Can Satellite Be The Answer to Your Business Broadband Needs?

By: John Shepler

You’re totally frustrated. Doing business today needs an Internet connection even if you only sell to local customers. You’ve checked out cable and DSL options. No way. Not where you are located. Hey, it’s not like you’ve left civilization. There must be SOME way to get high speed Internet… isn’t there?

In most cases, the answer is yes. You just have to forget about cables and fiber lines. If they aren’t already connected or very near by, it will cost a fortune to bring them in. Instead, look to the sky! Here’s a quick video that explains why:


Here are 10 key points to remember:

1. Satellite Internet for business can provide both primary and backup connectivity.

2. Available satellite broadband speeds have increased to surpass traditional T1 lines and DSL, even to rival fractional DS3 and cable carriers. Exede offers up to 15 Mbps download with 4 Mbps upload capability.

3. Since service is delivered via dish antenna, not even a traditional telephone line is needed, much less high speed telecom infrastructure. That makes it possible to have broadband connections to fishing camps, farms & ranches, rural agri-businesses, and any other enterprise that isn’t served by even 3G or 4G cellular. All you need is enough power to run the satellite receiver/modem, and that can come from power mains or a solar/battery & inverter off-grid system.

4. Primary 15/4 business Internet is available throughout the eastern half of the USA, plus the west coast and partial coverage in Arizona and Colorado. National coverage and higher speeds are coming with a new satellite in 2017. Lower speed 5/1 redundant services is available now in nearly all of the continental USA.

5. Installation can be completed in just 3-5 business days. No need to wait for massive construction projects.

6. Business data plans are available from 20 GB to 200 GB/month with the option to purchase additional data. For many smaller business operations, this is more than enough, although not suitable for frequently streaming HD movies and other video entertainment.

7. Latency is greater than you’d experience with land based fiber, wireless and optical services due to the 22,000 mile path up to the geosynchronous satellite. This may or may not be noticeable depending on how you use the Internet. VoIP telephone works over the satellite, but you need to allow a half second or so between speakers.

8. You’ll need a clear view of the southern sky about half way up from the horizon for the dish to “see” the bird.

9. Pricing is similar or even less than what you’d pay for a dedicated Internet line running 1.5 Mbps upload/download or many of the business cable broadband plans.

10. Don’t think that you are left out of the world of ecommerce or unable to interconnect your many branch offices or stores due to lack of telecom support. Satellite might be just the answer.

Learn more about VSAT satellite broadband Internet service and other available broadband options for your business location now.

When Broadband is Hard to Find

By: John Shepler

If your business is located downtown in a major metro area, the idea of network and telecom services being hard to find seems a little odd. You probably have at least a couple of competitive providers vying for your business, as well as the local telephone company. Your challenge is to find the best deal on connectivity, trunk lines and cloud services. There are likely options available that you don’t even know about.

If you are located in a rural area or working from a home office, this wealth of opportunity may be missing. You may feel that nothing is available or you are stuck with a single option that’s a real stretch for your budget. Actually, there may be more bandwidth options available than you think.

T1 Lines are Readily Available
Businesses with their own commercial addresses have it the easiest. They can almost always get at least some traditional telecommunications services. These include POTS phone service and T1 lines. Both use the same twisted pair copper cables that connect nearly every building.

T1 started out as a telephone trunking service, but has been used for dedicated private lines and Internet access for decades. Each T1 line provides 1.5 Mbps in both the upload and download directions. Today that’s pretty low-end broadband, but it’s more than sufficient for credit card verification, email and simple Web access. You can also run backups to the cloud and connect with headquarters.

Boosting T1 Bandwidth
Not enough bandwidth? T1 lines can be bonded together to create a larger data pipe. Two bonded lines gives you 3 Mbps, 4 lines offer 6 Mbps and so on up to 10 or 12 Mbps. Bonded T1 is highly reliable and readily available. You might find it a bit pricey because there is no economy of scale. Two lines cost 2x one line. Even so, out in the boonies T1 and bonded T1 is likely well worth the cost. That cost has dropped precipitously in the last few years, by the way. If you haven’t taken a look at T1 lately you may be surprised by the value. Even so, expect to spend a couple hundred dollars a month or more for T1 service.

Broadband From Space
Another service almost universally available is two-way satellite or VSAT. Many small retail locations use satellite for their transaction processing and connectivity to HQ. Satellite bandwidth has been similar to T1 at a somewhat lower cost. More advanced satellites now offer bandwidths of 10 Mbps or more for a higher price. The thing to know about satellites is that they can connect anywhere in the country with a clear view of the southern sky. You can even power the equipment “off the grid.” Limitations are that bandwidth is shared and you are generally limited in the amount of data you can upload or download each month. Latency is also high, making the service hard to use for VoIP telephony. Compare that with dedicated line services that offer low latency and have no usage limits.

Broadband From Cell Towers
If your needs are modest, you may get by with 3G or 4G fixed wireless. This is a fancier “all office” version of a smartphone hotspot. If you can get smartphone broadband at your location, this service should work for your office or store. Just know that usage is limited and sometimes involves overage charges. It’s great for transaction processing and simple Internet usage, but not for heavy video usage and software downloads.

What’s Available for the Home Office?
SOHO (Small Office Home Office) users generally choose DSL or Cable broadband because of the low cost with decent performance. It’s not uncommon to get all the speed you need for $50 or so. You won’t find anything like those prices with T1 or bonded T1 lines. That’s because the bandwidth is shared among many customers and is a “best effort” rather than guaranteed availability service.

I often get inquiries from home office users who can’t get or don’t “like” their cable or DSL choices, but are shocked at the cost of more reliable and higher performing business telecom services. Are there any other options available?

You, too, can get two-way satellite service. You may be quite happy with it or be frustrated by the latency (time delay hesitation), usage limits, and interruptions during bad weather. It depends on what you are doing.

Fixed Wireless for SOHO Use
How about fixed wireless? If you can get good cellular service, you might consider something like a “Mi-Fi” hotspot that creates a WiFi hotspot using bandwidth on your 3G or 4G LTE cellular plan. This lets you use your desktop and laptop computers, tablets and other Internet devices on the same Internet access available from your smartphone. Once again, this is “light duty” service that is great for limited or emergency usage, but not for consistently heavy traffic.

Other Wireless Options
Another option that’s available in some areas but not others is non-cellular fixed wireless. These are WISPs or Wireless Internet Service Providers. Generally, these companies install a small dish or antenna on your home or office building and give you a wired connection for your router. You’ll need to look for these locally, as they are typically local enterprises not connected with nationwide providers. You also need to be within line of sight from their tower or towers and not too far away.

Call for Fiber… Maybe
How about fiber optic service? Verizon, Google and other companies have been building out fiber systems in select locations around the country. If you are lucky enough to be within one of these service footprints, you can get a lot of bandwidth for the money with FTTP (Fiber to the Premises).

Finding Home Office Broadband
If you are have a home office, you can try checking for DSL/Cable services or 3G/4G cellular wireless. You can also do an Internet search for satellite broadband from Dish Network, DIRECTV and others. Look locally for non-cellular fixed wireless.

Finding Business Location Bandwidth
If your business has a commercial location, then the Telarus GeoQuote search on Megatrunks.com is for you. This service gives you instant pricing for T1 lines, DS3 bandwidth, Ethernet over Copper, fiber optic and business grade Cable broadband. A quick inquiry will also get you quotes on VSAT and high capacity fixed wireless services appropriate for your business locations.


Note: Photo of Monument Valley courtesy of Josep Renalias on Wikimedia Commons.

High Speed Internet For Business

Not many years ago high speed Internet access was hard to come by, even for businesses. Prices were high and service options were few. That’s all changed dramatically. Now there are multiple broadband options for your business even if you are located out in the boonies. Let’s take a look at a range of high speed Internet connections divvied up by low, medium and high bandwidth.

Most businesses don’t need a gazillion bits per second, even though they might fancy carrier level bandwidth services. One thing that’s always been true and is likely to stay that way is that the higher the bandwidth, the higher the price. It’s true that within bandwidth categories there can be quite a price differential. You can also get a lot more bandwidth if you elect for shared vs dedicated service. However, that shared bandwidth varies all over the place while dedicated services are rock solid.

The low end of the bandwidth range is dominated by wireline and wireless services. Twisted pair copper is a popular delivery medium because it is almost always available in the form of multi-pair wiring installed by the telephone company. Any copper pairs not being used to carry telephone calls are available for data.

T1 is the traditional data connection for business locations. It is a dedicated bandwidth solution with symmetrical 1.5 Mbps x 1.5 Mbps available at all times. There are generally Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that guarantee uptime, bandwidth and other parameters like jitter and latency. Pricing starts at around $300 per month, sometimes less for a multi-year lease. Out of the way locations may find that pricing is higher for T1 lines.

Ethernet over Copper (EoC) is fast moving in as a direct competitor to T1. It uses the same multiple copper telco pairs but a different modulation scheme that is more efficient. T1 can be run just about any distance. EoC bandwidth is highly dependent on how close you are to the central office. Bandwidths from 2 to 30 Mbps are common, with 3 Mbps around the same price as a T1 line. A very popular EoC service upgrade is 10 x 10 Mbps for businesses that find T1 lines too restrictive and bonded T1 lines too expensive.

There are two other copper-based high speed Internet technologies. One is DSL, a shared bandwidth service that uses twisted pair copper and is relatively inexpensive. The other is Cable broadband, with bandwidths as high as 100 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload for about what you pay for a T1 line. Both DSL and Cable are asymmetrical bandwidth (higher download than upload speeds) and are offered without SLAs. The big attraction is lower costs, especially for businesses like quick serve restaurants that want to offer free WiFi and have email and Web access for the office. Availability is limited. Cable is pretty much only in-town where the main cable has already been run.

The other way to go is wireless. Many franchise operations use VSAT or Very Small Aperture Terminal satellite antennas. These are a bit larger than the ones used to pick up satellite TV and are set up for two-way data transmission. Recently, 3G and 4G fixed wireless broadband has become a strong competitor for both VSAT and copper wireline solutions. The cost is about half the price of T1 for similar performance, with rural service often available. VSAT can be installed anywhere that you have power and a clear view of the southern sky.

The middle portion of the bandwidth spectrum, say from 10 Mbps to 100 mbps is dominated by bonded T1 lines at the low end, Ethernet over Copper throughout the range, and fiber optic services at the high end. DS3 or T3 lines running at 45 Mbps are the legacy service and are still very popular. In downtown metro areas, you may be able to get high speed fixed wireless in this bandwidth range. Cable is becoming a competitor with 50 Mbps and 100 Mbps services displacing both copper and fiber when symmetrical and dedicated bandwidth aren’t mandatory and you can live without service level agreements.

High bandwidth Internet access over 100 Mbps is now a battle between SONET and Ethernet fiber optic services. SONET is the incumbent, but tends to be higher cost. Ethernet is the newer service, often lower in price but not as generally available. Ethernet is also more granular in its bandwidth and easier scaled up for businesses that are on a fast growth path. Both SONET and Ethernet can give you as much bandwidth as you need and can afford, up to 10 Gbps and higher.

What Internet service option is best for your business? Get high speed Internet prices and availability for a wide range of options, with complementary consulting to help you pick the right solution for your needs.

How Maestro Smart Antenna Improves Fixed Wireless

Accel Technologies, a division of Accel Networks, is introducing a game changer into the fixed wireless space. It’s their new Maestro smart antenna system. What Maestro looks to do is make 3G and 4G fixed wireless broadband more competitive with more expensive business connectivity solutions, such as T1, MPLS, VSAT, Frame Relay and point to point microwave services.

So, what is this Maestro and what’s so smart about it? Like all other smart devices, Maestro incorporates active technology improve performance. In this case, the improvement is to an inherently passive element, the RF antenna. Antennas are used for all electronic communications. They can be as simple as a foil trace on a circuit board to a multi-element Yagi beam antenna. Satellite dishes are antennas, or antennae if you prefer. So are long wires used with short wave radios or vertical tower arrays for directional AM radio broadcasts.

The thing that’s important about antennas is that they are the first point of contact with any incoming signal and the last element involved in outgoing signals. An antenna can be any random length conductor or it can be a finely tuned system. Most antenna designs are “cut” to a particular size that resonates with the frequencies you are using. The right antenna length greatly improves transmission and reception. You can tune antennas by adding other passive elements, capacitors and inductors. By adding more elements or creating a parabolic reflector (satellite dish) the gain of the antenna is increased. Gain is like amplification. It gives you a stronger signal. As a passive device, you can’t get something for nothing. That gain in a particular direction comes at the expense of reduced sensitivity in other directions. For most applications that’s an additional advantage. A directional antenna reduces pickup of otherwise interfering signals coming from other directions.

Now, take a look a the antenna on your wireless router. Looks like a little black vertical stick, doesn’t it? Is it a particular length selected for the frequencies involved? Yes. Is it directional? No. A vertical “whip” antenna radiates and receives equally in all horizontal directions, although not so well in vertical directions. That’s nice if you want to blanket an area for reception, like a WiFi hotspot. You need broad coverage if you have users scattered all over or moving from place to place.

Now, how about an antenna to connect with a fixed wireless service? Is a simple whip antenna good enough? It is if you have a very strong signal. But what if you are just far enough away from the tower that you don’t have 5-bar coverage? In the case of smartphones and USB modem aircards, you take what you get or do without. These devices are designed to be nomadic, so they have to have universal coverage that brings with it mediocre pickup performance. However, if your business location is fixed and the towers are fixed, you can do better with an antenna that optimizes for the transmission path.

This is what Maestro is all about. It’s a high technology patent pending design that includes eight antennas, three switchable filter banks and an embedded LNA (Low Noise Amplifier) that adjusts to maintain the highest carrier to noise ratio for the 3G or 4G service you are using. Maestro has over 500 discrete setting options to fine-tune for optimum performance.

Why go to all this trouble? Accel Networks has specialized in leveraging the near-universal availability of cellular broadband service across the US and Canada. We think of cellular as a way to get broadband for our mobile phones, but it can also be used as a fixed location broadband service. It sometimes doesn’t work so great within buildings because those itty-bitty antennas on USB dongle adaptors and MiFi boxes can’t deliver a strong enough signal. Put a decent antenna ahead of ahead of the transmitter/receiver and you’ll have a robust signal that won’t go dead or reduce connection speed.

Maestro will be available in about a month from this writing. Accel expects that its introduction for 3G and 4G fixed wireless broadband service will challenge other solutions that businesses have employed to get high speed Internet access. These include VSAT satellite dishes on the roof, T1 lines, DSL and Cable that may or may not be available, frame relay and even microwave fixed wireless systems. Most businesses, especially small retail stores and offices, don’t need massive bandwidth. They need basic connectivity for credit card verification, email and website access. A 3G or 4G cellular service can provide the bandwidth, reliability and latency they require at a substantial cost savings. Accel has over 6,000 installations now that prove just that. With Maestro, many more locations will be able to gain these benefits.

Is your business located in an area where broadband service is hard to come by or unreasonably expensive? Check availability and pricing for fixed wireless broadband. You may be pleasantly surprised by how affordable it is and how well it works.

MPLS Networks In Demand And Competitive

What’s the hottest telecommunications service that you may be missing out on? It’s MPLS networks. They’ve become highly in-demand and the source of competition among competitive carriers. Here’s what you need to know and how you can check to see if an MPLS network can save your company money.



What’s driving the proliferation of MPLS networks is that enterprise applications are becoming more sophisticated and more dependent on connectivity among multiple locations. There are big cost savings to be hand through network convergence, enterprise VoIP and mission critical processes running on high throughput server farms. But for these benefits to be realized, you need WAN connections that are a solid as your company LAN.

The Internet isn’t up to it. True, the worldwide connectivity of the public Internet is unmatched. But network performance leaves a lot to be desired. Security is certainly an issue. Look at the efforts you need to put up to prevent your systems being infected by malicious bots and viruses. Beyond that, there is no promise of predictable performance. Bandwidth, path congestion, latency, jitter, corrupted and dropped packets are all up for grabs. That’s the reason TCP/IP was chosen as a data transfer protocol in the first place. If a packet doesn’t succeed at traversing the Internet at first, simply try, try again.

Such inconsistency can be tolerated for Web pages, email and many data transfers. Even the security issue can be managed with encryption. But time sensitive applications like real-time voice and video need better treatment. Who wants to get off the public switched telephone network and risk garbled and dropped phone calls? Could any call center survive with those problems?

The need for controlled and predictable network performance is what promoted the growth of private network solutions, such as Frame Relay. But Frame Relay is a technology who’s time has come and gone. It’s too expensive and, for the most part, too low in bandwidth for today’s needs. What’s replacing Frame Relay is MPLS.

MPLS or Multi-Protocol Label Switching networks are privately run networks that only serve their customer’s needs. Those needs typically demand secure point to point and multipoint connections with Class of Service (CoS) to make sure voice, video and data all have the network resources they need. Latency, jitter and packet loss are minimized. Bandwidth is sufficient to support all network requirements. If more customers come onboard, more resources are deployed to ensure quality performance for everyone.

MPLS services can be configured as point to point or fully meshed any-to-any connectivity. You specify how you want to connect and your service provider sets it up. New locations are easy to add or change. That makes MPLS networking an excellent option for businesses with many branch offices or retail locations. Two-way VSAT satellite has been the private networking solution for many retail stores, restaurants, gas stations and so on. But satellite bandwidth is limited, sometimes lost during heavy weather, and the cost isn’t necessarily cheap. It’s time to take a look at MPLS to see if this option makes more sense going forward.

MPLS Networks Today is a new service that makes it easy to get consultation and pricing for your multi-location network needs. With a quick inquiry, you’ll be connected to a team of expert consultants who have access to many MPLS service providers and access networks. Competition among IP network carriers with national and international service footprints has become intense. That means you’ll get highly competitive quotes that may be much lower than what you think this type of service will cost. Even if you aren’t currently in the market to upgrade your existing network, it could be well worth your while to check MPLS network pricing and availability. There’s a good chance you could be saving money with an MPLS solution.