Thursday, December 06, 2007

MegaPath Duet Combines Voice and Data

Small and medium size businesses have a need for both telephone and broadband Internet services. Most often, the telephone side started small with a few phones and outside lines for local and long distance calling. It may still be just a few phones or may have grown over the years to dozens of handsets and half a dozen or more analog phone lines. New ones get added as more capacity is needed.

Internet service may have started as dial-up and moved to DSL for broadband. Then, perhaps, a move to fractional or full T1 dedicated Internet service to improve reliability.

The result of this piecemeal growth is that many local businesses are paying too much for their telecommunication services, compared to what they can get today. You might be paying as much as 50% more than you need to if your systems were optimized.

The secret to the cost savings is in bundling services. Usually when we think of bundling, it's about bundling local and long distance phone service on one or two lines. That a popular option for residential, home office users and very small professional offices. A bundling option with more capacity combines voice and data service on a single T1 line.

Many businesses have T1 lines as telephone trunks for their PBX phone systems or for dedicated business broadband service. Some companies have both. But they are completely separate services with different line configurations. A T1 line can handle up to 24 telephone lines or 1.5 Mbps of data service. Larger companies may have multiple T1 lines and use them to full capacity. Small companies may find that they really don't need all those phone lines or all that bandwidth. If only there was a way to combine voice and data on a single T1 line.

That's exactly what MegaPath has done with its Duet Phone and Internet service. Duet is what is called Integrated T1 service, another way to say bundled. But aren't standard telephone and Internet signals incompatible? They are in their native forms. What you have to do to bundle them is to convert everything to a common protocol. In this case, IP or Internet Protocol. The data connection is already IP. The telephones have to be converted to IP by using VoIP or Voice over Internet Protocol.

That's how Duet works. An interface device at your location connects to the telephones you already have and performs the conversion from analog to VoIP. It also connects to your router to provide the broadband Internet service. The connection to the outside world is a T1 line that goes to MegaPath. Note, I didn't say it connects directly to the Internet. Before it goes anywhere else, it connects you to the MegaPath office.

That's significant because even though Duet uses VoIP, an Internet Protocol, your telephone service travels over a private network. That's done so that MegaPath can assure you of crystal clear voice quality, also known as "toll quality" telephony. The public Internet lacks the controls necessary to ensure high quality voice signals at all times, an absolute necessity for business users. If you've tried Internet based VoIP and been disappointed by garbled voices, echoes, clipped conversations and dropouts, you'll find Integrated T1 service to be far superior.

With MegaPath's Duet, you can have from 2 to 16 telephone lines plus dedicated broadband Internet service. All of this is managed with MegaPath provided customer premises equipment, so you don't have to pay for expensive specialized interface gear or develop the technical expertise to make it work. All that's taken care of for you as long as you have the service.

I should mention that Duet has been rolled out to thousands of locations already but may or may not be available in your area. If it is, you have the option to bundle your telephone and business broadband service on a single T1 line at a price that will likely surprise you. Want to find out? Simply call the toll free number or enter a quick online request for quote at T1 Rex. Our friendly consultants will be happy to help you find the best voice and data service options at the lowest price for your business needs.

Click to check pricing and features or get support from a Telarus product specialist.




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