Everyone who started out as a small business owner knows how it goes. As your business grows you struggle just to keep pace with it, often not having enough time to evaluate your choices and decisions.
It is time to take a step back and take a look at your current situation. One of the largest monthly recurring expenses (besides rent) is telecom. Many small businesses start out with a few phone lines, perhaps a fax and a shared DSL connection. As time goes by you add a few phone lines, hook up a couple more computers and carry on. However it is very likely that this setup that grew over time isn't the most cost effective one.
There are many new telecom products on the market these days, that may not even have existed when your company first started.
Let me give you just one real life example to illustrate this. A business that has grown like described before has 12 phone lines and a monthly phone bill of $800, mostly local calls. Plus a shared DSL connection of $85.
They decided it was time to upgrade their DSL line to a dedicated T1 line. For those of you who don't know, a t1 line is a dedicated internet connection with a speed of 1.5Mbps. It is much more reliable than DSL so if a business depends on their internet connection and email access this would be a very good choice.
However an even better option for them in this case would be a dynamic integrated T1 line. (hope I didn't scare you there) It is a T1 line as described above, only phone service is integrated with it. In the past this would mean sacrificing some of your internet bandwidth for phone lines. But with a dynamic T1 line as soon as you hang up the phone, the whole T1 is available for internet access again. And now VoIP has been maturing for years there are many carriers that can offer such a product based on VoIP. Since it is all software based in some cases you don't even need a PBX anymore. Plus the rates are much better than with POTS.
Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done
Don't worry about the technical details, get advise
With so many new and different products, don't break your head over it. There are many telecom consultants that will analyze your situation for free. Explain your current situation and ask a few consultants to give you an overview of your options.
I recommend: Contact a consultant
Compare pricing yourself
If you have a technical background you can check and compare prices yourself. There are may websites that offer this service. Do a search for "Integrated T1 line" and you're see many.
I recommend: Integrated T1 quote tool
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