Filling Coverage Gaps With High Quality Business Satellite

By: John Shepler

Businesses located in major metro areas really have it made when it comes to voice and data network connections. Multiple service providers are often anxious to vie for your business. What if you are located even a little bit beyond the reach of fiber, cable and wireless? Are you stuck with POTS landlines and maybe T1 at best? Not anymore.

Your Options are UP
Stop looking in the ground or on the utility poles. You should be looking at the clear sky for your telephone and broadband service. Satellite service is well entrenched for both broadcast TV delivery and small business point of purchase sales. Now, one satellite service has really raised the bar on what they can offer to business users in the way of primary or redundant backup connectivity.

High Bandwidth, VoIP Telephone, FaceTime
Two-way satellite service has a reputation for low bandwidth, low data caps, high latency and iffy service. That’s the old paradigm. Viasat has brought satellite up to a standard that can truly be called “business grade.” Telarus co-founder Patrick Oborn recently visited the Viasat campus for a demo. Pay close attention to the quality and usability of the VoIP telephone and FaceTime calls.


Has this changed your option of how well satellite could work for your business?

Plenty of Bandwidth, More Coming
T1 and fractional T1 bandwidths were good enough when all you needed to do was run credit card purchases and exchange Email. Today’s business is data heavy, video rich and primarily located in the cloud. You need significantly higher bandwidth, robust service, and support for interactive services, including telephone and video conferencing.

You should be looking at ViaSat. Their current satellites blanket the USA mainland and Hawaii, with some coverage in Alaska. The West Coast and the eastern half of the country can get 15/4 Mbps service with persistent IP addresses and unlimited data plans. You’ll be able to implement VoIP telephone, high speed file transfer, email, web browsing, streaming HD video and point of sale. A lower speed 5/1 Mbps redundancy service is available for most of West or if you just need independent backup of your existing copper or wire lines.

Here’s something really exciting! The advanced Viasat-2 satellite was launched in June and will be turned up in early 2018 with a throughput capacity of 300 Gbps. You’ll be able to get download speeds up to 100 Mbps. That’s as good as fiber and just about anywhere you want it in the lower 48 states, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central Americas and even the air routes to Europe. The Viasat-3 satellites launching in the next couple of years will feature downloads up to 1,000 Mbps.

Have you been discounting business satellite service because of their historically low-end performance? It’s definitely time to take another look… at Viasat via Telarus. Get your competitive copper, fiber and business satellite options now.

How SD-WAN Hands-Off Seamlessly

By: John Shepler

It would be nice if WAN network connections were uninterruptible. Of course, they aren’t. Even the best copper, fiber or wireless Internet or point to point dedicated lines goes down eventually. With it goes your phone calls and other work in progress. You lose productivity and perhaps even sales. But, what if you had a magic box that made sure your connections never experienced more than a glitch for a fraction of a second no matter what the problem?

The magic box has a name. It is called SD-WAN or Software Defined Wide Area Networking. The box itself controls multiple redundant broadband links and has the intelligence to analyze the quality of each link and assign or remove traffic instantly.

Think this fiction? Have a look at a real time demonstration from Telarus, a leader in deploying this networking technology:


Did you notice that each link was different? Once was cable broadband, one was high speed fiber, and one was LTE wireless. An SD-WAN system will work with whatever links you have available, ranging from DSL to T1, DS3, Satellite, line of sight wireless and so on.

There’s an advantage in not having all your links the exact same type. All it takes is one backhoe to chop through a copper or fiber bundle and you can be out of business for hours, days or even weeks before they can patch it all back together.

If your business needs both speed and reliability in its digital connections to maximize productivity and profit, you should take a closer look at what SD-WAN from Telarus can do for you at a very reasonable cost. Find out what SD-WAN systems and connections are available for your business location now.

Are Your WAN Circuits Monitored For Quality?

By: John Shepler

As we transition from circuit switched telephony and make the move from in-house data centers to the cloud, our WAN (Wide Area Network) circuits become more critical than ever before. A misbehaving network connection that might once have been a mere inconvenience is now a productivity killer at best and a business shutdown at worst. It is essential that every copper and fiber optic line that leaves the building be running at peak performance all the time. But… how do you make sure that is the case?

Do You Know What is Going On Behind Your Back?
Technology has a sneaky side. When your outside network circuits are installed and checked out, the lines are verified to make sure they meet specs for latency, packet loss, jitter and bandwidth. Everything is running great. Tomorrow it’s still running great. But the next day, next week or next month something goes wrong. it might be a subtle change that degrades performance rather than knocking the line out completely.

Where do you point the finger?
The problem could be anywhere in the system. Is your LAN congested or are you dealing with a failing switch? Is it just your computer or telephone set that is having problems? Perhaps it is one of several network circuits that connect you to the outside world. How do you find out for sure?

Circuit Monitoring Is Your Eye on the Network
You can’t just blindly trust that everything is running smoothly. You need a way to look into the system. Likely, you already have that capability. You can run Ping and Traceroute diagnostic tests from your computer whenever you want. That’s great for troubleshooting if you know there is a problem and have time to sit down and run the tests. But what happens when no one is running diagnostics? Hard to say.

That’s where continuous circuit monitoring shines. You don’t have to jump in and run some tests. They are running all the time. Better yet, a monitoring program gives you a chart of how the circuit has been performing over time. Run a diagnostic yourself and you have only a single data point.

Get Automatic Heads-Up Messages
The other beauty of automating the performance monitoring of your WAN circuits is that the monitor can let you know when something goes out of whack. You can get an email when something goes wrong. That way, you don’t have to sit there and watch the screen continuously just in case there is an anomaly. You’ll get notified 24/7. The monitor never sleeps.

Best Deal Ever: Free Circuit Monitoring
The best way to get your WAN circuits monitored is to have it done for free. Ever hear of this? Probably not. This is a fairly new service powered by VXSuite and offered by Telarus on Internet and coax circuits with static IP addresses that they provide. MPLS and other monitoring is available. Telarus is well known for the extensive suite of carriers that they partner with and the best prices on WAN circuits. Now you get this bonus of free circuit monitoring included on both domestic and international circuits.

This circuit monitoring includes a ping and traceroute to that circuit. Packet loss and latency are also measured. If the circuit goes down, you get an email. You also have access to a web-based dashboard to view your current circuit status and performance graphics. A monthly email report is available if you wish.

Do you need WAN circuits you can depend on? Would you like those circuits to be monitored with the powerful VXSuite tools at no extra cost? If so, it is time to get the latest competitive pricing and availability of monitored WAN network circuits for your business.

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.

What’s Wrong With Bring Your Own Bandwidth?

When you go out to contract new IT services, you are often faced with a choice. You can start fresh with both services and connectivity from your new provider. Otherwise you can layer the new IT services on the network setup you have now. Seems that if your MAN and WAN connections are working to your satisfaction, it would be smart to leave well enough alone. But, what other considerations should play into this decision?

Not every service provider deals in bandwidth. Many VoIP, cloud computing and other service providers specialize in the specific service they offer. They may make recommendations, but getting connected from your facility to theirs is your responsibility.

Other companies have a far larger array of services to offer. Some started off as competitive telecom carriers and later added other services such as colocation, cloud infrastructure, hosted PBX, Software as a Service and so on. Talk to these companies and they’ll express a definite preference for providing both the IT or telecom service plus the connectivity. Is this simply being offered as a convenience to the customer, a desire to get as much of the client’s business as possible, or are there other reasons? If so, what would they be?

A common industry term for using the network connections you have now is “bring your own bandwidth.” You’ll hear this term used most often by VoIP, hosted PBX and cloud computing providers. There’s a reason that this expression keeps coming up in provider literature and consulting discussions. It’s far more than just industry jargon.

What’s unique about cloud services of all sorts is that the performance of the cloud service is highly dependent on the performance of the connection between your facility and your provider's. Issues with customer provided bandwidth pop up so often that providers have become wary.

A common application is hosted VoIP. Unless you have an IP PBX switching system in-house, any VoIP service you are using is probably hosted VoIP. Hosted means that the service provider owns and operates the switching system and the trunk lines to the public telephone system. You only need to have IP phones and perhaps a gateway device in-house.

Hosted VoIP can best the best thing that ever happened to your company or an unmitigated nightmare. In fact, the very same service that works beautifully for one company can be a disaster for another. Why? It’s because voice services, particularly network voice services like VoIP, are highly sensitive to the characteristics of the long haul network connections to them.

Voice is a touchy application because it is real-time and easily corrupted. Any network congestion that holds up packets, drops them or brings them in at a variable rate will be reflected in the call quality. Many network anomalies show up as audio distortion that garbles conversations. Other problems are delays that chop off the beginning of sentences and intermittent outages that drop calls.

This is why major business providers with reputations to protect cringe at the thought of their clients bringing their own bandwidth when it is a shared bandwidth DSL or Cable Internet connection. Those low end services work just fine for e-mail and general website access. Add a third party broadband phone services and you are really taking your chances. Why? Your network may not be set up to give voice packets priority, the bandwidth on your broadband Internet service may vary all over the place, and even when those things are working well, the Internet itself has all sorts of vagaries.

Even the Cable companies themselves are aware of this situation and don't run their bundled telephone services over the Internet. What they sell you is a VoIP phone service that uses their Cable network to connect to their own VoIP switching center. Your telephone calls never touch the Internet itself. Call quality is just too dicey and hard to predict when you are dealing with a public network where no packet has an advantage, by design.

What major VoIP service providers really prefer is that you get a dedicated SIP trunk from them to provide your voice and Internet service. This way they can control the WAN connection and keep the voice and data packets from tripping all over each other. With the right bandwidth, latency, jitter and packet loss characteristics, you can have excellent voice quality and all the advantages of hosted PBX telephone services.

The same discussion applies to high bandwidth cloud connections. What some companies are finding is that the WAN connection to their new cloud provider isn’t nearly as capable as the LAN connection they had to their in-house data center. The big issues are bandwidth and latency. You need sufficient bandwidth so that users don’t have to queue up when they access the cloud. Latency introduces a delay that makes the cloud applications seem sluggish. In some instances this has become such a problem that Amazon has make arrangements with Level 3 Communications and AboveNet for special AWS Direct Connect service at 1 Gbps and 10 Gbps for its high performance cloud computing services.

Is bring your own bandwidth a good idea or a bad idea? It depends on how robust your current metro and long haul network connections are and what services you intend to add. A good approach is to discuss connectivity at the same time you are evaluating new IT services to make sure you have what you need to get optimum performance. You can get expert consultation and a wide variety of telephone, cloud and bandwidth services through our telecom broker, Telarus, Inc. A simple online inquiry will get the process started immediately.

Enterprise Communications Services To The Cloud

There’s a great migration underway. This is a technical migration, from the public switched telephone network and private branch exchanges to cloud based communications services. XO communications is a leader in cloud communication services. Here’s why they predict that in the next few years 60% of companies will move close to a third of their voice communications to the cloud...



If you would like a complementary consultation and competitive quotes for your enterprise communication needs, we can offer you prompt and courteous service through our affiliated Telarus product specialists.

So, is it time to rethink your approach to voice communications, such as business telephone? You know that the upgrades you want to make are going to cost a fortune in up-front capital at a time when big capital outlays are frowned upon. You could just let the whole thing go until the economy picks up steam and money flows like water. But...

Here’s the problem. You want and need the productivity improvements you can get with unified communications right now. You may also suspect that you are spending too much on operations and maintenance, and rightly so. The dilemma is that with traditional approaches you can’t afford to make the changes that will give you the available savings.

Now, here’s the solution. It’s called communications as a service. Instead of trying to be in the telephone business yourself, turn that over to experts in enterprise level VoIP over MPLS networks. That way, you can get all of your many business locations on the same network using the same equipment with the same connectivity. You can get niceties like HD voice and video, mobility integration, plus calling features you don’t have now. Best of all, you pay as you go with a predictable per-user monthly cost.

No need to stay mired in limbo. XO cloud communications and other competitive carriers offer migration paths where you can integrate what you have now while you gradually shift to the new cloud solution. Eventually, you just pull the plug on the old PBX and PSTN trunk lines when you no longer need them.

Does pay as you go sound like a better business model for these days than invest and wait years for a payback? If so, you owe it to yourself to take a few minutes and get a complementary consultation and competitive quotes for enterprise services in the cloud.

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.

Free Help On Your Telecom Needs

How would you like to hire some help for free? Not just any help, mind you, but high quality technical expertise to assist you with your telephone and computer networks. No out of pocket cost today or ever. Do you think that offer works well with today’s shrunken personnel budgets?

I’ll bet you do. In fact, you are probably chafing at the bit to find out where you can get some of this help before it’s all gone. Well, relax. There’s plenty to go around.

How can this be true? After all, if you expect to get a service then you also expect to pay for it. You can’t get something for nothing, can you? Yes, you can, if someone else is paying the bill.

Perplexed? Don’t be. What I’m talking about is a telecom brokerage service that has a large group of expert consultants in telephony, computer networking, international network services, wireless business solutions and the like. They stand ready to work with you right now, if only you would let them know what you need. You don’t have to be too specific. Just type a sentence or two to give them the general gist of what you are after. Someone will email or call you shortly to work through the details.

What happens after that? Your friendly consultant may take a few hours or even a couple of days to gather quotes of dozens of competitive service providers and sort out the best price/performance offers to present to you. This is the type of leg work your own staff would otherwise have to do... while you are paying them. No available IT staff to query dozens of potential suppliers in order to find the best match to your needs? Then you really need this service.

Some of these expert consultants routinely spend hours, even dozens of hours working on a single project for their client. How much do they bill per hour? Nothing at all. Oh, they get paid alright. But it’s not by you or any other end user. The brokerage service is paid by the service providers themselves in lieu of having to hire their own staff to do this work. You don’t get dinged with a higher price for service either. You’ll pay exactly the same as if you tracked down each competitive carrier or other service provider and ordered service directly from them without any outside assistance.

One other big advantage of working through a telecom broker is that they have the ability to compare and contrast offers from several to several dozen providers offering a suitable service for your business and location. They can keep a cool head sorting through the offers because they aren’t beholding to a particular vendor. They also know about special limited time offers being run by each providers, information you are unlikely to discover yourself.

So, whether you don’t have a staff or would just rather supplement their effort with free expert consulting service, you owe it to yourself and your bottom line to take advantage of this offer. Simply enter a brief online inquiry to describe your networking need and a friendly Telarus consultant will be touch pronto. You’ll be surprised at how much information you get for almost no effort on your part.

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.

Comprehensive Network Services From Telarus

Building and managing a network for your business can be problematic. For smaller businesses, it’s a distraction from the main focus of the company. For medium and larger operations, it can be a money pit and either a boost or a hinderance to productivity. What can really get painful is integrating your LAN and WAN networks to create one smooth running entity. Is there anything that can help?

You bet there is. There’s a service that can help regardless of whether you are a small office with no tech support to a major corporation with international operations. Imagine getting the hardware, software, installation, maintenance, operation, upgrades, plus connectivity from switched circuit analog telephone right on up to gigabit Ethernet, all from one source. Now, THAT’s comprehensive service!

The service I’m referring to is actually a family of services under one umbrella called Telarus. I first became associated with this company when they launched their groundbreaking “Shop for T1” service over 6 years ago. The revolutionary idea was that you could get T1 line pricing for your business location in under a minute on your Web browser. You still can. Just use the Shop for T1 real-time quote engine on our T1 Rex site.

Competitive T1 line pricing soon expanded to a wide variety of telecom bandwidth services that now encompass DS3, SONET fiber optic connections, Metro Ethernet, MPLS networks, wireless point to point and Dedicated Internet service, colocation servers, ISDN PRI, SIP trunking, and managed routers for everything.

When it comes to WAN services, Telarus offers one-stop shopping for nearly every business bandwidth service you can get. What’s more, being a telecom brokerage service means they can often offer you multiple competitive quotes for the service you need. The Telarus bandwidth consultants can help you weigh the tradeoffs among an often staggering amount of options so you can get the service that meets your business needs at the best price. The cost of all this to you? Zip. It’s free to any organization with serious professional requirements.

But you know that bandwidth is only one piece of the puzzle. How about all that internal infrastructure that keep the packets flowing?

This is where the complementary Telarus VAR Network service comes into play. What’s a VAR? That means Value Added Reseller. It’s an industry term for independent business telephone and computer network companies that specialize in sales and service. VARs will take your business requirements and offer you a package deal for PBX phone systems, routers, network switches, fiber optic cabling, copper wiring, connections and whatever else it takes to build your telephone, data or converged network.

VARs often offer turnkey solutions that include both the equipment and installation. Since the VAR Network is part of the Telarus family, participating VARs also have access to the complete range of bandwidth solutions that Telarus offers. This gives you the advantage of one-stop shopping and a single point of contact for any issues that arise. Accessing the VAR Network is as simple as entering a quick summary of your business needs using the VAR Network online request. That triggers the automated database to alert qualified VARs in your area to contact you for complete details.

Can you do any better than this? I doubt it. If you are not familiar with these Telarus services, go ahead and give them a try. The cost to you is zero, the time required is minimal, and the cost savings can be way more than you might think.

Two T1 Lines For The Price of One

T1 lines are bursting at the RJ-45 connector. Businesses are pushing more data than ever before through their constrained WAN connections. But how do you go ask to buy more bandwidth in these economic times? It’s easy when you can get 2 T1 lines for the price of 1.

Whoa! Who is offering a two-for-one deal on business bandwidth?

Actually, lots of competitive carriers can do this for you. Think I’m kidding? Check T1 line prices now.

I will introduce a slight caveat. The pricing I’m referring to compares what you’ll pay for a dual-bonded T1 line today versus what you paid for a T1 line on a contract signed several years ago in many metropolitan areas. That’s not unreasonable, since professional bandwidth solutions such as T1 lines, DS3 connections, and Metro Ethernet are sold on a lease basis with 1 to 5 year contracts in locations where there are competing carriers.

Many, many companies have 3 year T1 line contracts expiring right now. What do you suppose they are going to do? Some may just ignore the fact that the contract is expired and keep paying the same invoice on a month to month basis. A lot of carriers will let you do that just like with cell phone contracts. Other companies will probably just renew their existing contracts for the same amount as before or with a slight discount. If you do either of these, you are leaving money on the table.

The fact is that the telecommunications market has gotten very competitive recently. There are more carriers interested in your business and there are more technology options than ever. But it’s likely that you are aware of only a single option through your local telephone company or perhaps one other bid from a service provider with a local office. The larger the population center where you are located, the more service options there are. But these carriers don’t have infinitely large sales staffs or advertising budgets, so you may not have been contacted by them.

Well, if they’re not calling you to vie for your business, how do you get their attention? Actually, it's much easier today than ever before because of telecommunications service brokers. Arguably the best of these is Telarus, Inc., developer of the GeoQuote (tm) online telecom service search engine. You can use GeoQuote (tm) to get T1 line quotes in under a minute and confirm what I’ve been saying. You’ll discover even more options if you let a Telarus ShopForT1 consultant call you because they have knowledge of short term special deals that don’t show up in the automated search process.

Did you run a search for your business address? Am I right about the cost of 2x T1 line service at 3 Mbps? Here’s something else to think about. Metro Ethernet is a hot new competitive technology that can give you even more bandwidth at lower prices than bonding a bunch of T1 lines. If your location qualifies, you may be able to get all the bandwidth you need and still meet your telecom service budget this year. It’s well worth your while to check it out.

T1 Sales Support Services

For anyone who wants to be involved in the lucrative business of business voice and data sales, such as T1 data lines and ISDN PRI service for PBX telephone systems, there is a brokerage service that can make the process easy and successful.

The VAR Network, operated by Telarus, Inc., is a comprehensive support system designed to link telecom carriers and other service providers with VARs, or Value Added Resellers. VARs usually act as independent manufacturers representatives for business telephone systems, network switches and routers, video conferencing equipment and the like. Most often a VAR's business includes both sales and service, offering the customer a turnkey package and ongoing maintenance.

As hardware and software oriented businesses, many VARs have not expanded their list of services to include the telephone lines or WAN network services that customers need for a complete business solution. More often than not, a customer would be delighted to have a single point of contact for both the equipment and connectivity that they need. Especially if the VAR was able to present a suite of competitive services rather than simply a reference to a single telecom vendor.

The VAR network does this for independent business people who do not necessarily have the in-depth expertise, the inside contacts with multiple carriers, nor the inkling to get in the middle of sometimes involved negotiation and contract paperwork. The VAR network's consultants have all of those tools at their disposal and telecom service sales are all they do. A VAR can easily hand-off the contractual process for line sales to the VAR Network and be confident that they will do everything in their power to close the order.

Other than the satisfaction of making sure the client gets a good deal on their telecom line services, what's in it for the VAR? Monthly residual income, that's what. For every month that a client pays their billed service, the VAR gets a percentage of the amount involved. It might be the same amount every month in the case of a T1 dedicated Internet service. Or, it might vary from month to month in the case of an ISDN PRI telephone trunk where usage varies. Regardless, there is money to be made for the VAR from every sale.

Why pass on this potentially lucrative income stream or try to go it alone in building relationships with the dozens of competitive carriers now in the field? Why, indeed, when membership in the VAR Network is free of charge and you'll get a monthly check as your customers buy, use and pay for their services?

Sound too good to pass up? It is. Learn more and sign up now with the VAR Network.

Adam Edwards Interview Part II

A short while ago, I had the opportunity to enjoy a dinner conversation with Adam Edwards, president of Telarus, Inc. Adam graciously let me interview him on my Zoom H2 Handy Recorder so that I could share the experience with you.

In Part I of our interview, I asked Adam to explain the philosophy that has made Telarus a phenomenon in the world of business telecommunications services. Just 5 years ago the company was launched with its groundbreaking GeoQuote (tm) instant pricing search engine. Since then it has become arguably the most important master agency in the field, with top awards from the carriers to prove it.

In this audio report, I ask Adam to explain the range of services that Telarus offers and why they are important to you, the customer. To listen, you can click on this link to our Audio Interview with Adam Edwards, Part II. It should start playing in the MP3 audio client on your computer. Or, if you wish, simply listen online using this built-in audio player:


Remember, you can access any of the services Telarus has to offer through our site at T1Rex.com. Simply call the toll free number you find there or enter a quick online inquiry through the Shop For T1 search box. For T1 voice and data lines, you'll get price quotes instantly online. For higher bandwidth services, a product specialist will be in touch with options and special pricing offers.

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!

No Company For Old Ideas

One of most amazing success stories of the last 5 years has been the rise of Telarus, Inc. as a telecommunications marketing powerhouse. For veterans of the telephone and data line industry it may seem like this upstart has come out of nowhere to become a major player overnight. In a field where service options and prices have been slow and measured in their change, how can could this happen?

It's all in the innovation. Well, it's mostly in the innovation. The rest can be attributed to the energy of the two founders, Adam Edwards and Patrick Oborn.

I should mention that I've known both Adam and Patrick as an affiliate of their Shop For T1 program over the last five years. During this time I've been an eye witness to the light-speed change that has taken place in the competitive telecom services field, thanks to Telarus. Before I got involved in the program, marketing T1 lines was largely the purview of the telephone companies and industry veterans who broke out to start their own consulting firms. Then, instantly, businesses users could enter their address and phone number into an online form and get a list of competitive T1 prices in a couple of minutes.

What changed the game was a now patented software tool called GeoQuote (tm). The brains of the system is an online application that hooks-up with carrier databases to calculate line spans and their related lease prices. But the brains behind the brains is Patrick Oborn. A electronics engineer by trade, Patrick cut his Web marketing teeth by building a storefront and agent back office for Cognigen, the forerunner of today's Commission River. His next project, Telarus' Shop For T1 service with its groundbreaking GeoQuote engine, was an order of magnitude more sophisticated. It's still a work in progress. One of the latest features of GeoQuote is mapping out Ethernet service routes by just inputting a business address.

Adam Edwards has complemented Patrick Oborn's skills by being the brains behind the business. Technology, no matter how good, can wither on the vine unless it gets out there in the marketplace and grabs hold before something else moves in. The Telarus business model is unique in its teaming arrangement of lead marketing affiliates, professional sales consultants, carrier channel managers and independent value added resellers, all tied together by an automated infrastructure. It's a system that turns prospective leads coming in by phone or the Internet into customer consultations, service proposals, signed contracts and turned up line services and/or equipment installation. All while making sure nothing slips into the cracks.

This designed-in efficiency has been there from the beginning, and makes it relatively easy to layer on new services such as MPLS networks, wireless point to point, SIP trunking and whatever comes next. This proven model is now being used in an almost recursive way to re-engineer the old Cognigen marketing business into the next generation affiliate marketing company called Commission River. Cognigen was the pride and joy of the late Kevin Anderson, who stunned the consumer and SOHO telecom marketplace with automatic self-replicating storefronts that enabled hundreds of thousands of individuals worldwide to make money with their own Internet-enabled businesses.

Commission River is expanding on Kevin's dream with a suite of new tools, training resources, and updated websites that maintain the focus on residential and small business telecommunications. What started as alternative switched long distance is now VoIP, cellular phone, Web hosting, Triple Play TV/Broadband/Phone, and related services.

What hasn't changed is the affiliate opportunity that enables ambitious individuals with a business or technology background to launch their own small businesses. It's just expanded into a wider range of technology offerings, even including the high commission business services sold by Telarus.

The last generation has been known as the era of Gates and Jobs. Could the next generation be known for Edwards and Oborn?

Audio Interview With Adam Edwards

Arguably the most innovating telecommunications marketing company to come along since the big telecom buildout of the 1990's, Telarus, Inc. has revolutionized the way businesses shop for T1, Ethernet, and other high speed line services.

I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Adam Edwards, president of Telarus, to ask him to explain what is making Telarus such a powerhouse among master agencies. Rather than transcribe his remarks, I decided to post an MP3 recording so you can hear what Adam has to say for yourself.

To listen to this first edition of our audio reports, simply click on this link to our Audio Interview with Adam Edwards, Part I. It should start playing in whichever audio client you have selected for MP3s on your computer. Or you can listen using this built-in audio player:


You can access any of the services Telarus has to offer through our site at T1Rex.com. Simply call the toll free number you find there or enter a quick online inquiry through the Shop For T1 search box. For T1 voice and data lines, you'll get price quotes instantly online. For higher bandwidth services, a product specialist will be in touch with options and special pricing offers.