Choosing the right telecom service to acquire can be a bit daunting. There are simply too many services to choose from that you can easily get confused on which one to use for your business.

Some of the main types of lines that you can expect to encounter would be the T1 line, DSL and the OC circuits. Some of the major features of this line are listed below to help you consider which one is best for your business.

If you want a faster speed for your service, then expect to get a big bandwidth as well. Having a large and sufficient bandwidth allows you to use large applications and send/receive files and data.

This will also give you a chance to stream videos online without any problems whatsoever. This large bandwidth capability can also setup your company for other future applications that you might want to use.

The T-1 is a high-speed digital line that can send off signals at speeds of 1.544 Mbps. It can transmit both voice and data easily. This line consists of 24-channels and can service 50 to 100 telephone users.

Another popular service would be the DSL. The Digital Subscriber Line is ideal for residences because it gives off a broadband connection.

The speed may vary depending on the distance from the main central office. Even though it is still popular, more and more people are turning to the T-1 because with it, there are no problems with the distance.

One advantage of the DSL however, is that it is cheaper than the T-1 line.

The T-3 is also another high-speed digital connection. This type of service allows you to transmit data and voice at a rate of 43.232 megabits every second, making it equivalent to 28 T-1 lines. It has no problem in handling even the heaviest and bandwidth consuming applications.

Another set of services are the OC lines. These are actually Optical Carrier Lines that can transmit speeds of up to 51.84 Mbps. The OC line uses optical fiber or SONET fiber optic to carry signals.

Each number at the end of the OC means the level of data transmission rate the line can handle. For example, an OC3 circuit is equivalent to about 84 T-1s. The OC12, on the other hand, is an optical carrier that can reach speeds of up to 622 Mbps and is equivalent to four OC3s.

One of the largest optical carriers would be the OC48. It has the capability to transmit about 2.5 gigabits per second and ideally used for really large network backbones.

It is the same as using four OC12s. However, the largest optical carrier available today would be the OC192. The speed with which it transmits reaches to a whopping 9.6 gigabits. When you run this circuit, it is the same as using four OC48s.

Two of the primary uses for this circuit are for campus environments and other major network applications.

POTS or plain old telephone services are also available. These are the same basic trunks used in most residential units and some business units. The transmission is done using copper wires which are not very reliable for speed.

Most business phone lines are recommended to have as a backup for other services like the T-1 and the OC.

Finally, the CSU or Customer Service Unit is used as a test point for T-1 circuits. It mainly resides in the customers’ premises which connect through the T-1 unit on to a telephone system.

The CSU affords some amount of testing to see where the problem lies when there are outages in the area.

Post from: Business Long Distance, Telecom, Voice T1, Business Voip Blog

Finding the right Telecom Service

Pre-Sale

1. What type of experience do you have in the telecom industry and which companies have you worked for?

2. How many quotes am I to expect from your company and which carriers will they be coming from?

3. What kind of fee do you charge and how do you base this cost?

4. What kind of billing increments and surcharges are involved or included in the pricing?

Post Sale

5. Who handles the account after we sign the contract? Does this go to a provisioning team or project coordinator? Do you stay involved with this process?

6. When there is a service outage whom do we contact?

7. When there are billing issues or credits due, whom do we contact?

8. When our first bill comes in who will go through that with us to make sure we were charged what we were quoted?

9. Do you perform quarterly follow-ups to all of your customers to ensure that they are satisfied with the service?

10. At the end of our term what happens? Who will contact us with updated pricing and terms?

Things to pay attention to:

Does the sales representative take the time to understand your business, or he just selling you something? Why is this important?

The importance of understanding your business is vital to offering you the correct telecom services.

A simple example of this is call patterns for long distance calls.

A carrier can offer a great rate for state to state calls, but if a majority of the calls are made in-state, this doesn’t help lower your overall long distance bill.

Again, a very simple example, but understanding how your business operates really helps us offer you the proper services that will enable your telecom systems to run more efficiently.

Post from: Business Long Distance, Telecom, Voice T1, Business Voip Blog

Top 10 Questions To Ask Before Choosing Your Next Telecom Provider

Technorati Tags: business long distance, carriers, providers, Telecom

“Kalimat Telecom, Iraq’s national telecom network launched the first WiMax network in Baghdad. The $500 million project is the national Fixed Wireless Local Loop (WLL) Telephony and Data provider aiming to serve 28 million Iraqi citizens. Barely five percent penetration in Iraq for obvious security problems there in the past, but with the improving situation, Kalimat Telecom is now poised to take off and plans to secure 60 percent of Iraqi subscribers in the next two years.”

Very interesting to see how Iraq is building up and the infrastructure that’s in place. I wonder how their over telecom situation is moving along?

Post from: Business Long Distance, Telecom, Voice T1, Business Voip Blog

Wireless Moving Ahead in Badhdad, Iraq

Technorati Tags: iraqi citizens, kalimat telecom, national telecom, telecom network, voip news, wireless local loop

“This is the season when presidential candidates are busily proclaiming that they won’t raise your taxes.

But across the country, consumer watchdogs are outraged that the Federal Communications Commission will meet on Election Day and could vote to raise your monthly phone bill.

The increase would result partly from increases in federally mandated fees.”

And do not be suprised if rates start to rise over the next 6 months. Tough economy will hit the telecom companies and raising rates is one sure way of increasing revenue. We are already seeing it in the wholesale long distance arena.

Post from: Business Long Distance, Telecom, Voice T1, Business Voip Blog

Higher Phone Bills in the Making

1. Watch out for billing tricks. Ask what is the billing increment the carrier will use?

Many times a $.03 rate will be closer to $.05 or even higher because of their billing tricks. Instead of the standard 18/6 billing, they’ll round up your call in 30 or 60 second increment.

What this means to you is… if you’re on a call for 1 minute and 5 seconds, they’ll round up your call to either 1 minute and 30 seconds or 2 minutes. As you can see, this can easily raise your bill by 50-95%. I’ve seen the horror stories of this shady practice.

2. Beware of sites that show a listing of carriers and their rates.

Not only can you fall victim to the 60 second billing trick, you’ll still have to contact all the carriers yourself to determine the best rate plan for your business. And this can be very time consuming.

These sites aim to confuse you with their gimmicky rate calculators hoping you won’t do your homework and just choose what looks best.

But as you know, what looks best isn’t always the case. These sites serve one purpose, to make a referral commission off you. They’re not their job to help you in choosing the best plan for your business.

Also, these sites represent resellers and not long distance carriers you are more familiar with, such as AT&T, Qwest, Sprint and Verizon. This can be advantageous but you have to do your homework. If a reseller goes out of business that means your long distance service is out of business, too.

If your long distance isn’t important for you, then it won’t matter which carrier you choose but if it’s important to you, then you need expert advice in choosing the best and most stable carrier.

3. If you’re interested in a name brand carrier, ATT, Verizon, Sprint or Qwest, be prepared to deal with a call center telemarketer.

You will have NO representation, they will not sell you the best rate plan for your business and you still have to deal with their customer service anytime you have issues or problems.

I don’t know about you, I’ve wasted enough time talking to clueless customer service reps, especially ones from other countries.

4. Be careful of the one size fits all type of plans.

If you don’t get proper one on one attention, then there is no way a simple web form and/or wizard is going to give you an idea what is the best long distance plan for you.

There are many different factors that will go into effect, such as in state vs out of state calling, international, do you have enough minutes to qualify for a voice t1, do you need voip or sip termination. As you can see with all the options out there, one would be crazy to trust their telecom services over to a website.

5. Is the site only offering business VOIP service?

If that’s the case, then they really do not understand the needs of businesses and their telecom infrastructure.

Many of these sites are aiming for the residential or the home business market, they just happen to be on the first page of google when you are searching.

6. Sites that offer for you to fill out a form.

They get you thinking they are going to take care of you. The forms are long and seem endless. But this is only good if you like sales reps from 6-7 people to be calling you.

These site make it look like they will be the ones handling your business but instead, they either sell your name to 6-7 other companies or they hand you off to several other companies because they are nothing more than affiliates.

You can call me directly at 1-888-256-2925 or contact me here for a free consultation so I can show you how to drastically reduce your long distance and/or data costs.

Post from: Business Long Distance, Telecom, Voice T1, Business Voip Blog

Business Long Distance – 6 Traps To Be Aware Of Before Choosing a Telecom Provider

Technorati Tags: business long distance, long distance carriers, long distance service, rate calculators, referral commission, voice t1

If you are looking for business long distance rates, dedicated long distance T1’s or any telecom service , you can check the page section of our blog.

You can reach us at 1-888-256-2925 or by email.

Post from: Business Long Distance, Telecom, Voice T1, Business Voip Blog

Welcome To WorldNet Solutions Blog

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