Fixed Wireless Broadband Includes Canada & Puerto Rico

We tend to think of broadband as a wireline service. T1 lines are popular for small to medium size businesses. Ethernet is rapidly gaining ground because it can offer a larger range of bandwidths and lower prices than conventional telco technologies. Many chain retail outlets depend on two-way satellite access. But there is another service that can offer reliable broadband service with little or no construction cost and low monthly rates. That’s fixed wireless broadband, now available for the US, Canada and Puerto Rico.

A top provider of fixed wireless broadband solutions is Accel Networks. They offer service in all of the major 2.5G, 3G, 3.5G and 4G coverage areas. If that sounds a lot like cellular broadband, it is. But this goes way beyond consumer-grade cellular data service. What Accel has done is to aggregate the wireless data services of a number of cellular carriers to create a service footprint that is larger than any of them individually. It covers over 99% of all retail locations in the US, Canada and Puerto Rico.

What kind of speeds can you expect on this wireless broadband service? The 3G service area is the largest, with average download speeds of 768 Kbps and bursts up to 1.4 Mbps. Upload speeds average 384 Kbps with bursts to 512 Kbps. In lesser populated areas, 2.5G service offers speeds of 140 Kbps for both uploads and downloads.

Accel has the engineering expertise to identify the strongest network connection for your particular business location and then configure the equipment they send you so that it is ready to go. Since there are no wires, other than what you connect for your own network, you can be up and running in a a matter of days, not weeks or months. That can be critical for new location openings, temporary construction sites, special events, or when a natural disaster occurs.

What applications are right for fixed wireless 3G broadband? Point of sale is a natural. If you’ve been struggling with dial-up verifications, you’ll be amazed how fast your transactions take place on wireless. Cashless transactions are typically completed in 2 to 4 seconds. Best of all, they don’t tie up your phone line. This is a highly secure network, offering PCI/Visa compliance to protect your customer data.

Some users of Accel fixed wireless service include general retail locations, retail petroleum sales (gas stations), quick service and table service restaurants, banks, hospitality, convenience stores and monitoring for pipelines and fuel tanks. Any location that needs a broadband connection to conduct business or transmit data is a natural for 3G wireless.

Another perfect application for Accel wireless service is network continuity. With any wireline service, there is always the danger of what is called “backhoe fade.” That’s an industry term that basically means someone was digging and cut through the telecom cables. Some of those bundles contain dozens or hundreds of wires. A fiber optic break can require over a 100 fiber strands to be spliced. Once the outage has been identified and the required service personnel are on-site, it can still be hours, days or longer to get service restored. Meanwhile, all users unlucky enough to be on that cable go without service.

How long can your business go without data service before it starts to hurt? An hour’s loss of business might cost you more than fixed wireless service for a month. So even if you depend totally on your T1 line, DSL service, or fiber optic connection, having a 3G wireless backup makes a lot of sense. Since there are no wires, there are no wires to cut. Wireless uniquely offers the diversity of service to reliably back up wireline connections.

Could your business benefit from low cost wireless broadband with fast installation that you can do yourself? It’s cheaper than you think. Go ahead, check out Fixed Wireless Broadband services for your business location.

No Business DSL? Go Wireless

You've just put up a new retail location and you'll be ready to take orders soon. All you need now is to order a DSL line and get it connected to your point of sales system. Oh-oh. You're beyond the range of the nearest telco central office. No DSL. No Cable broadband either. Oh, great. Now what?

One solution that will almost always work is to order a T1 data line. They're fast, highly reliable and available just about anywhere you can get telephone service. But if all you need is an Internet connection so you can process credit card transactions from a few terminals and perhaps upload inventory or accounting data to the home office, the cost and bandwidth of a full T1 line seems a bit much. Isn't there anything lower cost that you can get for nearly any location?

Actually, there is. First of all, don't write off T1 lines as too expensive until you check prices. They've come down a lot in recent years. However, it's true that lower bandwidth applications don't really keep a T1 busy. Have you considered wireless?

Yes, it's true that WISPs or Wireless Internet Service Providers are highly dependent on line of sight transmission. If you can't see the tower, you're probably out of luck. But there's another type of wireless service now available that covers 99% of locations where you're likely to put a business. Think cellular.

What Accel Networks has done is to form partnerships with the major cellular carriers to use their 2.5G, 3G, 3.5G and 4G data networks. As you already know, cell towers are everywhere. But did you know that some of their channels are used to transmit broadband data instead of phone calls? The iPhone is a good example of a cell phone that uses both voice and data channels. Most smartphones do. But if you use a standard flip phone you may not be aware that there is broadband Internet service available in most locations.

Each carrier has its own coverage footprint. Accel uses them all so that they can offer broadband wireless service just about anywhere. This is fixed location service, mind you. Your equipment comes setup for your location and should be up and running in about 15 minutes from when you unpack it.

How about access speeds? It's very similar to DSL business service, with 768Kbps - 1.4Mbps download speed in many areas and 140Kbps download in less populated areas. That's better than ISDN BRI and far superior to dial-up, even with the slower 2.5G data rates. Accel claims 2-4 second response speed for cashless transactions on service that meets or exceeds PCI compliance standards.

Don't fret about lack of DSL service. They may be doing you a favor. For about the same money you can have reliable private data service in as little as 3 days. Does that sound good to you? Find out more about the highly competitive wired and wireless data service available for your business location now.

Bandwidth For Holiday Sales

Now that the leaves have turned and the little goblins have made their candy rounds, the holiday shopping season is beginning in earnest. Black Friday, the highest volume shopping day for bricks and mortar stores, and Black Monday, the highest volume for online e-tailers, are nearly upon us. Will your point of sales, inventory and accounting systems be able to weather the surge? Or will your enterprise go crashing down, causing customers to enter their orders at your competitors?

Certainly your hardware and LAN need the margin to deal with temporary sales volume increases, but what about your bandwidth leaving the premises? You can add more processors to the servers all you want, but it will be for naught if your WAN (Wide Area Network) connection becomes congested. As bandwidth gets sopped up, users can experience delays and finally disconnects.

It's even worse if you are sharing a network connection for both transaction data and VoIP telephone calls. Either you lose the ability to enter orders or the phone calls start breaking up, or both. Just as suddenly as the overload occurs, frustrated customers move on and the system seems to heal itself. There may be additional incidents, or the season passes and all you've lost are a bunch of potential sales?

Potential sales? Are you kidding? Who wants to lose sales? Sadly, the value of those sales may well exceed the cost of adequate bandwidth to ensure smooth operations. Scrimping on data connection bandwidth or depending on a consumer-oriented Internet connection to save money can well prove to be penny-wise-dollar foolish.

If you are running into bandwidth limitations during normal business operations or experienced a surge last holiday season that is likely to repeat, then there is no time to waste. But isn't it already too late? No, not necessarily. If you already have a professional bandwidth carrier such as T1, DS3 or Ethernet, it may be possible for your carrier to increase your bandwidth quickly. This is especially true when the connection can handle the higher bandwidth but is being limited to save costs.

An example of this is fractional T1 service. The T1 line is capable of 1.5 Mbps, but some clients choose to order 500 Kbps or less because their operations don't really need more. Even if you are running a full T1 line, it may be possible to bond-in an additional line in time to handle the additional traffic. It all depends on what facilities you have in place.

Fiber optic carriers are even more amenable to bandwidth increases without extensive re-engineering. Fractional or full DS3 service at 45 Mbps doesn't begin to tax the available bandwidth of even a single fiber wavelength. Ethernet over fiber running a native IP carrier can be tuned up from 10 to 100 to 1,000 Mbps without taxing the fiber, and perhaps without having to change-out termination equipment. Once again, it all depends on what you have.

The easiest situation of all if when you've collocated your servers in a "carrier hotel" where multiple carriers have their Point of Presence. A bandwidth upgrade might be as simple as enabling more Mbps to your WAN connection. Or you may be able to find higher bandwidth and lower prices from a competing carrier in the same facility. Then it's just a matter of a new line drop to your rack.

Before you opt for crossing your fingers and hoping for the best this year, why not review your bandwidth options with our team of expert consultants? Don't assume that all upgrades require weeks or months of engineering. You might be able to get the capacity margin you desire much faster than you think.