What is OC3?
and why would a business need OC3 Internet?
As your business expands in new directions, you may be relying on increasingly complex Internet applications to sustain strategic initiatives. The more complex the application, the more bandwidth it requires. OC3 Internet provides high bandwidth, high availability and the flexibility to scale to large bandwidth requirements quickly and easily. With the optimum performance of OC3 Internet, you can provide access to multiple users simultaneously, ensure availability of mission-critical applications and support bandwidth-intensive applications.
Features:
- Access to the carrier backbone through a scalable OC3 fibre optic connection
- Fully monitored and managed, high performance Cisco router
- Access speeds from 2Mbps to 135Mbps
- Usage-based and fixed rate pricing options
- Usage-based option provides flexibility for your bandwidth needs by allowing you to pay only your minimum commitment plus incremental usage as you need it
- Option to configure OC3 Internet for BGP-4 multihoming with one or more providers
- Optional high availability Internet access
- Network Utilization Reports
Optical Carrier transmission rates are a standardized set of specifications of transmission bandwidth for digital signals that can be carried on Synchronous Optical Networking (SONET) fiber optic networks. Transmission rates are defined by rate of the bitstream of the digital signal and are designated by hyphenation of the acronym OC and an integer value of the multiple of the basic unit of rate, e.g., OC-48. The base unit is 51.84 Mbit/second. Thus, the speed of optical-carrier-classified lines labeled as OC-n is n × 51.84 Mbit/s.
Optical Carrier classifications are based on the abbreviation OC followed by a number specifying a multiple of 51.84 Mbit/s: n × 51.84 Mbit/s => OC-n. For example, an OC-3 transmission medium has 3 times the transmission capacity of OC-1.
Not sure if OC3 is right for your business? Contact your carrier and in preparation, let them know how many users are on your network, how many hours a day they are on their computers, how many applications they are using and any type of excessive file transfers. OC3 can be a big jump for some companies and when you are ready for more bandwidth, it will make daily Internet activity fast and furious! Click here for more!
For Small Businesses making it BIG!
Avega is a technology company providing businesses with telecom and collaboration solutions. More importantly, we are a growing successful small business.
In my blog I plan to share informative articles and opinions that I personally have found both useful in helping grow our own business and hope to be relevant to other small businesses across North America. I certainly believe that technology can be strategically leveraged to help all businesses grow, and I plan to include many articles on technologies and virtual meeting tips that can positively impact your bottom line. I also am keenly aware that there are many other key area to which business owners need to pay attention, and we will include plenty of articles that cover all facets of running a successful enterprise.
I have never been accused of being a great writer, but I will do my best to make this a great location to share information about the constantly changing business world and I would love to hear your opinion. If you would like to share any comments or interesting articles please email them to enquiries@avega.ca
Steve D’Agostino
President ( and Owner)
DSL – You get what you pay for
The advent of Digital Subscriber Line or DSL technology has certainly offered many small businesses access to affordable, high Internet bandwidth. If you are not familiar with DSL, it is a family of technologies that phone companies have deployed in their Central Switching offices that provide high bandwidth digital data transmission over the basic copper wires that are used to provide telephone service.
DSL service is most often delivered simultaneously with regular phone service on the same phone line. This is possible because DSL uses a higher frequency for data traffic than voice and separates both by filtering. In Canada, DSL is most commonly understood to mean Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) where the DSL internet service is data delivered to the customer site is much faster (download) than the speed of the data sent from the customer site back into the internet cloud (upload). A few providers offer SDSL (Symmetrical Digital Subscriber Line) service where the download and load speeds are the same.
The nature of DSL service is generally a “best available type service”. Simply stated this means that the service levels and speeds you get are not guaranteed, but the best levels that can be provided to your site. The issue behind this is that DSL technology is affected by many factors- the quality of those basic copper wires that are uses to provide service, the distance from of your office from the phone company CO, and in some cases that we have dealt with – the weather! Most providers will actually position that you will get “UP TO” the advertised bandwidth.
Still, many users get caught up in the “advertised” download speed of their service. Down load speed is great for internal users. However if you serve the needs of external clients or support remote workers or branches, download is meaningless to them. They are affected by upload and often the slower speeds associated with upload is a bottleneck to their usage and productivity.
DSL services can experience minor disruptions by modems freezing, or usage (i.e. postal machine) on the same line. These are often a nuisance to deal with, especially for offices with non technical savvy employees. Service Levels Objectives offered with DSL are generally poor due to the low priority the phone companies put on the services provided over their inexpensive copper wires. As a result hard outages do not have to be addressed for 24-48 hours. We have heard of many examples where clients have been down for days. Even though their businesses were severely impacted, customers were surprised to find that the phone companies did not react in the fashion that they would have expected. The low cost of DSL does come with a trade off and that trade off is service and reliability.
DSL has a place. It is ideal for small businesses or sites (less than 20-25 employees), that have simple uses (browsing, email etc). For those larger organizations and whose business rely on internet connectivity, use applications such as voice SIP trunks, or support many external users, DSL may be okay as a back-up but not recommended as your main access. In the end you do get what you pay for!
September 21, 2010
Investing a little time to find savings, no matter how small, is worth it!
In the fast paced world of running a small business, it is too easy to overlook the importance of fine tuning your operations. All too often owners take an “if it’s not broken why fix it” attitude, thinking that a savings of a one or two hundred dollars a month is not worth the effort.
However how could your business benefit if you put those savings to good use? Would it be worth it if you took that savings and helped fund a lease of that needed new server or phone system that can help increase office efficiencies, thus multiplying savings in other areas. What if those Two hundred dollars are invested in hiring a part time telesales person for 15 hours a month to help generate new leads worth thousands of new revenue dollars per month?
Growing a business can be hard work, but sometime we overlook small things which can make that job a bit easier. Start by spending a quick 15 minutes reviewing the following 5 areas of your Telecom environment for hidden savings:
1. Have Cancelled Services been removed from billing?
Have you cancelled features or services? It may be worth checking that they were actually removed from your invoice. If you have been overpaying for an extended period of time, there may be even more savings coming back to you in the form of a credit.
2. Your contract Auto renewed without being renegotiated
Most phone companies have an auto renew clause that allows them to resign you to another term contract for services at the same rate or sometimes even higher rates! By reviewing your contracts and understanding their maturity date, you can notify your vendor that you will not be renewing, allowing you to explore other vendors or better rates with our existing vendor.
3. Eliminate Unused Features
Most phone companies, wireless or wireless change for features such as 3 way calling, caller ID, call waiting, call blocking, alternate ring, voice mail and line hunting just to name a few. Don’t use the feature? Consider removing unused features and save 3% to 12% per month.
4. Re-visit your requirements
Has your office grown? Resized? Do you have more applications running and need more bandwidth? It may be time to reevaluate your voice and data architecture. Savings may easily be achieved by removing or consolidating services, or by implementing newer technologies.
5. Check for Miscellaneous Service Fees
Some Telecom companies hide service fees in the invoice. It could be a line item, extra charges for set up, monthly minimums, fees for paper invoices, Long Distance Access fees, Network Access fees or as basic as a general miscellaneous service fee. It may be worth reviewing your invoices and looking for unapproved fees and seeing what can be done to remove them. All excellent opportunities to save money!
October 13, 2010
There are some days were you can feel that like you are on the hampster wheel- very busy but getting not providing a sense of accomplishment . The following article highlights a few things to work into your day to keep youir business moving forward.
By Joshua Black
If you are an entrepreneur there are a few critical tasks that you need to turn into a daily habit in order for your business to keep moving in a positive direction and to make you money. Read on to find out those key items and how you can add them to your daily routine.
Entrepreneurs have to wear many hats when a business is just starting. Many things need to be delegated to others in order for the business to run smoothly and there are a few things that you must do yourself. If you can create a habit of performing these 5 things every day, some for just a few minutes, then you will see your business grow right alongside your dreams:
1. Plan for the future a few minutes each day. Assume that your product has stopped selling all of a sudden. What direction will you take your company next? What new income stream can you add? This is a time for day dreaming and recording notes in preparation for the future. You don’t necessarily have to take action on these items, but you need to think about them daily in order to bring out the golden ideas.
2. Work on your marketing in some aspect every day to get new customers. If your prospective customers don’t know about you they won’t buy from you. Work on getting your message out every day even if it is just for a few minutes.
3. Work on closing a sale every single day. whether you are doing this on-line, on the phone, through the mail, or face-to-face you need to be selling every day. Without the close of a sale there is no business. This is not something that you can delegate all the way. even if you have a sales force you need to be out there looking for deals.
4. Develop or strengthen your business network. You need to join or create a business network where you can help others and they can help you back. This is a great place to get free customers through referrals and an excellent mentoring opportunity using the mastermind principle.
5. Contact your current customers. Don’t ever forget about the people that have already purchased from you. These are your best customers. They already like what you have to sell and they don’t cost anything to acquire. Contact your current customers frequently, even if you are just saying hello. They need to know what you have to offer and they need to know you are still breathing. They won’t seek you out. You must go to them.
About the Author: Joshua Black is an on-line infopreneur, marketing consultant, small business owner and copywriter dedicated to helping the bootstrapping small business owner succeed. Visit his flagship resource site for entrepreneurs at http://www.UnderdogMillionaire.com for the free Underdog Millionaire Wealth Pack: including 5 FREE e-books and daily wealth building tips for the bootstrapping small business owner- in the areas of sales, marketing, motivation, product creation and more.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Joshua_Black
