The Advantages of Business Ethernet

Business Internet Service

It almost goes without saying that businesses today, small and large, need to have a reliable and rock-solid Internet connection to enable them to do business. Choosing the wrong business Internet service provider will do your business more harm than good, and can cost you customers that you can never get back. Even a small business today cannnot afford to try to make DSL or cable suffice; while the price may be attractive, the service from DSL or cable is more often than not exactly what you pay for -- cheap, and is that the message that you want to get across to your customers? Your customers are going to think that if you cheap-out on your business Internet service, it only stands to reason that you will also cheap-out on the quality of the products and services that you are offering. You need to understand that with DSL and cable, the only way they can achieve the price points they quote is because those circuits are designed to be over-subscribed to the hilt, and if your DSL or cable is not over-subscribed today, you can bet that your provider is trying to over-subscribe it, because they offer NO guarantees for DSL or cable servivce. A smaller business can usually get by with the reliability offered by T1 or bonded T1, but if Ethernet services are offered in your area, it is definitely something that you should look at closely and consider, as it can be an extremely cost effective solution.

Keep in mind that the Ethernet services being offered here are Carrier Ethernet offerings. The term "ethernet" is tossed around by DSL and cable providers but that is not true Ethernet. The services offered here are Carrier Ethernet offerings, meaning that the service is a dedicated service offered by the actual carrier, not a shared service being resold on someone else's network.

Business Ethernet and Ethernet Bandwidth

Many people get very confused when looking at their possible options for Ethernet bandwidth for their business. One of the unfortunate aspects is that the term Ethernet has been thrown around way too much, even by the residential DSL and cable providers, and when talking about these various types of Ethernet services, residential has no place there. The Ethernet that MAY be able to be provided by a residential ISP might be labeled Ethernet, but rest assured it is the same "best efforts" and non-dedicated service that you get with DSL or cable, and that has no real place in the real business world of bandwidth.

When it comes time to choose and make the tough choices for your business, there will undoubtedly be lots of different options available. This is especially true when talking about telecommunications, where the market is full of things that look good on the surface. You could go with T1, Ethernet, DSL, cable, or something else. With all of these things staring your business in the face, you have to consider the costs and the weigh the benefits of each choice. This choice is one that shouldn't really be a contest, though. Business Ethernet offers many advantages over the other choices out on the market.

The various flavors of Ethernet that may be available to your company or business are not all that different, and in fact, may have little to no difference. If what you need is less than about 100 MB of bandwidth, it is also called Fast Ethernet. If it is more than about 100 MB of bandwidth, it may be called GB Ethernet or Gigabit Ethernet. If you are in a large metro city and it is available to your location, it may be called Metro Ethernet or Metro-E or MetroE. But regardless of what it is called, at the end of the day you are getting a dedicated circuit with dedicated bandwidth, 24x7x365.25 with guaranteed uptime. There is not a residential DSL or cable ISP on the planet that can make the same statements about their offering. Sure, the price looks good but as a business, you need to take the time to "look under the hood".

There are quite a few reasons why Business Ethernet is the best choice for business telecommunications. First and foremost, it comes down to speed and reliability. These are the two things that you need to be looking for when you make this choice. When you are running a network, communicating with your customers via email, allowing your customers to download literature and specs from your server, and having a responsive and attractive online presence, you need for it to provide the type of speed and power that your customers and employees expect demand. The speed of your system will dictate how much work gets done and it will set the tone for your business. If you have anything less than the best, your business as a whole will suffer. Running a high speed network with Ethernet makes sure that you are putting your best foot forward. Remember, in the eyes of your customer, you only have one chance to make a first impression, so make sure it is a good one in the highly competitive marketplace.

Fast Ethernet

The biggest reason why Business Ethernet is better than DSL and cable is because of the reliability factor. With DSL and cable, you have no uptime guarantee and no bandwidth availability guarantee, because you are sharing DSL and cable with 50-100 other businesses and residences. Yes this is also true with “business class” DSL or cable service. But Ethernet comes with an uptime guarantee and bandwidth availability guarantee and is faster than the same speeds advertised on DSL or cable. When running a tethered system of this nature, you don't have to worry about many of the common disconnect problems that go along with running a cable or DSL system. Simply put, this Ethernet is more efficient when it comes to being online and providing a business with the power that it needs. It stands out in this way above the other options.

Some people might make compelling arguments that bonded T1 is a better choice for business telecommunications than Ethernet. When dealing with the same amount of bandwidth, you are almost certainly going to get more bang for your buck by going with Fast Ethernet, if it is available in your location. It is a much more cost effective way to power your business's most important functions, and that is important for business owners who are looking to control the bottom line. Simply put, you won't be paying as much and you will be getting the same amount of capability and bandwidth when you go with Ethernet, with the added benefit of the inherent advantages and written guarantees that DSL and cable cannot provide.

GB Ethernet or Gigabit Ethernet

As stated earlier, if the amount of bandwidth you are looking at for your business is greater than about 100 MB, it is probably called GB Ethernet or Gigabit Ethernet. That is because Fast Ethernet has limitations on the technology used to deliver it to you, and GB Ethernet or Gigabit Ethernet will almost certainly require fiber, whereas many flavors of Fast Ethernet can be run on copper and still maintain the carrier's SLA (Service Level Agreement). GB Ethernet or Gigabit Ethernet can go as high as 10 GB of bandwidth. Yes, that is GB, not MB, which very much gets into what is sometimes known as a carrier grade bandwidth connection.

Metro Ethernet or Metro-E

In larger cities and metropolitan areas, the Ethernet available there might be called Metro Ethernet or Metro-E for short. This is really no different from Fast Ethernet or even Gigabit Ethernet except that it is somewhat readily available in large metro cities because the infrastructure from various carriers is already in place due to the demand for this type of reliable connection.

Yes there are several names for Ethernet bandwidth and Ethernet connectivity for businesses and they can all be termed Business Ethernet. But you need to make sure of what you are getting to ensure it really is a dedicated circuit with the same speed up and down. If it has a much slower speed up than down, chances are excellent that you are not getting real Business Ethernet.

Depending on your location, Metro Ethernet Service may or may not be currently available in your location, as this is typically only available in major metro areas. But then again, metro ethernet service is expanding all the time, so a metro ethernet service may be available soon or in the very near future. The beauty of it is that with all the top carriers we represent, you can easily get Metro Ethernet Pricing here and be assured that coupled with our Low Price Guarantee, it is the best pricing you can get from those carriers, even if you go to the carriers directly.

Ethernet Over Copper

There is yet another type of Ethernet that is available in many areas, usually more metropolitan areas, and that is Ethernet Over Copper. Even though the Ethernet types described above may use either copper or fiber, this type of Ethernet connectivity is definitely on copper. This is also sometimes referred to as EFM or Ethernet First Mile.

However, there are some limitations with Ethernet Over Copper. One limitation is that this ype of Ethernet circuit is usually limited to 10 MB of bandwidth, sometimes 15 MB, and in very rare circumstances (only one city in the continental US that I am aware of), 20 MB of bandwidth. If you need more bandwidth than that, you will need to be looking at one of the Ethernet types listed above or look at a fractional or full DS3 circuit.

The real beauty of Ethernet Over Copper is that when it is available, it is usually a much more attractive and cost effective solution than getting the equivalent bandwidth via bonded T1 circuits. Although fiber is being deployed in various parts of the country, starting with the major metro areas, fiber is still a very long way from becoming the norm in most areas of the country. Ethernet Over Copper allows multiple pairs to be used to cost effectively deliver Ethernet services to businesses who require this level of bandwidth but don't necessarily have the budget for equivalent bonded T1 circuits. It is expensive to create fiber runs that criss-cross a metropolitan city to make a fiber option available to almost everyone, so until that day comes, Ethernet Over Copper is a very cost effective solution where it is available.

Typically it comes with the same SLA (Service Level Agreement) from the carrier as a traditional T1 or bonded T1. Note that this SLA is significantly different from DSL, cable, or FIOS where you do not have an SLA, nor does DSL, cable or FIOS offer any kind of performance guarantee. If your business depends on having that bandwidth available 24x7, then you definitely want to consider T1, bonded T1, Ethernet, or Ethernet Over Copper solutions where you do have such a guarantee.

Additionally, Ethernet Over Copper can be installed usually in 40-50 days, which is roughly almost half the time required to provision the Ethernet circuits discussed earlier.

MPLS Ethernet

Are you familiar with Ethernet MPLS or MPLS in general? If so, you know that MPLS offers a significantly more cost effective solution for connecting multiple sites than a spider-webbed point-to-point network. The advantages are abundantly clear -- with a point-to-point network, unless you spider-web it so that all nodes can communicate with all other nodes (which is prohibitively expensive), if a link goes down between nodes, then a number of nodes are cut off from your private network until that connection is restored. But with MPLS and the private cloud and intelligent routing it provides, one node being down only affects that particular node, not the other nodes on your private network.

Another advantage of MPLS is that each node can be sized with the appropriate amount of bandwidth. For example, in a point-to-point configuration, if you have a PTP connection between "A" and "B", you must have the same bandwidth at both "A" and "B". But with MPLS you can have an MPLS T1 at node "A", a 50 MB Ethernet MPLS at node "B", a Bonded T1 MPLS at node "C", etc, and it will all work together very nicely.

Like a T1 line or bonded T1 line, you can also have Ethernet MPLS circuits which is generally a much more cost effective option for the same levels of bandwidth on your MPLS network.

Some companies elect to use an enhanced port to allow Internet access and MPLS access on the same circuit. While being a technical reality, the jury is still out on whether or not this makes logical sense from a security standpoint, since without proper safeguards and a secure firewall, having Internet access available on the same circuit that your private MPLS network is operating can represent a security risk, despite the financial advantage of this type of setup.

One thing in particular to note is that MPLS is a methodology, and it is NOT a standard. What this means to you is that every carrier implements MPLS differently, and you need to use the SAME carrier at all of your MPLS nodes. While it is theoretically possible to mix and match carriers on your MPLS network, the time, effort, and "technical jury-rigging" is frequently not worth the effort compared to using the same carrier at all of your MPLS nodes.

Written by: Jon Arnold

For help determining the right ethernet based solution for your business .... simply take advantage of the free assistance available here: Business Ethernet

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Need A Video Conferencing Solution?

We recently were asked the following .....

"I need to get a video conferencing solution that offers multiple locations (up to 10), the ability to conference with one another one to one, or one to many. Something like what Skype, Nefsis, and MegaMeeting offer. Any recommendations?"

Here's our response ....

Everyone will have their own opinion obviously based on personal experience for the most part.

I can recommend 1 based on personal experience, industry reviews/ratings, and friend/client testimonies.

I have no reservation recommending AccuConference .... and always do when presented with a question such as yours. AccuConference is very cost effective, offers highly flexible packages you can fit to meet your needs (features and costs), has consistently higher performance compared to industry average, and has great "personal" customer support. They'll have no problem connecting your 10 sites toegteher or one on one.

For more info go to .... AccuConference

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Telecom Vendor News For June

Here's the Telecom vendor news for June. Check out was is going on in the Telecom world and see what your business can take advantage of.

* AccuConference - AccuConference has just released Audio Archiving. All audio conferencing call recordings can be stored safely and securly for $9.95 a month.

* EarthLink - EarthLink Inc. is doubling down on its presence in Rochester by spending $12 million to move its local operations to the Alexander Park Professional Center and buy Perinton firm LogicalSolutions.net.

* GTT - Global Telecom & Technology, Inc. announced an agreement to acquire privately-held, UK-based PacketExchange.

* Level 3 ....

o Level 3 Communications, Inc. announced that it has launched the Level 3 Wholesale Partner Program to better enable domestic and international wholesale carriers to resell Level 3's services to their enterprise customers.

o Level 3 in Europe can now offer Dedicated Internet Access services from all IP gateway locations and is presently developing a new VPN and Managed Services portfolio. In addition, these international enterprise services will leverage the NNIs available to connect customers to the Level 3 Network at over 17,000 new locations throughout Europe.

o Level 3 Communications Inc. is putting the network it built in the late 1990s to a new use, opening up some 200 regeneration and optical amplification sites as access points to its fiber optic backbone. By erecting microwave towers on the two-to-four-acre sites with huts that house re-gen/optical amplification equipment, Level 3 says it can give mobile operators quick and inexpensive access to backhaul coverage across suburban, exurban and hard-to-reach rural areas.

* PAETEC ....

o PAETEC is playing into the business user's need for increased data bandwidth with its new 100 Mbps Ethernet over Copper (EoC) service.

o PAETEC Holding Corp. announced the launch of an expanded portfolio of cloud-based products and the planned deployment of new data centers coast-to-coast.

o PAETEC plans to deploy a new data center in McLean, VA, approximately ten miles from Washington, D.C.

* TelePacific - TelePacific Communications, the largest California-based CLEC providing integrated voice and data telecommunications services to the small and medium-sized business ("SMB") customer segment in California and Nevada, announced a definitive agreement to acquire all of the assets and customers of IXC, Inc., and IXC Holdings, Inc., which do business as Telekenex, a business-grade IP services provider headquartered in San Francisco and Seattle.

* Telx ....

o US collocation provider Telx has announced that it is expanding the data centre footprint at its New Jersey facility.

o Telx announced that it has expanded the data center footprint of its world-class facility at 2323 Bryan St. in Dallas, Texas by 20,000 square feet.

o Telx launched its new cloudXchange connectivity platform. The Telx cloudXchange enables cloud service providers to offer on-demand applications and infrastructure via a distributed, hybrid delivery model. This industry-unique delivery model cost effectively increases cloud services uptime, while reducing application latency, giving end-users a reliable, "on-premise like" quality experience. Available in all 15 of Telx's world-class data centers, the Telx cloudXchange is also where Enterprise cloud users can securely connect to a fast-growing ecosystem of solutions providers.

* Windstream ....

o Windstream Unveils New Boston Data Center to Meet Region's Growing Cloud Computing Demands

o Windstream Hosted Solutions, one of the nation's premier providers of enterprise-class cloud computing and managed hosting solutions, announced it has opened its third state-of-the-art data center in Charlotte as part of the company's continued expansion.

* XO Communications ....

o XO Communications Inc. confirmed Thursday that its channel chief, Brian Law, has resigned his post to pursue an entrepreneurial endeavor. Law will remain with the company at least through May as the company searches for a replacement. Meanwhile, the channel organization will roll up to Mike Toplisek, chief marketing officer for XO Business Services.

o XO Communications announced that it is expanding its international network services capabilities to include European IP/MPLS IP-VPN nodes, plus access to 48 countries throughout Europe, Asia/Pacific, North America, and South America as well as the U.S. territories of Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

To get more information and request a free quote for any of the network solutions above .... please submit a request here: Dedicated Bandwidth

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Kindle e-Reader Pros And Cons

I have absolutely loved reading since I was a child. The idea of an e-reader seemed kind of sacrilegious at first, since I save my books and really enjoy reading them again. I tried a Kindle just once and fell in love with it. I now have one and enjoy the idea of being able to carry my library around with me.

Advantages?

1.The books take up NO space, you can transfer them to another Kindle if you ever need to (i.e. Kindle is lost or stolen, breaks)

2. Lightweight, easy to use

3. I love being able to read books right away (instead of having to leave the house to go to the library, bookstore or have a book shipped)

4. There are thousands of free books available online. A good source is the Gutenberg Project.

5. No bookmark necessary! The Kindle remembers where you are in the book. This does feel kind of weird at first, since there aren't page numbers. It is a paradigm shift to stop checking what page number you are on. You get used to it, however.

These advantages are for most of the e-readers. Specifically for the Kindle, the interface is extremely easy. It is already set-up and ready to use when you get it, it's linked to your Amazon account (you don't even need to enter billing information!). Can you tell I love it?

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In Security, Freedom, In Freedom, Security...at work and at home.

I’ve talked previously about how Golden Frog’s VyprVPN guards your online activity and communications from your ISP, data snoops and hackers, restoring your online privacy, security and freedom. By using a personal VPN (Virtual Private Network), you create a secure connection on cellular networks, public Wi-Fi, and from anywhere you connect to the Internet.

You’ll recall a VPN is a private network that uses a public network (usually the Internet) to connect remote sites or users together. The VPN uses "virtual" connections routed through the Internet, for example, from a business's private network to a remote site or employee. By using a VPN, businesses ensure security: anyone intercepting the encrypted data can't read it. A VPN creates a secure Internet connection whereby your Internet provider sees only encrypted data, and the final destination sees only the VPN location and IP information.

For business travelers this can be ideal when using unsecured public Wi-Fi during layovers in airports, when staying at the hotel on the road, in remote office locations or when meeting with clients at their facilities. But what about the local commuter who might stop into the corner café down the road or just out of the subway from the home office? This employee requires protection too.

And what about the folks at home?

With the proliferation of digital access and wireless devices spread between Mom and Dad and son(s) or daughter(s) – between the smartphones, iPhones, tablets, laptops, desk tops, and game consoles – just how many ways and to what degree are our family’s online privacy and security potentially threatened?

The answer? A whole lot.

In a June 12, 2011 article that appeared online at Examiner.com, Lauryn Escobar examined the issue of Internet safety and privacy concerning society’s most vulnerable: our children. Sure, the Internet is a great place to find information for research, education and entertainment. But as more social networks and powerful search engines are created, we’re losing our privacy and security in ways that we can’t anticipate. With only an IP address, criminals and cyberbullies are able to find out both you and your child's location. In addition, with simple searches, these same people can find out what websites you’ve visited, including social networking sites. While many social network sites provide privacy settings to control who can see your child, many issues still remain, including account hacking. To date, hundreds of thousands of profiles belonging to children have been hacked with all of their information and photos released on the internet.

Golden Frog’s VyprVPN, which utilizes high-grade encryption, tunneling and anonymous IP address based browsing, can help to protect your children online. VyprVPN can be installed on a number of devices and platforms, including desktop, laptop, iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, and Android; running Mac OS X, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Linux, iOS, and Android operating systems.

As with many things between parents and children, communication, accepted rules and boundaries, and plain, common sense usually keep everyone happy—and secure.

But for the business traveler, or the parent, seeking more peace of mind and freedom from worry, you might also employ a personal VPN, like Golden Frog’s VyprVPN.

For more information about Golden Frog’s VyprVPN visit:  www.goldenfrog.com

About the Author: 

Ilissa Miller is Managing Partner of Jaymie Scotto & Associates, is a full-service public relations and marketing firm with proven experience in delivering strategic branding, design and communications for the emerging technology and telecommunications industries.  For inquiries, please email sales@jaymiescotto.com or visit www.jaymiescotto.com.

 

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What Is An Android Mobile Phone?

Straight from Android themselves .....

Android is an open-source software stack for mobile devices, and a corresponding open-source project led by Google. We created Android in response to our own experiences launching mobile apps. We wanted to make sure that there was no central point of failure, so that no industry player can restrict or control the innovations of any other. That's why we created Android, and made its source code open.

Android has a large community of developers writing application programs ("apps") that extend the functionality of the devices. There are currently over 200,000 apps available for Android. Android Market is the online app store run by Google, though apps can be downloaded from third-party sites (AT&T permits third-party apps only on their Aria phone ). Developers write primarily in the Java language, controlling the device via Google-developed Java libraries. Python, Ruby and other languages are also available for Android development via the Android Scripting Environment.

The unveiling of the Android distribution on 5 November 2007 was announced with the founding of the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of 79 hardware, software, and telecom companies devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices. Google released most of the Android code under the Apache License, a free software and open source license.

The Android operating system software stack consists of Java applications running on a Java-based, object-oriented application framework on top of Java core libraries running on a Dalvik virtual machine featuring JIT compilation. Libraries written in C include the surface manager, Open Core media framework, SQLite relational database management system , OpenGL ES 2.0 3D graphics API, WebKit layout engine, SGL graphics engine, SSL, and Bionic libc. The Android operating system consists of 12 million lines of code including 3 million lines of XML, 2.8 million lines of C, 2.1 million lines of Java, and 1.75 million lines of C++.
Android's purpose is to establish an open platform for developers to build innovative mobile apps. Three key components work together to realize this platform.

The Android Compatibility Program defines the technical details of Android platform and provides tools used by OEMs to ensure that developers’ apps run on a variety of devices. The Android SDK provides built-in tools that Developers use to clearly state the device features their apps require. And Android Market shows apps only to those devices that can properly run them.

These pages describe the Android Compatibility Program and how to get access to compatibility information and tools. The latest version of the Android source code and compatibility program is 2.3, which corresponded to the Gingerbread branch.
Users want a customizable device.

A mobile phone is a highly personal, always-on, always-present gateway to the Internet. We haven't met a user yet who didn't want to customize it by extending its functionality. That's why Android was designed as a robust platform for running after-market applications.

Developers outnumber us all.

No device manufacturer can hope to write all the software that a person could conceivably need. We need third-party developers to write the apps users want, so the Android Open Source Project aims to make it as easy and open as possible for developers to build apps.

Everyone needs a common ecosystem.

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Cloud Market Already Surpasses $40 Billion

Gartner predicts the global cloud marketplace as a more broadly defined, the firm predicts that the overall market for cloud services has already surpasses $40 billion, and will grow to over $150 billion annually by 2013.

 

This was brought to my attention by John Panzica, Sr. VP of Sales and Marketing of FiberMedia Group while attending SIFMA yesterday.  The context was discussed in conjunction with the company’s Managed Data Center-as-a-Service offering.  What is most interesting is that FiberMedia’s service leverages cloud infrastructure to provide business continuity and disaster recovery solutions for its clients located both within its own data center facilities as well as others.  The key here is modular growth. 

 

Companies that require space, power and technology to support its business can’t always assess exactly what they need – as needs change – daily.  This Managed Data Center-as-a-Service enables companies to grow organically and efficiently without spending on unnecessary compute power as well as colocation.  

 

In less than 2-weeks I will be addressing nearly 400 attendees at the  Telecom Exchange being held on June 29^th at Cipriani’s Wall Street.  Technology Trends being my ‘track,’ there is no doubt that cloud trends and future visions will be key topics.  I hope you’ll come join me and nearly 100 exhibiting companies as we discover new business opportunities and identify the next wave of technology requirements for businesses, end-users and more.

 

For more information about FiberMedia Group, visit www.fibermedia.net.  For information and to register for the Telecom Exchange go to: www.thetelecomexchange.com.  Want to share your thoughts on the future of technology?  I want to hear from you – email me directly or share your thoughts here:  ilissa (at) jaymiescotto.com.

 

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What's The Differences Between A 2G And A 3G Mobile Phone?

The differences between a 2G and a 3G mobile phone should be obvious .... but to the non-geek they may not be.

2G is an acronym which means "second generation." 2G phones use a digital signal transmitted from radio transmission towers. (1G mobile phones use analog signals).

3G is an acronym which stands for "third generation. 3G phones work on both the GSM and CDMA networks. 3G technology features very fast transmission of the mobile signal. 3G streams video and has faster uploads and downloads.

The major disadvantage for 3G network plans are the price. Especially today, you can find a 2G phone a lot cheaper than 3G. But if you use your phone for anything other than texting and calling, I would suggest 3G.

For more detailed discussion of 3G mobile phones, check out this article at the Wireless Wizard .... What Does 3G Mean

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XKL to Sponsor Breaks at NANOG52

XKL, a leading provider of optical transport terminal technologies, is sponsoring the upcoming educational and operational forum for network operators, NANOG 52, in Denver, CO June 12-15. XKL will sponsor the event breaks taking place on Tuesday, June 14. NANOG52 will include tutorials, presentations, panel discussions and leading-edge networking examples. XKL also sponsored NANOG 51 which took place earlier this year in Miami, FL. The team at XKL looks forward to another successful networking event and continued partnership with NANOG.

 

For more information on XKL and its products, visit www.xkl.com.

 

About XKL

Led by CEO and Cisco Systems co-founder Len Bosack, XKL LLC develops products that epitomize the company’s mission: Bringing fundamental change to worldwide telecommunications. XKL optical transport terminal technologies enable enterprises with enormous and complex data transmission needs to tap into the power of the wholesale Internet. This allows XKL customers to achieve network independence, greater reliability, enhanced transmission speed and better value. The company is headquartered in Redmond, Washington. For more information, visit www.xkl.com.

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New Partner Program Offered by TelcoSource

Want a great solution for your clients to get pricing on a variety of telecommunications services and solutions? Then TelcoSource is your ideal partner. TelcoSource is a proven online reverse auction and e-sourcing platform for buyers of telecom, IT services and equipment. Offered by TelecomMarketplace.net, a firm that provides telecommunications solutions, TelcoSource helps buyers manage their RFP bids and asks and provides a real-time view and reporting structure that offers transparent pricing in a streamlined sourcing process.

The company just announced the success of its new partner program. According to the company’s announcement on June 9^th, two partners Cove Advisory Group and TeleBright are already receiving accolades from their clients.

“As a professional services firm offering performance optimization, strategic planning and interim management to telecommunications and broadband service providers, we felt TelcoSource was the ideal product to add to our portfolio,” says Lisa Butler, Managing Consultant at Cove Advisory Group. “The TelcoSource platform provides our customers with a single venue for sourcing all of their telecommunication and IT service needs while allowing them to maintain their direct contractual relationship with new and existing suppliers.”

TeleBright, a company that provides Telecom Expense Management software, feels that TelcoSource is an ideal companion to its service as well. Why? Bottom-line – it saves their customers money and makes them more efficient.

Partners, buyers, sellers and other companies in the telecommunications space should check out www.telcosource.net. If there is a channel to market and a means to buy services more cost effectively, why not?

For more information, contact sales@TelecomMarketplace.net. Partners and Agents can email BeAnAgent@telecomMarketplace.net

About the Author:

Ilissa Miller is Managing Partner of Jaymie Scotto & Associates a specialist PR & Marketing firm for the telecommunications industry. For more information about JS&A visit www.jaymiescotto.com or also check out the upcoming Telecom Exchange industry ‘non-trade show’ networking event being held in NYC on June 29^th visit www.thetelecomexchange.com.

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What Would Your Future Mobile Phone Look Like?

This is a somewhat out the box question ... with some creative "answers" to get your juices flowing. Feel free to leave your own creative thoughts as comments at the end of the article.

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It would change shape as a function of what the owner and the immediate task dictated. It would be assessable to people with handicaps without major limitations. When not in use, it would store in your pocketbook, on a night stand or in your pocket. It would alert you when updated info triggered an alert since it knows your schedule, ways you use info and your tasks.

It will start working even before you wake up. Because it knows your travel schedule, it can check for problems on the roads and adjust the time it wakes you up. It will control your home, re-programming the central heating if you need to get up earlier.

It does your payments as well - just by placing the phone near a sensor, you’ll pay for tickets or do shopping.

How about a mobile phone disguised as an earring. Or maybe a necklace. Make them powered by motion, heartbeat, and/or body heat.

It really depends on the end user's needs. Heavy email users will be different than soccer Moms which will be different from high school kids.

For me specifically, addressing battery life would be a big 1st step. As Smartphones' power and functionality grows, battery life will increase in importance.

I'd also like to see a phone that morphs with my needs (kind of like the Tranformer toys kids play with). I want a physical keyboard when typing emails, a big bright screen when hitting the web, and a small compact phone on weekends that sits in my pocket nicely.

Whatever the future of mobile phones, it will not be just a mobile phone any more.

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Blogging From Email

One of the great things offered by blogger.com is the ability to post blogs from email!

 

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Mobile Apps That Help You Save Money

In no particular order here's a few recommended mobile apps to help you save money .... and some that are just downright cool.

1. Google Maps to find a phone number of a local business. The search feature inside Google Maps lets you search for a specific business, find their location of course, but also provides their phone number. This lets you avoid those nasty wireless carrier 411 charges.

2. YouMail (www.youmail.com) is a great voice mail application that has many unique features. The coolest is the ability to create a unique voice mail greeting for each individual. You can have crazy, funny ones for your friends and family, professional ones for business associates, and "go away" ones for telemarketers.

3. For businesses, particularly Small Businesses, ContentMobi (www.contentmobi.com) has a website mobilization solution that lets you create mobile websites in a DIY model. Great templates, simple user interface, WYSIWYG, and even non-techie types can create their own company websites.

4. Clip Mobile which shows you retailers around you that are offering discounts.

5. RedLaser which is a barcode scanner app that lets you scan QR codes and most importantly product barcodes while you're shopping so you can see if the item you're intending to buy is in fact cheaper anywhere else nearby or online. Mind you this only works for higher priced items or items that have been added into the database but for the most part, it's a great asset.

6. Groupon which is, as you may already know, a website that offers "deals of the day" in cities around the world. The app lets you browse deals in different cities, purchase directly through the app with your credit card and when you have Groupons to use, you can even bring your phone to the store/restaurant and they can scan the code right from your screen.

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Bandwidth Calculator Resources

One of the frequent needs of IT staff and network integrators is to determine various parameters of bandwidth needs. Having just the right tool to accomplish this is not always easy. Knowing where to find a bandwidth calculator that will do the job is harder than it looks.

But ..... it doesn't have to be.

To help ... here's links to a few bandwidth calculator resources you can choose from. Simply input some parameters ..... and see how much bandwidth you need, or what can you do with what you've got.

* Numion

The tools available via Numion enable capabilities including the following:

- Download time calculator Bytes --> Time

How long does it take to download a big fat image, or mp3, or zip? This calculator will show the time for lots of different modems.

- Download bytes calculator Time --> Bytes

How much data can you download per day? This calculator will show the gigabytes for lots of different modems.

- Speed reduction by distance Connection speed and Distance --> Throughput

Further away is slower, but by how much? This calculator shows how much your speed is reduced by the distance to the server.

- Server requirement calculator Visitors per day --> Bandwidth needed

How much bandwidth does your server need? Input the number of visitors per day and find out. You will be surprised at how little bandwidth you actually need.

- Server capability calculator Bandwidth available --> Visitors per day

You have a server connected at a certain bandwidth. How much visitors can you handle before you have to get more bandwidth?

- Server capability calculator 2 Slowest page --> Visitors per day

How much visitors can your server handle, given the slowest page?

- PageSize calculator Download time --> filesize

You are building a new website and want to know how large your pages can be. Enter the waiting time that you find acceptable and the average speed of your visitors, and the calculator will show how large your pages may be.

- Unit converter

Convert between bits, bytes, kilo, mega, and giga.

* iCalc

The iCalc File Size Bandwidth Calculator will help you determine how long it will take to transfer a file at each connection speed. Simply enter the file size (in KB, MB, GB) .... and the type of connection in bits per second (already entered in the table for the calculator) will yield a calculation for each in hours, minutes, and seconds.

The type of connection range is 14.4 kbps through OC48 ..... and the bits per second range is from 14,4000 bps through 2488 Mbps. So you have a wide spectrum you can evaluate for.

* VoIP Bandwidth Calculator

This calculator can be used to estimate the bandwidth required to transport a given number of voice paths through an IP based network. Reverse calculations are also possible. These estimate the number of voice paths that can be transmitted though an IP network if the available bandwidth is known.

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