Don't go there. At least not yet. Yes, professional grade business telecom line services can stick out on an expense report like the proverbial sore thumb. But before you start fantasizing about cutting your telecommunication expenses by 20% to 50%, consider these 2 important points:
1. Those "consumer" grade broadband phone and Internet services won't have the performance or reliability that you're accustomed to now. Garbled phone calls. Outages that last hours, even days. How are your customers and suppliers going to react to that?
2. There is no need to downgrade service when you can keep the same service level but just pay less.
Point number one should give you serious pause. Point number two needs some explaining.
You see, the cheaper T1 line may still be a T1 line. How is that possible? It's because there are competitive service options out there that you probably have never heard of.
Think about how you acquired your original line service contract. It was probably a long time ago and your only real option was to call up the local telephone company and read them a list of what you needed. An account executive dutifully looked up the tariffs and prepared a service contract for you to sign. Next thing you know, all the phones have dial tone and all the computers have Internet access. After that it is just a matter of having the accounting department pay the monthly bill.
That was then. This is now. What's different now is that the competitive landscape has changed. Where once there was only the phone company, now there are a few dozen competitive service providers offering a wider selection of options and for a lot less money. But unless you've gotten wind of this somehow and taken the initiative to seek out those competitive providers, you'll never know how much less you could be paying.
T1 lines are a good example. Only a few years ago, spending a thousand dollars a month for a standard T1 voice or data line was just the cost of doing business. Today the same line service level may be available for half that or less. It all depends on where you are located and how much telecom infrastructure building has been going on in the area. But even in rural areas prices have come down noticeably. So, how much less can you really pay for the same service?
Glad you asked. Every situation is unique, so the only way to know for sure is to run a competitive quote for the exact business address and main telephone number in question. Thanks to development of the GeoQuote (tm) search engine, this process is now automated. In fact, you can submit your location information in one minute and have a list of competing line prices the next. Want to see how it works? Run a T1 line service automated quote right now!
