ID.

ISDN PRI lines almost always plug into an interface card made especially for this purpose. There’s at least one in most PBX phone systems. Some have four or more ISDN PRI connectors so that you can add dozens of outside lines if your operation is large enough to need them. Call centers are big users of ISDN PRI, as are large business offices.

PRI pricing has been getting better over the years, following the declining cost of T1 lines. A few years ago, PRI became more cost effective when you exceeded 10 or 12 outside phone lines. Today, that number is more like 6 or 10 lines, depending on where you are located.

Other than analog phone lines, the direct competitor to ISDN PRI is SIP Trunking. PRI is a traditional telephone technology that connects your PBX system to the public switched telephone network. SIP Trunking is a packet based technology originally designed to support enterprise VoIP telephone systems. SIP Trunks connect directly to converged networks for enterprise VoIP support and can supply both phone and Internet service for smaller companies. SIP Trunks can also be ordered with analog, IP or PRI handoffs to connect to any PBX telephone system.

What type of telephone trunk line is best for your particular situation? Consider the interfaces you have available and get competitive prices and availability for business telephone lines and trunks to make a good decision.

WAN Computer Network Connections

Computer networks are often categorized as LAN, MAN and WAN. The LAN is your local network. You design and maintain it to meet your specifications. Or, you hire a contractor to do this. When you need to connect your LAN to another LAN across town or around the world, you enter the realm of the MAN and WAN. Here’s a quick look at what’s available in the way of metro and long haul connections.

The difference between the MAN and the WAN is largely a matter of degree. The MAN is a Metropolitan Area Network. As the name suggests, MAN services are limited to a particular city or city and suburbs. It’s the right connectivity for companies that have multiple offices in the same city, a main facility and a remote data center across town, a factory or warehouse in an industrial park plus some satellite offices. Hospitals and their associated medical centers are good candidates for MAN service, especially higher bandwidths for medical image transmission.

A difference between the LAN and MAN is that you own your LAN and buy services from the MAN. A Metropolitan Area Network is typically privately owned and offers services to numerous clients. The network operator manages bandwidth and security to ensure that every customer feels like they have the network all to themselves.

Most MANs are organized as SONET rings that encircle the metropolitan area. A SONET ring is actually two fibers with the same traffic running in opposite directions. One is the primary service and the other is the backup. This is done to ensure reliability. If one fiber or its associated equipment experiences a failure, service is automatically switched to the other fiber in the ring within 50 milliseconds. SONET has designated service levels at OC-3 (155 Mbps), OC-12 (622 Mbps), OC-24 (1.24 Gbps), OC-48 (2.49 Gbps), OC-192 (9.95 Gbps) or OC-768 (39.8 Gbps). You may also be able to get DS3 service multiplexed onto an OC-3 service for transport across town.

Newer metro networks may offer Carrier Ethernet instead of SONET. Ethernet is highly scalable from as low as 1 Mbps on up through 10 Gigabit Ethernet. Popular MAN service levels are 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, and 1,000 Mbps or GigE. An advantage of Ethernet is that changes in service level can be accomplished faster than with traditional SONET. You can also get layer 2 Ethernet connectivity, such as E-Line and E-LAN, to connect your LANs at other locations into one large bridged network. The MAN itself may have an IP core or be running as Ethernet over SONET to use existing facilities.

Think of the WAN as a very large MAN and you probably won’t be far off. WAN networks may also have SONET rings or IP core networks. They are certainly fiber optic based and often with so many strands that you can lease wavelengths or even dark fibers. Many WAN networks are structured as MPLS or Multi-Protocol Label Switching networks for flexibility. A MPLS network has inherent security due to a propriety routing technology that is not IP. MPLS networks can transport any protocol by encapsulating the packets within the switching labels.

WAN networks may have a regional, national or international footprint. Some are designed with low latency paths that are especially important for financial trading. WAN networks may also peer with other networks of similar size to share traffic. The newest wrinkle is the Ethernet Exchange that exchanges Ethernet traffic without having to first convert it to SONET.

How do you connect to a WAN network? Often you can pick the connection that is both readily available and lowest in cost for your particular application. These range from T1 lines to Ethernet over Copper, Ethernet over Fiber, and SONET last mile connections. In some cases, fixed wireless access is also available. The mix of copper, fiber and wireless access should accommodate just about any need.

Do you have a need to connect your LAN to another facility across town, or to locations in other states or countries? Compare prices and availability of various MAN and WAN connectivity options to meet your requirements.

Hosted Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is getting a lot of interest today for good reason. As stagnated economic conditions become the new normal, the attractiveness of pay as you go computing becomes more compelling. Combine that with near instant scalability and you have a computing environment that has a cost related to your level of business activity, with little or no need for planned investments. There are other advantages, too. These have to do with disaster recovery and business telephone infrastructure.

Let’s take disaster recovery. Hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes and fires are real threats to company data centers. What happens if you get wiped out? You can rebuild, of course. But how long is that going to take and how do you do business in the meantime?

Cloud computing can come to the rescue. The infrastructure is already in place. All you need to do is sign up for service and upload your software and data files. You DO have backups stored remotely, right? Perhaps that’s another good argument for having at least some computing or storage in the cloud. A local disaster probably won’t affect a remote data center.

Company telephone systems are also local infrastructure intensive. They require investment, maintenance, repaid and eventual replacement. Once again, if a local disaster strikes your phones can be down for the long haul. A Hosted PBX system is the voice equivalent of cloud computing. You pay by the seat by the month for switching services and a rich feature set. The provider takes care of all equipment, sometimes including the actual phones in the monthly service fee.

Cloud services comprise a wide diversity in types of services available and in the mix of private vs public clouds. Yes, you can own and run your own cloud. If your company is large enough to justify the investment and expense and you want total control, it is certainly feasible to set up your data centers under a cloud model. What this involves is redundancy in hardware and extensive virtualization. You need enough resources on standby to ensure that you can accommodate failures plus any swing in workload demand. If you run out of resources, it’s not much of a cloud.

The other extreme is to outsource everything to a public cloud. You wind up with no servers or storage and only need to bring your applications software and a high bandwidth, low latency connection. The cloud provider ensures there is sufficient capacity in the system to serve all users. That includes being able to scale to meet increasing demand and bursting to handle short term peaks.

A full public cloud makes companies with large and critical needs a bit nervous. Murphy’s Law has been known to strike everywhere, including Amazon’s massive cloud structure. There’s also anxiety over security. Determined hackers seem to find their way into anything where there’s even the slightest opportunity. You can claim military grade encryption all you want, but it’s tough to prove that break-ins are impossible and will always be impossible.

For those reasons, large operations are leaning to the hybrid cloud model with some resources local and others off in the cloud. There are a couple of other approaches to keeping everything with your own walls. One is to have someone else build and operate a private cloud for you. That’s a cloud-modeled computing environment but dedicated to your exclusive use. The private cloud can be hosted in a secure colocation facility close to high bandwidth providers. You not only offload the cost of ownership and maintenance, but can probably save on bandwidth costs too.

The other hosted solution is to create your own cloud, but do within the colo center using rented equipment. In this case, you are still responsible for the design and resource allocation of the hosted cloud, but it’s all done on a pay by the month basis rather than capital investment.

Are you interested in giving cloud computing a role in your business strategy? If so, compare features and costs for cloud hosted voice and data services to meet your business needs.

MegaPath Pushes EoC to 400 Mbps

The bandwidth of Ethernet over Copper services has been setting new standards on a regular basis. It’s now at the point where you have to think seriously whether you really need to invest in fiber optic construction to light your building or if EoC will get the job done. MegaPath has just upped the ante for those doing copper/fiber tradeoffs. The new upper limit is 400 Mbps.

Many companies that are using Ethernet over Copper are doing so as T1 line replacements to get twice the bandwidth for the same cost. The 2x2 Mbps and 3x3 Mbps options are especially popular for this application. Other companies are moving to mid-band Ethernet where even bonded T1 cannot go. These are bandwidths in the 10 to 20 Mbps range, suitable for many mid-size operations. It’s the companies that have hundred or thousands of employees to support or are engaged in high bandwidth requirement applications that have been stuck with fiber as their only option.

That’s all changed within the last year. More sophisticated modulation schemes and bonding to 8 copper pairs have pushed the bandwidth limit past 50 Mbps to 100 Mbps and even 200 Mbps. Now, MegaPath is offering a new service that can exceed 400 Mbps. This could be a strong option for companies that have specified OC-3 SONET fiber optic service at 155 Mbps and even OC-12 at 622 Mbps.

To be fair, the 400 Mbps speed is only specified on the download path. Upload speeds could be a fraction of that. Does asymmetrical service make sense in a business environment? It could, depending on what you are doing with it. Internet access is typically asymmetrical in nature, with download speeds 10x what you use for upload. That’s because most internet usage at the desktop consists of sending keyboard requests for Web pages or files and then viewing the results or making other use of the data in applications. The principal is that the huge files are almost always coming to the user rather than being sent.

That’s especially true for video, now the number one source of traffic on the Internet. It takes relative little upload activity to request the video files, even streaming, and a considerable amount of download bandwidth over extended periods of time.

Some cloud applications also fall into this category. If you routinely send huge files to the cloud and expect little back, then the asymmetry is wrong for you. However, if most of your bandwidth activity is using large information packages delivered from the cloud, then an asymmetric bandwidth connection could work in your favor.

MegaPath is also offering symmetrical Ethernet bandwidth up to 100 Mbps x 100 Mbps for point to point, point to multipoint and dedicated Internet access. Other options include Ethernet over DS1 and Ethernet over DS3 to address the inherent distance limitations of Ethernet over Copper service. As part of rolling out the new higher bandwidth services, MegaPath is increasing the number of central offices with EoC equipment from 200 to over 680 within a year.

Are your bandwidth requirements increasing, perhaps because of a current or planned move to cloud-based services? If so, you should know that fiber optic connections are only one option to get the line speeds you need for efficient operation. Get competitive quotes now for low, mid-level, and high bandwidth Ethernet over Copper line services for your business location. Sorry, no residential service available.

T1 Line Cost At A New Low

Over the years, most companies have come to own T1 lines either sooner or later. Larger companies got them for dedicated Internet connections back when business was just getting acquainted with the Internet. Small operations often get into T1 lines after becoming frustrated with shared bandwidth information services, such as DSL and Cable. There’s only one thing not to like about T1 lines and that’s the cost... or is it?

If you think that T1 lines cost a small fortune, you probably remember getting a quote some time ago. Yes, less than a decade ago it wasn’t uncommon to pay $1,000 a month for a typical T1 line. I say typical because there are different flavors of T1 service and pricing has been very location dependent. Today, you might pay about a third of that in most locations nationwide.

Costs have plunged due to maturity of the service, deregulation that has opened the market to many more competitive carriers, and new technologies that now compete directly for your bandwidth dollar.

It’s never been a better time to get into T1 line service if it will meet your needs. Let’s take a look at how T1 lines work, what you can use them for, and how to decide if T1 or something else is the right service for your company.

T1 is one of the most mature telco technologies, developed by the Bell System for telephone trunking. T1 formed the basis of digital telephone service and later was pressed into service to transport data also. A half-century of experience means that T1 is well understood, almost universally available and well supported. As a tariffed telecom service, carriers take T1 seriously. Most are sold with an SLA or Service Level Agreement that spells out what you can expect in the way of availability, time to respond to an outage and mean time to repair.

T1 lines were designed to be provisioned on two pair of ordinary telephone wire. One pair is for transmit or upload. The other is for receive or download. This is a symmetrical bandwidth service. You get the same bandwidth in both directions and it is full duplex. You can transmit and receive at the same time. That was designed-in to support telephone conversations that are also full duplex.

The original use for T1 lines was telephone trunking. A trunk line supports multiple phone conversations. A T1 telephone line supports up to 24 separate conversations, each with its own synchronized channel. Think of these as individual business phone lines. A device called a channel bank can convert the 24 channels back and forth to 24 analog phone lines.

A more popular configuration of T1 telephone line is called ISDN PRI or T1 PRI. This also divides the T1 line into 24 channels but only 23 of them are used as phone lines. The last one is reserved for switching signals and data, such as Caller ID. ISDN PRI is very popular as a telephone trunk line that plugs directly into many PBX phone systems.

When used to transport data, the idea of channels is dispensed with and the entire payload of the line service is used to carry data packets. T1 has a payload of 1.536 Mbps. The actual line speed itself is 1.544 Mbps. The difference of 8 Kbps is overhead used to keep the line synchronized and for maintenance. A T1 line is typically said to provide 1.5 Mbps of bandwidth.

That bandwidth can be used to connect to the Internet in what is called DIA or Dedicated Internet Access. Dedicated means that you have exclusive use of the bandwidth at all times. Use as little or as much of it as you need. The remainder will still be available and not shared by other users.

T1 lines are also popular as point to point connections to link two business locations. A specialized use is to transmit digitized audio from radio station studios to rurally located transmitter sites. T1 is also the most popular backhaul technology that connects cellular wireless towers to telephone switching systems.

Has the cost of a T1 line come down enough to make it attractive for your business use? If so, you may also want to compare T1 against the newer Ethernet over Copper that typically offers twice the bandwidth for the same money. If EoC is available, it's an even better bargain. Get quotes now for EoC and T1 line services at your business locations.

What Is a DS3 Circuit Or T3 Line?

Companies that have outgrown their T1 lines often upgrade to DS3 bandwidth. Let’s take a look at what DS3 has to offer, how it relates to T3 lines, and recent competition from Ethernet over Copper services.

DS3 stands for Digital Signal level 3. The specification for it is found in the T-carrier standards developed by Bell Labs for the telephone industry. The way it works is that DS0 is the smallest unit with a bandwidth of 64 Kbps. That’s just the right size to transport one digitized telephone call using PCM (Pulse Code Modulation), the original digital phone standard. You combine 24 DS0s to create a DS1 that runs on a T1 line. DS3 is the equivalent of 28 DS1s or 672 DS0s.

You’ll often hear DS3 referred to as T3, like DS1 is called T1. The fine line of difference between DS3 and T3 is that DS3 refers to the actual structure of the data stream and T3 refers to the physical transmission layer. Most of the time, they are treated as equivalent. The reason that the digital signal has its own definition is that you can multiplex DS3 as well as DS1 to make much larger bandwidth services. At the far end, you can then demultiplex the signals to recover the original DS3 or DS1.

Combine the 672 voice channels plus the bits needed for synchronization and line maintenance and you have a bandwidth of 44.736 Mbps. That’s commonly referred to as 45 Mbps. You can order DS3 as a telephone trunk line if you have a high capacity phone systems like a PBX serving a major corporation. You can also order DS3 as a data line with one big chunk of bandwidth, namely 45 Mbps.

If you order a T3 line or DS3 service, it will be delivered to you on a pair of 75 ohm coaxial cables using BNC connectors. Look at a DS3 router card and you’ll see the connectors, one for receive and one for transmit. Some cards support more than one DS3 connection so you’ll see multiple sets of connectors.

The coaxial cable used to connect your DS3 router can be no more than 450 feet in length (only 225 feet if using small diameter coax). That’s fine for connecting to the telco demarc in your building, but how does the DS3 get to the central office?

The actual provisioning of DS3 services can be via fixed wireless transmission or SONET fiber optic service. DS3 can be easily encapsulated into a SONET STS-1, as they are both telco standards designed to be compatible. An OC-3 service can carry 3 STS-1s for 3 DS3s.

What if you are not in range for fixed wireless and there’s no fiber in the area? Are you stuck with the 1.5 Mbps T1 bandwidth? No, not really. T1 lines can be bonded to create larger bandwidths. This works well up to 10 or 12 Mbps. Bridging the gap between bonded T1 and DS3 is Ethernet over Copper. This technology also uses multiple copper pair instead of fiber strands, but can deliver much higher bandwidth than T1 technology.

Ethernet over Copper (EoC) bandwidth starts at typically 2 Mbps and goes up to 200 Mbps in some areas. This not only gives you a way to grow your bandwidth incrementally beyond T1, but may delay fiber installation indefinitely. The one limitation of EoC is that it is distance limited. How far you are from the office where your copper bundle is terminated determines the bandwidth that is possible. That office also needs to have EoC equipment available.

Have you outgrown your T1 line service or have an immediate business need for bandwidth in the 45 Mbps range? If so get pricing and availability of DS3 bandwidth services, including Ethernet over Copper if available.



Photo of BNC connector courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Virtual Hosted PBX VoIP

There are various ways to implement VoIP. Some of them are excellent, others fall short of the mark. What you had in mind for VoIP in the first place was to save money and gain features. What you want to ensure is that the quality of your voice conversations will not suffer in the process.

That’s a tall order, but the technology is available to do exactly what you have in mind. The problem is that it can be a little tricky to get working properly. You can greatly increase your chances of having a successful implementation by getting some help with the installation. Not just by hiring a consultant, mind you. Move the tricky and expensive aspects of VoIP telephony to an expert provider and avoid the engineering and maintenance nightmare completely.

That’s the idea behind Virtual PBX systems, also called Hosted PBX. The PBX system itself has long been a fixture at most medium and larger size companies. There may not even be anyone on staff who remembers the day when all you had was a few phones and the telephone company took care of all that fancy switching. In a way, we’re moving back to that model of having just phones within the company and doing the connections elsewhere. The difference is mostly in the technology.

The first thing to know about virtual phone systems is the disappearance of the traditional telco wiring. That was the standard connection for analog telephones. Digital phones don’t need their own separate telephone network. They can ride along on the Ethernet LAN, along with all the computing equipment.

Phones do need a connection to your telephone service provider. That’s called a SIP Trunk. A SIP Trunk works like the ISDN PRI or T1 Phone line that connects to an in-house PBX system. The advantage of the SIP trunk is that it transports packets of all types. These can be voice packets from a telephone or data packets from the Internet. Some of the packets are switching signals for the telephones. They use a standard called Session Initiation Protocol which is where the term SIP comes from.

The phones that you use on the network are called IP phones. They look like a standard business phone with an RJ-45 network connector on the back in place of the usual telephone line jack. They are either powered by AC adaptors or over the network itself. This is called POE for Power over Ethernet. Some Ethernet switches offer this capability and save you the trouble of using AC adaptors. The switch can also provide battery backup so you can use your phones during a power outage.

The PBX system itself is located at the service provider. A hosted PBX or cloud PBX system is much larger than anything you’d buy for your own use. It’s operated and maintained by a dedicated staff so you don’t have to worry about outages, repairs or upgrades. What you have is a portal to that PBX system so that you can register your phones and decide on how the features work. All the in-house conversations are on the network so there aren’t per-minute charges. For calls that go outside, the hosted PBX has lines to the public telephone network. The economy of scale is so large that you can often get unlimited local and long distance calling as part of the per-seat monthly charge.

Are you considering a phone system installation, replacement or upgrade? Before you simply go the traditional route, check Virtual Hosted PBX VoIP service prices and see if it makes a lot more sense to rent rather than buy your business telephone system.