You Are Definitely Going to Need More Bandwidth

By: John Shepler

All of a sudden, business as usual isn’t. Forget the norms of office life. They’re gone. Nobody comes in and sits at their desk anymore. The cubicles are empty. The parking lot is empty. Row after row of desktop computers and phones are… off.

So, Where Is Everybody?
To be fair, a skeleton crew is in the building. Most everyone else is at home. It’s been a mad scramble to connect remotely by home computer, iPad & smartphone via cable and cellular broadband. Bandwidth usage has soared 30% or more. Video conferencing has come into its own using those built-in microphones and cameras over Skype, Zoom, FaceTime, RingCentral, GoToMeeting, Webex and the like.

Not as Temporary as You Think
You probably think this traumatic upset of normal business practice is a transient thing. Just a few weeks of toughing it out and everything will go back to normal. That’s almost certainly wishful thinking. This pandemic has peaked or is peaking in areas that were hit hard and hit early. But that doesn’t mean it’s over. The horror of infection rates, deaths and failing medical systems will abate in one area after another. But, the disaster will soon pop up in areas that weren’t hit early and haven’t seriously locked down until recently. Think of a rolling disaster, from city to city and even into less populous areas. Just when you think it is all over, it is expected that there will be a re-infection in the Fall and sickness will spread again.

Eventually, there will be effective therapeutics and then vaccines. Those are likely months and possibly a year or more away. Until then, you might not be living in a constant horror movie, but it certainly won’t be business as usual. You might as well dig-in and figure how to run a successful business without large numbers of people rubbing shoulders in one big workspace or cozying up to customers at your place or theirs.

The New Virtual Business Requirements
You are going to need to master distributed processes, secure communications, and remote everything. You’ll need VPNs for security, private and public cloud services to host the software that defines your organization, and lots and lots of bandwidth to tie it all together. “Touchless” will be the new, new thing that everybody wants. That means technology substituting for hands-on.

What types of bandwidth do you need? Certainly, sketchy home broadband won’t do. Your remote employees may not even be eligible to connect to the high performance business grade private lines that commonly link offices, but they will need sufficient reliable bandwidth for both video conferencing with colleagues, management and customers. Bandwidth and latency need to be good enough that the home computer runs like the office computer. Cable broadband may do a decent job but remote areas present a challenge. In some cases, an SD-WAN solution aggregating cable, T1, WISP, 4G and 5G cellular and perhaps even satellite may be a good composition solution.

Especially Demanding Applications
Medical offices, labs, and hospital campuses need really high performance bandwidth. That includes Gigabit Ethernet and 10 GigE fiber, dark fiber and MPLS networks for interconnecting far-flung facilities or collaborating companies. Fortunately these connections are readily available in populated areas, although more of a challenge in rural locations.

Your IT Bandwidth Requirements
Reconsider your own IT Department connectivity needs. They've changed. You'll want your connection to public, private and hybrid cloud services to be high performance, dedicated bandwidth links. This will give you much faster, more responsive and stable connections than the Internet can provide. You'll want the closest to "LAN" quality performance from any of your business locations. This can be achieved with dedicated point to point fiber optic lines, Metro Ethernet services and MPLS Networks that span wide geographical areas, including worldwide service.

After The Disaster
Someday this will all be over, but things might not go back to the way they were. Companies may be amazed at how productive employees are in home offices, even with kids and pets under foot and no supervisor breathing down their neck. Fact is, a lot of socializing went on in those cubicle farms and the office computers hosted a lot of personal web use and email. Letting many, maybe most employees work from home reduces their need for commuting and, perhaps, child care. It reduces your need for real estate and facilities. Managing performance by goal oriented results may finally replace monitoring physical presence as the business norm.

Expect that you will have a lot more remote work and that core teams may be housed in much smaller facilities or even rented meeting spaces. Video conferencing may replace a lot of business travel that was once thought essential. The same level of productivity might, surprisingly, be achieved at considerably lower cost overall with more flexibility. Additional help could be quickly brought on without the delays and expense of relocation.

Now, What do YOU Need?
Has the shock of recent upsets found you scrambling for IT resources, especially bandwidth, secure communications, video conferencing and hosted telephone solutions? We can help you right now. Call toll free 888-848-8749 or tell us what you need to support your business.

Dedicated vs Shared Internet

By: John Shepler

Business Internet service options can be defined by bandwidth level, but it may be more important to distinguish between dedicated and shared service types.

What is Dedicated?
Dedicated bandwidth means what it sounds like. This bandwidth is dedicated to your use and no one else’s. That may seem obvious, but the rise of shared bandwidth in recent years has muddied the waters. Why would you share bandwidth if you could have it all to yourself?

The reason is cost
Shared bandwidth options are available at just a fraction of the cost you’d pay for similar speed dedicated options. That makes some business users think twice about how much they really need exclusive use of the line. You should make this choice after careful consideration, though, and not just as a knee jerk reaction to the sticker prices. If you make the wrong decision you could suffer with a connection that frustrates employees and kills productivity.

T1 and DS3
Dedicated bandwidth was long the standard for business. Once companies migrated from low speed dial-up or 64Kbps lines to broadband, the popular telecom standard services became T1 at 1.5 Mbps and DS3 at 45 Mbps. These are repurposed telephone trunks and offer both dedicated and symmetrical bandwidth. Both T1 and DS3 have been popular for decades are still available at very reasonable prices for both point to point and Internet access.

Unlimited Usage
A characteristic of dedicated line services is that there are no usage limits. You can load up the line with continuous file transfers, like for remote data center backups, or use it lightly for email and Web access or occasional communications with remote offices. Either way, the maximum amount of data you can transfer in a month is the line rate in Mbps time the number of seconds in the month. Whatever isn’t used just sits idle because no one else can make use of it.

About Symmetry
The symmetry of the bandwidth is also important. Symmetrical means that you get the same amount of bandwidth in both the upload and download directions. This is typical for commercial telecom services. It is essential for PBX telephone trunks, but also valuable if your traffic is heavily bi-directional. Branch office to headquarters connections, video conferencing and cloud access tend to be bi-directional.

Asymmetrical / Shared
The other types of bandwidth are asymmetrical and shared. These tend to go together. Shared bandwidth became popular when residential broadband was established. Home users couldn’t afford commercial telecom lines and rarely needed that level of performance. Most Internet access is skewed in the download direction. This includes Web pages and, especially, streaming and downloaded multimedia. Email tends to be bi-directional, but the files are generally fairly small and infrequent.

Cable & DSL
The Cable and Telephone companies took advantage of the fact that few users are online all day every day to divvy up a large dedicated telecommunications service among dozens or hundreds of individual users. Each user pays a modest fee. All the fees collected go to pay the much larger cost of the dedicated high speed line that feeds all users.

Cost of Bandwidth
It is not uncommon for shared bandwidth services to offer 10 times or more download bandwidth for the same price as a dedicated line service. The upload speed of the shared service is only a tenth to a fifth of the download speed but that doesn’t generally matter if what you need is basic Internet access. The catch is that this shared bandwidth is a maximum figure. At any given time the bandwidth you measure can be all over the place. You may get 10 or 100 Mbps one minute and 1 or 10 Mbps the next. It’s impossible to predict your actual line speed because how much you get is dependent on how many other users are online and how heavily they are accessing the Internet.

Network Issues
There are a few other issues with shared bandwidth. One is network congestion. The Internet itself can become congested with too much traffic from time to time. Most often, though, it’s the access network that clogs up with too many simultaneous users. The other issue is latency and jitter. These are unimportant for file transfers, but will wreak havoc on VoIP telephony and two-way video. Geosynchronous satellite links suffer particularly high latency.

Fair Usage Limits
Also, bandwidth sharing leads to bandwidth rationing. If you look closely at the contract, even “unlimited” services have a “fair usage” limitation. If you hog so much bandwidth that it impacts other users, you may have your bandwidth throttled to a lower speed, get cut off or be charged overage fees. Cellular broadband is famous for overage charges. Satellite services tend to throttle bandwidth. DSL and Cable have much higher usage limits but may cut back or cut off your service above certain levels. None of this is experienced with dedicated line services.

Current Dedicated Services
Today, T1 and DS3 are being replaced by Ethernet over Copper and Ethernet over Fiber. These are both dedicated symmetrical bandwidth services. MPLS networks are multi-tenant wide area networks that offer better pricing for long haul connections with committed information rates and symmetrical bandwidth.

SOHO Needs
How do you choose between dedicated and shared Internet connections? It depends on how sensitive and critical your needs are. Small retail operations that only need Web access, email and credit card verification, and perhaps want to offer their customers a free WiFi hotspot can benefit from the cost savings of shared bandwidth services. So, too, independent professionals in small or home offices who choke at the prices of dedicated lines.

Enterprise Needs
Medium and larger size organizations generally go for dedicated line services. This is especially true if varying network performance affects productivity or if you use enterprise VoIP phone service, HD video conferencing, remote data center connections or cloud hosted services. In fact, for the highest performance, dedicated point to point lines and MPLS networks can ensure bandwidth, latency, jitter, packet loss and quality of service beyond what the Internet can offer.

How to Decide
How do you choose the right bandwidth option for your operation? Consider your requirements and compare a range of competitive services for cost and performance. It’s easy to do that with an automated online bandwidth finder, but be sure to get recommendations from a expert consultant also.

Is Your Network Capacity Drying Up?

By: John Shepler

It can sneak up on you without warning. One day, the network is running smoothly. Next day it’s all congested. How did that happen? More importantly, what can you do about it?


Network capacity, especially MAN and WAN network capacity, can dry up quickly as applications become more demanding. Video is a major bandwidth hog. Backups to remote data centers can also chew up a lot of your capacity. Worst of all is The Cloud. You might think that your troubles are over when you outsource your applications to cloud service providers. What is often forgotten is that all that user bandwidth supplied by your LAN must now be supplied by the WAN. Not just any bandwidth, mind you. It needs to be low latency bandwidth or you’ll still have troubles.

Why low latency? You know that latency is critical for sensitive real time apps like VoIP telephony or high definition video conferencing. But how about those business applications that moved from the local data center to the cloud? Latency is easy to control locally. It can be an issue on long distance connections, especially if you elected to use the Internet as your cloud connection service. Latency shows up as hesitation in cloud response. A little can be annoying. A lot can be a major productivity killer.

Fortunately, high bandwidth low latency connectivity is easier than ever to fit into your IT budget. Prices have plummeted in recent years on everything from old school T1 lines on up to the SONET/SDH and fiber optic Ethernet. Even MPLS networks for connecting multiple business locations may cost less than you think.

If you haven’t gone out for competitive price quotes in a few years, you’re in for a pleasant surprise. You may find that you can double your MAN or WAN bandwidth for the same telecom budget that you have now. By upgrading from TDM based SONET fiber optic services to Ethernet over Fiber, you may well be able to afford a lot more capacity than you have now. The cost per Mbps or Gbps is much more attractive for Carrier Ethernet, especially if you get your service from a competitive provider who can provide both core network and last mile connections on their own network.

Could you use a bandwidth upgrade soon? Perhaps even right now? Get fast bandwidth quotes customer tailored to your particular needs now.

10x10 Mbps Ethernet Providers in Demand

By: John Shepler

Some say that 10 Mbps Ethernet is the new T1. More and more, it looks like this is the case. Let’s see why, how it works and how you can get this service upgrade.

Companies have depended on T1 lines for decades. They offer high reliability back up by service level agreements, dedicated bandwidth that is rock solid at 1.5 Mbps and symmetrical operation where the upload and download speeds are the same. Over the years, T1 prices have plunged and availability has expanded to become almost universal.

What’s not to like? There’s really only one hangup with T1 service. That’s bandwidth. While 1.5 Mbps was more than you knew what to do with years ago, it’s woefully inadequate today. Once you get more than a few employees, start doing more on the Internet than email and casual web browsing, switch from in-house IT to cloud services or need to efficiently connect two or more business locations, T1 runs out of gas.

If you are still in love with T1, all is not lost. Most carriers are now set up to offer you multiple bonded T1 lines. What bonding does is combine the bandwidth of two or more T1 lines so they act like one larger line. That saves you the trouble of having to direct traffic over multiple connections. Bonding starts at 2xT1 for 3 Mbps and goes up to typically 8x T1 for 12 Mbps.

The 10 or 12 Mbps bandwidth level is just right for many of today’s needs. It’s enough to support video conferencing, cloud computing and hosted VoIP, and remote disaster backup and recovery. The problem is that bonded T1 lines at this level aren’t always available and the cost can make your eyes bug out. That’s because there is no economy of scale with T1 service. Two lines cost twice as much as one. Once you get up to 8 lines, your monthly bill is a significant budget item.

There are several options that may make more sense in getting the bandwidth you need to run your business. These include “consumer” type services like DSL and cable, Ethernet over Copper and Ethernet over Fiber.

DSL and cable give you a lot more bandwidth for the money, but that’s typically only in one direction. They’re designed for downloading from the internet so the download speed is typically 5x to 10x the upload speed. The bandwidth is usually shared, meaning the performance you get from moment to moment varies all over the place. After all, you are sharing one bandwidth pool with a number of other users in order to get better pricing. Finally, there is generally no service level agreement. The service is provided on a “best effort” basis.

That leaves Ethernet over Copper and Ethernet over Fiber as true competitors to T1 and bonded T1 line service. Like T1, these services come with service level agreements, are dedicated and not shared bandwidth, have guaranteed performance characteristics like bandwidth, jitter, latency and packet loss, and offer symmetrical performance.

Ethernet over Copper (EoC) is, indeed, Ethernet like you run on your LAN but expanded for metro and wide area networks. It’s based on industry standards so the EoC you get from one carrier is like the EoC offered by others. Ethernet over Copper uses a more advanced technology that T1 for sending data over twisted pair copper wires. They’re the same wires, but with different terminal equipment on each end.

What this does is allow higher speeds than you can get by bonding T1 lines and with better pricing. Basic 2 Mbps or 3 Mbps EoC is similar in price to a single T1 line and the cost advantage grows as you go up in speed. It’s not uncommon to get 10 Mbps EoC for just 2 or 3 times what you are paying for your old T1 line.

Ethernet over Copper bandwidths start at 2 or 3 Mbps and go up from there. How much you can get depends on how far you are from the telco office. Most companies can easily get 10 or 15 Mbps. Some can get bandwidths as high as 50 or 100 Mbps.

Even more flexible is Ethernet over Fiber (EoF). This is fiber optic service with highly reliable bandwidth starting at typically 10 Mbps and going up to at least 10 Gbps. You are unlikely to run out of capacity with EoF and you don’t have to pay for the full speed right now. Have your service provider install a 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet, a 1 Gbps Gigabit Ethernet or 10 Gbps 10 GigE port and that’s the maximum your connection will support. You contract for the bandwidth you need right now with the option to quickly upgrade later with only a phone call. In most cases, no equipment changes are necessary to give you higher line speeds.

Are you ready to upgrade to higher bandwidth for your business but don’t want to spend a fortune or risk losing performance? Copper and fiber based Ethernet service may well meet your needs at an attractive price. Get prices and availability of EoC and EoF bandwidth services for your business locations now.

Ethernet over Copper FAQ - Part 3

Ethernet over Copper FAQ - Part 3

Ethernet over Copper bandwidth service may well be the perfect solution to your business needs. Here are some additional FAQs that might help answer some of the questions you may have about this relatively new technology.

Q: Can Ethernet over Copper be used for business telephone?

A: While EoC is not a direct replacement for traditional analog or ISDN PRI telephone lines, it can be a cost effective upgrade and offer increased call capacity. Ethernet over Copper easily supports VoIP and SIP Trunking because it is a packet rather than channel based line service. EoC offers low jitter, latency and packet loss to preserve voice quality. Many of today’s PBX systems now interface to SIP trunks as well as ISDN PRI to provide multiple outside phone lines at a cost savings. This gives you a wide choice of telephone line options.

Q: Does EoC work for video conferencing?

A: Ethernet over Copper is a good solution for video conferencing because it offers higher bandwidths needed for today’s high definition real-time video along with symmetrical bandwidth that provides the same speed in both directions. EoC also works well for downloading or streaming video.

Q: How does EoC support cloud services?

A: Cloud services over the Internet and by direct connection need higher bandwidth levels, symmetrical bandwidth and low latency. EoC is a dedicated business grade service that supports the cloud communication needs of small and medium size organizations. Larger companies will want Ethernet over FIber to provide the necessary bandwidth to support the productivity of many employees

Q: What is Fast Ethernet over Copper?

A: Fast Ethernet over Copper or FastE is a 100 Mbps dedicated symmetrical bandwidth service that supports the maximum speed of many network devices. FastE is now suitable for even smaller companies that have moved their IT infrastructure to the cloud. While some companies have Fast Ethernet MAN and WAN service brought in on multiple copper pair, Fast Ethernet over fiber optic link is a more popular way to get bandwidths of 100 Mbps or more.

Q: What is a combination copper-fiber solution?

A: Copper and fiber can combine to give you a reasonable bandwidth level quickly while you wait for the higher bandwidth fiber provides but isn’t immediately available. How it works is that you order both a copper and fiber solution from one provider who agrees to cancel the copper contract at no penalty as soon as the fiber is up and running.

Q: When does Ethernet over MPLS make sense?

A: The beauty of MPLS or Multi-Protocol Label Switching networks is that they can transport nearly any protocol of traffic. In fact, they routinely transport multiple protocols without any customer being aware that other customers are also using the network. Ethernet over MPLS often has cost savings benefits, especially over nationwide and international distances. With Ethernet Virtual Private LAN service, you can connect a dozen or hundreds of business sites around the world as if they were on the same corporate LAN.

Are you ready to improve your company’s connectivity or get the same performance you have now at a lower price? If so, you should check availability and pricing for Ethernet over Copper services suitable for your commercial location.


You may also be interested in reading Ethernet over Copper FAQ (Part 1) and Ethernet over Copper FAQ (Part 2).

MPLS Networks Simplified

Have you been hearing a lot of buzz about MPLS networks lately but not exactly sure just what is a MPLS network and how it differs from other networks? Here’s the really simplified lowdown on MPLS technology in less than 3 minutes...


So, why go to all the trouble to set up a “bar coding technology” when IP networks are so prolific? IP works great within your organization where you have complete control of the network. You can manage the traffic, add and subtract resources, and set-up class of service mechanisms to ensure that time sensitive traffic like VoIP or video conferencing isn’t crushed by big data file transfers or backup and restore processes.

Not so on the Internet. Every packet gets the same handling as every other packet. The fault tolerant features of Internet technology pretty much ensure that if packets can’t take one particular path, they can find another more round about way to get to their destination. This is great for TCP/IP applications like file transfers, but deadly for two-way voice and video. No class of service distinctions combined with indeterminate routing wreak havoc in the form of latency and jitter.

This is where MPLS shines. There are no public MPLS networks like the public Internet. They are all owned and operated by particular service providers on a fee basis. You sign up for the MPLS network that you want to use and the provider makes sure that you get first class service.

How is that done? Remember those “bar code” tags? The tags have the extra information about class of service and routing that tell the network how to handle each packet. There is no need for equipment on the network to examine IP or other protocol headers. The tag is all the tag switches or routers need to handle the traffic.

The result of this tagging process is that packets are handled differently depending on their needs. Voice and video conferencing traffic gets priority. Non-critical file transfers get a lower priority. Most of the time, congestion, latency and jitter are not a problem. Since the service provider knows everyone using the network, adequate resources can be provisioned to ensure that traffic from one customer doesn’t interfere with traffic from any other.

There’s another benefit to this tagging technology. It completely frustrates anyone trying to spy on the network traffic using IP tools. They won’t work because the network isn’t running the Internet Protocol. It just transports IP packets from point A to point B. Non-IP traffic gets the same treatment. That’s why MPLS means multi-protocol label switching. Any protocol can be accommodated and all have enhanced security from label switching technology and no public access. MPLS networks are often referred to as MPLS VPN or virtually private network.

Today’s MPLS networks have regional, national and international service footprints. They are easily accessed from just about anywhere using copper wireline or fiber optic connections. Pricing is very attractive, even when you only want to connect two far-flung locations. For multiple sites that need to communicate, MPLS is the go-to technology today.

Does an MPLS network service make sense for your WAN communication needs? Get competitive pricing and features for MPLS networks that support your business needs.

MPLS Network Design Supports Global Business

Many companies now have a business presence outside of the United States. This creates a need to connect these facilities back to headquarters and to other regional headquarters or satellite offices. What’s proving to be the best solution for enterprise-grade connectivity is international MPLS networks. Let’s take a look at why.

The low end approach to worldwide communications is the Internet. It already goes everywhere and connects just about everyone. All you need are a broadband connection at each location and you are good to go... or are you?

The problem with the Public Internet is that it serves anyone and everyone with the price of admission, which can even be a free WiFi hotspot. This includes lots of casual users updating their Facebook pages and downloading movies, businesses selling to the general public, and a significant number of bad actors. Malicious attacks on corporate data centers and personal computers continue to grow because it is a lucrative endeavor. This means you don’t dare transmit sensitive data or allow access to your corporate servers without some type of encryption to create a VPN or Virtual Private Network tunneling through the insecure Public Internet.

The other issue is performance. Everybody’s packets are treated exactly alike on the Internet. There’s no such thing as Class of Service (CoS) to put time sensitive packets such as VoIP telephony or video conferencing in a “fast lane.” If you want preferential treatment, you need to move to a private network.

Private point-to-point line services have been the traditional mainstay of private digital business communications. If you only need to connect two locations, then it seems logical to order a dedicated line between those locations. If you need to add more locations, then you are in the Wide Area Network (WAN) business. Typically you create a star network with corporate headquarters at the center and links to each remote location. You then decide the routing to determine how locations communicate to each other.

The private network is highly secure and performs very well because you have total control of all resources. Unfortunately, you have to run the network yourself, solve any connectivity issues that arise, and pay for all those expensive lines.

A more practical approach is to use a privately operated MPLS network to connect from 2 to any number of locations. These can all be within U.S. borders or they can be located in just about any country overseas. All you need is a last-mile connection from each location to the MPLS network. The network operator will manage bandwidth, latency, packet integrity and class of service. That’s right, MPLS networks are designed to support multiple classes of service to support even the most sensitive data streams.

MPLS stands for Multi-Protocol Label Switching. This isn’t an IP network, although it can transport IP data. It can also transport just about any other protocol needed. The core of the network is based on label switching routers using a proprietary protocol. That makes it inherently more secure than the Internet or other IP based networks. MPLS service is often touted as a VPN or Virtual Private Network, even though encryption is not required.

What’s available today that may not have been previously is a number of MPLS networks with worldwide reach. They have POPs (Points of Presence) in dozens or more countries and contract with local service providers for the last mile connection. This can be anything from DSL to T1/E1 to SONET fiber or Ethernet. Each location can have the connection that supports its needs. All connect to the core of the MPLS network, which is high speed fiber with massive bandwidth. You have a sense that you are the only one of the network, even though there are many simultaneous users transmitting important data. The fact that the core infrastructure is shared greatly reduces costs compared with an all private line solution.

Do you have a need to connect multiple business locations in a small geographical area, nationwide, or across international borders? If so, get quick pricing quotes for International MPLS Networks and compare cost and quality with your other connectivity options.

Your Own Private Information Superhighway

We’re all familiar with the metaphor of the Internet as the Information Superhighway. It’s an apt description. Like a national road system, the Internet will take you anywhere. It’s even better than the Interstate highway system. The Internet goes worldwide with no worries about how you get across oceans and mountains. You can depart from any destination and reach any other destination in a reasonably efficient way.

Just like any superhighway, the Internet has it snags. First are traffic jams. You know how you’re cruising along on a interstate road trip and, all of a sudden, stop lights appear on the cars ahead. Traffic slows to a crawl for inexplicable reasons. Eventually you discover that the cause was an accident blocking the roadway or construction you didn’t know about. At certain times, the carrying capacity of arterial roads branching out from big cities is exceeded and traffic is bumper to bumper for miles and perhaps an hour or more.

Not much is different on the Internet. Traffic may zip along unimpeded on the fiber backbones, but slows to a crawl at choke points. Last mile access networks are particularly limited. Shared bandwidth means everybody pokes along when too many people want too many packets at the same time. The limited capacity of wireless broadband networks often stretches the definition of “broadband.”

Another “feature” of the Internet is that there are no fast and slow lanes. All the lanes treat all traffic equally. That’s great for big data files, the semi-trucks of the Internet, or video downloads, the equivalent of passenger cars. There are millions of them and they pretty much dominate the road. How about the ambulance that has to get to the hospital without interference? Emergency traffic has preference on the physical highway. On the information highway, it gets in line with everything else. You might say that our real superhighways have some class of service (CoS) controls. None of that is available on the Internet. If you have sensitive traffic, like real time voice or video that needs preference, it won’t get preferential treatment and will wind up as damaged goods.

Are there the equivalent of commuter lanes on the Internet? Nope. All lanes are the same. What some high volume content producers do is augment the capacity of the Internet with private roads that parallel the Internet and connect to it near the off ramps to their customers. These private carriers are called content delivery networks (CDNs). Without them, the internet would be even more swamped than it already is and video streaming would be impacted to the point where it just wouldn’t be worthwhile.

This is one example of a private information superhighway. Content delivery networks pick up traffic at your location and deliver it to distributors such as satellite and cable companies, who then merge it onto their broadband networks along with other Internet traffic. You have to pay for this convenience, but it can be well worth it to ensure that your high value content streams and downloads smoothly.

Another example of a private information superhighway connects only paying customers and doesn’t connect to the Internet at all. This is the MPLS network. It is a B2B or business to business connection service that has no general consumer access. Who wants such a system if you can’t reach the general public? Companies that want to connect their multiple business locations to exchange sensitive proprietary data and in-house telephone traffic want exactly this type of arrangement. They also have separate access connections to the Internet to interact with customers through websites, e-mail, social media and the like.

Compared to the vagaries of the Internet, MPLS networks run like a dream. They are engineered to have enough bandwidth to meet all commitments at all times. Traffic is prioritized so that VoIP telephone and video conferencing get the priority they need to run smoothly. Latency, jitter and packet loss are minimized by design. Security is made much easier because of the proprietary nature of the network technology and lack of public access.

Are you finding that you really need a private network for your internal business operations to complement the public network that connects you to your customers? If so, learn more about MPLS and Content Delivery Networks to optimize your business communications.



Note: Photo of traffic jam courtesy of Tage Olsin on Wikimedia Commons.

Free 6-Way Desktop and Mobile Video Calls

We’ve all been on conference calls at one time or another. They’re a good way to have a discussion when the people you want in the conference can’t all come to the same place at the same time. This is audio conferencing using telephones. These days, it’s pretty much old school.

What’s better? How about video conferencing? OK, I know that when you hear video conferencing you think of big corporate meeting rooms with formal presentations. That’s how video conferencing got started, but it doesn’t have to stay that way.

The big impediment to date for anything more informal has been the high cost of video equipment and connections. No more. Now that most desktop computers, smartphones, laptops and tablets have video cameras built-in, there’s no reason you can’t have video conferences anytime you want them and on the cheap.

How cheap? How’s free sound? You say that you already do that with one on one video calls using Skype or Apple’s iChat? Oh, but can you set up a group video chat with up to 6 people on any combination of PCs, Macs, iPhones, Android smartphones and various tablets? You can now.

What’s an ooVoo? It’s a cross-platform instant messaging client that supports voice and video chat with HD or regular quality video and desktop sharing. Non-ooVoo users can be invited into the call through Web video chat. Video messages up to a minute long can be recorded and sent to other users or shared on YouTube. Large files up to 5 MB can be shared securely. Go ahead and set up a web chat room for free.

Free? Yes, the basic ooVoo service is free to download and use to your heart’s content. It’s ad supported to keep the company in business. If you want to get rid of those ads and get access to more features, there are paid versions available for both personal and business users.

What sort of extra features? On the paid plan, video calls go from 6 way to 12 way. You can send larger files up to 25 MB, record and save your video calls, record and save audio conferencing calls, store and protect recorded video calls, share your desktop and add phone participants to your video calls. Phone minutes are included with the paid plan, but not with the free version. You also get security settings and live support with the paid service.

How about ooVoo for business? Licenses are available for 1 to 10 users and above, with cost getting lower as volume goes up. There are no ads, of course, and you can include both video and audio participants. As an integrated collaboration solution, ooVoo offers a combination of instant messaging, video calls, phone calls, desktop sharing and file sharing in one application.

Get Your Building Fiber Lit For Free

There are some tremendous deals on fiber optic bandwidth these days. Many companies would dearly love to move up to Fast Ethernet at 100 Mbps, GigE at 1000 Mbps or even 10 Gigabit Ethernet. The one problem is that their building isn’t lit for fiber optic service yet. When they see the construction cost quote to bring in the fiber, the up-front cost is just too high in this economic environment. But, what if you could get your building fiber lit for free? Would that change your bandwidth plans?

It’s absolutely possible that you can upgrade to high speed fiber services without having to pay construction costs. The little known secret is that some competitive carriers see such an opportunity in the demand for higher bandwidth services that they are willing to put up money for construction costs themselves. One carrier is willing to build up to 1,500 feet of fiber if that’s what it takes to get you on their network.

Oh, but do you have to pay extra in monthly lease fees to get the free hookup? No way. In fact, you may be surprised at how much fiber lease costs have come down lately. If you haven’t gone out for quotes in a few years, you are dealing with pricing so obsolete that it’s a joke. You need to get a new set of competitive quotes right now.

Everything is pulling in the same direction now for fiber optic bandwidth. First, demand is increasing by leaps and bounds due to the increased use of video in business, including video conferencing. Business automation is making employees more productive than ever, but it comes with an increased need for bandwidth to connect to providers. Cloud services are adding additional pressure on WAN connections to provide response times similar to what you experience with a local data center.

We normally think that when something is in high demand, the price goes up not down. Just the opposite is happening in the network bandwidth market. Why? Increased demand has encouraged competitive carriers to build-out their regional, national and international fiber networks. Many have embraced new service options, such as MPLS networks and Carrier Ethernet. What every competitive carrier wants is more customers to connect to their massive core networks. That means getting more buildings on-net.

What on-net means is that your particular building is on the network of a particular fiber optic carrier. If you are on-net, that carrier has fiber strands coming into your building and terminating in equipment that the carrier provides. From there, they can connect you and other tenants in the building, if there are any, to whatever speed and format service you require.

Many carriers don’t want the aggravation of butting heads with competitors in the same building. Instead, they’ll try to find nearby buildings that aren’t already lit and get in there first. Once established, it’s easy for them to sell and keep customers. Fiber bandwidth is nearly unlimited, so scaling services up and down is no trouble at all. Do you need to move up from 100 Mbps to 500 Mbps? You might be able to make that happen in a matter of hours if you already have a Gigabit Ethernet port installed. Just call the carrier and tell them you want a speed increase. They can likely do that without having to change out any equipment at all.

It’s a real land-rush situation for competitive carriers, since something like 12% of business locations are already lit for fiber service. You are in the majority if you don’t already have fiber optic bandwidth. But if you are close enough to a carrier point of presence, you may be able to get those fiber services cheaper than you ever thought possible. Why not see what opportunities are available and then decide how much you can upgrade and still stay within your budget? Get instant online fiber optic prices for Carrier Ethernet from 10 Mbps to 1 Gbps now. Other services will be quoted promptly, including construction costs if any. You may be in a better spot to get affordable fiber service than you ever thought possible.

When More Bandwidth Doesn’t Help

You’re probably familiar with this scenario. You’ve had a T1 line or DS3 bandwidth circuit for years. Everything ran just fine until recently. Now, all of a sudden, the Internet just crawls and your new VoIP telephone system sounds like calls from the far side of the moon. Employees are peeved because they can’t get anything done. Customers are livid because they can’t even carry on a civil conversation over the phone. Management is getting hot under the collar. Better get more bandwidth on order, right?

Maybe. It’s entirely possible that you’ll call up your provider and double your dedicated Internet bandwidth only to find out that you still have the same problems and now you’re paying twice as much. Talk about adding insult to injury! What’s gone wrong here and what can you do to really fix it?

The problem is that we visualize broadband connections like water pipes. You can just see that traffic flowing smoothly through the pipe. Applications demand more capacity and the flow increases, just like opening a faucet wider. Obviously, the only way you’ll hit the limit on capacity is when you fully open all the faucets at once. Then each application, the lawn sprinkler, the shower, the dishwasher and the wash basin each get less than they would like.

The fix seems equally obvious. Just put in bigger pipes with higher capacity. The water meter will spin a lot faster, but now you can support a lot more users full-on and nobody will suffer a reduction in flow. The telecom equivalent of a bigger pipe is what is called in the industry a “bigger pipe.” That means a line with more Mbps or Gbps. The analogy is clear. Just order a bigger pipe and your troubles will be over. Or will they?

The snag in all of this is that network traffic isn’t homogenous like water. One water droplet may be just like the next. One Ethernet packet may be not at all like the next. Some applications, like file transfers, just brute force move packets from one place to another. Others, like video conferencing or VoIP telephony are highly sensitive to latency, jitter, lost packets and packets arriving out of sequence. If your network gets congested, the file transfer will work fine. It will just take a little longer. Get in the same situation with real-time applications and they’ll crumble in the battle for packet transfers.

So why not just increase bandwidth when business grows to the point where more users are trying to do more things simultaneously? It’s likely that at some point you’ll have to do just that. But also know that simply adding more capacity may not make a big difference. Why? It’s because some applications will take as much bandwidth as you give them regardless of what they really need. If you simply double the bandwidth, Web pages may load a little faster, files might move a little faster, but the telephone and video may still break up mid-conversation.

There probably is some line speed that is so fast that everything will work at the same time with no problems. That might be 10x or even 100x what you have now. You’ll pay a fortune just to have enough capacity at hand to support rare moments when everyone is on the phone and watching YouTube videos at the same time the system is doing full backups. Is that really necessary?

No. Not at all. What you really need is a way to prioritize traffic so that preference is given to real-time two-way streams that are extremely sensitive to network congestion. You need to establish CoS or Class of Service controls that carve out a certain capacity to meet the needs of your VoIP phone system and video conferencing system and then divvy up the rest among lower priority processes. You can go further to push time insensitive file transfers and backups into the background so that they won’t interfere with anyone working online.

That solution is called the converged network. It’s more than just plugging everything into the same LAN and WAN. You need Class of Service both on your LAN and on the WAN. Techniques for the LAN are well established. The WAN is another matter if you are using the Internet for access to your VoIP provider. The Internet strips off those CoS tags in the name of network neutrality. One solution is to use a SIP Trunk to connect to a single provider for VoIP and Internet broadband so that CoS can be maintained on that link. Another is to keep the broadband you have, but use a separate point to point connection to your VoIP provider.

MPLS networks can maintain CoS among multiple business locations. You may be using Internet VPN connections to make those multiple connections, but with limited success if voice or video are involved.

Another interesting option is the “intelligent bandwidth” approach being offered by Telnes, a major competitive carrier. They’ve developed a technique called IP Priority Class of Service to maintain CoS on an Internet circuit using managed routers. This recognizes that most of the congestion issues occur on the link between you and the core of the Internet. By cleaning up that connection, real time applications, such as hosted VoIP, can run much more smoothly that they will on uncontrolled Internet broadband services.

Are you suffering slowdowns, application breakage and poor telephone voice quality? You may need more bandwidth or you may just need better bandwidth management. Before you go out and spend a bundle to no avail, get a complementary telecom engineering consultation from Telnes and other competitive service providers and review your options. You may be able to get results for a fraction of what you thought you had to spend.

As Travel Becomes Costlier, Online Meetings Look Better

In these economically challenged times, the cost of travel hasn’t improved one bit. In fact, it’s just getting more expensive and often less convenient to travel across the country for team coordination, client presentations and other face to face activities. Some of this is critical to the business, but is all of it? Couldn’t you do a better job if you could collaborate more often without the time and expense of business travel?

Many companies have found online meetings to be both a money saver and productivity improver. It works especially well if you can just call a meeting anytime you feel the need to get together, without having to worry about the cost involved. You can do that with GoToMeeting. You pay one low monthly fee. You have as many meetings as you like, anytime you like. No need to coordinate with a service provider. This is a service that makes calling meetings about as simple as sending out emails.

How easy is GoToMeeting? You can set up instant meetings with a single click. You also have the option to have one-time scheduled meetings or recurring meetings. It’s just like setting up a weekly review in the conference room except that the participants can be anywhere, even traveling. Those participants can join your meeting from a Mac, PC, iPad or iPhone. The cost to them is nothing. Even the apps for their devices are free.

All someone has to do to participate is click on the meeting link you provide them via email, instant message, or even over the phone. You’ll need to give them a meeting ID verbally if you invite them by phone. Each attendee chooses whether to pick up the audio portion of the meeting by phone or by using the microphone and speakers built into their computer. Use your own toll free service or purchase integrated audio conferencing from Citrix Online Audio.

What can you do in your online meeting? It’s both an audio and visual experience. The audio conferencing allows everyone to talk and listen. While you are presenting, you can mute the participant's mics to prevent background noise. You can also record your meeting sessions for future review and reuse.

The visual portion uses your computer screen. You can chose to share your entire desktop or a specific application. There are drawing tools, multiple monitor support and the ability to transfer keyboard and mouse control and instantly change presenters. You can have a chat feature enabled for discussion while someone is presenting.

After the meeting is over, you can post it to a website or third-party video host to share with others. Review the attendance report and schedule future meetings.

The basic GoToMeeting service lets you hold as many meetings as you want with up to 15 attendees each. Need more than that? Consider GoToWebinar that also includes GoToMeeting and supports from 100 to 1,000 users, depending on the plan you buy.

Are you intrigued by GoToMeeting as a way to have more meetings for less cost, but not sure if it will do everything you have in mind? No problem. Try GoToMeeting FREE for 30 days before you buy. Chances are, you’ll consider this the best business deal you get all year.

Low Latency Connections Bridge The Atlantic

Nothing says that we are part of a global marketplace like the terabytes of data that zip back and forth constantly through the world’s fiber optic trunk lines. Intercontinental cables have been in place for decades. But now there’s a new service gaining importance. It’s low latency networks.

What’s driving the demand for low latency right now is high speed financial trading. Increased use of automated trading programs has created a competition for getting trades placed first. First may mean milliseconds or even microseconds ahead of other traders. Certainly this is beyond the capability of the fastest human traders manually entering data. But it’s also so fast that path between traders and exchanges influences performance. The time delay in that path is called latency.

What’s needed for low latency connections is minimizing the distance between source and destination and minimizing the processing time of the electronics in the network. When microseconds make a difference, the speed of light comes into play. The fastest a signal can go is about 186 miles per millisecond. That’s the speed of light in a vacuum. In a physical wire or fiber optic strand, that speed is even less.

In the United States, low latency network services have taken two forms. One is a fiber optic cable running in as straight a line as possible between trading centers, say Chicago and New York. The amount of equipment on that line is minimized and engineered to pass signals as fast as possible.

Another approach is colocation. Companies move into a colocation facility, such as the ones offered by Telx, to be as close to the electronic trading floors as possible. It’s possible to save tens of milliseconds by just being physically next door.

Level 3 Communications has now established low latency connections that span the Atlantic from Europe to North America. They’ve also established direct connectivity with BATS Europe, a European Multilateral Trading Facility.

Financial services are a leading application driving the construction of low latency networks worldwide. There are other applications that are latency sensitive as well. It’s well known that VoIP telephony works best if latency is minimized. Long delays in voice packets cause “clipping” of conversations and may even result in dropped calls. Two-way video conferencing is also affected by high latencies. In fact, any interactive application requires some limitations on latency to function properly. As companies commit more of their business processes to cloud computing, latency issues that were once non-existant will become painfully apparent.

Has your company or organization developed a need for low latency communications linking locations in North or South America, Europe, Asia, Australia or Africa? Find out what services are available to meet your requirements for international high bandwidth low latency network connections. With multiple providers, prices are competitive.

A New Edge On Private IP Networks

So many companies have multiple business locations today, that IP network options have become cheaper and more available than ever before. A major player in this space is New Edge Networks, headquartered in Vancouver, Washington. New Edge specialized in private IP-based WANs (Wide Area Networks) that don’t use the public Internet. That gives them the edge on quality and performance in linking multiple business locations.

Why not the Internet? The largest network in the word certainly has proliferated over the last few decades. It connects just about everyone, everywhere on Earth at reasonable connection costs. That’s its advantage as a general purpose communications network and its limitation as a serious business network. Anyone and everyone can and do send just about anything and everything there is through the Internet. With network neutrality mandated, your critical transaction data gets exactly the same treatment as somebody on the other side of the globe Tweeting what they had for lunch.

The need for dependable performance, security and availability is what makes private networks attractive. Private networks are just that. They are privately owned and operated. There is no public access. Being a private entity, they are free to establish classes of service to guarantee that latency sensitive applications like voice and video conferencing have the priority to ensure low jitter and latency for optimum performance. New Edge, for instance offers six classes of service (CoS) on their network with service level agreements for each.

Strict control of network parameters makes possible the long desired goal of network convergence. Convergence merges separate data, voice and video networks into one single network that supports them all. Enterprise VoIP offers productivity features and cost savings, especially on a converged network. But voice is fragile, and your telephone calls can quickly turn to garbled mush on a “best effort” network like the Internet. Video conferencing, including telepresence services, also has great productivity and cost saving value. Like voice, real-time two-way video is fragile and breaks up with the slightest provocation. You need a solid network to support these high performance communication tools.

MPLS or Multi-Protocol Label Switching private networks, a specialty of New Edge Networks, give your business the opportunity to connect multiple locations on one fully meshed private network. Each location only needs an access network connection to the MPLS “cloud” network. New Edge offers a variety of connection options that include T1 lines, Ethernet, wireless, and even DSL.

Since most small and midsize businesses don’t have large full-time IT staffs to manage wide area network services, New Edge Networks offers full network management services, including the critical LAN/WAN interconnection. This lets companies concentrate on their core business activities while knowing that their wide area network is being well taken care of.

Does your company have more than a couple of business locations? If so, private IP networks may work to your advantage. Find out how you can improve performance and perhaps save money at the same time with high value MPLS network services from New Edge and other top tier service providers.

Why Managed MPLS Networking Services

Let’s say your company has offices located all across the country. Each location has its own private local area network , perhaps supporting computer networking, IP telephony, and video conferencing. As stand-alone facilities, things work great. But your enterprise is more than just a collection of geographically dispersed sites. It is an organization with a common mission and processes.

You decided long ago that you needed to integrate your network facilities to unify the company. There are big efficiency improvements to be gained by not having to support every function at every location. When employees across the country are electronically just as close as those down the hall, you can establish centers of excellence and marshal short term support when there are local overloads.

There’s also the opportunity to avoid toll charges on internal telephone calls when you put your phone system on your own network. That can amount to an enormous cost savings when there is regular communication between sites. Only when you need to go off net, or on to the public switched telephone system, do you pay for local telco lines and, perhaps, toll charges. You can decide whether it makes more sense to have local access at each location or consolidate your lines with ISDN PRI service or SIP trunking.

The trick becomes how to interconnect those far flung business sites. Most companies start out with dedicated point to point T1 lines and move up to faster services, such as Ethernet, DS3 or OC3, as the traffic levels increase. What gets lost in incrementally adding line after line is the opportunity to save cost on WAN network bandwidth. One day you find yourself with a huge portfolio of telecom line charges plus a considerable staff to manage your ad-hoc WAN network.

What’s better? Today’s answer is managed MPLS networking services. MPLS or Multi-Protocol Label Switching is a “cloud” network designed specifically to link multiple locations with specific connections or in a fully meshed network. What characterizes a fully converged MPLS network is scalable bandwidth, privacy of connections, high reliability with fast response when issues do arise, a service footprint that covers all of your locations, and quality of service controls that ensure high performance for time sensitive applications like enterprise VoIP and real-time two-way video conferencing or telepresence.

That sounds like a tall order, but there are a number of top carriers who specialize in offering private networking services with nationwide footprints. It is even possible to include overseas offices through traffic exchange with carriers in foreign countries. Each of your sites is connected to the cloud through an appropriately sized dedicated access connection. From there the network operator programs your connections into the tag servers that manage network traffic. Even though your share the cloud with other customers, your bandwidth is guaranteed and your connections are private. For the ultimate in security, you can choose to encrypt your data during transit.

By turning your WAN network operations over to a MPLS networking carrier, you unload the burden of constant monitoring and network management, but you’ll also likely realize a significant cost savings. Will quality of service suffer? On the contrary, a top tier carrier has more resources at their disposal than you can afford to manage a nationwide network 24/7. They’ll also have far more bandwidth in their core network than makes sense for any single enterprise. That means you can grow your resources to match the growth in your business without incurring extensive construction delays every time you want to increase throughput between locations.

How do you find these high performance network providers? The best way is to go through a telecommunications broker who has a complete suite of carriers available to bid on your business. You can then feel confident that you are getting the best service at the best price, without having to develop the expertise and staff a group to search the industry. That’s all taken care of quickly and easily. How quickly and easily? Take literally a minute to enter an inquiry for managed MPLS networking services and an expert Telarus consultant will be at your service in no time at all.

Browser Based Video Conferencing and Webinars

Video conferencing, once limited to the corporate environment, is now available to anyone with a broadband connection and web browser. MegaMeeting has a new suite of products available for PCs, MACs and Linux computers that don’t require the usual downloads and installations. If you can browse a website, you can participate in a video conference or webinar.

MegaMeeting’s web-based video conferencing system takes advantage of the Flash Player 9 plug-in that is already installed in most Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari browsers. If your computer has 256 MB of RAM and a 1.2 GHz or faster processor, it should work fine. You’ll also need an Internet connection with 240 Kbps bandwidth. That’s pretty much anything that dares to call itself broadband. In actuality, though, you’ll only be using 70 Kbps per video feed. Pretty easy requirements to meet, don’t you think?

A video camera isn’t required to be a participant, but if you have one, or can get a cheap one, you can be one of the 16 simultaneous video screens streaming in the conference. It’s just like one of those discussion shows on TV, but with a lot more screens. Unlike many competing services, MegaMeeting includes free Voice Over IP, so you get audio along with your video. No separate telephone calls are needed.

MegaMeeting’s product also scales from personal and small business use with 10 participants or fewer, on up to private branded enterprise solutions with the maximum number of attendees determines only by your available bandwidth and the number of seats purchased in your account. All of their plans offer unlimited video conferencing worldwide 24/7. Professional solutions support screen, application and desktop sharing plus PowerPoint presentations and computer sharing.

How much does all of this cost? Personal accounts start at under $50 a month. Professional accounts start at $15 a seat with a 3 seat minimum and get cheaper from there. Enterprise level solutions hosted on your own servers are appropriately priced, but considerably cheaper than alternative solutions.

Five Years Of The Explainer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The AccuConference Cost Advantage

Audio teleconferencing, video conferencing and Web conferencing are enjoying a renaissance in this economic downturn. The reason is that they are one business tool that can cut costs and improve productivity without the ugly process of layoffs or facilities closings. It's a classic example of technology usurping traditional business processes that are no longer viable. By tightly coupling teams to make their progress faster and substituting for expensive air travel and hotel stays, electronic conferencing helps businesses stay viable while economic activity is slow. AccuConference is a clear leader in this field.

What differentiates AccuConference from other companies in the conferencing space is that they offer a complete range of solutions, including traditional audio conference calls, video conferencing and Web conferences. By getting all the conference solutions you need from one supplier, you don't have to worry about having to integrate potentially incompatible services.

Cost savings are a major attraction of AccuConference calling services, but not at the expense of quality. Poor voice quality can spoil the effect of connecting far away locations so that everyone sounds like they are in the same room. You need to be able to understand what is being said without having to say "could you repeat that?" That's why AccuConference uses only the best carriers available, Tier A for international and toll free traffic and Tier B for local calls. They also lightly load their conference bridges, the devices that actually interconnect participants, so that no bridge is at more than 50% capacity. This gives AccuConference the ability to accommodate a sudden requirement for additional conferences at the same high performance level.

How about those cost savings? If you've shopped around, you know that you can pay upwards of 25 cents a minute per participant or even more with some conferencing providers. AccuConference will give you top rate performance for just 7.9 cents per minute per participant on a pay as you go basis. Each participant dials a toll free number, so it costs them nothing. As an account holder you'll get a monthly bill for the minutes used, but no set up fees, contracts or monthly requirements. You use the service whenever you want with no reservations needed.

The pay as you go program also includes Insight Web Conferencing at no additional charge. There's something you'd be hard pressed to find elsewhere. You'll be able to share Microsoft PowerPoint charts, have instant online chat, and online voting/polling while your audio conference is in progress. Or you can use their Meeting Central Unlimited Pro plan that expands PowerPoint presentations to include application sharing, desktop sharing, remote control sharing, webtour, white boarding, and instant chat. All of this capability is available along with toll free audio conferencing at just 7.9 cents per minute per participant.

There's also a flat rate audio conferencing option that features an area code 404 Atlanta dial-in number, Insight Web Conferencing, and 24/7 availability without reservations. Participants and moderators will pay long distance charges to call the Atlanta number. As account holder, the service costs you as little as $14.95 a month for up to 5 lines. Other plans are available for 10, 25 and 50 lines. The advantage of flat rate is that you know what you'll pay each month, regardless of how much you use the system.

Larger organizations can also enjoy the advantages of low cost teleconferences. You can get options that include hundreds of participants, international dial-out or dial-in, operator services and video conferences. All of these are available at attractive rates.

The right way to evaluate the cost advantage of audio, Web and video conferencing is to compare using these services with what you'd do otherwise. If you can get the same results via conferencing that you could with travel for in-person meetings, you'll be way ahead using the technology. A more subtle comparison is to weigh the productivity improvement you get with real-time interaction between team members who are not collocated versus exchanging ideas and documents by, say, email. If you cut the time to market or time to solve a problem by half, how much is that worth to you?

You may just have to give this a try and see how well it works for your organization. You have little to lose since there are no contracts or commitments. You may have an incredible amount to gain in both cost savings and business advantage. Learn more about AccuConference telephone, Web and video conferencing options and get started quickly and easily right now.