Does This Describe You?

The Internet has become an integral part of our lives. Think about it. It’s something that we expect to always be ON. We want and need it to be fast and reliable. We use it constantly so it needs to be accessible – whether we’re at home, in our office, working at a client, or just out and about.

In today’s society, we can’t function without the Internet. So what happens when you lose your Internet connection? Or it hiccups or bounces? It probably doesn’t happen often, but how frustrated and mad do you get when it does?

Since our primary focus at IDeACOM is on providing high quality voice over IP (VoIP) solutions, it’s the Internet that plays a key role in the successful delivery of phone calls. VoIP is 100% dependent on the network.

So then, I have to ask. How do you feel when voice quality suffers? Or when you’re not able to place outgoing calls ‘cause the Internet is down? It sucks, right? I know ‘cause it sucks for us too as your VoIP service provider when you’re having problems!

My intent is not to infuriate you, but to highlight an unfortunate yet somewhat common problem that many VoIP users face. By the way, the problem is not always on your end. But I realize it directly affects you. And so I get it. It’s a problem regardless.

As the telephone companies all migrate their backbone networks and services to VoIP, it’s important for you to understand that the majority of your phone calls are already traversing one or many VoIP networks. Even if you’re one of the few left with traditional copper POTS lines, your calls routed over VoIP networks.

Traditional phone services are no longer practical or cost effective for the carriers. This is why they’ve been switching their networks to VoIP over the past few years. And continue to update their networks to move away from the traditional “landline” Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) that Ma Bell built and relied on for over 100 years.

So what’s the point here?

1. Reliable, fast, and high quality broadband is essential to the efficiency and profitability of your organization!
2. All internet solutions are not created equal.

High speed Internet, as it is often marketed, comes in many shapes and sizes. Here, we will focus on VoIP & data exclusively. I am purposely leaving TV and phone services out of this discussion. I’m also leaving out DSL. DSL is not part of this discussion because DSL is LOW speed by today’s standards, which makes it insufficient for voice or video. And too slow for most data requirements too.

Here’s a challenge we see. Many or most companies are used to paying between $100 to $200 per month for their cable broadband Internet services. And until recently in many cases, most of these companies relied on their cable broadband services for data only.

For those that were accustomed to paying $500 for a T1 for Internet before cable broadband hit the scene (or $1,500 for “bonded T1’s), paying $150 for cable broadband was a refreshing change. And the icing on the cake was that cable broadband didn’t only cost less, it was 5 to 10 times faster than the archaic T1’s they were using.

And aside from an occasional hiccup or short-term outage, the cable broadband service performed adequately for their data requirements.

But now that voice in the form of VoIP has dominated the telecom landscape, it turns out that business-grade cable broadband doesn’t always deliver “real-time” voice as well or as reliably as it does for your email and cloud-based data applications. And this is why some companies that have experienced bad call quality have been left with a bad taste about VoIP. And that’s unfortunate because not only is VoIP mainstream, it truly does provide a ton of benefits.

It’s all data anymore anyway – whether you’re on the phone, checking email, working on a Word doc or Excel spreadsheet. Which means that your Internet service (and your local network) are crucial to the delivery of your VoIP and data services.

Since voice is “real-time”, it is more susceptible to the variances and nuances that can occur on a business grade cable Internet service. Why? Because you are paying for a shared, “BEST EFFORT” service with business-grade cable Internet. And that doesn’t always cut it with real-time voice.

So what can you do?

You can do a few things:

1. Let’s say you have cable broadband and you’re using a VoIP solution. If your call quality is good, be grateful and consider yourself one of the fortunate ones.
2. If call quality is inconsistent and intermittently bad at times, contact your cable broadband provider and have them monitor your service to look for jitter &/or latency (packet loss or delayed packets). This may take a few attempts. And they may try to tell you that your speeds are good. But it’s not the speed in this case that’s the problem. They need to look deeper into their network and their facilities.
3. Contact IDeACOM to evaluate and price an Ethernet Dedicated Internet over Fiber service. I can tell you with absolute certainty that these services, when available, will clear up any and all VoIP call quality issues. But there’s a financial impact. These services are dedicated between you and the provider over fiber. And unlike the inexpensive shared, best-effort services, these come with a higher price tag.

The diagram below illustrates some of the many benefits that an Ethernet Dedicated Internet service provides over the more common shared, best effort services.

Costs vary based on your location in the provider’s footprint. And it usually takes about a week or less to obtain pricing. All you need to do is contact your IDeACOM representative. Our wholesale channel usually renders a lower monthly recurring and install cost than if you were to contact the business office directly. In fact, non-recurring installation costs are usually waived, at least 90% of the time.

If you would like to learn more or get a price, contact your IDeACOM representative for details.