Web Conferencing -The Peacocking of the Telecommunications World

For small and medium sized businesses, (especially those just starting out) it is important to look and act as professional as possible in order to be taken seriously when compared against the competitive bells and whistles of the ‘big dogs’. Large companies and those that have established a name for themselves have luxury of being able to access particular types of technology and “frills” that most other businesses do not. Thankfully,conferencing does not fall into that category.

Outside of the fancy office buildings in trendy locations and expensive three-dimensional business cards, genuinely knowledgeable small business owners realize that they get the most bang for their buck by investing in technological solutions like web conferencing.Web conferencing provides businesses of any size the ability to meet, connect, and collaborate with up to thousands of employees as well as current and potential customers – regardless of their location – with quality that rivals in-person meetings.

Web conferencing can provide any company with the best return on their investment because it increases their employee and customer reach exponentially. In fact, one of the biggest advantages of web conferencing is that it allows a business to dramatically expand its reach in areas they otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford to expand to. By making yourself and your staff available both vocally and visually to clients, your small and/or newly established business has the same professional, competitive image as the ‘big fish’ that have been around for years.

Unfortunately many young entrepreneurs mistake web conferencing as an outdated method of communication. This could not be further from the truth. In addition to being able to launch or attend a web conference via a desktop or laptop computer, manyweb conferencing providers now offer web conferencing applications for smartphones, tablets, and other popular portable devices. This gives you the freedom and ability to arrange either an audio conference or a web conference from literally anywhere you wish: a park, a rooftop, a restaurant – you name it.

Requirements vary depending upon the provider you select, but typically include a microphone and webcam – both of which are frequently already installed on modern computers and portable devices. And without the need for pricey phone plans or specialized equipment, more capital is freed for other aspects of your business. Who knows, maybe with all the money you save by employing aweb conferencing solutionyou’ll be able to afford those hoity-toity business cards after all!

Andy Jacobs
For more details please visit:
http://www.conferenceshopper.com/

T1 Internet Service – When Is A Business Internet T1 Justified

This piece provides an overview of T1 Internet Service for those businesses that need higher reliability and availability. Since T1 Internet service comes with a service level agreement (SLA), usual uptime is much higher than DSL or cable. Also, with T1 Internet service, the upload and download speeds are a constant. This is vital for critical information needs, where limited downtime can be tolerated and productivity depends on consistently fast Internet access. Also, for voice applications a T1 can include quality of service (QOS) to ensure the access speed and consistency required for quality voice traffic.

Many small business use low-priced Internet links, such as DSL, cable, and fios. To keep costs down, all of these methods use sharing techniques to connect users to the Internet itself. Also, reliability is not assured, athough a “best effort” is made to preserve connectivity. A business Internet T1 data line, although using technology identical to SDSL, is given a higher value by the telcos. A T1 failing will be repaired within hours whereas a DSL, cable, or fios user could possibly experience a 5 day turn around time for repair.

Telecommunications vendors provide higher-end services, such as business Internet T1 service, in order to address higher reliability and consistency needs in some companies. As a business grows and adds employees, the value of an Internet connection increases and the business often needs higher availability. Often, the usage and reliance on the Internet also increases after services such as voice, and shared data services are moved to the “cloud.” In the neighborhood of 10 employees, a company will find it’s telecommunications needs more feasibily served by a business Internet T1 service.

Voice over IP (VOIP) has become widespread as well as various shared data services. Examples include popular applications such as SalesForce.com, GoogleApps, and many more. Generally, the quality of information available on the Internet has improved over time, causing more extensive dependence on connectivity to applications and online data sources. Changing business operations and usage all require additional bandwidth and reliability. Sales revenue and productivity of employees can be affected for each minute of downtime. How many businesses would survive with no telephone service for several days?.

Although hard to measure, timely information or lack thereof can make or break many small enterprises. This is especially true for companies using “cloud computing,” where online collaboration and information for daily operations in office calendaring, documents and financial data are only accessible through the company Internet link.

With business Internet T1 service, the SLA offers a “guarantee” of reliability and availability of crucial Internet services. Although many don’t realize it, a company’s Internet connection is an essential resource as more business functions and information needed for daily operations now must have reliable access. Loss of connectivity even for hours or a few days at a time can be fatal to daily operations or even the enterprise.

As T1 prices continue to decrease and businesses’ need for connectivity increases, a greater number will turn to the reliability and availability of T1 Internet service for day to day operations. The SLA distinguishes T1 Internet service from less expensive and unreliable DSL, cable, and fios services that many are using today. The SLA will be the deciding factor in order that critical operations are maintained, productivity remains high, and adequate sales and revenue is achieved for survival.

Fiber Optics Explained For The Rest Of Us

The Principle of fiber optics is based on transmission of data by means of light. Concept of fiber optics was first conceived by Claude Chappe in 1790’s. His idea for fiber optics was based on an optical telegraph concept invented by Graham Bell also tried the means to send information by the atmosphere but did not succeed. Finally, fiber optics emerged with the onset of new era based on the principle of total internal reflection which is a distinct quality of light rays.

Fiber optics emerged and grew into more advanced phase due to requirement from radio and telephone engineers. These engineers required more bandwidth for data transmission. Thus these engineers had been looking out for a medium to transmit data in more reliable and faster form rather than copper cables. They also wanted to avoid the hazards of electric shocks and interference which were a constant problem of copper cables.

Fiber optics had attracted some attention because they were analogous in theory to plastic dielectric waveguides used in certain microwave applications. Finally a technology evolved that used glass or plastic threads to transmit data. Cables involved in fiber optics contain several bundles of glass threads which are capable of transmitting data in modulated form.

With the onset of fiber optics and fiber optic cables data started to transfer faster as fiber optic cables have greater bandwidth than metal cables and are more resistant to external interference. Lighter and thinner fiber optic cables readily transfer data in digital form rather than analogue form. This technology is most useful in computer industry which now forms an integral part of telephone, radio and television industry.

Telecommunications applications of fiber optics use flexible low-loss fibers, using a single fiber per optical path. Along with the communication industry fiber optics plays an important role in medical and industrial applications also. Many medical appliances like endoscope use the principle of fiber optics. Industrial applications viz. in television industry use the principle of fiber optics to obtain flattened images in cathode ray tubes.

Fiber optics yield distortion free data transmission in digital form. The audio waves transmitted via principle of fiber optics deliver accurate signal transfer. Fiber optics is also useful in automotive and transportation industry. Traffic lights, organized and scrutinized highway traffic control, automated toll booths, etc. are some of the benefits of application of fiber options in the transportation mechanism.

Cable TV companies and Internet Service Providers equivocally find fiber optics indispensable in their industry. Fiber optics provides tamper free, high bandwidth and larger data carrying capacity to the service providers. This eventually leads to better consumer satisfaction.

Unlike copper wire system fiber optics do not use and electrical form to carry data. The use of light gives a competitive edge to fiber optics over regular data transmission options. But eventually use of fiber optics is very expensive as compared to copper cabling system.

Sfp Transceivers For Telecommunications

The SFP may be the smaller sized optical transceiver utilized in optical communications. It interfaces a network equipment mother board to some fiber-optic or unshielded twisted pair networking cable.
This is probably the most diffused transceiver format available with a number of different transmiter and receiver types, allowing users to select the appropriate transceiver for each connect to supply the required optical reach within the available optical fiber (e.g., multi-mode fiber or single-mode fiber).
A drawing of SFP module is presented below, where the particular connector for the input and output fibers that, with different dimensions, exists in all the transceivers is evidenced. The way in which the SFP transceivers are hosted on the motherboard utilizing a suitable cage allowing a hot plug is show in the figure below, where both empty cages around the front of a system card and also the cages with plugged SFPs are provided.

Optical SFP modules are commonly obtainable in a choice of models: 850 nm (SX), 1310 nm (LX), 1550 nm (ZX), and WDM, both DWDM and CWDM. SFP transceivers are also available with a copper cable interface. The copper SFP allows a host device designed primarily for optical fiber communications to also communicate over unshiedled twisted pair networking cable.
Commercially available transceivers have a capability as much as 2.5 Gbps for transmission applications; moreover, a version of the standard having a bit rate of 10 Gbps exists, however it can be used only to connect nearby equipment, and it is very helpful to spare space and power consumption as interface within the client cards of line equipments.
Modern optical SFP transceivers support digital monitoring functions based on the industry standard SFF-8472 MSA. This selection gives the consumer the opportunity to monitor real-time parameters from the SFP, for example optical output power, optical input power, temperature, laser bias current, and transceiversupply voltage.
SFP transceivers are designed to support SONET, Gigabit Ethernet, Fibre Channel, and other communications standards.
The standard is expanding to SFP (SFP plus), which will be capable of supporting data rates as much as 10.0 Gbps (that will range from the data rates for 8G Fibre Channel, and 10 GbE). Possible performances of various realistic SFP transceivers are reported in the figure below.

Reliance Jio Signs A Deal With Gte Infrastructure To Launch 4g In India By March 2015

With an aim to expedite the full roll-out of 4G by March 2015, Reliance Jio Infocomm has signed a tower-sharing deal with GTL Infrastructure. This deal will also help control costs at this stage of service deployment.

Sanjay Mashruwala, Managing Director of Reliance Jio Infocomm said, Our mission is to launch pan-India next-generation voice and data services. We will build the same through a judicious combination of own build and rented infrastructure.” Further, he addedthat the GTL deal is “not only a step in that direction but will also help us accelerate our roll out.”

Reliance Jio has been actively entering into a number of infrastructure-sharing agreements with telecommunication companies that have existing passive infrastructure in place. In addition to quickening the pace of its launch, avoiding duplication of infrastructure, and lowering capital costs, this move can also help limit environmental damage since telecommunication towers tend to be heavy consumers of diesel.

Reliance Jios Roll-out Plans

The company intends to lease about 70,000 towers and install approximately 30,000 of its own. Since it aims to launch 4G data and voice services in the coming year, these figures also include smaller cell sites on single poles. According to the agreement with GTL Infrastructure, Reliance Jio will use about 30,000 of their telecom towers spread all over the country.

Last year, the company had announced an infrastructure-sharing deal with Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications (RCOM). The deal proposed to use some or all of the 48,000 towers that are held by RCOMs Reliance Infratelunit. Another tower-sharing agreement was also signed with Bharti Infratel along with an infrastructure deal with Bharti Group that allows Reliane Jio to use Airtels subsea cable network.

Picking up Pace

A spokesperson from the Switzerland-based multinational financial services company,Credit Suisse, said that Reliance Jio is very much on track with its plans to launch 4G services by March 2015. It has completed installation of about 32,000 Long Term Evolution (LTE) base stations across the country. Furthermore, the pace at which the installations take place has picked up to about 6,500 per month as compared to the rate of about 3,000 per month in May 2014.

Furthermore, the spokesperson said that that developments in the global LTE handset ecosystem is pushing down price-points at a fast pace. This means that sub-$100 LTE smart phones could soon become a reality. This shift in the market could be rather disruptive in India, where the top 30% of customers accounts for 70% of the revenues in the telecommunications sector.

Reliance Jios Airwaves License Agreements

Reliance Jioowns pan-India airwaves in the 2300MHz band since May 2010 and must deploy its 4G services by May 2015 to comply with its license agreement. It has also won the 1800MHz band airwaves at an auction in February this year. It is believed that this will be used to launch 4G data services and 2G voice services.

The spokesperson adds that Reliance Jio has also awarded a second LTE base station contract to Samsung for 50,000 to 70,000 units. This could result in the network size of the telecommunications company crossing 100,000 base stations.