If you lease digital circuits for telephone, Internet access or point to point data transfer, you need to look into the huge array of competitive service providers who have been getting into this business ever since the FCC broke up the Bell Telephone System. As a business owner or manager, your only contact with alternative carriers might have been if a representative happened to stop by on a sales call. It may or may not have even been the right time to talk about alternative services. Even if your profession is information technology, you hardly have time to search for telecommunication companies, invite them in one at a time, and then try to negotiate the best deals among them.
Now there's an alternative to doing the legwork yourself. You can let a telecommunications broker come up with the best options from among their suite of telecom carriers. So what is a telecommunications broker? That's a company that contracts with several to several dozen telecom carriers to sell carrier services on an independent basis. Instead of you finding and calling a bunch of telephone companies, T1 service providers or fiber optic carriers, the broker works directly with them on your behalf.
Here's an example. Say you have a dozen phone lines running to your company PBX system and also need broadband Internet service for all your desktop PCs and your email server. You call the broker and talk to a telecom consultant about what you need and what you are paying now. Alternatively, you can put in a quote request online and have the telecom consultant call you at some convenient time. In this case, the consultant will probably search the broker's database to find carriers that offer Integrated T1 line service in your area. Integrated T1 combines voice and data on a single digital line and can be a real money saver if you don't need huge amounts of bandwidth. Once the consultant completes the search and maybe talks to a few carriers about their product offerings, you'll get one or more competitive quotes for new service. If you like what you see, the consultant will help you with the paperwork and make sure everything goes smoothly.
Well, that sure sounds easier than trying to do it all yourself, but what does all this consulting work cost? It doesn't cost you anything. The consultant and broker are paid a commission by the competing carriers in lieu of having to hire more sales staff themselves. That commission isn't added to the price of the line. It's a marketing expense paid by the carriers.
When should you use a telecom consultant? Anytime you can get them to discuss your services and check for lower prices for the same quality of service. That's pretty much anytime you want if you are talking about services such as T1 voice, T1 data line, T1 PRI lines for PBX telephone, Dedicated T1 Internet, Integrated T1, DS3 and T3 lines, optical carrier services such as OC3, OC12, OC48 or frame relay, Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet and so on. If you pay for any of these services, you know the bills run into the hundreds, thousands and even tens of thousands of dollars a month. Why NOT let a free telecom consultant try to save you money?
We work with an excellent broker and stable of telecommunications consultants at Shop For T1. I'd suggest you enter a quote request using our simple online form at T1 Rex. For many T1 and DS3 services, you'll get an instant quotation from the system database to give you an idea of what is available for your location.
