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Flexible Products, Lower Prices
Wednesday June 24, 2009,
06:59 pm ET
STANLEYS STORE, Georgia, Jun. 24 /Michael Johnson/ --
Small businesses all over the country are discovering a whole new universe of broadband access.
As the price of commercial-grade telecommunication services continues to drop, more and more
enterprises are starting to drop their plain old telephone service lines in favor of all-digital
T1 trunks that deliver voice and data over the same connection. These new enhancements were
made possible by the increasing pace of consolidation in the telecommunication industry along
with the increasing value bigger phone companies can provide.
Georgia, 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.
The Integrated T1 line has two general flavors; analog and, of course, digital.
The term "trunk" is synonymous with an integrated T1 line, representing 24
bundled DS0 (regular 64KB) channels. Digital trunks form the basis technology
for dynamic integrated lines, which are capable of transporting digitized
versions of voice traffic in addition to regular data packets. This ability
of digital trunks to function in the data realm allows it the ability to
dynamically allocate traffic according to the application, allowing priority
for voice traffic and "re-claiming" that bandwidth for data transfer when the
phone call is completed. This ensures that none of the capacity of the
T1 line is ever wasted.
With any new advancement in technology there is usually a lag in the time it take
users known as "early adapters" to try out and begin using the new services themselves.
Although dynamic T1 service has been available in many US markets since 2005, it's
just now that we have observed people beginning to embrace the new technology. One
such business that recently changed from a voice PRI and data T1 line on to one,
dynamic T1 line is Jason Oliver, a small business owner in Los Angeles, California.
"When I found out that I could replace my two T1's with one single dynamic integrated
circuit (offered by TelePacific Communications), I had two thoughts: 1- where do I
sign, and 2- why didn't someone tell me about this sooner!"
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.
Change does not happen quickly in an industry as so heavily regulated as Telecommunications.
Recent industry consolidation has provided huge alternatives to the incumbents, who
are now under pressure to keep up with new technologies while charging better prices
to retain and attract new customer bases.
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