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Prices Continue to Come Down on Integrated Products
Friday March 30, 2012,
06:48 pm ET
KOYUK, Alaska, Mar. 30 /Jerome Jones/ --
Higher productivity for small to medium sized businesses is just around the corner thanks
to commercial grade broadband services that are now being delivered at a fraction of their
previous cost. Due to the ever increasing competitive marketplace and a mad dash to consolidate
networks, telecoms are offering their premium business services to small businesses for a fraction
of what they used to cost just a few years ago. Businesses who use more than four regular phone
lines can now upgrade to dynamic integrated T-carrier circuits for the same price.
The two basic Integrated T1 line configurations, as they exist in today's
market, are analog and digital. Commonly referred to as "trunks", these 24-channel
bundles transmit TDM signals directly to the service provider's network via a
local loop. Unlike analog trunks, whose configuration can not change once the
channels have been allocated, digital "dynamic" lines can change reconfigure
themselves from data, to voice, and back again. This ability to reclaim voice
channels for data broadband access when not in use gives the user the performance
of two T1's in one.
Alaska, ordinarily not known for its telecom prowace, has been a hotbed
for businesses making the move to dynamic telecom lines. One local business
owner - Linda Peterson - who operates a travel agency, recently told us that
"I never expected the phone company to come out with anything that would
help me lower my costs. On the contrary. Ma Bell has had a history of raising
my rates and making my life difficult. When I heard about the XO Flex package
(offering 10 dynamic voice lines and 1.5 mbps of high speed Internet) at a price
of under $500, I couldn't move over fast enough." Since then Linda reported
a $150/month savings in her telecom expenses.
"Commercial telecommunication providers were never on my Christmas card list"
commented Jake Chang, a small business owner in Denver, Colorado. "Dealing with them
meant erroneous bills, long wait times when trying to reach customer service, and
taxes I could never understand. Now that we migrated to a dynamic integrated
T1, my phone lines and high speed internet are bundled into one line with super
reliability. Not to mention the fact that XO Communications, a CLEC, treats me
like they actually want my business - not like I'm a pain in the you-know-what."
Will this train of innovation, lower prices, and services that add value to SMB's continue
to roll down the tracks of progress? It's all up to our government - and which political
party controls the FCC. Without the deregulation act of 1996, we would have never known
just how much the CLECs were capable of.
With the help of super-CLECs like XO Communications, PAETEC, Nuvox, One Communications,
Cavalier Telephone, and TelePacific, small business owners everywhere now have access
to non-Bell service that is on par or better than those being offered by the former
Bells. Integrated T1s that do more and cost less have transformed into a solid beach
head for the newcomers.
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