Dial-Up is Alive and Kicking

In this enlightened age of broadband, why even bring up the subject of dial-up Internet service? Isn't that technology from the last century? The buggy whip of technology?

Don't be so quick to dismiss dial-up Internet access as yesterday's news. Millions of your friends and neighbors gladly endure the shriek of the connecting modem as they prepare to surf the Web or check their email. One person's shrill electronic scream is the sweet sound of money to another.

Saving money is a prime benefit that comes with using dial-up Internet access rather than DSL or Cable broadband. Where else can you get unlimited access just about anywhere you live or are staying for a mere $9.95 a month? There's only one thing that competes at this price level and that's free Internet service.

Free? Sure, assuming that you have a laptop or notebook computer. Lots of restaurants offer free WiFi service. Most every portable computer built recently has WiFi access capability. With an older computer you can get a plug-in card that acts as a WiFi modem for $20 or less if you watch for the sales. Just do all your Internet work while you are having lunch and you pay nothing for service. Well, you have to pay for food or a coffee. But I assume you need to eat anyway.

But what if running to your local bistro every time you want to check your email messages isn't convenient? What if you live in a rural area where it's a good drive to get anywhere that has WiFi? What if you travel a lot and not all of the hotels you stay in have WiFi? Or, what if you want to work in peace late at night when everything is closed? Then what?

You, my friend, are a prime candidate for dial-up Internet service. Just like every laptop computer has WiFi capability, nearly every laptop and desk top computer has a dial-up modem built-in. The new super-thin Apple Air doesn't, but there's an accessory modem you can buy. For everyone else, if there is a phone jack on the back of your computer, you've got a modem inside. It's likely built to the 56K V.90 or V.92 standards that pretty much max out the speed capacity of an analog telephone line.

What's 56 Kbps service good for? If you've been on broadband for awhile, you'd be surprised by how well you can use standard Web browsers on sites that are mostly text and graphics. In fact, with some sites being slow to load anyway, you might forget you've even on dial-up.

I had this experience a year ago when my Cable Internet provider decided to do a major upgrade and bit off more than they could chew. It took a month for normal service to resume. In the mean time, I used a dial-up service that hosts my original Web site plus occasional forays to Panera Bread for lunch. I got by just fine. Not so for the broadband only users who went to WiFi hotspots and spent all their time griping on various forums about this service outrage.

That's another good use for dial-up. It's a handy backup service when your broadband goes down. They pretty much all go down sooner or later. Some providers offer you a limited number of free dial-up minutes on their own backup services. Most leave you to your own devices.

If you are a dial-up user now or would like the comfort of having this service available, you should take a look at World Verge Dial-Up Internet for $9.95 a month. You get unlimited access, a huge choice of local numbers, a downloadable dialer that has all the numbers built-in for travel use, spam and virus filter, 5 email accounts, 5 Mb of personal Web space, compatibility with both Windows and Macintosh computers, and free 24/7 tech support.

If you want to surf the Web faster, an additional $2.95 a month gets you an accelerator that will speed Web page loading by 5X. It does this using compression techniques, so it doesn't do anything to speed music or video downloads. But if you mostly cruise the Web, you may find that the accelerator gives you a virtual broadband experience.

Thirty Carriers, No Waiting

Are you so flummoxed by your telecom services carrier that you can't see straight? Are you suffering gastrointestinal pains from the feelings of being trapped by your local phone company or the ISP that kinda, sorta provides you with dedicated Internet access? Does you monthly service bill induce all-day migraines?

Yes? Well, why are you putting up with that? You certainly don't have to anymore. The pain that comes with being boxed in by monopolistic service providers is best relieved by having lots and lots of choices for voice and data communications services. How would you like access to 30, count 'em, thirty business grade carriers offering everything from telephone trunk lines to wireless and satellite broadband access?

ISDN PRI telephone trunks for your PBX telephone system? Yes!

MPLS networks to connect all your branch offices together? Yes!

Gigabit Ethernet connections that enable you to transmit radiology images and high definition video in real time? Yes!

Pretty much everything you need in the way of business telecommunications services is not only available, but offered by two or more competing carriers that are hungry for your business. That includes newer services like SIP trunking and Metro Ethernet, along with established services such as T1 lines, DS3 bandwidth, SONET fiber optic rings, Frame Relay, dedicated point to point data connections, and server collocation.

Now, if there was only a fast and easy way to compare service offerings and prices from all these carriers...

Ah, that's the best part. What really makes it possible for small businesses to large corporate enterprises to deal with this wealth of opportunity is a brokerage service that acts as a single point of contact for all of them. That service is exactly what has been developed over the past few years by Telarus, Inc. Telarus has developed a suite of computerized tools, corporate staff, expert consultants and agents that makes it easy for IT managers and business owners to painlessly evaluate specific quotes from a multitude of service providers and pick the solution that makes the most sense.

Your entree to this complimentary pricing and consulting service is through the online search portals at Shop For T1, Shop For Ethernet,Shop for SIP Trunking and similar "Shop For" sites. You'll also find inquiry forms on our sites at T1 Rex, Mega Trunks, Enterprise VoIP, and GigaPackets, to name a few.

All of these portals get you to the same place, so go ahead and enter an inquiry at any of them. Just describe your business need in a few words to give the consulting team an idea of what you need. They'll call you at your convenience to review appropriate services, including special offers with such niceties as free routers, free installation, and burstable bandwidth. If you'd rather talk to someone immediately, just call the toll free number and extension shown on any of the sites.

Who are these 30 carriers that Telarus represents? They range from regional service providers to well known national carriers such as ACC Business, AireSpring, AT&T, Cavalier, Covad, Level3, MegaPath, Network Innovations, NewEdge Networks, Nuvox, PAETEC, One Communications, PowerNet Global, Qwest, TelePacific, Telnes, Time Warner Telecom, UCN, and XO Communications.

You won't pay a cent extra to let Telarus act as your broker to negotiate the best rates from the carrier and service level of your choice. There is no charge to you for any of the Telarus consulting services and the service rates you pay are as good as you'd get if you showed up on the carrier's doorstep and negotiated your best deal.

An additional service that you'll find valuable is the VAR Network. This is a database of business telephone and networking service businesses who are value added resellers of equipment for such companies as Avaya, Cisco, ShoreTel, Polycom, 3Com, Lucent, Nortel and many others. These local, regional, and national telecom businesses will sell you the equipment you need and even install hardware and wiring as needed. With a simple inquiry, you'll get one more responses from dealers in your area who specialize in what you need.

Looking For Spectrum In All The White Spaces

Now that the winners of the recent 700 MHz spectrum auction are being announced, a cold chill is descending over the wireless industry. It's gone. It's all gone. Once the analog TV transmitters are shut down and the auction winners claim their new slices of the electromagnetic spectrum, there will be no decent place to go for over-the-air real estate. Like beach-front property, it's all bought up and they ain't makin' any more of it. Or is it?

Instead of a land-rush that's over with all property staked out and registered, think of the spectrum as more like choice territories in the Cretaceous period, some 65 million years ago. Those T-Rex's, the guys with the big teeth, each ruled their piece of territory to the exclusion of all others. Think of each powerful TV station as one of these T-Rex's. Once they've multiplied to the capacity of the land, there's really no room for any new predators. They'll be stomped-and-chomped as soon as they stick their heads up. Or will they?

While it's true that the spectrum seems full of thunder lizards, there is really lots of territory available if you are small and nimble like a furry little mammal. You have the world at your disposal as long as you are smart enough to stay out of the way of those ferocious big guys. This is what advocates of using the "white spaces" in the TV band are thinking. It should be OK to squat on any frequencies that aren't being blasted with RF from those thundering over-the-air digital TV stations.

Google is the latest to point out that the broadcast television bands are not fully occupied. Part of the reason is the legacy of analog television standards that divide the spectrum into 6 MHz channels. In any given area, you won't find TV stations on adjacent channels. There's always at least one blank channel separating TV transmissions. That's because early tuner designs based on coils and capacitors weren't so precisely selective. For a receiver to pull in a powerful station on one channel and completely reject an equally powerful station on the next channel over was too much to ask in the age of vacuum tubes and rabbit ears. Even today, you can sometimes see a TV station bleeding into an unused adjacent channel if you are close enough to the transmitter.

When channels 2 through 13 in the VHF band filled up, the FCC simply opened up a new UHF band with 56 more channels. It was no problem, because those ultra high frequencies weren't much in demand right after WWII. Over the decades, the UHF band also began to fill up. But it never filled up entirely. The construction, operating and programming costs for high power television stations became less attractive after cable and satellite delivery gained popularity. So much so, that the FCC felt justified in carving off the chunk of UHF spectrum from channels 52 to 69 and putting them up for auction to the wireless companies.

Even what's left of the broadcast spectrum won't be fully occupied with high power TV transmissions or even low power repeaters and translators or limited coverage stations. Right now it's as full as it's going to get, with each broadcaster spreading out with an analog transmitter on one channel and a digital transmitter on another. But half of those are going bye-bye next February 17 when the analog transmitters get shut down for good. The auctioned spectrum is given to the winners for other uses and the broadcasters settle into their assigned DTV channels. The channels that aren't assigned or are used as "guard" channels between local broadcasters will sit there empty. These are the white spaces that might be pressed into service.

What could this white space spectrum be good for? How about meshed networks of WiFi hotspots that could spread to provide broadband service in rural areas? WiFi currently has just a handful of channels available and they are located in the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands where they don't carry or propagate very far. The VHF band from 54 to 216 MHz and reduced UHF band between 470 and 698 MHz can penetrate buildings much easier. Why not press those white space frequencies into service and essentially get a new "free" WiFi band?

Broadcasters are suspicious. They fear that thousands of unlicensed transmitters operating right next to their signals or, worse, right on top of their signals will ruin their over the air business completely. There are a couple of work-arounds to prevent this. First, load a database of all licensed and occupied channels into each white space transmitter along with a GPS receiver. The transmitter will then avoid channels known to be in use in a given area. Another approach is to use "spectrum sensing" to listen for transmissions on a channel before using it yourself. The sensing would have to be done a level that ensures any receivable digital TV signal would be left alone.

Early implementations of proposed white space transmitters failed miserably and were withdrawn from consideration. But that's more of an engineering development problem than a fatal flaw in the theory. With demand for new wireless applications increasing and available spectrum being locked up by carriers with deep pockets, it seems reasonable to at least seriously consider getting the most value from every MHz out there. With Google now advocating for white space usage, the idea has a good chance of picking up steam and getting the nod for deployment in the next few years.

Do you find yourself in search of more bandwidth at lower prices? Our team of experts has wireless, wireline, fiber optic, and satellite services available for business locations at better prices than you might think.

Will WiMAX Become WiMedium?

WiMAX, the Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access wireless broadband standard, has been looked to as the enabling agent for 4G roaming and mobile networks. In all the ballyhoo of the last few years, though, other technologies have been creeping up and may now be poised to grab the 4G crown for themselves.

The promise of WiMAX was to extend the concept of WiFi hotspots from hundreds of feet to tens of miles. A mobile hand-off extension will enable WiMAX to maintain connections from tower to tower to increase its reach indefinitely. But isn't that how cell phone towers work? Similar concept. WiMAX has been expected to one-up the cellular carriers by offering 10x to 100x the bandwidth of 2.5G and 3G cellular broadband with enough punch to be useful inside buildings as well as on the street.

But WiMAX is planned to be much more than a mere public hotspot replacement. Much of the capital justification to build out the new system is based on using it for cellular backhaul, T1 and DS3 business line replacement, and perhaps more arcane uses such as industrial and utility data acquisition and control. The juicy consumer mobile Internet market is yet to come.

Had WiMAX muscled-in on the wireless scene a few years ago, it might well have been the 800 lb. gorilla in the field right now. But the need for standards approval, testing, equipment certification and worldwide coordination has kept the gorilla slogging along rather than jumping into the fray. Business wireless providers have had to go forward with pre-WiMAX implementations to grab a piece of the marketplace before it goes elsewhere.

Where might it go? Those sleepy cellular carriers with their poky Kbps data links have been making steady progress. EV-DO is now widely available on CDMA carriers such as Verizon and Sprint. It offers DSL grade bandwidth of 700 Kbps with bursts up to 1.4 Mbps. But the new EV-DO Rev. A upgrade is also being deployed with service of 800 Kbps with bursts of to 3.1 Mbps and a faster upload speed of around 500 to 700 Kbps.

Perhaps that doesn't sound like much, but it's about what most users really need on an individual basis. It's fast enough for Internet Web access, video and audio streaming and even video conferencing. The 50 to 70 Mbps WiMAX speeds will probably degrade to an average of around 2 or 3 Mbps for multiple roaming and mobile users who aren't standing right under the tower. All of a sudden EV-DO looks pretty competitive. Especially when you consider that the Rev B version could provide peak bandwidths of 5 to 15 Mbps depending on how how it's deployed.

But the real cellular broadband monster may be LTE which stands for Long Term Evolution. By long term, it's probably several years away. Verizon is moving ahead with this technology and AT&T is expected to also adopt it as their 4G standard. LTE will offer download speeds of 100 Mbps or more with uploads of 50 Mbps at low latencies. These are Ethernet speeds, even Fast Ethernet speeds, enabling applications such as high definition video.

The big advantage the major cellular carriers have is that they already own networks of tower sites that blanket the highly populated areas where there are lots and lots of potential mobile broadband users. Sprint has the spectrum and plans to deploy a nationwide WiMAX network, but is having trouble coming up with the billions of dollars needed to develop this market. If WiMAX doesn't gain a strong foothold soon, it may find itself needing a standards upgrade just to keep up in the wireless bandwidth race.

How satisfied are you with the price you're paying for voice and data bandwidth? Our team of seasoned professionals have the expertise, tools and suite of competitive carriers to help you get the best deals on wireline, wireless, fiber optic and satellite-based business bandwidth.

DS3 Over Copper Avoids Fiber Installation

Fiber optic connections are the high bandwidth solution that every business wants. That is, until they get the bill for trenching new fiber from the carrier POP (Point of Presence) to their location. Depending on how far out you need to go, the construction costs alone can be in the tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Maybe more. Don't assume that you're stuck with high fiber costs or low speed lines until you look into DS3 over Copper.

But, wait a second. DS3 is a fiber optic line service. Right? Yes it is. But before that it was delivered on T3 coaxial copper lines, waveguides or microwave transmissions. DS3 or Data Service level 3 is simply a specification for a 45 Mbps TDM protocol that can ride on whatever carrier is available. The newest approach is to go back to tried and true copper wiring with new modulation schemes.

Why go back to copper after all the technology advancements that have given us Gigabit bandwidths on fiber strands? The answer gets back to price and availability. In fact, price is usually driven by availability. For all the high-tech ballyhoo and industry concerns about overbuilt and unlit fiber, just the opposite is true in most areas. Sure, the high traffic corridors between major metropolitan areas are flush with dark fiber. The undersea routes were the same way for years. Recently a lot of that fiber is being pressed into service, as video and other high bandwidth applications sop up all the packets they can get. Most smaller population and rural areas have no fiber access at all. The only glass in the ground is on its way somewhere else.

Copper, on the other hand, is everywhere you look. Thanks to over a hundred years of telephone system build-out, there is hardly a building anywhere that isn't already wired for at least a couple of pairs of copper. Most business locations already have multi-pair binders to support their telephone systems.

This copper that is so desirable is ordinary twisted pair copper wiring that you find underground or overhead. Conventional thinking was that these "phone wires" are only good for audio frequencies. But DSL services showed that it's possible to transmit multiple Mbps of data over those simple unshielded cables. T1 lines are provisioned on two pair of standard telephone line copper. T1 can be extended almost indefinitely with signal regenerators every mile or so.

But T1 lines are spec'd at 1.5 Mbps. How do you get DS3 over copper? Fractional DS3 bandwidths can be obtained by simply bonding multiple T1 lines together, which gives you the sum of their bandwidths. In other words, 4x T1 bonding gives you 6 Mbps. You can often get up to 10 - 12 Mbps with this technique. If you have a T1 line now, you can probably get bonded T1 service to increase your WAN bandwidth.

The demand for high bandwidths in areas not served by fiber optic carriers has given an impetus to developing new approaches to squeeze more Mbps from each copper pair. Aktino's AK3000 platform gives carriers the option to offer DS3 over copper using multiple pairs. The technical approach uses DMT (Discrete Multi-Tone) modulation and MIMO. If MIMO sounds familiar, its because Multiple Input Multiple Output is the antenna technology used to speed up WiFi networks in 802.11n access points. Aktino has applied a similar approach over wireline to counter the problem of interference between pairs in a binder group.

Pulse Communications, Inc. has a product called DS3 Express that will convey full rate DS3 connections over 4 pair of copper up to about a half-mile, or a mile with a repeater. A standard type 400 circuit-pack module is used at each end of the circuit to make installation easy.

DS3 over Copper and Ethernet over Copper are two high bandwidth services currently available for business locations not currently lit for fiber. Could your business benefit from an increase in dedicated Internet, high capacity telephone, or private data line bandwidth? See what high bandwidth wireless and wireline service options are available for your location. You may be pleasantly surprised by how little you'll have to spend.

Novatel's Brilliant Mobile In-Ovation

It looks like a USB memory drive, and it is. But look closer. Thumb drives don't have pop-up antennas. This one does. That's because the Novatel Ovation U727 is more than solid state memory. It's also a cellular broadband modem and a GPS receiver. Call it the "Swiss Army Knife" of mobile technology. Or call it the upgrade your notebook computer really needs. This Novatel product is three upgrades in one.

The primary function of this broadband card is to connect you to the data networks of either Sprint or Verizon. You'll need the version that is enabled for the carrier you want. Both feature downloads at the highest cellular speed currently available. That's EV-DO Rev A with downloads up to 3.1 Mbps and uploads to 1.8 Mbps. If the base station you are nearest isn't upgraded to Rev A yet, standard EV-DO Rev 0 will give you 2.4 Mbps download and 153 Kbps upload. Those are burst ratings. Your actual connection speed will probably be less.

Both of these cellular network data standards will allow you to roam free of the home office or WiFi hotspots. The original standard was meant to emulate a DSL connection for email and Web browsing. The new EV-DO Rev A speeds downloads a bit, but the big change is to the upload bandwidth. 153 Kbps is pretty marginal for things like video conferencing or file uploading. The 1.8 Mbps burst capability is more suited to real-time applications.

What happens if you are out in the boonies? If you can get cellular coverage at all, then you'll be able to at least access 1xRTT, the oldest CDMA cellular data standard and nearly universally installed in tower base stations. The performance is more like dial-up, around 50 Kbps. But at least you can stay connected way, way out there where coffee shops with WiFi are few and far between.

A feature of the Ovation U727 is that it connects to your PC via a USB port. The standard for cellular broadband cards has been the PCMCIA card slot. Those aren't universally available on notebook computers any more, but USB ports are truly ubiquitous. I imagine that the USB connection and memory stick form factor is what gave designers the idea to have this device do double duty as a removable solid state hard drive. To make use of this feature, you'll need to buy microSD card up to 4 GB maximum capacity. Plug in that little card like you would on a cell phone and you've got a thumb drive.

The third capability built into the Novatel Ovation U727 is a GPS receiver. Lots of of wireless productivity devices and common cell phones now include built-in GPS receivers. They were put there to aid location in emergency calls, but have been put into service as navigation systems and for mapping. Adding this card to your PC gives you the ability to use location-based services.

What are the hottest cell phone deals available right now, including free cell phones? Use the Cell Phone Plan Finder to check out the top phones and associated wireless service plans.

FAX On The Run

Facsimile or FAX has been the preferred way to transmit and receive business documents that can't wait for mail service. Large companies have fax machines that look more like huge copy machines. They can automatically load, transmit and reassemble documents automatically. Small office users often have a fax machine bundled with a scanner and printer in an "all-in-one" device. But all of these facsimile devices have one thing in common: They tie you to the office.

Well, no more. The next evolution of the fax machine is Internet fax. Imagine being able to both send and receive fax messages on your laptop computer from anywhere you have Internet service. That includes WiFi hotspots, hotels, airports, or roaming with cellular broadband service. That capability is available now at a very reasonable cost.

The beauty of FAX is that it is like a long distance copier. You put a piece of paper in a slot at one location. It comes out of another slot seconds later hundreds or thousands of miles distant. Fax messages can be text, graphics, copies of other documents, or hand scribbled notes on any of these. This is what makes fax more powerful than email or IM. But a combination of fax and email is the most powerful solution of all.

Here's a mobile service designed for personal and business faxing on the go. There is a choice of plans with pricing that starts under $4 a month. You can send and receive faxes from anywhere with an Internet connection. It stores and archives your messages for up to six months. It's priced something like a cellular plan in that you get 50 incoming or outgoing pages per month. After that there is a small overage fee per page. Heavier users can get larger plans with up to 250 pages sent or received per month.

If you've ever had to hang around a hotel front desk waiting for faxes documents from the home office that you need to support your business trip, you know what pain fixed location faxing can be. Much better to be sipping a latte and checking your email when the faxed documents are sent directly to your laptop.

In addition to the convenience and mobility, there is a "green" aspect to Internet-based fax services. You avoid the toner and paper, especially the special thermal coated paper used by some older fax machines. If and when you need a hard copy, you can print them from your computer. If you only need to read and file the documents, then going electronic saves both cost and waste.

Will Video Kill The Internet Star?

Streaming video and video downloads have grown to the point where they are now the biggest bandwidth demands on the Internet. The question is whether video packets will multiply so fast that the Internet superhighway will become as clogged as many physical highways.

Video is no different from previous "killer aps" such as email, Web browsing, instant messaging, blogging, or social networking. All of these applications started small, grew rapidly and eventually became part of the mainstream. There an actual pattern to all new technology introductions that looks like a letter "S" when you draw it on graph paper. The pattern is so familiar and repeatable that it goes by the term "s-curve."

The s-curve or growth curve increases slowly at first as the product or service is introduced. Early adopters get on board quickly because they like to try new things. This causes the curve to inflect upward. Then there is a long period of steadily increasing adoption when most people learn of the product or service through word of mouth, advertising, and editorials. As the mature part of the cycle is reached, growth slows and the top part of the s-curve forms. Eventually there are very few new users and technology moves on to the next innovation.

We're heading up the video s-curve now. It's more than YouTube. Many TV networks finally realize that there is a huge audience for their program episodes that can't be present when it debuts over the air or on satellite. We're probably not far from the time when every show will be available online right after it airs or perhaps simultaneously. The next step will be programming that was never aired originally because of the huge costs involved. Not just home videos, mind you. Even professionally produced programs that have appeal too limited for broadcasting. Content delivery networks will be the broadcast, satellite and cable channels of the future.

As fast as video over the Internet is growing, there is one more piece to put in place before it goes totally ballistic. That's the Internet tuner for your TV sets. The switch from analog to digital service is currently grinding through the marketplace. By the time it is complete and NTSC tuners are a thing of the past, it's likely that new sets will have Internet capability built-in. Right now that marketplace is developing in the form of set top boxes such as Apple TV. As directories, program guides and video search become more standardized and the television set becomes a small computer with a really big screen, the Internet will be the most popular way to distribute video content.

But isn't all of this new content going to jam up the Internet backbones to the point where nothing moves? The actual backbone paths are in a constant state of upgrade and will probably keep up. The real difference between downloading video and downloading a Web page is Megabytes and Gigabytes versus Kilobytes. In other words, it's a matter of scale. Private content delivery networks help to relieve the congestion from the long-haul paths and push the problem closer to the user.

The real overload potential is at the Internet Service Provider, particularly shared bandwidth services such as Cable broadband and DSL. You probably experience this now if you are a home subscriber or have business DSL or Cable connections. Available bandwidth seems to vary all over the place, although times when the most users are online are typically the slowest. That's often early evenings and right after school lets out. It doesn't take many video program streams or downloads to swamp out all the email and casual browsing traffic.

What can be done about this? ISPs seem like they are trying to one-up each other in offering more bandwidth for the same monthly fee. But they are really responding to a change in content that requires orders of magnitude more bandwidth than what was typical when they started offering broadband connections. ISPs are also peering with content delivery networks and legal P2P companies to minimize the network paths involved in transmitting video over IP.

As a business owner, you can best protect your bandwidth interests by leasing exclusive or dedicated bandwidth for your own Internet access, telephone trunk lines and video uploads/downloads. Competitive T1, Ethernet, and OCx bandwidth services all offer dedicated connections at prices lower than you might expect.

Do You Need a Content Delivery Network?

The infrastructure to deliver content via the Internet has a way of growing geometrically. There was a time when a single PC and a few incoming telephone lines with modems were all you needed to create, maintain and operate an online Web service. Now you're wondering how you're going to afford the capital equipment, bandwidth and staff to deliver high definition video feeds coast-to-coast. Perhaps the most reasonable solution is to turn the job over to a content delivery network.

The content delivery network or CDN is a specialized service that's roughly analogous to Web hosting services. With hosting, you have the option to create and maintain your own Web server and enough bandwidth to accommodate the incoming traffic. Or you can buy that service. If you decide to outsource to a Web hosting company, all you need is enough Internet bandwidth to upload your content updates. The host takes care of server maintenance, environmental control, backup power quality and high speed connections to the Internet.

The reason to go with a content delivery network is the same as electing to use a hosting service. In many cases its easier, less expensive and faster to scale up than trying to do it yourself. The CDN builds and manages its own private network to store and distribute content over a large geographical area to many simultaneous users. They ensure that there is enough bandwidth to handle the demands of your application, be it software packages, streaming audio, or high definition video. In some cases, they have special arrangements with Internet Service Providers to directly peer with them. Content can move from the CDN into the ISP network, avoiding the public Internet completely.

There are different architectures that content delivery networks can employ. One methodology is to cache multiple copies of the same content on servers around the country. When you request a download, the network figures out which cached copy is closest to your location and available. Others distribute content throughout their own networks and coordinate efficient delivery. Load balancing among distributed servers helps to improve network reliability by being able to bypass a failed server and provide the content from an alternative location.

By the way, how are you set for access bandwidth? If your bandwidth demands now exceed your line capacity, find better deals on WAN bandwidth now.

Business Advantage of a T1 Line

If your business is getting to the point where you need highly reliable bandwidth for Internet access, point to point data transfer, VoIP telephony, or audio/video transmission, then it's time to consider the advantage of T1 line service.

You know about broadband lines and telephone lines. But what's a T1 line? It's a professional grade telecom service that's normally delivered only to business locations. A few well-heeled individuals with demanding needs in their home offices, usually business or investment related, have T1 lines installed. Most home users would rather put up with the limitations of shared access services such as DSL or Cable Internet since they can be had for a tenth the cost.

Shared access is a hallmark of the cheapest broadband services. In actuality, the Internet Service Providers themselves have always used T1 lines or larger DS3 or OCx service for their own backbone connections to the Internet. The way they make money is to divvy up the available bandwidth among dozens of users so the cost per subscriber can be kept low. For casual access to browse the Web or send and receive email, DSL and Cable broadband work just fine. Small businesses where Internet access is helpful but not critical to their operations may also find these services satisfactory.

Where T1 shows its true advantages is in mission critical services. What are those? If you depend on your telecom service to make and receive telephone calls, enter orders, manage inventory, transfer files, text or chat with customers, or do research that can't wait for slow or disconnected line services, your need is mission critical.

This is especially true if your connection supports real-time applications such audio or video program feeds, surveillance cameras, or VoIP telephone systems. Text services such as email and Web site browsing are pretty robust when it comes to line vagaries such as jitter, latency and even packet loss. The TCP/IP protocol used for these applications will simply request a retransmission of data that doesn't show up. Real time audio and video don't have that luxury. Anything that is missing can't be made up later. It simply results in a hole in the audio or a drop out in the video.

The advantages of T1 service include a high degree of service availability, often with a service level guarantee. The bandwidth is dedicated solely for you own use. You can depend on a rock solid 1.5 Mbps in both the upload and download directions at all times. If you need more bandwidth than this, you can bond additional T1 lines to easily double or triple your connection bandwidth. Latency, jitter and packet loss are kept to very low levels, making T1 service perfect for real-time applications. In fact, many radio station use T1 lines as studio-to-transmitter links for their program audio.

T1 lines come in various flavors, depending on your business need. T1 Dedicated Internet access gives you professional grade broadband service. Point to Point T1 lines are direct connections between two locations, often a company's main and satellite offices. T1 telephone or ISDN PRI service is used to deliver multiple telephone lines to your PBX phone system. SIP Trunking does the same for IP PBX or enterprise VoIP phone systems. Finally, Integrated T1 service combines telephone and broadband Internet service on a single line to save money for small business users.

Is your business ready for the advantages of T1 line service? Our team of experts are happy to help you decide on the most cost effective type of T1 connection for your business needs.

IT Departments are Wearin' the Green

It takes more these days that mere luck o' the Irish to keep information technology costs under control. Many companies are finding that going green can help them keep more green in their coffers. In this case green means environmentally friendly, things that help keep the Earth nice and green as well as help businesses save money.

The first to look for the proverbial pot of gold is in the power being pulled from the grid. What's insidious about power consumption is that it consists of dribs and drabs almost everywhere. All those desktop PCs quietly sitting on desks are fractional amperes each. Watts become Watt-Hours and then Kilowatt-Hours of consumption. If all of that electricity was going into productive activities the cost would easily be swamped out by the profits gained. But it's not. Much of the time computers are idle, people are away from their desks. But the electrons still flow from the wall and you pay for every one of them.

Many companies decided long ago that turning off idle computers and monitors overnight and letting them sleep during the day saved far more money than it cost in shortening the life of the equipment. Truth be told, it's hard to cycle a PC enough to destroy it before it becomes obsolete. Most go to the recycler still working just fine. You do call the recycler when you want to get rid of old PCs and other electronics, don't you? Those circuit boards and CRTs are chock full of toxic substances that can be reclaimed and reused before they escape to poison the water table.

Back to power consumption. In turning off equipment when it is not being used, preferably with a mechanical switch that interrupts the phantom or standby power that nearly everything electronic draws, has a double benefit. It reduces power drawn by the device and also the need to get rid of heat that it generates. Nothing is 100% efficient. When power is brought in, most is used to do important work but some just goes up in heat. Even LCD monitors that don't have fans still run slightly warm to the touch. Incandescent lights are the worst offenders of all. All those lumens of light you want are accompanied by BTUs of heat that you don't. Some office buildings never need to run their furnaces during the work day. They get their heating the expensive way, as a byproduct of electricity consumption.

Nowhere is the heat issue more obvious that in the server room. As more and more cores are packed into less and less space, the heat load of equipment racks goes up and up. More and more air conditioning is needed to deal with the heat rejection. It's a viscious circle. The problem has gotten so intense, so to speak, that equipment designers are starting to focus on higher efficiency power supplies and even things like DC power distribution.

Perhaps you don't need a server room at all. Heresy? Actually it may be more cost effective to locate your equipment at a colocation facility where the cost of power and environmental control can be amortized over many users. An additional benefit of colo facilities is that you may also find much better deals on bandwidth.

Still can't get power consumption low enough? Perhaps you should be generating some of your own. Those big flat empty office building and factory roofs are perfect for rows of solar cells. With a PV array powering a grid connected inverter, you'll be using less grid power during the heat (and light) of the day when it is most expensive. Google is just one of a growing number of companies that is supplementing it's electricity needs with solar power.

Is it time to upgrade your facilities with more efficient computing equipment? Let our network of value added resellers help you find the best deals on servers and network devices that can also help you save the green in more than one way.

Fleet Management on the Web

Vehicle fleet owners are under increased cost pressures in this economy, especially when it comes to fuel prices. A combination of mature technologies can provide a low cost way to manage vehicle usage and performance in real time, giving fleet managers the opportunity to easily identify opportunities for improved efficiency.

The convergence of technologies involves GPS tracking and locating, onboard vehicle computers, and cellular broadband transmissions. Chances are that you are using all of these technologies separately. Mass production has made them so cheap to produce that navigation systems are now routinely found in cars and even cell phones. Cellular coverage is almost universal. Both cars and trucks have sported onboard computers since electronic engine controls became the norm.

Now, what happens when you build a device that brings in data from the GPS navigation satellites and the vehicle computer and sends it wireless to the Internet via cellular data connections? What you have is an affordable way to know where every vehicle you own is located, where it has been and for how long, how many miles have been traveled and how much fuel has been consumed. The computer can also alert you to maintenance issues in the vehicle, much the same as it tells the service technicians what is malfunctioning.

But this is no plug-in diagnostic tool. The data transmitted to the Internet is processed and available to monitor anywhere you have a broadband connection and a Web browser. The control unit itself mounts quickly under the vehicle dash and plugs into the car or truck computer port. Most cars from model year 1996 and heavy duty trucks from model year 1988 have these ports. A combination data/GPS antenna mounts on the winshield.

Ready, Set, GoGPS! is a service that offers these fleet tracking systems and the monitoring service you access from your computer. What can you find out once your fleet is equipped? First of all, the current location and route your vehicles have taken is no longer a mystery. You'll know the exact location of every stop and the speed between stops. Are your employees taking side trips for personal errands? They won't be able to keep that a secret anymore.

Ready, Set, GoGPS! uses the Networkfleet Wireless Vehicle Management System that offers a wealth of information about the health and performance of your vehicles as well as how they are driven throughout the work day. It's as if you are right there riding along with your drivers, keeping an eye on things. Actually you are riding along from a distance. Later, you can go over the reports with your drivers and discuss any discrepancies or alternative routes that would be more efficient.

Remember the old business expression, "Whatever gets measured, gets done." Knowing that every move of the vehicle is being monitored provides a transparency that keeps everyone on their toes and less likely to get sloppy about overtime reporting and use of company vehicles. That alone can lead to productivity improvements that will easily pay for the tracking unit and monthly monitoring fee. Learn more and get free shipping on GPS Fleet Tracking Systems from Ready, Set, GoGPS!

To VoIP or Not to VoIP

Businesses are always looking for ways to save money. With the economy as soft as it is, most business managers and owners are combing their expense reports for anything that looks hopeful. The phone bill often sticks out like a sore thumb. All that money out the door every month? Isn't there a way to get the same value but spend less?

There probably is, but you're going to have to look closely. The best approach is going to depend on what you need and what you have invested.

Let's take a look at VoIP or Voice over Internet Protocol. VoIP is touted as an alternative telephone service, but it probably should be called an alternative telephone system. What's the difference? Ultimately, most telephone calls still traverse the Public Switched Telephone Network. The PSTN is an analog and TDM based technology that uses circuit switched principles. VoIP, sometimes called network voice, is a packet switched protocol designed to share networks designed for computer communications.

The mismatch in computer and telephone technologies sometimes comes home to roost in low-end VoIP phone services that rely on sharing Cable broadband or DSL lines to save money. The savings comes from bypassing telephone company owned wiring and switches. Your calls go over the Internet to a service provider who provides the connection to the PSTN for all its subscribers. The Achilles heel of this arrangement is that shared low cost Internet connections often vary greatly in available bandwidth and can suffer from large amounts latency, jitter and dropped packets. Without proper QoS (Quality of Service) controls, computers on the same connection can hog all the bandwidth, leaving nothing for your phone calls.

Can you really afford garbled voice quality, clipped conversations and dropped calls? The telephone is often the face of your business to your customer. For a single line or a few phones, you are probably best off getting the best competitive price on conventional phone service.

Where VoIP can really offer advantages is when you create a phone system for your own use. Properly engineered corporate networks can handle the convergence of voice and data packets on a single LAN. Your cost savings come from managing a single network instead of two completely different technologies, the fact that VoIP or SIP phones have their own addresses and don't care about what wall jack they're plugged into, a greater variety and lower cost options for IP based PBX phone systems, and advanced features for fixed/mobile convergence and computer/telephone integration.

As you probably have guessed, all of these advantages require a substantial investment before you start seeing any payoff. But what if your traditional PBX or Key telephone system is doing a good job and there's no reason to replace it? There's no need to. Enterprise VoIP works best in greenfield installations or when a forklift upgrade of an older system is required due to capacity limitations, obsolescence or inability to provide the needed features.

You can still save money without having to replace any of your existing company phone system. Competitive service providers can offer you better deals on T1 telephone, ISDN PRI, or Integrated voice and data service. The change to a lower cost provider can be invisible to your phone users, but still result in big monthly savings on the bottom line.

To VoIP or not to VoIP? That is the question. For some help in finding the answer, let our team of telecom service experts review your particular needs and recommend options that will save you the most money.

So, You Want to Do Web Hosting

Does your dream of having an online business involve providing Web services to other business and organizations? Have you thought that being the Web host could provide you with an income stream? Or do you have so many web sites now that you're wondering if providing your own hosting service would be more cost effective than what you're paying now?

Well, you're on to something. Many entrepreneurs have found that small business owners want and need Web sites, but know little or nothing about how to go about getting their business online. Others who make their money through affiliate programs they promote on sites they build can quickly expand beyond the capacity of their hosting service. When one Web site turns into a dozen different sites promoting different products and services, the cost of all that hosting can really mount up.

Only a few years ago, your options were to pay a bundle to have your site hosted or spend a bundle of hours running your own server. Rolling your own server farm is less attractive now because competition in hosting services has dramatically lowered the cost of simply purchasing the service. Many small operators have Cable, DSL or satellite broadband services that prohibit servers anyway.

Here are a couple of options that you may find attractive for launching your business. First is a reseller hosting account from Hosting With Us. This company has a lot of low cost hosting plans, but the hosting solution called reseller accounts is the most intriguing. As you might guess, a reseller account is designed for users who plan to divvy up the storage and bandwidth of their account and resell it as smaller accounts to other users. Or use it themselves to host multiple domains.

The beauty of these reseller accounts is that you can host unlimited domains for one low price that starts at $24.95 a month as of this writing. For that fee, you get 4.5 GB of disk space and 45 GB of transfer per month. Transfer is the bandwidth demand generated by visitors to your Web sites.

The reseller accounts offer a Web Host Manager that lets you create individual accounts and give each one a portion of disk space and transfer bandwidth. You can put a dozen or two dozen small business domains on your reseller account and charge each one enough to make a handsome profit each month. Each account gets it own email addresses, databases and autoresponders as needed. Merchant accounts can be added for ecommerce. Your customers each get a control panel for their sub-account so they can manage files and use pre-installed scripts.

You may find that you can generate even more income by building and managing Web sites for your clients. In this case, you control the complete reseller account and all the sub-accounts. You design the sites using Web building tools and upload code to your account.

If you are skilled in the use of tools such as Adobe Dreamweaver, all you need is a reseller account and you're in business. But what if you want to build custom Web sites for customers without having to invest a fortune in Web design software and the learning curve to become proficient in graphic design? What you need is site building and hosting solution.

WebBizBuilder.com offers a browser based site builder. You don't need to know anything about HTML or be a whiz and graphics. This tool is based on pre-designed templates that you customize. You can change colors, content, graphics, and so on. There are dozens and dozens of templates to choose from for all different kinds of business. They all have a couple of things in common. You can create a site quickly & easily and they all look professional. Get some text and pictures from your customer and soon you'll be able to go back to them with a live site. Basic sites start at $19.95 a month, a price you can mark up to sell. For $49.95 a month you can add an Internet store with a catalog of 500 products.

Regardless of whether you want multiple domain hosting or an online point and click site building solution, getting your business online has never been easier or less expensive.

How Many POTS Lines in a Trunk?

If your business started very small, your first business phone may have been your only one. It was no doubt a single line desk set or perhaps one with a wireless handset and a speakerphone. You plugged it into an RJ11 wall outlet, lifted the receiver and there was dial tone. You probably didn't refer to it as POTS, but that's what it was.

POTS is a telecom industry acronym for Plain Old Telephone Service. POTS runs on the PSTN or Public Switched Telephone Network. POTS connections are twisted pair copper wires that run all the way from your phone jack back to the telephone company's central office. These are also called analog lines because they operate on analog voltages and currents according to standards that go all the way back to Alexander Graham Bell himself. Nowadays they may be called landlines to distinguish them from wireless phones that operate on the cellular phone networks.

POTS is solid, reliable telephone service. Voice quality is excellent. It has been enhanced over the years to include options such as call waiting, call forwarding, three way calling, and Caller ID. You can buy a nice business phone for POTS service at any office supply store. If one line isn't enough, you can get a phone that handles two POTS lines.

But what if your business has grown to the point where you need more than two outside lines? Many small to medium size businesses move up from individual phones to phone systems by adding a Key Telephone System. The key is the name for the line selector push button. Every phone set has two to six line keys along with a dial pad and other buttons. It's up to you to decide whether you'll join a conversation on one of the busy lines or select an open line to make a call.

Key Systems are also POTS based. So is the entry level PBX or Private Branch Exchange phone system. The PBX manages outside lines, so you don't have to worry about finding an open one to make a call. It also allows you to directly dial from one phone to another within the business using just a few digits. These calls never use an outside line. They are handled through the PBX system directly.

PBX systems have the ability to grow either by adding on to them or buying larger replacement systems. As your business grows you may barely notice the number of POTS lines creeping up from 4 to 6 to 10 to 20. Users generally have no idea how many lines there are. Management may also not have taken much note of the incrementally growing cost of telephone line service. POTS lines have little economy of scale. It's so much per line depending on the feature set. Saving money is where the idea of the trunk line comes in.

A trunk is a phone line that carries multiple telephone conversations. Modern trunks long ago switched from analog to digital technology. The most popular trunks are T1 telephone lines. T1 is a digital telephone standard that creates 24 individual channels in a strictly timed digital bitstream. Each channel can carry one telephone call. T1 voice lines can do the work of up to 24 POTS lines. The T1 line will plug into a T1 interface card in your PBX system or can be connected to a channel bank that will give you the 24 individual line connections.

Why go to all this trouble? It's no trouble when it results in a cost savings. That's what T1 lines offer. If you are paying for more than half a dozen individual POTS lines, T1 service will likely cost less per month for the same phone service. Once you get to 10 or 12 lines it is almost certain that you can save money by switching to a T1 line.

So, that means there are 24 POTS lines in a trunk, right? Yes...and no. T1 telephone lines can carry 24 phone lines. But many businesses prefer ISDN PRI or Primary Rate Interface service. This is another format of T1 line that gives you up to 23 phone lines. The other channel is reserved for switching and data, so you can have Caller ID capability on your PBX system. There's also something called Integrated T1 that gives you up to 12 phone lines and broadband Internet on one trunk line.

The newest wrinkle is the SIP trunk. SIP is the VoIP signaling protocol. A SIP trunk also carries multiple phone lines and perhaps Internet service. You can trade off voice quality for bandwidth, so a SIP trunk might carry even more than 24 phone conversations simultaneously.

How many POTS lines in a trunk? How many do you need? The trunk can be sized accordingly to give you the lowest cost for the quantity and quality of phone line service you require. Just remember that the purpose of going to trunked telephone service is to save money. How much? Check out the cost savings on telephone trunk lines now.

Gigabit Connection Services

If you are in need of really massive amounts of WAN bandwidth, you'll be looking at Gigabit connection services. This high level of bandwidth is indeed available, but you'll need to be in or near a location already lit for fiber optic service. That generally means within major metropolitan areas and especially within a carrier POP or Point of Presence. If so, you may find that 1,000 Mbps of connectivity can fit within the budget of even a medium size company.

Who needs Gigabit level bandwidth? Competitive telecom services vendors, of course. That includes the competitive carries with nationwide fiber optic routes. Their customers, perhaps yourself, include large medical centers, video production companies, Software as a Service providers, data centers, research organizations, large engineering companies and Cable MSOs. The list is growing every day. As businesses go more and more digital, their LAN and WAN bandwidth needs are increasing. So much so, that the availability of once unheard of metropolitan and long haul network bandwidths are becoming readily available.

The traditional fiber optic bandwidth service is called SONET for Synchronous Optical NETwork. It's a legacy telecom service based on TDM or Time Division Multiplexing technology. SONET is known for its development maturity, wide deployment, and reliability.

SONET service levels range between OC3 at 155 Mbps, to a typical Metro Ring at OC12 at 622 Mbps, and up to OC48 at 2.5 Gbps. There's also an OC24 level defined at 1.244 Gbps, but it is less common than OC48 service. OC24 and OC48 can be used to provide Gigabit WAN connections.

There are higher levels of service, but those are generally reserved for carrier backbones themselves. OC192 operates at 10 Gbps, OC256 at 13 Gbps, and OC768 at 40 Gbps. Some larger networks are now in the process of upgrading their routes to 100 Gbps, usually by bonding multiple fibers or fiber wavelengths.

The competing service to SONET is Gigabit Ethernet or GigE. This service is being heavily promoted by competitive carriers who are running IP rather than TDM networks. They can provide 10 Mbps Ethernet, 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet or 1000 Mbps Gigabit Ethernet directly from their POPs to your company via fiber optic line. Colocation services at carrier POPs or public colo centers make it easy to order GigE connections, since provisioning is as simple as dropping a cable from the carrier's equipment to yours. Even on terminations within your building, Ethernet usually has cost advantages over traditional SONET services.

Do you have a serious business need for high bandwidth connections, from 10 Mbps up to the Gigabit level? Find out what fiber optic bandwidth services are available for your location.

How Sprint Gives You Simply Everything

The major cellular carriers have recently acknowledged that a lot of cell phone users want to talk as much as they want and never, ever have to worry about running out of minutes. But Sprint has gone the others one better. Sprint has decided to give its customers simply everything for $99.99 a month.

Simply Everything is the name of the new unlimited wireless package from Sprint. So, just what can you do with your phone on this plan. The name pretty much says it all. It's Simply Everything.

Here's what you get for your $99.99 a month. Talk all you want. There's no charge for additional minutes because you can't run out of regular minutes. Day, nights, weekends. It doesn't matter. All minutes are the same and they're all included in the price. That includes long distance minutes as well as local. It includes roaming as well as service in your home area. Your minutes are unlimited.

But that's just the start of it. You can also text and IM to your heart's content. That's unlimited text messaging, unlimited instant messaging, unlimited picture messaging, and unlimited video messaging. With the Simply Everything plan you no longer have to think about whether you can afford to be sending out pictures and videos or texting all the time. The minutes are unlimited so go for it when the urge strikes.

Does your phone have email and Web browsing capability? Great! You also get unlimited minutes for those activities. Now you can take the Internet with you on your telephone. It's always there and you don't have to worry about connect time. It's unlimited, just like your home broadband.

With Sprint's Simply Everything plan, unlimited GPS Navigation is also included. I guess that means you can't make excuses for not showing up on time. Like trying to blame it on not having a map. Hey, there's a map right there on your phone!

The Sprint Simply Everything plan also includes Voice Mail, Caller ID, Call Waiting and Three-Way calling.

What about air cards for your notebook PC? If all you need is a data plan so you can have broadband access on the go, that's an even better deal. The Sprint PCS Vision for PCS Connection Cards is $59.99 per month. That's for data only. No telephone service. Air cards that enable your laptop or other computer to connect to the Sprint PCS network are available free or at low cost when you purchase them with a data plan.

Are you a heavy wireless user who needs to communicate without the restraint of a fixed number of monthly minutes? If so, the Sprint Simply Everything Plan may be just right for you. Or perhaps you'd prefer one of the excellent plans offered by AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Nextel or Alltel. They're all available along with fantastic offers on free and low cost cell phones and other wireless productivity devices at Cell Phone Plans Finder right now.

How Broadband Bonding is Mushrooming

Bandwidth hungry companies now have a mouth watering new approach to increasing their WAN capacity. It's a TRUFFLE from Mushroom Networks, Inc.

Just what makes this TRUFFLE appetizing? it has the capability of aggregating the bandwidth of multiple broadband connections to make one bigger, more reliable pipe. That seems to sound a lot like T1 line bonding. What's different is that this device can bond just about anything you've got. Gather up your DSL, Cable, T1 and satellite lines. Plug up to 6 of them into the TRUFFLE BBNA6401 and it combines their bandwidth to give you download speeds up to 50 Mbps.

The Mushroom Networks approach is to create bonding at the network layer using IP-based protocols. Traditional pair bonding approaches require all lines to be the same type and from the same provider. You order the amount of bandwidth you want and the carrier takes care of bonding enough T1 lines to give it to you. The implementation is pretty much transparent to the user because the carrier provides the CPE (Customer Premises Equipment) to bond the lines and deliver a single network interface to the user.

In contrast, the TRUFFLE is a piece of hardware that you buy and manage. You don't need to coordinate with your network service providers. This device simply connects to multiple broadband modems and manages the bandwidth pool. It has the smarts to divvy up a download request into pieces and request only a portion of the total file size from each broadband connection. It gathers the responses and reassembles the file before passing it on to your network.

Mushroom Networks suggests various scenarios that would benefit from aggregating the bandwidth of similar or diverse broadband connections. The obvious way is to combine multiple T1 or DSL lines to create a larger composite line speed. This could improve service reliability if the connections are from different providers with wires in different binder pairs or a combination of terrestrial and satellite services. Another suggestion is to add a DSL line to augment an integrated T1 telephone and Internet connection. When the T1 line is busy with many phone conversations, the DSL line can improve Internet performance to the computer users on the network.

Mushroom Networks' TRUFFLE is a clever solution to the ever-increasing need for higher and higher levels of business grade bandwidth by small to medium size companies. You may have more options that you think, with the recent Metro Ethernet and lower prices on T1 and DS3 connections. Check bandwidth options for your business location now.

If you also need support for your business telephone system, local area network or IT hardware and software, the VAR Network gives you a way to connect with qualified value added resellers in your area.

Advantages of Storage as a Service

One result of the availability of reasonably priced high bandwidth Wide Area Networks is the emergence of just about anything as a "service." Before the days of universal connectivity, mainframe computers were centralized and isolated devices buried in the corporate infrastructure. PCs were stand-alone productivity devices with their own application packages and hard drive storage. But that model is starting to fade as virtualization changes our perceptions on where computing resources need to be located.

Software as a Service or SaaS offers a way to be able to use the familiar desktop productivity tools such as word processing, database management and spreadsheets while letting someone else deal with the maintenance headache of purchasing expensive tool sets and constantly keeping them up to date. Instead of accessing the software that resides on your local PC or on a company server, you access it through a broadband connection to a service provider. As long as your WAN connection has sufficient bandwidth and is highly reliable, it may not make a bit of difference where the executable code resides.

The next step is to store your data as well as your software non-locally. You might be able to do that through your software service provider or you may elect to farm it out to a company that specializes in storage. This business service is called, appropriately, Storage as a Service. It has the same acronym as Software as a Service, SaaS. A storage service provider has massive amounts of archival storage capacity, the tools to allow you to manage storing and retrieving your data, and rigorous security measures to protect data integrity.

Why bother with buying storage services when you can do your own backups? There are two good reasons. First is the quantity of data that needs to be archived. Compliance requirements for businesses have made it more critical and onerous to archive absolutely every document, including email. Larger applications such as digital medical records, scan images, engineering data packages and high resolution graphics take more and more space as technology improves. A single disk quickly becomes a medium size RAID system which can expand to a room full of disks and tapes.

The second reason is security and recoverability of your data. It does no good to make copies on CD ROMs and store them in a desk drawer if the building is destroyed by flood, fire or tornado. Are you sure you're going to remember to take copies of all your data to an offsite storage facility? What about in-between times? Large enterprises have off-site data centers with fiber optic bandwidth for electronic data transfers. But small and medium size businesses probably don't.

A storage service provider acts as that remote data center to routinely and securely backup and archive your important files. Large service providers specialize in supporting corporate users. For individual professionals and small to medium size businesses, Mozy Online Backup, owned by EMC, offers reasonably priced and convenient storage services. A low-end service for individuals is even available free.

The Mozy professional service for businesses offers 128 bit SSL encryption en route, 448-bit Blowfish encryption on the servers, and the options of automatic, incremental and scheduled backups. No longer will you have to think about burning a CD ROM at the end of the day or week. You need a low cost software license for each computer you are backing up, plus there is a small charge per Gigabyte of data storage. MozyPro even helps medical companies with compliance to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) law. Learn more about Mozy Remote Backup options now.

Metro Ethernet For Your Business

Business users looking to expand a company network beyond their own building or campus have had to dig in and sort out the relative merits of DSL, T1, DS3, SONET fiber, ISDN and other communications standards. Everything but the Ethernet standard they are so familiar with on the local area network. No more. Now more and more businesses are gaining access to Metro Ethernet and saving a bundle in the process.

Metropolitan Ethernet, also known as Metro Ethernet or MetroE, is a wide area networking protocol that extends your LAN right out the door and across town. As a network administrator or management service provider, you no longer need to worry about limited bandwidths, protocol conversions or getting the right customer premises equipment to support your communications needs. Your Ethernet service provider installs a standard RJ45 networking jack. You plug an Ethernet cable into it and connect to the switch or router at the edge of your network.

Switch? Yes, it's Ethernet. That means you can use Ethernet switch ports to include a branch office across town. You can also connect your router to gain broadband access to the Internet via your Metro Ethernet connection. Perhaps you just want to standardize on Ethernet as your single networking protocol to link to branch offices, warehouses, suppliers, vendors, or franchisees across the country.

Nationwide? Yes. Metro Ethernet is the city-wide service for what is called Carrier Ethernet. The "carrier" designation means that this is a communications protocol with the scalability and reliability to be used by common carriers. Some of these carriers are traditional telcos who are updating their telephone-centric networks to transport Ethernet as well. Many others are competitive carriers without the telco legacy that have developed all-new state of the art fiber optic networks nationwide.

What about the underlying communications protocols that transport Carrier Ethernet? The beauty of this technology is that it has been designed to work with a wide variety of existing networks. They include native Ethernet based networks, MPLS networks based on IP transport, WDM or Wavelength Division Multiplexing fiber optic networks, and TDM networks including T1, T3, and SONET OC3, OC12, OC48 that were originally intended for telco trunking.

As a user, you needn't worry about what's at the core of the wide area transport network. Your connection will be a standardized Ethernet signal. The standardization group is the MEF or Metro Ethernet Forum, a alliance of 120 organizations including service providers and equipment manufacturers. Their mission is to : "...accelerate the worldwide adoption of Carrier-class Ethernet networks and services."

A major benefit of this move to Ethernet in the MAN (Metropolitan Area Network) and WAN (Wide Area Network) is getting away from the traditional pricing structure that always involved telephone companies for the last mile access. Instead, competitive carriers operate their own POPs or Points of Presence that function as their Central Offices. You may be able to contract with a single provider for both local and long haul carrier services... at a huge price bread from what you might expect.

Ethernet services typically start at 10 Mbps, the same speed as standard Ethernet in the LAN. Most providers also offer 100 Mbps and 1000 Mbps or Gigabit Ethernet service to match your network requirements. No longer are you stuck cramming your data through a narrow pipe just to get it across town or across the country. Your costs per Mbps are likely to be anywhere from 20 to 50% what you'd pay for equivalent bandwidth using traditional TDM (Time Division Multiplexing) services.

Is Metro Ethernet the right network service for your company? Find out now if your building is already lit for Carrier Ethernet service or there is a carrier POP nearby. If so, you could soon be enjoying the benefits of Ethernet end-to-end.

Bandwidth Deals for MSPs

Management Service Providers, MSPs, can increase their value added to their clients by expanding the information technology services that they provide to include finding better deals on WAN bandwidth. Few companies realize how much the telecommunications services marketplace has changed over the last few years and the range of lower cost options available to them.

The most basic bandwidth service that most companies should consider is T1 voice and/or data services. T1 lines are highly reliable, usually come with a service level agreement, and have dropped in price by half to two-thirds this decade. Businesses that signed a lease years ago and simply renew without a competitive review of their options could be astounded by how much less they could be paying. Those pressed by additional bandwidth demand may find that they can get 3 Mbps, 6 Mbps or higher symmetrical bandwidth for what they are currently charged for 1.5 Mbps T1 service.

T1 telephone and T1 dedicated Internet access are the two traditional service classes. But companies with heavy telephone use, such as sales organizations or call centers, can benefit from the higher telephone system performance offered by ISDN PRI service delivered over T1 lines. Another lesser known service is T1 Integrated. The integration involves a using a single T1 line to deliver both telephone and Internet service. You can get up to 12 outside phone lines plus broadband Internet service with T1 Integrated lines. Dynamic bandwidth is often available so that all bandwidth not in use for telephony is automatically assigned to the Internet connection.

Many medium size companies or smaller operations with high bandwidth needs are moving to DS3 service at 45 Mbps. This service level, usually delivered via fiber optic connection, has also seen dramatic price reductions. So much so that companies that used to consider T1 services as the best they could afford are now moving up to DS3 bandwidth. A money saving option for those businesses that experience occasional high usage peaks but a lower average level of activity is burstable DS3. The basic line charge is lower than a full DS3 but with the ability to accommodate surges automatically.

An exciting new service unheard of a few years ago is Ethernet. Metro Ethernet offers the ease of network management with bandwidth options of 10, 100 or 1000 Mbps to better match LAN speeds. Remote data center access and disaster recovery are two popular applications. Ethernet can now be extended beyond the metro area by competitive carriers with nationwide fiber optic networks and POPs ( Points of Presence) of their own. Where available, Ethernet solutions, can be the lowest priced high bandwidth solutions by a factor of two or more.

Could your clients benefit from lower cost and more diverse WAN bandwidth options for voice and data? If so, our team of bandwidth experts stands ready to assist you in being the hero.