Is your internet service mission critical?

You have probably heard the term mission critical data, if you are in business, you definitely have some. What you may not have is a plan to secure that data. Ok, you back up your Accounts Receivable and somebody takes those disks home every night and all the important legal papers are in the safety deposit box at the bank, that’s a good start but let’s take a closer look at Mission Critical.

How important is email and internet access to your business? The best way to determine this is think back to the last time you didn’t have access to email or the internet. Was it just an inconvenience or did you lose money over it? Were you customers inconvenienced enough to go somewhere else, even for just that order? Was an important proposal or bid delayed? Did some business critical emails get lost in the shuffle?

I have jokingly suggested that one definition of Mission Critical is “Will anybody die without it?” As unlikely as that sounds, one of Bright Houses’ Dedicated Access customers is Walton County Florida. Their Lifesaver helicopter is dispatched through an internet based radio system. For Walton County, the answer might very well be YES!

What’s the difference in the different kinds of internet access that are available? Basically you have dial-up, DSL and cable modem services, wireless, T-1, DS-3 copper telephone line based technology and fiber. Dial-up, DSL, cable modem and wireless are all Best Effort Services. Best Effort means just what it says; the provider will make their best effort to a) keep the service on and b) to make it meet the advertised specifications as closely as possible. In a Best Effort situation, the provider will do the best they can but there are no guarantees.

T-1s and some copper line based technology along with fiber solutions like Bright House Dedicated Access can be guaranteed. Service Level Agreements or S.L.A.s can be provided with these services. S.L.A.s typically guarantee things like uptime, latency, data throughput and most importantly, they spell out an escalation program to ensure that the service is back on in a specific amount of time in the event of an outage. In our next installment, we will take a look at S.L.A.s and how they can differ. For now be aware that you copper line solution may or may not have an S.L.A. Also bear in mind that even if you have an S.L.A, it may not be a very good one.

Let’s get back to deciding if you need a guaranteed service. There are two things to consider 1) Can you put a specific dollar figure loss on some time period in the event of an outage? For example, one company discovered that during a T-1 outage, they lost $20,000 per hour! That sounds like an exaggeration but this large distribution company does about $250,000 per day. On the day that their T-1 went down for 5 hours, they did about half that amount. The rest is just a little quick math. Your situation may not be quite this dramatic; however, if you think back to the last time you were without service, did you lose money? If you answer yes then it won’t be real hard to put a dollar figure on that loss, which leads us to item 2) will the loss make up the difference you will have to pay to get guaranteed service? In the case of our example company, the answer is a resounding YES! No matter what solution they chose, it will most likely be less than $20,000 per hour. The simple fact is that a guaranteed service will always be more expensive than a Best Effort service. Will the loss from an outage be offset by the savings on a Best Effort service? For lots of smaller companies, the answer is yes however, for many companies the balance sheet may tilt the other way. The best way to make that determination is to look at what services are available, the cost and do some simple math.

IP Telphony

VOIP----What is it?

I am going to assume that if you are reading this you already know or know enough to Google it and get a much more eloquent definition than I can render here.

Its a buzz word! I recently attended a function where I ran into a "phone guy" and I asked him how business was. He replied "Great we have started doing VOIP!" When I asked him what product, and he offered up one of the many names (starts with A) out of Silicon Valley.As he was excitedly extolling the virtues of V-O-I-P, I asked "does it use SIP?" He hesitated and said "Yeah it'll do SIP!" just to be obnoxious I asked. "What does SIP stand for?" He looked at me kind of funny and replied, " Don't you know?" " Yes , I know. Do you?" I replied. He mumbled something and excused himself.

Folks, one of the things that makes a great "phone guy" is that he really knows his stuff. The old guys like my Dad new everything about telephony. Will the new age of IP telephony change that?Let's hope not!

Dad had been in the business 20 plus years when the digital switch came around. He was a little flustered by the computer interface and the programming. But Dad in a premier example of "old phone guy" determination, buckled down and learned it. I heard him say many times during that challenging time in his career, "It's still a telephone." No matter what happens to Alexander Graham Bell's marvelous invention, let us not forget that it still must act like a telephone. And let us not forget that our customers still buy our gear and our services for one overshadowing reason---TO MAKE TELEPHONE CALLS.

Assess the real needs of your customers and give them the system that makes the most sense.
AND----if you are going to "do voip" do it for the right reasons. And please, buckle down and learn it. IP telephony runs on a data network. Learn how data networks function.

Just Another Manic Monday

Well here goes! I read recently that some IT companies would not take you seriously unless you had a web presence ie a blog.

Now I have never worried too much about being taken seriously however, as a well know gadget guru, technophile, geeky nerdy on the bleeding edge of technology kind of guy...I really don't know how I have gone this long without my very own blog.
I have been led to believe that a blog should be posted to every day like a diary and should talk about what you are doing or have done that day like a diary. Guess what, I AIN'T gonna do that!

Let's talk instead about the things that matter most to me and hope nobody reads this!

So since I have spent my whole life in the telecommunications industry (one of my earliest fond memories is of sitting on a packing crate in a STEP office in Okolona , Arkansas, strapping blocks for my Dad) that is probably what I will talk about the most.

Right now since I am in the process of negotiating a fairly big deal for a multi-location fiber WAN, I have been pondering the commodity status of bandwidth. Like many of the things in our industry that are not exactly as they should be, this is a self inflicted wound. The 64 million dollar question is what do we do about it? My answer......I don't know! Maybe we don't be quite so willing to cut each others throats? Easier said than done in a corporate climate that doesn't take excuses and failure is not an option.