T1 Internet Service Prices and Rates Quotes in Willamina

Integrated T1 Progress Report

Wednesday August 13, 2008, 06:28 am ET

DRAPER, Utah, Aug. 13 /Patrick Oborn/ -- During the 2000 Internet bubble meltdown, the telecom industry learned the hard way that wild spending on network infrastructure was not the best approach to attracting new business and investment. Over the past 7 years the industry, particularly the CLECs (Competitive Local Exchange Carriers) have been focusing on building products that offer more bang for the buck in order to compete with the Bells in their own backyards. One product that has become the flagship offering to small to medium size businesses is the dynamic integrated T1 line, which combines all the usefulness of 24 regular phone lines into a singe T-1 capable of delivering high-speed broadband on the same connection.

The question remains, if this new technology is so progressive, why did it take over five years to gain broad appeal to SMB's across the country? One industry analyst from the Telecommunications Research Institute observed that many customers who consume commercial-grade phone service became very untrusting of telecom providers after the Internet bubble burst in 2000 and the MCI bankruptcy proceedings full of allegations of fraud and embezzlement. After all, no customer wants to come to work one day just to find out that their connection to the outside world has been shut down due to financially unstable service providers not being able to run a profitable or ethical business. Now, due to a series of acquisitions and mergers, the "survivors" are offering great products at rates that SMB's can't continue to ignore. The CLEC's and Bells are quickly gaining traction with the very important demographic.

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."

Given the fact that many companies still to this day have yet to make the change to digital SIP-trunking enabled dynamic T1s, one must ask why the delay? The value proposition that dynamic adds and the economic benefits are there, however, the technology is slow to be adopted by mainstream corporations. One reason for this lag is the bad reputation that telecom companies have built for themselves through the meltdown of the industry from 2000 to 2003, when many companies either went out of business, merged with other larger companies, or just hunkered down and weathered the storm. Now that the industry has made great strides to stabilize by offering better rates, better products, and better customer service, small business owners are gradually starting to listen to the presentations being made by consultants and inside sales agents. With that increase in confidence, and with the growing number of testimonials being offered by happy customers, businesses are becoming less reluctant to make the jump.

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. 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.