Are Your Old T1 Lines Bleeding Money?

Most businesses, including SMBs with commercial offices or storefronts, are using T1 lines for telephone, Internet access, data transfers between business locations, credit card verification, digital billboards, WiFi hotspots or perhaps all of these. While T1 digital line service is essential to doing business, it makes sense to keep an eye on what you are paying versus what you could be paying. The difference could be money back in your pocket. Perhaps big money.

Unbeknownst to most business owners, digital line services including T1, ISDN PRI, DS3 / T3 and optical carrier services such as OC3, OC12 and even OC48 have become highly competitive. Traditionally, T1 was considered a niche service offered only by the incumbent phone company and usually only to larger businesses. Industry deregulation opened the door to competition for these services. The recent business recovery combined with an ever increasing need by businesses for data lines has fueled almost a gold rush in competitive offerings. When ordering a T1 line or other digital telecom service today, you may have a dozen or more competitive carriers anxious to bid for your business. That is, if you know how to attract them.

The mere thought of having to seek out and negotiate with 10 or 20 line service vendors can be so intimidating that you don't even try. After all, you're still locked into a 3 year contract that won't expire for six months. Why not wait till then and see what the prices are? Well, if there was an easy way to check prices at many vendors, you might find that you won't want to re-sign your current T1 contract at all. In fact, it may even be advantageous to switch to a new supplier and pay the cancellation fees.

There is, indeed, an easy way available. It's called GeoQuote, a service of Telarus and Shop for T1. GeoQuote is a patented software system that automatically queries large telecommunication carrier databases to create a unique set of price quotations for your business location. It's just the nature of the technology that no two locations will cost exactly the same. T1 and other digital line services are priced by proximity to the carrier's nearest point of presence, which varies by location and how much infrastructure is built up in the area. GeoQuote works with the carrier's pricing systems to generate price quotes in real-time. You tell it your business address, main business number and your contact information and the system will return a highly accurate quote in about a minute, maybe less.

You also don't have to worry about negotiating with each of a dozen carriers. As part of our affiliation with Shop For T1, we have access to a dedicated team of technical sales agents who work on your behalf to get you the best current deal, including any temporary special offers that might be available. Larger circuits, including Ethernet and SONET optical carriers, need to be considered on a case by case basis and will take a bit longer for a quote. That's in hours or days, not weeks and months. Just not instantly online or on the phone, like you can get for T1 and PRI circuits.

So, are you spending too much for your current T1 or DS3 service? Are you ready to expand bandwidth and want to make sure you're getting the best market price for the service? Why not give GeoQuote a try and see how you like the results. There is no cost or obligation for this service. You can run quotes yourself online in a few minutes or call a toll free number and get personal assistance at any time. Check out the GeoQuote pricing tool available at T1 Rex right now.