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Momentum Builds for CLECs
Friday August 29, 2008,
10:55 am ET
LOCUST GROVE, Ohio, Aug. 29 /Ron Franatovich/ --
Business broadband, its price, and who can afford it, are changing. Every day an increasing number
of business are finding the new broadband services made available to them by the "new" telecommunications
companies that are emerging from the latest round of mergers and acquisitions. Overlapping networks
are being consolidated into bigger and leaner footprints, lowering the cost of dynamic integrated
digital signal 1 (DS1) service to the price range of about five regular phone lines. Small to medium
size business can now afford services once reserved for the Fortune 1000 companies.
"The marriage of lower price points and feature-rich T-1 services have made it so that
customers can now get more bang for less buck" observed Kent Stallions, telecom expert
at PK Communications. "The good old days of the Bells charging people $50/month for
regular POTs lines without them having another alternative are over. With the advent
of sub-$450 dynamic integrated T1 service, businesses are able to get up to 1.5 Mbps
of Internet connectivity and 24 phone lines all in one package, for less than what they
pay now for 5 regular phone lines" Stallions continued.
"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."
"When we moved into our new location here in Los Angeles" commented John Baker, a
small business owner in San Diego, California, "we feared having to sign up for
commercial telephone and internet service. Until about a year ago, the services
being offered to us were TDM, which doesn't come cheap. Thankfully our Telarus
commercial telecom broker recommended that we give TelePacific a try, and we did.
One year later, we've never had an erroneous bill, our phone and data are all on
one single dynamic T1, and we can focus on what we do best - brokering mortgages."
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!
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.
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