Thursday, June 30, 2011

Fiber Maps At Your Fingertips

You’d like to move to higher bandwidth services, but you have no idea what that is going to cost. Horror stories of fiber optic construction costs abound. How can you tell if the cost of moving up from copper to fiber optic bandwidth services will be trivial or unacceptable?

Instantly check for fiber lit buildings near your business location.The best thing you can do is get a set of competing quotes from many carriers that have facilities in your area. That’s going to take a lot of time and energy, isn’t it? Not if you approach it the right way. By going through a telecom broker, like Telarus, Inc., the effort on your part is next to nothing and you’ll have results quickly. Moreover, you get a comprehensive report that gives you pricing from all the important carriers in your marketplace.

Want to find out right this minute if there is fiber nearby? You can do this in a matter of seconds with just a quick click to the Ethernet Today Shop For Ethernet search box. All you need to do is enter the street address of your building, city, state and zip code and the system will automatically search the database and give you a map and list of buildings lit for Ethernet fiber optic service nearby.

Why Ethernet? The best prices for higher bandwidth services have changed from SONET services, such as OC-3, OC-12 or OC-48, to Ethernet over Fiber services such as 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet or 1000 Mbps Gigabit Ethernet (GigE). If you request pricing, you can also ask for equivalent SONET service prices so you can compare and see how much you are saving. In some situations, you may already be set up for SONET and happy with the arrangement. That’s fine, but you might as well get better pricing on your next contract.

Location is everything when it comes to fiber optic services. The best situation is already being in a building that is lit for the fiber optic service you want. The bandwidth level isn’t important. What is important is that someone has already paid the cost of bringing in the fiber and getting it working. Fiber has so much bandwidth capacity that there is plenty for whatever your needs require, even if another tenant in the building is already connected to that carrier.

What if you want Ethernet and your building is only lit for SONET? Have a look at the cost figures, including any construction charges, and decide whether it is better to just stick with SONET bandwidth or have Ethernet brought in. Sometimes you can get what’s called Ethernet over SONET that has better pricing than the traditional OCx service levels.

Don’t despair if you aren’t in or next door to a building lit for fiber optic service. Carriers are more competitive than ever. One or more may well waive the construction fees to get your business. The chances of this increase dramatically if you round up other tenants in the building and all offer to subscribe to fiber services with a very attractive combined bandwidth.

Here’s something else. Even buildings too expensive to light with fiber can get bandwidths far above the traditional T1 lines that come in on telco copper. Today’s Ethernet over Copper technology bonds multiple pair to bring in bandwidths of 10, 20, 50 and even 100 Mbps. That’s done over already installed copper wiring, so construction costs are minimal to nothing. This much bandwidth is adequate for many, many businesses.

Are you at least curious as to what fiber optic services may be nearby? If so, instantly check for lit buildings near your location and then request the pricing and recommendations you need to get the best deal for the least cost.

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




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