Lock In Telecom Cost Savings For Next Year

As we approach the end of the year and run the numbers to see how well we’ve done, it’s not unusual to get that nagging feeling that maybe we’re cutting into profits by spending a lot more than necessary to conduct business. Nowhere is that more likely than in your networking and telecom expenses. It is almost always certain that a thorough competitive search will provide opportunities to pay less for the same level of service you have right now. Do this before the end of the year and you’ll lock in those savings for all of next year.

Why is this possible? There are two major elements to the cost savings. First is competition. Time was that you could have any provider you wanted as long as it was the local telephone company. The last few decades have seen that landscape change as deregulation opened the door to other competitors. First to go was the telcos lock on long distance service. Then local service became competitive. Finally, new vendors built out regional and nationwide networks of their own to provide metro and wide area networking connections. Today, you can get competitive bids on even international circuits.

The second major driver of cost savings is new technology. Nearly all telecom networking standards were designed by the telephone companies for their own use. It was decades later that these services were released for use by general business. As communications has moved from telephone calls to computer networks, these solutions still work but require a protocol conversion from LAN to WAN to LAN. It’s no longer the most efficient way to transport data and rarely the least expensive.

What’s better? IP centric networks closely match the packet based networks that are almost universally used for company LANs. Ethernet, the most popular networking protocol, has been extended from the LAN to the WAN. An Ethernet WAN connection can directly connect your LANs at two locations and bridge them into one large network.

Consider lower speed telecom connections. T1 has been the standard for decades. It is now being challenged by Ethernet over Copper (EoC) in many areas. Both T1 and EoC use the same twisted pair telco wiring that runs from your building to the nearest central office. They use different modulation schemes to achieve data transport and have different characteristics. T1 is limited to 1.5 Mbps per T1 line, although multiple lines can be bonded to create higher bandwidths up to 10 or 12 Mbps. There is no distance limit for this service and it works even for rural businesses. Ethernet over Copper can achieve much higher bandwidths of 10, 20, 50 or even 100 Mbps. However, the farther you are from the central office, the slower the line speed.

Equally or even more important, EoC is much less expensive than T1. You can get 3 Mbps EoC service for about the price of a 1.5 Mbps T1 line. Upgrade to 10 Mbps EoC for just 2 or 3 times the cost. Need lots of bandwidth? Move up to Ethernet over Fiber (EoF). The most popular connections are 10 to 100 Mbps, although many companies now order Gigabit Ethernet (1000 Mbps) and even 10 GigE.

Is this affordable? The combination of competition from hungry new carriers and technology advancements have caused prices to plunge from where they were a few years ago. Don’t be surprised if you can save 50% on your telephone and WAN connection or dedicated Internet service bills. If you are paying month to month on a old expired T1, PRI, DS3 or SONET contract, the savings may be even more dramatic.

How do you cash in? Simple. Get competitive quotes on voice, data and cloud services and compare with what you are spending now. You can do this any time, but if you lock in the savings by the end of the year, you’ll get the full benefit for all of the new year. Can you think of a better New Year’s resolution than to pocket all of that savings?

Can You Save 50% With Unified Communications?

Have you noticed that your telephone expenses have grown right along with the expansion of your organization? Of course. In fact, they’ve gone up like crazy over the years. Have you seriously questioned why?

Why? Because you have more people on the telephone, of course. That’s the obvious answer, but it may be so obvious that you don’t look further. The fact is that not all telephone charges are created equal. Some are difficult to avoid and a necessary part of doing business. Others can be eliminated through the use of better technology. The technology that works this magic is called unified communications. Let’s take a look at a quick animation that explains everything...



Here are some important points made in the video and how they apply to you. Unified communications is all about merging your voice, data and video networks into one unified network. Many businesses can save money by doing this, even if they are smaller companies and even if they have only one location. Not mentioned is the hosted PBX solution that works especially well for smaller companies that don’t have a large IT staff.

The real cost cutting comes from consolidating the communications across multiple business locations. Some companies grow linearly with optimization every step of the way. Most don’t. If any of your growth has been from mergers and acquisitions, you can be pretty certain that your telephone network is not anywhere close to optimized. That’s probably true to some extent even if all you’ve done is add branch offices.

Why? Because the tendency is to have a phone system at each location. That means a stand-along PBX with trunks to the local phone company and different bills from different providers at each location. Then there’s the matter of communication among locations and back to headquarters. Chances are that this is done by making long distance phone calls and incurring long distance phone charges. Ding-ding-ding. You can just hear those telcos ringing the registers.

What’s better optimized? Moving your voice communications, i.e. telephone calls, from their own individual networks to your main corporate network that interconnects all locations. You need it for data anyway. Why not let voice packets piggyback on the same network?

What happens with this arrangement is that all your internal calls are free of charge. The phone company can’t charge you if you don’t use their network. So, stay off the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) until you absolutely have to use it. That’s for outside calls to other companies or your own customers.

By letting a major competitive carrier, like Level 3, be your network and phone service provider, you can get by with a single IP PBX located somewhere on the network to route outside calls through one set of PSTN trunk lines. Level 3 has the advantage of being licensed as a competitive phone company in all 50 states, so they can get you local numbers wherever you want to establish a presence.

Is it really possible to save 50% of your phone bill by using unified communications? It can be that lucrative. How much can your operation save? Get competitive quotes for unified communications SIP trunking for all your business locations and see just how far your eyes bug out at the answer.

Where Competition Is Cutting Telecom Costs

Everyone is on the lookout for cost savings these days. One potential area of savings is in your monthly telecom costs. Telecom expenses tend to be be large and murky. It’s well worth your while to wade in and see what you can spot that is ripe for cutting or re-bidding. You should also be aware that there can be huge differences in what you pay depending on where you are located.

We tend to think that the price of goods and services are pretty much the same no matter where you are. You know that’s not true for real estate. It’s also not true for some telecom services. Location means everything. Let’s take a look at why this is.

We get the impression that telephone calls are all priced at a flat rate. That impression comes from the way cellular phone service is sold. You pay a flat rate for a fixed number of minutes each month. It doesn’t matter where you call, within the US and not overseas. A minute is a minute. You can call from your home office or you can call from a hotel in another state and talk to anyone in the country using the same minutes you use for local calls.

Landline services don’t generally work that way. You pay a monthly fee for dial tone and local calls. You typically pay by the minute for state to state long distance calls. There is also something called local long distance or IntraLATA (Local Access and Transport Area). A LATA is a geographical area handled by a particular phone company. These areas may include more than one city or a city and the surrounding rural areas. Prices for IntraLATA calls vary all over the place, with areas served by smaller phone companies typically more expensive than you’ll find in areas served by larger phone companies in more populous areas.

What’s upset the apple cart on this pricing model is the rise of VoIP service providers. Unlike local phone companies that are tied to their customers by dedicated twisted pair copper phone wiring, VoIP is a network service that is transported by the Internet, a private SIP trunk, or an MPLS VPN network. Your VoIP provider can be a Cable operator in your city or a carrier located across the country. Pricing plans can be similar to what you get from the telephone company or they can be unlimited local calling with a flat per minute rate for all long distance, or even a flat rate for unlimited domestic calling. By considering a VoIP solution, you give yourself more options to match your monthly telecom expenses closely with the type of calls you typically make and receive.

Competition in the line services market is even more intense. Here, the price you pay per Mbps for point to point data links or dedicated Internet access varies widely. In general, the closer you are located to the heart of a metropolitan business center, the better the pricing. Out in the country, your options are few and prices are higher.

A new service that has highly attractive bandwidth prices is Ethernet over Copper. Prices for both EoC and T1 lines are now under $300 a month in major cities, but you may get twice the T1 bandwidth for that price using Ethernet over Copper. You also have the ability to get higher bandwidths, such as 10 or 20 Mbps without having to bring in fiber optic service.

One limitation with Ethernet over Copper is that you need to be within about 12,000 feet, a couple of miles or so, of the service provider’s point of presence to qualify for service. That restricts availability to metro areas. So, too, other competing services such as HFC (Hybrid Fiber Coax) and fixed wireless tend to have limited geographical service areas and tend to be found in town much more than farther out.

Regardless of whether you are looking for voice, data or video telecom services, or some combination, competition is greater today than ever before. You may not be aware of many options that have recently become available in your area. One fast and easy way to see if you can save on your monthly telecom expenses is to get competitive quotes for telecom services suitable for your business location. This process is fast, easy and free. You may be able to save more than you think.