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Prices Continue to Come Down on Integrated Products
Thursday May 07, 2009,
09:03 pm ET
ALLENDALE COUNTY, South Carolina, May. 07 /Cynthia Thomas/ --
The way business connect to the digital universe is changing. More and more enterprises are
discovering the new broadband options made available to them through a series of cost cutting
measures by telecommunication providers. With the recent rush to consolidate, more and more
features are being crammed into the current service offerings, which continue to fall in price
bringing products like integrated T1 service into the price range of the vast majority of
small to medium-size businesses.
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.
The irony of the new small business communications revolution is that it took so long
to gain traction. The whole idea of reclaiming inactive voice channels for data applications
is not new, and was introduced by many CLEC operators over five years ago. So why did
it take so long for SMB's to adopt the technology and make the change? One might argue
that the Internet bubble burst in 2000 shook many people's confidence in telecommunications,
one of the hardest hit industries. With so many telecoms going out of business, or merging
with other small players just to stay solvent, many customers took the "wait and see"
approach before making the decision to entrust their communications with a company not
associated with Ma Bell. Now that economic Darwinism has taken hold, the remaining companies
are attracting new customers who see the benefits of the new technology without the downside
risk of loosing service or not being able to get through to customer service in the pinch.
Dynamic integrated T1s are a fairly new phenomenon. Unlike their analog
counterparts that can never deviate from their initial set up configurations,
dynamic T1s are able to convert voice phone calls into data packets and
them prioritize their delivery through an all-digital trunk. The ability
to break everything down into the lowest common denominator (digital)
allows the system to change on-the-fly to reclaim phone lines for high
speed Internet the second the phone call is terminated. An integrated T1 essentially
provides the end user the same service as one data T1 line and one
voice T1 line, for half the cost.
Evolution has lead to a better, cheaper alternative to TDM services that the Bells were
peddling for decades in a vacuum of competition. Now the industry, lead by the innovation
and great business practices of the CLECs, seems to have turned a corner - leaving the
incumbents playing catchup. Obviously, the main benefactor of all of this competition
is the small to medium size business - a segment of the market that was taken for granted
until today.
The only thing that can get in the way of future progress is the law. You know, the one
that requires the RBOCs to lease their local loops to CLECs at a reduced rate so that
the customer can get a dedicated connection between their office and the CLECs' network.
If the FCC decided to lift this requirement, this whole deck of cards could come down
in a hurry, and when it does, you can kiss dynamic integrated T1 service for under $500
good bye!
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