I am amazed at how many 20-30 employee companies still use DSL or cable for their Internet connectivity.  In addition to using ethernet between your offices you should consider using ethernet to the Internet too.  My rule of thumb for Internet use is this:

*    1-4 users, go with DSL or Cable Internet connection

*    5-15 users, go with Cable or a T-1 to the Internet

*    16-24 users, go with 3.0 Mb or 4.5 Mb bonded Internet or begin looking at 10 Mb ethernet connectivity.

*    25 and up on total users you have to be into an ethernet connection.  With this many regular, daily Internet users in your office you’ll need a fat pipe to get your work done.

With the many applications that businesses tie into today, scaling the pipes between your offices and the pipe to the Internet is critical.  Making the wrong decisions on this could make or break a quarter, and maybe a year for some businesses.  Clearly the scale I gave above will vary a bit depending upon the type of business you’re in, but it’s a great place to start for most businesses.

Some of the groups you’ll want to consider for this type of offering are:

*   Qwest QMOE offers many options to fit your budget and your bandwidth requirements.

*  AT&T offers a wide variety of ethernet in the states that they service.

*  XO Communications - One of the few CLEC’s that are beginning to master EoC (Ethernet over Copper) as a viable and well priced offering.

For additional information on WANs – here’s a post from earlier this year.  For additional questions about how ethernet can rock your connectivity, contact a carrier agnostic agency today.

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It’s great having choices, but many times it seems like there are too many choices.  If you’re a business owner or executive tasked with opening a new office, the decision and choices that need to be made about phones, phone lines and Internet service is a headache.  Here are a few ideas to consider before you head down this road:

VOICE LINES

1st you need to determine how many voice  lines you’ll need.  Most in our industry use a 2:1 or 3:1 ration of people to lines.  In other words if you have 10 employees working in your office, you’ll want 4-5 voice lines.  If you have 20 employees you’ll want about 10-12 lines etc….  Some might confuse voice lines with phones.  Keep in mind that it’s not a bad idea to have a phone in the waiting area of your office for your patrons to use, or in the lunch room.  This being the case, you might actually end up having 12-14 phones if you have 10 employees.  It’s doubtful that everyone in your company will be on the phone at the exact same time – unless you’re a telemarketing group or call center business.  This is boring stuff to most of us, until you’re the one tasked with having to set this up.  Then you need some serious help!  No one wants to make a stupid, expensive wrong decision about these things.

On this front you can decide to go with a more traditional set up (the classics) that would include separate voice lines and a DSL for Internet – companies that would offer this would be, Qwest, AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast.  The other option is to look at Integrated T-1′s or VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) T-1 service.  With this service both your voice lines and your Internet access is delivered over a T-1 or business-class facility.  These take a while to install (30-60 days) compared to a traditional setup (10-14 days), but tend to have a lot of flexibility.  Companies to consider for this service are: XO Communications, Qwest, Integra, and Paetec.

INTERNET SERVICE

Next, figure out (on average) how many of your employees will spend time on the Internet?  What types of sites will they visit, or maybe better, what types of sites do you want them to visit?  Many employers have strict firewall policies about this as the sites most of us want to visit are generally very bandwidth intensive – but this is for another blog posting.  If you’re a doctors office, or an architecture firm you may be sending very large files via e-mail so you’ll want to take this into consideration.  In most cases if you make a wrong decision about your Internet bandwidth, the carrier you’re working with is more than willing to increase the size of this pipe.  Generally they are not big fans of reducing your bandwidth without some sort of penalty – so be careful here.  For more on Internet, go here.

There are many options for Internet access – above I discuss differences between a traditional vs. an Integrated Access set up.  There are arguments for and against each of these, but in general this is my opinion:  If your office is small and you’re on a small budget, go with a traiditional setup of voice lines and a DSL.  This will be less expensive and you’ll be able to get things in place quicker.  If you have 10 or more employees and you’re quite sure things will ramp up over the next year take a serious look at an Integrated T-1.  If you need more voice lines in the future it’s easy for the carrier to turn these up quickly.  T-1′s tend to be more and better monitored than POTs lines (Plain Old Telephone Service) by the carriers.  Often if there’s a problem with your service the carrier knows about it before you do – this is not the case with plain old service.

PHONES

As for phones, one can go in numerous directions depending upon budget.  If you’re working on a shoe string consider getting something from one of the office stores (Office Max – Best Buy), then work with your carrier to make sure the proper features are part of the offering so that these basic phones will work properly.  Over the next few years you can consider upgrading to something more robust when the need for additional phones exceeds your existing system.  Another option here would be to go to E-Bay and buy a system thats 2-3 years old.  The software release would most likely be outdated, but at least you would have a business class solution until you were ready to make a larger/newer investment.  If it’s only 2-3 years old you should be able to find a company locally that will help you install & maintain it.   If you have the budget for a new system talk to the individuals supporting you with your Internet and phone service – generally they’ll have a couple groups for you to consider.  Confirm with the local BBB and always check references before you move forward with a vendor.

ALL IN ONE SOLUTIONS

Telesphere offers a hosted phone solution that we believe is fantastic.  They’ll provide you a true one stop solution for your new single location business or all of your offices nationwide.  All handsets and features would be the same nationwide and you’ll have one bill for all of your voice, data and equipment.  Check them out here.

Ultimately there are many choices, but if one takes the time to research the various options available you should be on track to business success.  Get with a carrier agnostic agency for help.  These groups have relationships with all of the carriers, they’ll be the best group to assist you or give your company a tune up.

10 years ago most businesses could get away with having just 1.5 Mb of bandwidth to the Internet.  Today that doesn’t touch the surface on what is needed, particularly if you’re utilizing your connection to access many of the applications now available.  As SaaS (Software as a Service) models continue to grow and more and more businesses reach outside of their LANS for dial tone, CRM, ERP, PLM, SCM, SRM type applications, the need for bigger and better bandwidth will always be needed.  I stuck dial tone in the list above because now more than ever more and more businesses are looking to get a hosted PBX – Telesphere is a company that seems to have a grasp on this technology.

With cloud computing software designers can design, build, and deliver services that allow clients to easily access their applications from virtually any location.  IBM seems to be positioned extremely well to assist many of the large software providers with implementing a SaaS strategy.  Today, increased demand for Internet access is directly driven by the need for business applications.

Most of the carriers will bond T-1′s to provide their customers 3.0 – 9.0 Mb of access, but most have realized that to be positioned for the future they have to provide ethernet grade Internet access.  Qwest has led the way in their 14 states providing ELA (Ethernet LAN Access) to the Internet over their QMOE (Qwest Metro Optical Ethernet) backbone.  TW Telecom, Integra, and XO offer great pricing on their EoC (Ethernet over Copper) offerings.  Be patient when you’re working to check availability and get quotes for this service as it can sometimes be a lengthy process.  As always, make sure that you’re working with a carrier agnostic agency so that you can get multiple pricing from one source.

Happy Surfing!

1.)  When choosing a voice T-1 what are the advantages of a PRI over an advanced or basic DSS T-1?

An Advanced T has DID (Direct Inward Dial) number capability, but can’t pass caller ID, and a Basic T can pass caller ID but doesn’t use DID numbers.  A PRI Voice T is the cadillac of T’s, it can pass caller ID information and also use DID numbers.

2.)  Why would a company implement a WAN using MPLS when they want to install an IP/PBX at all of their branches?

IP/PBX uses VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) technology.  Voice becomes an application like any other on a WAN – and it must be prioritized.  Voice for many customers is the highest priority.  In other words, when you’re working in your office would you notice it if the phone stopped working or was garbled?  Of course you would.  And most likely you wouldn’t tolerate it – you would call your phone support group or IT group and yell at them to fix it ASAP or you’ll ……(just kidding, but this can be a very frustrating thing for folks).  Voice must be prioritized ahead of data packets so we use a technology called MPLS along with CoS and QoS to insure that the voice packets on a IP/PBX are passed throught the WAN ahead of any other traffic.

3.)  How would SIP trunking (SIP service) help me expand my business?

If you wanted a presence in tim-buck-2 but didn’t want to open a physical office there, many of the carriers can (through SIP) give you a fully usable phone line in tim-buck-2 so that everyone there thinks you have an office.  But really the calls will come right back to the office you now work out of.

4.)   Is wireless Internet better than a land based MOE Internet connection?  What are the advantages of each?

Wireless Internet access has the advantage of speed when it comes to the installation interval.  Many wireless connections can be put into place within a week to 10 days from the time you say “go”.  They also avoid the cost of the “last mile” or local loop that you’ll get from your LEC or local exchange carrier so the monthly cost ends up being less.  A MOE or metro optical ethernet connection is a land based Internet service.  Nothing can replace this type of connection for pure speed.  Many customers can now get a 5 or 10Mb connection to the Internet from carriers like Qwest, Level 3 or XO.  The drag of a MOE-like connection is the lengthy qualification and installation interval.  Standard interval for this service ranges from 60-240 days depending upon what construction might have to take place.  Pricing is competitive and ranges between $140-180/Mb even with a local loop.

5.)  What are the best strategies for implementing account codes on my long distance account?

Account codes allow you to manage your long distance calls.  Before a long distance call goes out, callers will be prompted for a code – usually between 2 and 6 digits.  When the bill comes you’ll get a breakdown of calls by that code.  This comes in handy for controlling your long distance calling cost, or many companies use these for billing back customers or projects.  Lawyers love account codes!

6.)  Many carriers offer Integrated VoIP  T-1s – what is the fewest number of lines that a small business owner can get with a single dynamic T-1?

At this point in time Paetec allows you to have a dynamic Integrated T-1 with 4 voice lines and the rest of the bandwidth reserved for data (or to get out to the Internet) for $370.00/month.

7.)  What does DID stand for as it relates to a voice T-1?

DID stands for “Dreaming in Denver”, just kidding, it’s actually “Direct Inward Dial” – when using either an advanced or PRI (Private Rate Interface ISDN) voice T-1 DID numbers are used and given to each employee to be their own personal office number.  Traditionally offices had a main switch board operator that took all incomming calls then transferred those calls to the employees within the company.  With DID everyone can get their own personal calls from outside to ring directly to their desk.  This eliminated the need for many companies to have a front desk person taking all calls.  Now Don Draper can take his own calls directly.

8.)  How many layers are there in the OSI Reference Model?

The Open Systems Interconnection Reference Model has 7 layers.  Many of us in IT today utilize this model to discuss computer network protocol design.  If you’re caught talking about this at a cocktail party you need to distance yourself from your peers.  Have another martini!

9.)  Which country has the best average Internet connectivity speeds?

The average household/business in South Korea gets approximately 12 Mb of bandwidth to the Internet – in the US right now we average about 2 Mb for every household and business.  We really need to catch up -

10.)  What is the difference between a /30 and a /24?

In technical speak, when you ask for a /30 you are asking for 4 static IP addresses, a /24 would be considered a “class C” address or 256 addresses.

How did you do?

Many of the carriers offer some form of SIP service today.  XO Communications says the following on their website, “SIP provides the direct connection to the XO IP network and eliminates the costs associated with the purchase, support and maintenance of media gateways while reducing the recurring costs of separate Public Switched Telephone Network and data circuits.

Qwest is now in the game too.  On their website they state, “Qwest iQ SIP Trunk enables the origination and termination of local voice, dedicated long-distance, as well as domestic and international toll-free service across a single broadband connection. It is designed to work in conjunction with Qwest iQ Networking service, which includes a secure, managed, fully interoperable and scalable suite of wide area network (WAN) services.”

Learn what you can about SIP service as it will become a technology that is more widely used in the future.  It could very well be part of your business solution moving forward.