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What is it?
The Cable Company’s connection to the internet.
What’s the benefit?
It typically is offered at much greater speeds than DSL (Phone company’s basic data offering) but is a shared bandwidth, so it is impacted by peak hour demand, and an asymmetrical connection, so uploading large files is much slower than downloads. It typically comes into the building at a different point than the phone lines so it offers redundancy. The cable connection can be used to deliver data, video/TV and VoIP services.
What is it?
Ethernet wiring is what is used to transmit data within an office, typically on a Local Area Network (LAN).
What’s the benefit?
Ethernet allows data transmission at much higher rates than the twisted pair of copper line the telephone uses. Most buildings are equipped with Cat5E which tops out at around 100 mbps but Cat6E is on the rise, allowing for even higher rates of data transmission in the office environment. The speed of data transmission is not solely dictated by the Ethernet category utilized. The cable you connect your devices to the LAN impacts the speed as well as the Network Interface Card (NIC) in the PC or printer connect to the LAN.
Ethernet over Copper (EoC) is now being leveraged to deliver Ethernet like speeds over copper on the Wide Area Network (WAN). The advantage of this type of service is it rides over existing Copper. This service is more commonly referred to as MetroE and as the name implies, is generally only available in big metropolitan areas.
What is it?
Multiprotocol Label Switching is the next generation of packet switching.
What’s the benefit?
It allows data to be transmitted much faster than with Frame Relay switching because, the header contains all the information on the outside of the packet that the network needs to know where to send the data packet. This avoids the delay present in a Frame Relay environment to “unpack”, “inspect” and “repack” the data packet.
What is it?
Data that is carried over a wireless network for all or part of its transmission.
What’s the benefit?
Wireless can be used as the last mile connection, especially in a rural setting.
What is it?
Fiber Optical Cable that is in or near your building but is not currently in use. It can also mean, that it does not have the electronics in place required to make it operational.
What’s the benefit?
Fiber Optics are the fastest, cleanest and most reliable solution but it is not available everywhere. If fiber is near your building but not in your building, some providers will connect your location in exchange for a long term commitment. Increasingly, the cable companies are willing to do such a deal, increasing fiber deployment and adoption at even modest sized companies.
Fiber can be brought into a building over a different conduit than the telephone or internet, providing extra protection from a cut outage. In addition, if the architecture is a SONET ring the fiber can provide superior connection continuity as the ring consist of two fiber paths, greatly reducing the chances that both paths are down at once.
What is it?
Private Branch Exchange is a phone system that interfaces with a variety of trunk methods. A PBX allows multiple phone lines share a single trunk.
What’s the benefit?
Using a PBX helps optimizes your telecom by reducing idle trunks during peak hour calling. PBXs are flexible in that lines can easily be moved, added, or deleted. In addition, PBXs have ACD (Automatic Call Distribution) which allows for customized call routing depending on who is calling, where they are calling from and what time of day it is. Other features PBXs typically have include: Voice Mail, Least Cost Routing, Auto Attendant, and Intercom/Overhead Paging.
The new trend in PBX is Cloud/Hosted PBX which eliminates the capital cost of a PBX and the cost of maintenance as all the moves, changes and deletes are done through a software interface, saving time and money.
What is it?
Primary Rate Interface are a type of trunk offered by most phone companies for connecting your phone system to their network.
What’s the benefit?
PRIs can help you save costs by handling multiple phone lines off a single trunk, thus reducing idle trunks. The number of simultaneous calls a company can have occurring at once is limited to the number the trunk can handle. In the case of a PRI, they can handle 23 simultaneous calls. The number of PRIs a company requires is determined by the volume of calls they have at their peak hour of operation.
What is it?
Session Initiated Protocol is the protocol used to send voice over data networks. In effect, the Internet replaces the conventional telephone trunk, allowing an enterprise to communicate with fixed and mobile telephone subscribers worldwide. One of the most significant advantages of SIP trunking is its ability to combine data, voice and video in a single line, eliminating the need for separate physical media for each mode. The result is reduced overall cost and enhanced reliability for multimedia services.
What’s the benefit?
SIP trunking is the Cable company’s alternative to a PRI. SIP trunks can be economical because they often can uses spare capacity on your company’s internet connection to deliver voice service.
What is it?
Voice that is carried over the cellular, wireless network. A special type of office phone is required.
What’s the benefit?
Wireless can be helpful if there are last mile connectivity issues.
What is it?
Toll free calling.
What’s the benefit?
Allows your customers to call you without incurring a long distance phone charge. Can be set up for free calling for a specific region or to allow toll free calling from anywhere in the nation or even internally.
What is it?
Instant Messaging (IM) allows team members to send short messages (without attachments) to others on the network.
What’s the benefit?
The benefit over email is you can see who is actually at their desk and whether they are available. In addition, the messages are generally not stored so there is no storage capacity issues. Companies that make extensive use of IM generally free up the email server capacity.
What is it?
Tele Conferencing (also known as Telephone Conferencing or Voice Conferencing) is a where three or more people in different locations, can talk to each other all at once via a central switching unit. The type of telephone used can vary between a handheld wired telephones, conference room speakerphones, and a cellular telephone.
What’s the benefit?
Teleconferencing is considered a time saver, eliminating back and forth between parties. In addition, some services can create a single call that up to 100 people can join and talk together. This allows a town hall like meeting to occur with participants spread all over the globe. The participants can be require to “sign-in” using a unique pass codes, giving the conversations extra security and a log of who heard the information.
What is it?
Video conferencing uses an internet connection to transmission full-motion video and high-quality audio between multiple locations to enable a more face to face like conversation.
Video Conferencing is considered a close substitute for a face to face meeting, eliminating the need for many business trips.
What is it?
Video conferencing in which the service is provided over a secure encrypted connection to the cloud and useable by virtually anyone on any type of devices (PC, tablet, Smart Phone, etc.).
What’s the benefit?
Hosted Video Conferencing is considered a close substitute for a face to face meeting, eliminating the need for many business trips AND the hosted version eliminate expensive up front capital costs and maintenance.
What is it?
Web conferencing is a form of Real-Time Communications (RTC) in which multiple computer users, all connected to the Internet, see the same screen at the same time through their web browser.
What’s the benefit?
Web conferencing can speed conference calls and eliminate the need to email back and forth any documents or work products multiple people are working on or have a stake in. Some Web conferencing systems also include features such as texting, VoIP (voice over IP) and full-motion video - - greatly increasing the efficiency of “virtual meetings.”
What is it?
Use infrastructure located off your premises to a location managed by a third party who’s full time job is IT.
What’s the benefit?
Moving your voice service and maintenance to the cloud and can substantially reduce your capital costs and headaches. For some organizations, Cloud solutions can be more secure, predictable and scalable than on-premise solutions.
What is it?
VoIP, mobility, video-conferencing, instant messaging, bring-your-own device (BYOD), collaboration, and presence technologies all work together seamlessly in the cloud.
What’s the benefit?
Saves time, money and hassles by allowing on-site and remote users to collaborate seamlessly between devices and platforms without having to be in a specific location or have the same devices.
What is it?
Moving your IT infrastructure to a third party environment that makes your colocation, disaster recovery, and storage infrastructure virtual in a public, private or hybrid Cloud.
What’s the benefit?
Reduce IT complexity, obsolescence, and costs making the organization more manageable, secure, and scalable at a much lower cost. Can greatly reduce capital costs while also increasing security, reliability and business continuity.
What is it?
Utilizes the Cloud to access business applications and desktops on any device and in any location.
What’s the benefit?
DaaS eliminates the need for software maintenance and makes purchasing and managing workstations simple and fast. There is no need to manage servers or hardware, and obsolescence becomes a thing of the past.
What is it?
ITaaS means your helpdesk, security, software updates, mobile device management, monitoring and management can all be managed by trained specialists in the Cloud.
What’s the benefit?
ITaaS allows you to focus your time and budget on IT strategy by migrating your more tactical IT responsibilities to the Cloud. ITaaS reduces capex, puts transparency around your financials and ensures predictability around cash flow.
What is it?
Consolidating your hardware in a highly secure location that has state of the art power back-up, network redundancy and geographic diversity.
What’s the benefit?
Data and information and hardware become completely independent of your business location with a virtual disaster recovery and business continuity solution. Also allows you to centralize your recovery plan in a seamless, secure redundant environment at a fraction of the cost of tradition on-premise disaster recovery solutions.
