As we enter 2011 it is clear that more and more of our customers and peers will be discussing Cloud computing.
As business people we once used to interact with the web to find services and general information, but clearly this relationship continues to evolve. Many of those services that we seek online have become applications themselves and now exhibit a certain level of complexity along with their own functionality. Many have confusion when asked to define Cloud computing – check out Webopedia to see how they define it.
What applications are you now managing internally that you would consider non-critical? What apps do you want to continue managing in house, and which are you willing to put into the cloud? These are the many questions that many of our customers are asking today. After reading the white paper titled ”Cloud Buyers’ Decision Tree” at the Open Group site I had a better idea of how to determine which apps would be best for the cloud. This site seems to be a valuable resource for all things from our industry. They are a technology neutral consortium that provides some great resources.
Cloud computing offers massive scalability, in virtual computing power, storage and application resources – all at almost immediate availability and low cost, and CEO/CIOs are demanding that their IT operations determine what the benefits of this will represent in the way of reduced cost and improved efficiencies for their organizations.
Are you looking at implementing a public or private cloud in 2011?
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Happy New Year from Cottonwood Communications!
We hope that you and your family enjoyed the holidays and have set some new goals for 2011. We believe, along with many of our peers and business partners that 2011 will be a strong recovery year for the United States. Attitudes are changing, and many seem to be going into the year with chins held high, ready for new challenges and desires to improve ourselves and our businesses.
One thing that should be at the top of your “to-do” list this year should be evaluating your overall IT and Telecom strategy. Here are 6 ideas to consider as a start to determine what areas of your business you should work on first:
1.) Your Wide Area Network or WAN. Are you currently using the right technology for this? Is your bandwidth to each end point large enough? Do you need Quality of Service or QoS to make sure that voice is prioritized over your network? In evaluating your WAN, make sure you are working with a partner that can support you with multiple carrier offerings, and assist you in evaluating the different technologies available.
2.) Is your Internet connection large enough to handle and support the applications your leadership team is encouraging throughout your organization? Our team constantly runs across business customers that are using connections that are 1/2 or in some cases 1/4 of what they should be based upon the daily applications and business tools that customers are accessing. If your employees are waiting around for things to load, it makes sense that this is causing reduced efficiencies and loss of productivity in your workforce. Instead of bonding T’s, take a look at Ethernet – if it’s not available on fiber, many of the carriers can offer 10 or 20 Mb over a copper connection.
3.) Is your phone system giving you all of the functionality that your organization needs? Have you evaluated how Unified Communications or UC would impact your employee’s ability to communicate both internally and with your customer/constituent base? Is an IP system necessary? Should you consider a hosted solution, or do you want to manage and touch your own gear in your own data center? With 100+ stores nationwide what advantages are there in having a VoIP capable system?
4.) Do you have a “cloud” strategy for the future? Are there applications now managed by your team that could be dished off to a third party to manage that would allow you to focus on your core offerings and save you money? More and more of our customers are implementing cloud solutions (SaaS or IaaS) to assist in minimizing future IT costs. There is still much confusion around cloud computing, but much of the discombobulating is beginning to go away and the message seems to be getting more and more clear.
5.) Are you still paying retail for your POTS (analog phone lines) service? If you have 15 or more of these you should be pushing your carrier for a discount plan. Qwest (soon to be CenturyLink) offers their QLVP plan which offers discounts up to 30% off the standard tariff rate (10 line minimum). If you’re not asking your carrier about this, you’re leaving money on the table. If your carrier won’t offer this, there are usually many alternatives to using analog lines. Have you considered an Integrated T-1 as an alternative for your offices that have POTs and DSL/Cable Internet connections?
6.) If you’re paying more than 6 cents per minute for your toll free or outbound long distance service you’re getting robbed. My partners and I constantly run into clients who are paying upwards of $0.15 to $0.50 per minute for their 1+ and toll free (800 number) calls. STOP and look at your most recent invoice so that you know what you’re paying for each call.
If you need help with any of these items above, get with a carrier agnostic consultant or agency for help in evaluating your options. Many of these individuals will charge you nothing for their expertise – they are compensated directly by the carriers that they have relationships with once they place you into a new service. If you’re working with one carrier you are most likley not getting the most complete picture.
We wish you and your families the best in 2011!
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Sometimes there are things happening in our industry that have to be mentioned. There are a number of offers available right now that we believe have not gotten the coverage necessary.
1.) If your office is located in a building that has competing Ethernet offerings your can now get a 100 Mb connection to the Internet from Qwest Communications for $1,850/month, $0 installation cost. The building already needs to have Qwest fiber along with ethernet service from one of the other providers in order to qualify. Two year term required.
2.) Are you starting a company and need voice and data ASAP? Integra might have your answer. They are now offering their Novus Intgrated T-1 for $403.50/month. For this you’ll get a business class T-1 with 6 to 16 phone lines dynamically allocated with the remaining bandwidth used for Internet access along with 3,000 minutes of long distance thrown in. No DSL required. Address must be qualified and be serviced from an ON Net CO only. 3 year term required.
If you have questions about either offer or want to see if you qualify, let us know?
About half our customers are paying phone and Internet carriers for services they don’t even know they have, or may not even be using. Does your business need a Telecom Audit?
I know that’s a bold statement, but we’ve found it to be true. With turnover in the IT and telecom arenas many businesses find themselves having to relearn what a previous employee put into place. One IT or Telecom Manager’s idea of simplicity is not the same as another. Needless to say in these scenarios a company or local government customer can find that they need some real help.
There are companies in the market right now that will charge you upwards of $10,000 – 50,000 for one of these. Be cautious. Some will cover your wireless and some will not. If your total telecom revenue exceeds $50,000 each and every month, paying an expert for this might make sense. If you’re a small or medium sized business or government entity that has revenues in the IT and Telecom column that are below $20k a month you would be crazy to spend this type of money for an audit. Right now there are many qualified individuals that will do an impromptu audit of your existing phone/voice and data services for next to nothing with an opportunity to compete for your expired services.
If you find yourself newly appointed to the telecom area of your business and need help you’ll want to find a carrier agnostic agency to support you with this. These groups have relationships with many of the carriers and are familiar with billings from them all. They’ll be best able to support you particularly if you see invoices from multiple carriers.
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I think many business owners get confused when they have to purchase an Internet Service. Below I highlight some of the different options available to owners as well as provide a breakdown explaining when one choice might trump another. Like the picture for this post I think there are so many things to consider when making this choice that many decision makers use the easy button and go with what’s right in front of them – or who’s right in front of them asking them to sign a contract.
It sounds simple, but the first thing you want to consider is what Internet providers can provide service in your area? If you live in a remote part of your state the options might be somewhat limited. Your phone (Qwest/AT&T/Verizon) or cable company (Comcast/Cox) would be the first option, but probably not the only option. Some of the CLECs or Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (XO, Integra, Paetec, Telesphere) have taken up residence in certain communities and provide a very compelling offering. For those of you more interested in what available at the high end feel free to skip a few paragraphs to get to the juicy monster pipe detail.
Next determine what type of connection you want or need. If you’re a smaller business and only require service for yourself, or a handful of employees you are probably best off with a few phone lines and a highspeed connection or DSL from either the phone company of the cable provider. Compare these options by reading this or this. You should be able to keep your costs < $300/month for this type of solution. Be aware that the first invoice from most of the carriers covers installation cost, and a bill for almost 2 months of service. This catches many off guard. Like utilities carriers always want to be ahead by one month. Additional things you’ll want to consider is:
* Do you want a tech install – some come with this, but not all (make sure you ask)
* Will you have to buy or rent the modem/router or is it included?
* Do you want static IP addresses? Most of the carriers will charge a bit more each month for these, but depending upon how you’re using the Internet one of these might make sense. You’ll want to check with your carrier service resource to determine if this is needed.
Let’s say that you have more than 4 to 40 employees that are always on the Internet and you need something a bit more robust. At this point you might want to entertain a T-1 or business class service. Many of the carriers offer Integrated or VoIP service. Voice over IP or Internet Protocol has been around for quite some time, but it’s really just now hitting its stride. These offer both voice and data service on the same T-1 facility. One of the carriers can start you on this service, which includes 6-16 phone lines and a T-1 worth of Internet bandwidth for around $400/month. The problem today is that a T-1 isn’t that much bandwidth anymore. Many customers going with a integrated service will start with a 3.0 Mb service which is two T’s bonded together, or even a 4.5 Mb integrated service which is three T’s bonded together so that they can have an even more robust service. Another carrier can now provide you a single monthly price for your phone equipment, Internet, local and long distance voice with installation. In the old days you had to work with 3 different groups for this.
Integrated services are considered by many in our industry as a more robust, business offering but let’s be honest not everyone has the budget to pay $500 – $1,000+/month for this. Comcast might fit the bill for you – they currently offer large pipes (10-50 and now 100 Mb) to the Internet and can now support you with your business phone lines as well. We’ve found this to be a great fit for many of our small business customers when they can qualify for the service. With the economy the way it’s been some of our larger organizations have moved over to Comcast’s business offerings to cut costs. There’s some downtime, but the reduction in cost has made it manageable. Qualification is required for most of these offerings. Get with your carrier agnostic agent to determine what your business qualifies for.
What if you are the IT manager or CIO for a company that has >60 employees (but not more than 800) at a number of offices and you’re looking for a more robust way to hit the web? Maybe you currently have a 3.0 or 4.5 Mb bonded T-1 solution that isn’t able to handle your usage any longer. It’s time for you to move to an Ethernet offering. Are you establishing a centralized IT model where all offices can come back through your WAN and firewall to gain Internet access, or are you setting up each office with their own connection? There are a number of different ways to make this work just determine where your bottlenecks are. If you want to centralize and have a 50 Mb Ethernet connection at corporate but aren’t willing to implement an Ethernet WAN (with multi Mb connections) then in most cases the remote sites will be Internet bandwidth limited by their T-1 connectivity back to the HQ. Keep in mind that the industry you’re in and the reliance you have on the web for your line of work are huge factors in determining what you really need. I know a company with <10 employees that use a 30 Mb Qwest ELA pipe for their Internet access. To them the Internet and their connectivity is their business. Is your company centralized or do you have Internet connectivity at each individual site?
If you’re office is head quartered in one of the NFL cities then you definitely want to look at all the ethernet players. XO Communications often can get their service to you quickly on copper for an outstanding price. TW Telecom is one of the leaders in ethernet deployments and Qwest’s (soon to be CenturyLink) has their MOE (Metro Optical Ethernet) infrastructure humming along very nicely right now. If you own the property you run your business and you don’t foresee moving anytime soon consider requesting Ethernet on fiber. When your 10/100 or 1000 Mb port is installed on fiber, scalability is no longer an issue. When you’re ready to ramp your offering from 10 Mb to 80 Mb or 300 Mb to 1.0 Gb there are no problems doing this. The average time to ramp from one level to the other on fiber is about 3 weeks. If you start with a 10 Mb delivered on copper, then 2 years from now require a 50 Mb service you might be waiting 3-4 months for a fiber based service to install. Copper is limited by most of the carriers to about 30 Mb.
On Ethernet deployments keep in mind that all of the carriers will run their service to the curb outside your property. In most of these deployments most of the customers do not include the costs to ready their address for this type of service into their budget. You’ll want to check with your building management to determine if there are spare conduits running into the building that can be used for Ethernet. If you’re on the 7th floor of a building how will you get the fiber or copper up to your phone closet and into your firewall. These are all things that need to be figured during the discovery process.
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Do you have a toll free number yet?
It’s standard today to have one of these. They are not always 800, sometimes they’re 866, 877, or 888 – but they all work the same. The owner of the number pays the bill. Do these still make sense? If I live in WY (that’s Wyoming for those of you not from flyover country) and I want to talk with someone specializing in office equipment for a regional sales location I’m going to open in northern Colorado I might go on the web and Google “Office Equipment – Northern Colorado”. There I’ll see Bratton’s Office Equipment and Angelo’s Office Furniture and Equipment.
Both businesses sell similar services, both appear to have the products and supplies that I’m looking for at my new office, but only one of them has a toll free number – Angelo’s. If I’m the guy in WY tasked with determining who we would buy our new printer, maintenance and supplies from I’d probably call both companies to get a quote because both appear on the first page of my Google search - but for some reason I have a slightly higher comfort level with a company that has a toll free number. Why is that?
There is a real science to numbers. Maybe all of the marketing we’ve heard as children has indoctrinated us and built in a security around toll free numbers. My son has a blanket that he’s been sleeping with for the last 6 years. Are toll free numbers like blankets for those of us in business? On this site they say,
“There are inferred responsibilities that customers subconsciously perceive businesses to have when a toll free number is used. Things as small as assuming if the company wants to pay for the call, they must want to talk to their customers. People like that thought. When prospects see a toll free number, there is a wave of comfort that rolls over them because they feel a connection with you and that makes them feel safe.”
Another benefit to having a 1-800 or toll free number is that when your bill comes you’ll have a list of all the numbers/people that called you. For many companies this will provide you a leads list for future marketing campaigns. Not a bad thing.
Most of the carriers out there provide a toll free number for free, with the user only paying for usage. This being the case, it really begins making sense. Many business owners don’t understand the options with these numbers. The better carriers like Qwest, AT&T, Integra, XO Communications, and Paetec offer a line of features that roll out the door. For example, If you want all calls before 9:00 am to ring to your cell phone then after 9:00am but not later than 5:00 pm to ring to your office phone, you can do this. If you want all calls from the western half of the US to ring to your partners cell phone or land line in Chicago, and all calls in the east to ring to you, this can be done. Work with your carrier agnostic telephone service expert for quotes and an understanding about the different options available to you and your business.
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This past weekend I elected to hike a number of Colorado Fourteeners – it was awesome! When you hike 5-8 miles a day there is a lot of time to think about things. In this post I want to share 5 things that I learned about business by accomplishing my crazy goal of summiting 7 mountains in 3 days.
1.) Although many of us want to start our own, unique, never before thought of business when we’re young, sometimes it’s easier to stay with an existing trail. Many people have been successful financially and professionally by going the same route that others have. I had many options to trail blaze this weekend, but the US Forest Service and the many volunteers in Colorado have done an excellent job maintaining and keeping great trails. The wheel has already been created, find someone doing a great job at something and living the life you want, and ask them how they got started – I think you’ll be surprised by the help you might get.
2.) Have a solid respect for nature. In the picture above I’ve come down Mt. Democrat (14,148′) and am on top of Mt. Cameron (14,238′)on my way to Mt. Lincoln (14,286′) – see http://www.14ers.com/photos/photos_14ers1.php for more stats. At the summit the wind was blowing consistently at 80-90 MPH. I have never been in wind as crazy as this, nor been as freaked out. The gentleman taking the picture was there with two other friends. I took their picture after they took mine. Afterward they left the way they came, and I pushed on to the next peak. Their iPhone almost flew right out of my hand it was so windy. In business you need to have a solid respect for how things work. If you’re not prepared to pay your taxes, or respect your relationships and the people you work for you probably won’t be in business very long. Like nature there are mores and rules in our society that have to be respected to insure your company can grow properly.
3.) Stay true to your goals no matter what! About a month ago when I first started talking with my wife about this weekend, I wanted to hike five over 14,000′ peaks in 5 days. It sounded cool and I thought it was a strong goal. Things changed a bit and I ended up hiking 7 fourteeners in 3 days. A bit more challenging and an exciting accomplishment that is now in the books. I was careful not to tell too many of my friends, because I didn’t want to get slammed and lose interest. Have you ever shared a goal with someone and had them rip the idea to shreds? I bet in most of those cases, you did not accomplish that goal. In business it’s the same way. If you have lofty goals of things you want to accomplish, be very careful who you share those goals with. There are many dream rippers out there that want to bring you down - no fun!
4.) You have to bring the right gear: I was wearing multiple layers of clothing, ski hat, ski gloves, a few gallons of water, food bars, small first aid kit, Blackberry and most certainly my digital camera. In business you need to have the right gear to succeed – without it you’ll die on the mountain. Some of the things I can think that every business person needs to get started: laptop, cell phone (one that works in your area), relationships in your chosen area of expertise, an accountant, and a lawyer. Without these you should stay at the trailhead!
5.) Do your research! Thankfully Colorado has an incredible website which is current, and outlines all routes on all 53 peaks in the state. It provides all of the information you need to hike these peaks. See above for URL under #2. I spent about 2 weeks determining which routes I would take and the order that I would hike. In business you want to make sure you do tons of research before diving into a field – it’s almost preferable to work in that industry for at least two years before starting off on your own. Today I’ll spend about 2-3 hours researching to be prepared for an appointment I have tomorrow. If you’re prepared in life, doors will open!
I love pumpkins! Our family is growing pumpkins for the first time this year. It’s so much fun doing this and watching our kids get involved in the growing process. As I sit here in my backyard I’m drawing comparisons between growing a business and growing pumpkins. Here are 5 examples of how growing pumpkins and a business is the same:
1.) Before you start – or plant the seeds, make sure that you prepare the soil and have your business plan in hand. It may be a bit late in the season to plant now, but check out these handy tips on how to plant for next season.
2.) Have a basic understanding of the direction your business or pumpkin vines will grow – or you might destroy your tomato plants or your marriage. Here’s a great video by the Smith Family that tells you how to do this properly.
3.) To give life to your pumpkins and business you have to give it daily attention and water. If you start skipping this your pumpkins and business will begin to wither and die.
4.) Fungus is bad. If your pumpkins or business has fungus, get on it right away! We cut a portion of the infected leaves off and treated the remaining bad and good leaves with a 1 part milk, 9 part water mixture at dusk. Does your business or career have fungus? Maybe something that’s not killing it completely but causing your business to slowly die? The sooner you figure this out, the sooner things will improve and grow. I’m not sure if milk will help with the business side of things, but it seems to be helping with our pumpkins.
5.) Depending upon the type of pumpkins or business you start, your growth could be extremely quick and begin to consume massive amounts of space, make sure that you’re prepared for the requirements of this endeavor. Thankfully we have room on the side of our house to grow pumpkins. We planted seeds about a month and a half ago, and one of the vines is already 12 feet long. Our one and only pumpkin is already the size of a volleyball. If your business requires inventory, you need to know where it’s going to be stored – or if your business requires multiple employees to produce the income level you require, where will your office be? Can your employees work remotely with a company provided laptop? Here’s a few older, but solid tips to growing your business.
Good luck growing your pumpkin business!
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Have you thrown away your fax machine yet? There are so many great services out there today that the need for a traditional fax machine is no longer necessary.
For the last 4 years my fax number has also been my home telephone number. On Monday-Friday during business hours when you called our home you received a fax tone delivered by my HP all in one fax/scanner and copier. This drove my wife nuts! So this morning we had it out and I ended up getting an efax type of service from one of the online providers. I now have a toll free number to give my customers should they ever need to fax a document to me. From now on if you call the Thonus household at 10:00 am Monday through Friday you’ll get a voice mail asking you to leave a message. I usually don’t answer the home phone since I don’t ever get calls on the home phone. This also really get’s under my wife’s skin. But I’ll maybe cover this in another post.
If a study was done today, I would guess that the American business community probably scans and e-mails more documents then faxes. Amy Henst states in her April 2010 blog that faxes are more secure than e-mail for quite a few reasons. For fun, take a look at the comments to her blog – there are a lot of people that hate fax machines! Here’s sort of a funny blog – “Why I hate fax machines”. There are more than 1,600 people that like Facebook page - “I hate when my parents take away my fax machine”. This is a very funny spoof on the box. Sascha Segan had it right a few years ago when he wrote his PC Mag article titled “Death to the Fax Machine”.
In any event, my hatred of the fax machine really started this morning when my wife got testy with me about the fact that I still used an older style traditional fax machine. Case closed!
If you’re a small to medium sized business looking for options to replace your traditional fax machine, contact a carrier agnostic agency today to inquire about your options.
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Has your definition of service changed with regard to your Internet and phone services over the last 10 years?
I had an interesting discussion with a friend a few weeks ago about customer expectations for voice quality. He told me that with the use of cell phones and VoIP services most people don’t care as much about solid, clean sounding and reliable phone service as they once did. He said, “if you’re disconnected, just call back – not a big deal”. I had to agree with him. It’s been quite a while since anyone’s called me to say that they had crackling sounds on their phone. Usually if you get a bad connection, you hang up and redial. The days of ongoing, and recurring back round noise are gone. In the late 80′s and much of the 90′s when many of the carriers were upgrading their networks, random noises, echos and crackling were common place.
How good your service works is key, but how’s the customer service you get for these services – do you think anything’s changed in the last 10 years with this? As a business owner, I am continually bombarded with offers for higher speed Internet and new phone service. 99% of the time this gets thrown in the trash. The services I now have at my office have been in place for more than 4 years. The bill is automatically paid via credit card each and every month. I haven’t had to make a service call for my Internet or phone service in that same period of time. How about you? I truly believe that most businesses are exactly the same. The only time they really look or think about who they use and work with for their voice and data service is when their contracts expire and need to be renewed or grown. Do you like the people you work with when you go through this renewal process? Are they making suggestions to upgrade your service and give you a better price, or just renewing what you already have? These are things you want to consider as you begin this process.
One belief that I have is that every business owner needs a phone person in their contact list – someone you trust, someone that can advise and steer you in the right direction with your carrier and product selection and help you make the best decisions for your business. Just like you need a banker, an insurance person and an accountant that you trust – make sure you have an IT/phone person you can trust. The service and loyalty you’ll receive from this person will be much higher than if you worked with different people every time you need help. Business relationships matter! Nothing is worse than going to tier I toll free support when you have an issue. Check out a carrier agnostic firm as they’ll have no alliances to any one particular carrier and will be looking out for your best interest.
Who’s your phone person? Who’s that person that’s there each and every time you need help, or need advice on what to do? That’s the person you should be working with. Give them your business and get the level of service you deserve.
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