T1 Internet Service Prices and Rates Quotes in Weil

CLECs Gain Ground with SMBs

Monday July 21, 2008, 01:04 am ET

CEDAR HILLS, Utah, Jul. 21 /Patrick Oborn/ -- 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 adoption of any new telecommunications platform is never instantaneous. Many technologies, like VoIP for example, have been in the works for years without gaining much traction. Enterprises see communications as their life blood. Even though many are becoming aware of newer, cheaper mediums by which they can conduct business, the risk still outweighs the rewards in their minds. Couple the 'if it isn't broken, why fix it?' mind set with the telecom meltdown of the early 2000's and it isn't surprising that widespread adoption of new telecom services has lagged. However, the new technologies of IP-based voice systems are finally starting to gain an audience, and the chorus of satisfied customers continues to grow. As this momentum pushes forward, so does general acceptance of it viability.

To illustrate the types of decisions that small business owners are faced with on a daily basis, we interviewed Glenda Probst, small business owner in Los Angeles, California, about her recent move to a dynamic integrated T-1. "I was in a quandary about how to go about expanding the number of voice lines to my business. Before making the move to a dynamic integrated line, I was using POTs lines. After the fifth line, my bill was above $300/month, not including my $100/month DSL connection. Now, I have 12 pure digital voice lines, 1.5 MB of broadband, and I pay under $400 for it. It was a major upgrade in service with a reduction in total price. I only wish I'd learned about this product sooner."

According to a recent study conducted by PK Communications Telecom Brokers Inc., the average cost of a POTS (plain old telephone service) line serviced by the Bells (AT&T, Verizon, and Qwest) have changed very little over the 10 year span from 1996, the year the Clinton Administration signed into law the Telecommunications Act, to 2006. The real change in the industry came in the T-carrier class of products, where customers can get up to 1.5 Mbps of bandwidth and 24 digital phone lines all in one package. Some CLECs like XO, TelePacific, Nuvox, One Communications, and even Covad are now offering rates well below the $550/month level, making the change seem like a no-brainer to thousands of customers.

Looking in the crystal ball of the future, it is clear that new an innovated services being offered by the few super-CLECs remaining will drive innovation higher and prices lower. New technology is being pressed to the forefront by lower prices that the mainstream of small businesses everywhere can comfortably afford. Will this train of innovation, lower prices, and services that add value to SMB's continue to roll down the tracks of progress? It's all up to our government - and which political party controls the FCC. Without the deregulation act of 1996, we would have never known just how much the CLECs were capable of.