Fiber Optic Bandwidth is Closer Than You Think

By: John Shepler

If you’ve had your telecom line contracts for years, maybe decades, you may not be aware of all the connection options that have become available recently. Some have popped up only in the last few years. Don’t continue to assume that something like T1 lines are all that are available without taking another look. You may be surprised at what you find.

 

You Need More Bandwidth
Fiber optic bandwidth has been talked about for years at the wave of the future. When you look at the type of applications that are popular with both consumers and businesses, it becomes obvious quickly that nothing else will accommodate the bandwidths that are needed.

You’ve seen it coming. Static web pages have given way to embedded video clips. SD video has been supplanted by HD Video. Now that clamor is for 4K and, soon, 8K video streams.

How about software? Software used to come on tape reels, floppy disks and CD ROMs. Now software is downloaded. The old “packages” are on their way out, if not gone. They’re being replaced by apps that are acquired over the Internet. That takes a lot more than DSL or T1 bandwidth.

Downloadable apps may have a short lifespan, too. There is a mad dash for the “cloud” for both applications and storage. On-site data centers are emptying out. Massive cloud data centers are popping up as fast as they can be built. When you access everything through the cloud rather than over the LAN, your wide area network bandwidth requirements shoot up by orders of magnitude.

Why It’s Got to Be Fiber
The need for increasing levels of bandwidth have not been lost on service providers. In fact, any carrier that is still married to circuit switched architectures and copper connectivity is just marking time until it is no longer needed.

Ethernet over Copper has extended the life of the installed twisted pair copper plant by offering speeds of 10 Mbps to at least 50 Mbps and sometimes higher. DOCSIS 3.0 and 3.1 are doing the same for coaxial cable. Premises connectivity is likely the last bastion of copper. It only needs to stretch to the curb, where it connects to… fiber.

What about wireless? It looks like the world is now standardizing on 4G LTE and looking forward to 5G, as everything we do at the desk also needs to be done while mobile. Even so, capacity limitations dictated by the amount of room in the electromagnetic spectrum will keep wireless primarily as a mobile connection. Perhaps meshed WiFi and pico cells will again multiply the capacity of wireless… but it’s never going to be fiber.

An Avalanche of Fiber Now
The beauty of fiber is that it offers unlimited bandwidth as far as we can tell. Each strand might only support 10 Gbps with todays lasers, but DWDM creates dozens or more of those 10 Gbps channels on a single fiber strand. Why install a single hair-thin fiber when you can bundle 100 or more in a cable about the size of the familiar twisted pair bundles?

Of course multiple strand cables are the only way to go. For awhile it looked like way too much capacity had been installed during at the tech boom of the 90’s. Now those dark fiber strands are being lit up en-masse and more capacity is being installed nationwide.

Google has it right. The future… the near future… is fiber and Gigabit bandwidth is something we won’t be salivating over for long. Soon it will be 10 Gbps and then 100 Gbps. There is no end in sight.

It’s not just Google in selected cities or Verizon’s FiOS. Every incumbent telecom company and all the new competitive service providers are in a race to get to fiber as their standard connectivity for both home and business.

Goodbye SONET, Hello Ethernet
The incumbent telcos and the long line providers built their fiber networks with the SONET protocol, as it was the logical upgrade from TDM copper such as T1 and E1. All the new networks are being built around Carrier Ethernet and the older ones are converting rapidly.

Sometimes the most sensible thing to do is install Ethernet over SONET as an upgrade. When starting from scratch, native Ethernet is the protocol of choice. It’s unlikely we’ll return to a circuit switched world. It’s packet switching as far forward as we can see.

The beauty of Ethernet is that it is directly compatible with the local networks in every home and business, and all of the equipment that connects to them. Carrier Ethernet is designed to be highly scalable, with many more increments in bandwidth than were offered by SONET and fractional SONET services. You can pretty much pick the bandwidth you want, although standard LAN speeds of 10, 100 and 1000 Mbps are popular, with 10 Gbps more in demand every day.

Moreover, Ethernet services are fast and easy to scale. You can generally call your provider and get bandwidth upgrades immediately or within a few days. As long as the installed port for your WAN service can handle it, you can keep upgrading as needed with no change in premises equipment.

How to FInd the Fiber Services Quickly
You can try looking the old fashioned way, by looking in the phone directory for telecom carriers in your area. Or just run an online search. You’ll find some of them for sure, but might miss out on others that are new or not widely publicized.

It makes more sense to use a search engine that is dedicated to finding fiber optic bandwidth and nothing else. That’s the GeoQoute (™) system. How difficult is it to use? Trivially easy, in fact. You simply start by entering some basic contact information and the type of service you want. In a few minutes, the automated system will give you a list of options with budgetary pricing. If you like what you see, a complementary discussion with a product specialist can help you narrow down the choices and find out about limited time special offers that might be an even better deal.

Sound good? Do a fast search for fiber optic network services now and see what you may have been missing for years.

How to Find GigE Connections For Your Business

By: John Shepler

Gigabit Ethernet, or GigE, is becoming the bandwidth connection of choice for many businesses and other organizations. So, how do you find bandwidth services at this level and how can you be sure you’re getting the best deal? Let’s take a look.


Business Quality High Bandwidth
Professional grade GigE services are offered by incumbent and competitive telecommunications carriers. These are high quality fiber optic lines with dedicated symmetrical bandwidth that is low in latency, jitter and packet loss. They generally come with SLAs or Service Level Agreements that guarantee performance.

Legacy SONET Services
Not ALL telecom carriers offer GigE. Some still operate only legacy SONET fiber optic services that are higher in price and less scalable. These include OC-3, OC-12, and OC-48.

Carrier Ethernet Options
Most of the legacy carriers and newer startups with their own fiber optic networks now offer what is known as Carrier Ethernet. This is network Ethernet that has been extended for long haul connections. Typical bandwidth levels are 10 Mbps Standard Ethernet, 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet, and 1,000 Mbps Gigabit Ethernet, called GigE for short.

Ethernet Scalability
You should know that Carrier Ethernet services are very flexible and that you can order nearly any bandwidth you need, with the option to easily upgrade later.

Where Do You Find GigE?
Finding GigE connections can be a challenge if you aren’t involved in doing so frequently. Prices are constantly in flux and generally headed downward. New service providers show up without notice and may offer deals that disrupt the traditional marketplace. How do you know that you’ve found everything available to you?

GeoQuote Makes It Easy
The easiest and most comprehensive approach is to use an automated online tool from a major telecom agency, such as Telarus. Their GeoQuote is patented software that goes out and gathers pricing information from dozens of carriers and presents a comprehensive list of those available for your location. All you do is provide some basic information that the system needs to run the search. Then push the button and wait for the results.

How long does It take?
Usually a minute or so. Sometimes the system needs a few minutes to gather a large range of options. You’ll soon see a table with the appropriate services, including GigE bandwidth, on your browser.

Support Readily Available
You have the option to contact a Telarus product specialist with a toll free call or online inquiry… or have then call you at a convenient time. These agents can help you do the tradeoffs among options, and they have access to limited time special offers that may not show up in the automated system. There is no obligation for this free service.

Discover Your Options Now
Would you like to find out what GigE services are available in your area and what they cost? We have a form at Telexplainer.net that lets you access the GeoQuote system. You may also call toll free (888) 848-8749 for assistance and discussion with an expert agent.

Finding Lit Buildings and Near Net Fiber Buildings

By: John Shepler

Fiber optic bandwidth service is becoming a staple of modern business. Yet, not everyone has it. Some businesses are just too small to make good use of the 10 Mbps+ bandwidth available over fiber and are happy to stick with T1 lines or lower speed Ethernet over Copper service. Some businesses remember the high prices they encountered when they last checked fiber service pricing and don’t know how much more affordable it is now. Many others could easily get fiber but don’t know that it is already in their building or right next door.

Fiber optic bandwidth isn’t the esoteric product it used to be. Now even consumers are demanding fiber to the premises (FTTP) to support high definition television and on-demand video. Businesses moving to the cloud are finding that the old connectivity doesn’t cut it anymore. Only fiber has the capacity combined with low latency, jitter and packet loss to give you efficient connections with your cloud services. If you are in the video production or distribution business or need to transport large volumes of medical images, then fiber is pretty much a given.

So, how do you go about getting fiber optic service for your business without breaking the bank? You start by finding out what’s readily available to you. If the building you are in already has one or more fiber optic lines pulled-in and connected then it is said to be “lit.” A lit building almost guarantees that you’ll be able to order fiber optic service. The hard work has already been done. What costs a bundle is the construction required to run the fiber optic cable from the carrier’s closest point of presence overhead or underground to your facility and hook up the termination equipment in the telecom room.

Unlike twisted copper pair, even a single optical fiber has tremendous capacity. Right now 10 Gbps is typical, although that can be multiplied using multiple lasers transmitting at different frequencies or wavelengths down the same fiber. This is called DWDM or Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing. If you like, you can generally lease an entire wavelength yourself. It’s an optical private line. You own the total capacity to use as you wish.

Most often, you’ll want a lower level service standardized under SONET (Synchronous Optical NETwork) or Ethernet over Fiber (EoF). These services can give you a fraction of the total capacity of the fiber at a small fraction of the cost. Bandwidth can be cost effective at as little as 10 Mbps for EoF and can easily be scaled up to 100 or even 1,000 Mbps and up to 10 Gbps.

One thing to know about lit buildings is that generally they are lit by just one carrier. That carrier will provide service to everyone in the building. You need to find out who that is and what services they have to offer.

What if no carrier has lit your building yet? Surprisingly, that’s still true for the majority of business buildings, even at this late date. In that case you want to know who has lit buildings closest to yours. Why? It’s because the cost of constructing fiber is a function of distance. It’s a lot cheaper if you only have to connect next door than if you have to reach down the block. It’s much less expensive than if the closest fiber is a mile or more away.

If your building is lit, then it is considered to be on network or “on-net”. If you are not receiving service, then you are “off-net.” As you can imagine, there is a clear price difference between facilities that are on and off-net. If you are off-net but close to a building that is on-net, then you are considered to be “near-net.” This is a good position to be in because it is generally very practical to get new fiber optic service into near-net buildings.

This all makes sense, but how do you know if you are on, off or near a fiber network and which carrier or carriers are involved? That’s a daunting task to do as an individual if all you have is a telephone and a copy of the Yellow Pages. Even a web search will give you some possible carriers, but not all of them, and it won’t tell you anything about your network status. Fortunately, there is a specialized search tool that specifically locates fiber optic services for any given location.

This is the patented Telarus GeoQuote software that you can access for free. You simply enter your business address and the system will search its database to provide you a map and list of nearby fiber optic locations. It’s all automated and can be accessed from any web browser anytime, day or night. There’s no obligation, but you do have the option of having a telecom brokerage consultant give you the latest competitive pricing for options that apply to your location. The one limitation is that this service only works for business addresses and is not for residential users.

Are you ready for a pleasant surprise? Go ahead and check your business location for available fiber optic services. Even if you’ve done some research on your own lately, you may well find options that you didn’t even know were available.

Instant Metro Ethernet Provider Maps

Metro Ethernet (Metro E) services have big advantages for businesses and organizations. These include higher bandwidths, lower costs and special services such as meshed WAN connections. The big question is what Metro E services are available for your business. For that, you need a Metro Ethernet provider map.

Why bother mapping out Ethernet availability? This service is so new that it is not yet universally available. You can call up just about any major carrier and ask about T1 service with the expectation that you can get one or more T1 lines anytime you want them. If you want Metro Ethernet, however, you may well find that your usual provider has no Ethernet capability as of yet or that they don’t service your business location.

Besides the newness of the service, there are a couple of other tricky aspects to Metro E. First, there are several methods of providing service. High bandwidth connections, say 50 Mbps and above, almost always require fiber optic lines. It is estimated that fewer than 30% of all business locations are currently “lit” for fiber optic service. If you don’t have it, or have service from a carrier that only deals in the older SONET protocol, there may be costs and/or time delays in getting your building connected.

Your odds of getting the Metro Ethernet service you want increase dramatically when you include a multitude of competitive service providers in your assessment. The problem is that the time honored ways of looking for service providers in the phone book or industrial directories may miss many good opportunities. What you really want is a service that specializes in business bandwidth. That service is readily available at no cost through a bandwidth services broker.

One of the best in the business is Telarus, Inc. They’ve made available a self-service mapping tool called GeoQuote (tm). The GeoQuote search requires only some basic location information such as street address, city and state of the location you want to check. The patented system then searches a massive database and even accesses carrier IT systems to gather information on the Ethernet services at or near your building. The results are presented on a standard street map plus a listing of distance and capability of each service available. If you wish, you can then go on to get a detailed real-time price quote by entering your contact information.

By knowing where high bandwidth fiber is already installed, you can then get competitive quotes and see just what the construction costs are. You may get lucky and find that your building is “on-net” for one or more providers. That means there is already fiber in the building and it only has to be installed to your offices.

What if there is no fiber nearby? You may still be able to get Ethernet bandwidths from 3 to 50 Mbps using a technology called “Ethernet over Copper (EoC).” This service uses the same twisted pair telco wiring that bring in multi-line phone service and T1. The technology is a bit different and requires that the central office where your copper lines are connected has the specialized interface equipment needed for EoC. Many, many COs now have that capability. The speed of the service depends highly on how far you are away from the CO. If you are located nearby, you can get EoC bandwidth that rivals entry level fiber services. If farther away, you may be limited to 10 or 20 Mbps or not be able to get service at all.

Even if Ethernet over Copper is unavailable, there is a chance that a related technology called EoDS1 can work for your situation. This involves using multiple T1 lines to bring in the Ethernet signal. Distance isn’t an issue for this approach, although you are limited to 10 or 12 Mbps max.

Are you curious now about the fiber and copper based Ethernet services available to your business? Try using the GeoQuote instant Metro Ethernet provider maps and get complete price quotes for each competitive service.

Give Yourself Enough Time to Save on Telecom Costs

Everybody likes to save money. Anyone managing anything within a business makes it their mission to get the best deal possible for their company. Telecom cost savings? You bet! Who wouldn’t want the most service for the least money? You can have that, you know. There are really only two things you need to do. The first is knowing where to look. The second is allowing enough time to implement the optimum solution.

Knowing where to look has gotten real easy within the last decade. Instead of a half-hearted effort thumbing through the phone book and calling whoever you happen to find that looks appropriate, or working yourself into a frenzy trying to mine the Internet for potential vendors, all you have to do is contact a telecom broker who represents several dozen providers.

At least a few of these providers will have the right size solution for your needs and be serving your business location or locations. You get multiple competitive quotes and free consulting support, if you want it. Chances are good that you’ll be offered deals you never could have found on your own.

Who is this award winning telecom broker that makes your life easy? It’s Telarus, Inc. They invented, and patented, the GeoQuote (tm) telecom search engine that gives you instant online quotes for everything from telephone trunks to Gigabit Ethernet private line bandwidth. You can access the GeoQuote input form on our T1 Rex website, among others. Go ahead and give it a try. See if the results are better that whatever else you’re finding.

Now that you know where to look, you also need to know when to look. This is where a lot of business owners and managers go awry. The natural tendency is to wait until your current contract is almost up for renewal before looking at alternatives. It may be that you are unaware of the expiration date until somebody from that supplier calls you about renewing for another 1 to 3 years. It could be that someone from accounting put the renewal notification on your desk a month ago but it got lost in the shuffle. It might even be that you know it’s coming up but you’re just too busy to give it any attention. After all, you’re probably getting roughly the best deal anybody else would give you, right?

Wrong! The telecom industry has gotten incredibly competitive since deregulation was implemented decades ago. Time was when you could choose from your local telephone company or nobody to get analog or digital lines. Now there are dozens of competitors, large and small, each with their own service footprint and specialized offerings. A provider doesn’t have to be based in your area to serve your location. Many have installed equipment in local telco offices and lease whatever last mile connections they need to complete your circuit.

The other thing to be aware of is that new technology has multiplied the number of options available to meet your needs. You may have started your company with a few telephone lines and a DSL or T1 line, but now you should also be looking at Ethernet over Copper, MPLS networks for linking multiple locations, lower cost fiber optic connections, ISDN PRI or SIP digital trunks, and cloud hosted services.

Cloud services have become the most sought after solutions to many business needs because they give you the opportunity of paying per user per month rather than a flat monthly lease fee or having to invest in expensive on-premises equipment. Hosted VoIP telephone systems, Software as a Service, cloud storage, managed routers and virtualized servers are all fairly recent developments that could potentially save you a lot of money and meet your needs better than what you’ve been using all these years.

There are lots of exciting possibilities to consider, but you won’t be taking advantage of any of them if your contract runs out today and you have the choice of signing the renewal papers on your desk or going without telephone or Internet service. The time to start the savings process is well in advance. Allowing three months ahead of contract expiration is a good rule of thumb for many companies. This gives you time needed to make contact, get competitive offers, mull them over, ask questions, refine your needs, place an order and give the vendor time to install your new service. If you are looking to connect a lot of branch offices, run lines across international borders or get high bandwidth fiber that needs construction, you should at least be asking questions as soon as you know what you need.

Don’t be shy about asking the vendors to help you define your requirements or customize a solution that does everything you need. Some will come back with off the shelf offers, but there are quite a few today who are anxious to do whatever it takes to get your business. These companies have expert engineering teams who know their systems inside and out, and they have the technical savvy to make sure your network is capable of supporting the high performance bandwidth or latency sensitive voice services you are asking for. Some providers are quite happy to augment or even be your IT department if that’s what you need.

Does this discussion get you excited about looking into new possibilities or a little nervous that you are running out of time? Either way, the best thing you can do is check prices and request information on telecom services that meet your needs at the best prices in the industry.

Ethernet Gigabit Prices On Demand

Business automation, extensive use of video and a migration to the cloud are straining corporate WAN connections. The logical thing to do is assess your bandwidth needs and then go shopping for the best deals. How easy is that? Really easy! Go ahead and check real time fiber optic bandwidth prices now...




If you’ve been involved in pricing telecommunication circuits over the years, you may cringe at the thought of going out and getting a new set of competitive quotes. You have to locate carriers that service your area, make calls that often go to voice mail and then degenerate into phone tag, get written quotes and sort through all the fine print to make sure you are comparing apples to apples. Even after all this time, effort and eye strain, how can you be sure you didn’t miss the really good deals?

Using legacy methods, your results really are likely to be hit and miss. That’s why Telarus, Inc. invested years and millions of dollars refining a modern automated process that locates providers that service your location, interacts with their pricing systems, and generates online quotes displayed as a table of options priced from least to most expensive. It’s almost like having a dedicated staff member to do the research and compile a report, only a lot faster.

Fiber Network Quotes uses the Telarus GeoQuote real time pricing service to generate both copper and fiber line service prices from 10 Mbps up to 1 Gbps any time you care to use it. Too harried during the work day? No problem. You can run these quotes on a laptop from your favorite coffee shop after five. The system is even available nights and weekends if that’s when you have a few quiet moments to spare. Generate a single T1 line or Gigabit Ethernet quote or investigate a few other possibilities. It tells you which quotes can be provided immediately and which require some manual processing and will be emailed in a few hours or a few days. The tricky ones are multi-location MPLS networks and the like.

You’re not left to the machines completely. An expert Telarus bandwidth consultant is available at no cost to help you assess your needs and compare offers from competing carriers. Just indicate that you’d like a phone call and you’ll get a response promptly.

Are you in the market for additional telephone trunk line capacity, higher WAN bandwidth, networks to transparently link your many business locations? Perhaps you just have an unsettled feeling that you are paying more than you’d have to, considering the rapid increase in competition among telecom service providers. For any of these reasons, just find a few minutes in your busy schedule and get real time telecom line and network prices now.

Finding An Ethernet Internet Provider

You’ve heard that Ethernet Internet service offers advantages over traditional telecom services, such as T1 lines and DS3 bandwidth. But where do you go to find an Ethernet Internet provider? You go right here...



The Ethernet Internet Finder is your one-stop service for locating Ethernet Internet providers and getting competitive service quotes. It’s affiliated with Telarus, Inc., the renowned telecom services broker, and connects to their patented GeoQuote software and suite of expert consultants. All you do is enter some basic company contact information and you are good to go. Try to enter the main telephone number at the business rather than a cell phone, as the system uses this information to help find service availability and pricing.

Don’t worry about getting charged for any of this. The Ethernet Internet Finder is free to use for any serious business purpose. The friendly consultants will go over the range of services available for your location and make recommendations for how you can get the most bandwidth for the least cost. Yes, you need a location that is listed for business use for this to work. If you are working from a home office or want residential service, we recommend “Can I Get DSL?” to find your best options for DSL, Cable, 4G wireless, fiber to the home, and satellite broadband.

In case you are not familiar with Ethernet Internet access, this is a fairly new bandwidth service that is growing by leaps and bounds. It provides an Ethernet connection from your local area network, which is already running Ethernet, to the Internet, which is highly compatible with Ethernet. Traditional telecom connections were designed to transport telephone calls and are not as efficient as what’s known as Metro or Carrier Ethernet. There are also many new providers who specialize in Ethernet and IP networks that are anxious to compete for your business.

As a result, you can generally save money when you switch to Ethernet Internet service. How much? It’s not unusual to get twice the bandwidth for the same cost using Ethernet at 3 Mbps vs a T1 line at 1.5 Mbps. The higher the bandwidth, the lower the price per Mbps.

Also, new Ethernet over Copper (EoC) technology can deliver 10 Mbps Ethernet connections to your business using existing twisted pair copper wiring. You don’t necessarily have to bring in new fiber optic service to get the bandwidth you need. How much bandwidth can you get and for what cost? The easy way to find out is to use the Ethernet Internet Finder now.

How Telarus GeoScan Finds Better Network Deals

The nation’s premier telecom brokerage service, Telarus, Inc., is introducing an advanced telecom carrier research tool to its family of proprietary software-based services. The new GeoScan enables Telarus consultants to better search and refine carrier service offerings for clients. By making the search and evaluation process more sophisticated, Telarus agents can ferret out the closest matching offers for a particular set of applications.

Why is such a tool needed? After all, the patented GeoQuote process already leads the industry in its ability to find and organize dozens of competing services from a plethora of carriers. What’s happened is an embarrassment of riches for Telarus. As the company’s reputation has grown in the industry, more and more carriers have requested to be included in the Telarus search results. On top of that, the telecom industry itself is undergoing a major transformation from switched circuit services to packet switched networks worldwide.

Within the last few years, the venerable T1 line, DS3 connection, and SONET/SDH fiber optic carriers have been challenged by Metro Ethernet services with scalable bandwidths from 3 Mbps through 10 Gbps. Include SIP trunking, wireless last mile links, and MPLS networks and you have an order of magnitude, at least, multiplication in the variety of service offerings available to businesses and organizations. It’s a deluge of options that can easily overwhelm the time-honored quote methods used by most telecom agents.

Telarus saw this coming when they refined their GeoQuote system to electronically connect with carrier databases and then assemble a list of appropriate quotes instantly. But a database connection can deliver a fire hose stream of data that’s hard to analyze at a glance for the best opportunities. That’s where the value of GeoScan shines. With this additional tool, Telarus agents can specify parameters such as the max MRC per location, the type of product and term for each circuit. That allows them to mine the data to find the particular service deals that are exact matches to a customer’s requirements.

Today’s business environment is more highly focused on productivity than ever before. That’s resulting in more sophisticated computer processes linking an ever increasing number of physical locations including overseas offices and factories. To keep up, telecom service providers have to step up their own processes to quickly analyze a prospective customer's needs and generate accurate quotes. They also need to be able to rapidly modify options to try “what ifs” and deal with a customer’s dynamically changing requirements.

This is where Telarus shines as the next generation of telecom brokers. They have the tools to tackle large and complex situations and the carrier relationships to offer the best-fit solutions available. This process scales from small businesses such as insurance or real estate offices up through major medical centers and Fortune 500 companies. The tools and the consultants can service any serious business opportunity that comes their way.

Could your company benefit from a complementary review of your voice, data and video networking needs? It’s free, of course, and you’ll likely be surprised by the variety of service options that you didn’t even know exist. Why not give it a try? Take just a minute and tell Telarus about your applications. It will be well worth your while.

Five Years Of The Explainer

T1 Rex’s Business Telecom Explainer celebrated it’s 5th anniversary this month, with well over 800 posts since 2004. We started off with a mission to explain the intricacies of telecommunications services and offer competitive service options to businesses. This mission has expanded to include a host of products, services and issues of interest to our readers. As we get ready to enter the second decade of the century, let’s see if we can make sense of what happened in the “aught” years of the Millennium and where we might be going next.

As the name implies, this explainer blog was launched in conjunction with T1Rex.com. T1 Rex came to be because of a new invention in the world of telecommunications. A company called Telarus developed a software process called GeoQuote (now patented) that automates the pricing of commonly used business telecom services. The focus was T1 lines, which are the most common professional grade voice and data connection for most businesses.

Prior to GeoQuote, the way you got a quote for a T1 line was to submit an inquiry form or answer questions over the phone and then wait a week or two while your request was passed through channels and your quote was manually calculated. With the GeoQuote automated quote form on T1Rex.com, a curious business manager or network engineer could enter some basic information online and get a quote that was better than 90% accurate in less than a minute. It’s even more accurate today and there are many more options than just T1 lines.

GeoQuote upended the marketing of telecommunications services the same way that the IBM computer changed accounting, numerical control changed manufacturing, and computer aided design changed engineering. Once automation gets into a process, everything happens faster and with fewer errors. The productivity increases can be orders of magnitude above what they were with the old manual processes. There’s no going back.

We’re all getting a taste of this in our private and well as business lives. Social Networking has emerged in the last few years to revolutionize how we communicate. Remember when everyone wanted to make a website? Hardly anyone builds sites anymore unless they have a very specific business or special interest need. Websites were replaced by blogs. Blogs are being replaced by social networking sites like MySpace, FaceBook and LinkedIn. Do you still email? Twitter is the new email. It nicely complements and integrates with cell phone text messaging.

Even Twitter may seem like yesterday’s news later this decade. Most cell phones now have cameras with fairly good resolution and the ability to take short video clips. Picture and video messaging are gaining popularity. How soon before there’s a video screen on a service like Twitter so you just click for a short video message? Video and audio won’t replace text, of course. There are too many situations where you need to communicate briefly and with stealth. They’ll simply add another dimension.

Video is the long heralded “killer app” for the Internet. You know what a phenomenon YouTube has been. Now TVs and Blu-ray players come Internet-ready so they can play those YouTube clips on the big screen and also access full length network programs on the Web. You can catch up on many TV shows you missed by watching them on your computer. But you know that you really want to lay back in the recliner and watch them on the TV. That’s going to be common very, very soon.

Video conferencing is breaking out of the corporate conference room and onto the desktop right now. My iMac came ready to video chat with a built-in camera and microphone. Many other computers, including laptops and netbooks, are similarly equipped. As I write this, the airlines are busy tightening security because of terrorist attack that almost succeeded. Some of the new rules are going to make an annoying travel experience nearly insufferable. That, combined with the Great Recession that may linger for years, is going to get a lot of business people and casual travelers thinking about alternatives. In many cases, a convenient video conference can do the job of a personal visit. As this catches on, you can expect a push to improve quality and ease of sharing photos and videos similar to what Cisco calls Telepresence.

Video conferencing is also going to be big on cell phones. If people can walk down the street working their thumbs while staring at text on a screen, they can certainly watch the person they are communicating with in real time. To think that they laughed at Dick Tracy’s wrist TV in the 60’s. We wouldn’t even settle for a screen that small anymore.

Video is what has gotten the telecom carriers scared stiff, and for good reason. Just like the move from email to interactive Web sites forced the upgrade from dial-up to broadband, the move to video and high definition everything is forcing carriers into a bandwidth upgrade. Verizon has wisely started deploying fiber optic to the premises before demand makes it mandatory. The cable companies are deploying DOCSIS 3.0 for the same reason. There will soon be no such thing as too much bandwidth. For business locations, the best answer seems to be Ethernet over copper or fiber. When multiple business locations outside of a metro area are involved, MPLS networks are the emerging leader for high bandwidths at reasonable prices.

It’s the cellular carriers that feel faint at the thought of everyone having a smartphone. Their thousands of towers were equipped to efficiently handle telephone conversations and text messaging. Light duty Web surfing and limited multimedia is being accommodated with 2.5 and 3G upgrades. But they will need 4G and a lot of it to handle the load of HD video streaming on a near-continuous basis. Even the FCC is already wondering if there are more over-the-air TV channels it can repurpose for cellular broadband. There’s a real danger that there just isn’t going to be enough spectrum to go around. At sometime during the next decade you can expect a major fight to ensue over what is the “best” use of the choice VHF and UHF frequencies.

A new technology we’ve just started following is called Poken. It’s wireless, but what’s called near-field wireless. Using low frequencies that won’t be part of the TV/Cellular/Microwaves slugfest, Poken devices exchange information when they touch each other. The idea is to replace business cards and social business cards with an electronic data transfer and a portal to manage the contact information. It nicely supports hot links to your current social networking and business sites, for instant access by those you contact. Poken is already hugely popular in Europe.

Well, this is almost certainly the tip of the technology iceberg. Many exciting developments in the coming “teens” decade haven’t even emerged yet. It’s our plan to be writing about them as they do, and I hope that you’ll be with us for what is bound to be an exciting time.

Use a Telecom Broker Before You Go Broker

Where do you buy your telecom line services? From the local phone company? From a carrier sales executive? OK, then. How do you know you're getting the best deal? After all, every one of them will smile at you and tell you what a good deal you're getting. But without a list of competitive quotes to compare, who's to say if you're getting a good deal, great deal, so-so deal, or taken to the cleaners?

Great. So who's got time to chase down a dozen competitive service providers and get quotes out of them? Who can even find these people? I'll tell you who. A telecom broker, that's who!

You may have never heard of a telecom broker but you'll probably benefit from using one. The role of the telecom broker is to do the leg work that you don't have time for. These people are experts in the telecommunications industry but not employed by any of the service providers. They are independent business people who guard their independence so that they can present their clients with unbiased listings of the best deals.

Think independent insurance agent. The relationship is similar. An independent agent, in this case called a master agency, is a representative of a particular company and licensed to sell their services. They would be just another sales representative except that the independent agent has relationships with many companies. That way they are not bound to present only a single offer. They can show you as many offers as are available for your particular business location.

That sure sounds good, but how much are you going to have to fork over to get these multiple offers. Not a penny. You do not pay for the services of the telecom broker. Their fees are paid by the carriers. Most carriers are happy to do this because they only have to shell out a commission fee when the broker sells one of their services. It's strictly pay for results.

A telecom broker has the latitude to act as a free consultant to your business. You don't even need to know the industry terminology for the service you need. Simply describe what you are trying to accomplish and with what equipment. The broker will scour the available offerings and help you pick the one that gives you the most performance for the least amount of money. Brokers are also aware of new services just on the market and any limited time discounts that happen to be in place.

It's all win and no lose for you, the business manager or owner. You get free help in selecting and ordering the telecom services you need, and at a better price than you can probably find yourself. You'll also have another place to go for support in case your needs change or on the odd chance you have trouble with your service.

So, how do you find such a broker? Arguably the best in the business is Telarus, Inc. They have an extensive group of expert consultants available, with phone coverage 24/7 and easy online inquiries. You'll be able to access them quickly and easily through our T1 Rex GeoQuote(tm) service provided by Telarus. Let them be of assistance right now. Yes, right now!

Telarus, the New Face of Telecom Sales

Disruptive technology is reforming the telecommunications field. Wireless is disrupting the 100 year old wireline business. VoIP is disrupting the 50 year old digital voice trunking business. Competitive fiber optic carriers are disrupting the stranglehold of incumbent phone companies on metro and long haul data circuits. Ethernet and IP network cores are blurring the distinction between local and wide area networks.

Despite this revolution in technology, what hasn't changed much is the sales and marketing process for business telecommunications services. It's largely parochial, consisting of isolated channels with sluggish inquiry and price quote systems. To call it Web 1.0 would be generous. But what's wrong with that? After all, augmenting telephone, paper and fax based systems with online inquiry request forms, email communications, and brochure Web sites seems like just the enhancement needed to keep up with changing times.

It did seem that way, until someone came along and completely blew the equipment rack doors off the staid old telecom sales and marketing process. In the last five years, Telarus, Inc., has totally obliterated a century of incremental improvement in the industry. Rather than cut the inquiry-to-price-quote time on a T1 line from a few days to a few hours, they reduced it to a few seconds. Instead of bolstering the carrier-by-carrier response to a customer inquiry, they merged all the responses into a single report that compares similar services, say ISDN PRI trunks, by price for the same service from all participating carriers.

An overworked IT manager can get an automatic price quote for a triple-bonded T1 data line at 3 AM in under a minute, including the time needed to enter the business location and number. That same manager can call a toll free number anytime 24/7 to discuss WAN expansion needs or compare telephone trunking options with a technical and sales consultant.

What has Telarus done that others didn't? A lot of the answer is in rethinking the business process with an eye to automating as much as possible and providing rapidly responding human links for everything else. The core of their pricing system is a patented software system called GeoQuote. It connects directly to carrier databases to perform the engineering and cost calculations needed for the most popular T1 voice and data line services. They also broke up the marketing team into dedicated sales people who work directly with carriers and customers on a real-time basis, and dedicated marketing agents who focus on bringing in qualified business leads.

Re-engineering the traditional wireline sales and marketing process would have been innovation enough, but Telarus has gone on to expand the GeoQuote system to support Ethernet WAN services that don't touch the incumbent telcos. Prospective customers can enter their building address and get a map of the nearest fiber lit buildings and carrier POPs with distance listings. Once again, this automated system is available for both business hours and second or third shift inquiries. Response time is easily under a minute and phone support is always available for consultations, if desired.

Not satisfied with revolutionizing carrier services, Telarus has gone on to re-invent the equipment sales and services marketplace with a social networking approach called the VAR Network. Also totally automated, this system allows customers to enter form-based inquiries which are routed to member VARs (Value Added Resellers) within the appropriate geographical footprint nationwide. Once isolated business telephone and network equipment vendors can now tie into a system that feeds them warm leads via email from businesses in their service footprint that need the products and services they offer. Dealers also have the entire Telarus wireline marketing system at their disposal so that they can add T1, Ethernet and other bandwidth services to their line cards without having to develop in-house expertise in this field.

Little wonder, then, that Telarus has won numerous awards from carriers impressed with the sales volumes they bring in. Now Telarus has been just been announced as a Phone+ Top 50 Channel Program winner. All of this makes us beam with pride to be part of the Shop For T1, Shop For Ethernet and VAR Partner Network programs that are the Telarus marketing juggernaut.