Costco Saves $5 Million with Video Conferencing

Brandon Hall Research blogged that:

Costco’s Savings From video conferencing will exceed $750K in 2008.

The December 8, 2008 issue of Fortune reports that Costco replaced in-person meetings with video conferencing in its northwest region.

Fifty-nine managers who typically traveled to headquarters monthly, now met virtually every other month via video conferencing.

The savings in 2008: $750,000.

Projected savings when it rolls out nationwide: $3 million to $5 million.

As the technology gets better, the bandwidth size used by a company eg T1 T3 OC3 MPLS, the cost for this bandwidth continues to decrease in price more and more companies are going to opt for video conferencing.

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Tightening Telecom Economy! Business BroadBand On Rise

Doug Allen or Vertical Systems Group writes about the Broadband industry....

If you’re looking for a narrow snapshot of the overall health of business telecom, you might want to check out a recent research report from Vertical Systems Group. In a report entitled “U.S. Access Landlines Connect 5.3 Million Business Sites,” lead author and VSG Principal Rick Malone finds that the number of business customers with landline connections at their U.S. sites has increased by nearly 700,000 lines over the past five years to the aforementioned 5.3 links. That’s a net increase of about 7 percent over that period.

As things stand, this shift towards more Ethernet-based access alternatives over traditional T1s means incumbent telcos have to share more of the business broadband access pie than they are accustomed to. Those incumbents account for about 46 percent of the U.S. Ethernet access market, a far smaller showing than it used to command when T1s were the dominant access medium.

The balance is made up of rival service providers such as Time Warner Telecom and Cogent (remember when this former DLEC/CLEC used to specialize solely in DSL and T1 access?), at about 34 percent, and 20 percent sold by the hard-charging, surging cable operators who continue to raise access line rates much more quickly than corresponding rate increases for telco DSL.

However, as reported elsewhere, the trend towards growth in broadband access lines has started to reverse itself over the last four to five months. Malone has been quoted predicting a “moderate downturn,” though “not a huge disastrous” one in business broadband access.

The decline in business access lines is largely due to office/site closings, especially among financial services companies, according to Malone, who feels businesses are likely only to add access lines where deployments are already in progress or new access lines will bring near-term savings over the existing plant. Examples include legacy network (Frame Relay and ATM) convergence and migration to an IP VPN or Ethernet VPLS transport.

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Top 8 Internet Connectivity Definitions

A large company may need something more than a T1 line.

The following list shows some of the common line designations and definitions:

DS0 - 64 kilobits per second

ISDN - Two DS0 lines plus signaling (16 kilobytes per second), or 128 kilobits per second

T1 - 1.544 megabits per second (24 DS0 lines)

T3 - 43.232 megabits per second (28 T1s)

OC3 - 155 megabits per second (84 T1s)

OC12 - 622 megabits per second (4 OC3s)

OC48 - 2.5 gigabits per seconds (4 OC12s)

OC192 - 9.6 gigabits per second (4 OC48s)

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DS3 Works for Large Volume Internet Transfers

DS3 FOR LARGE VOLUME DATA AND VOICE TRANSFERS

It is becoming obvious that a standard T1 circuit will not be able to cope with the growth of bandwidth applications. For example a T1 circuit is 1.5 megabits/sec whereby downloading a three minute piece of music is 3MB or 24 megabits.

Uploading or downloading a digital photograph would use 2 MB or 16 megabits. A Power Point presentation is 10 MB or 80 megabits. If several office workers were to transmit a Power Point presentation at the same time the T1 connection would slow down for three or more minutes.

Read more here and comments below....


Fred Welsh said...
I agree, T1 services will not be sufficient enough for large businesses. But T1 services are incredibly viable for small businesses and home consumers. Don't underestimate the bandwidth of a T1 line! T1 Survey
7:10 AM

john said...
I also agree, while T1 is great D3 is so much better and more capable to handle everything. http://getds3.com/is a company to look out for.
5:36 AM

Mark Allen said...
Great info, next time if you could break the article into paragraphs for easier reading it would be great.We have put together a very indepth glossary of terms which you may use....Simply T1 Glossary.

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Metro Ethernet Definition

- Metro Ethernet is the use of Carrier Ethernet technology in metropolitan area networks (MANs). Because it is typically a collective endeavor with numerous financial contributors, Metro Ethernet offers cost-effectiveness, reliability, scalability and bandwidth management superior to most proprietary networks.

Metro Ethernet can connect business local area networks (LANs) and individual end users to a wide area network (WAN) or to the Internet. Corporations, academic institutions and government agencies in large cities can use Metro Ethernet to connect branch campuses or offices to an intranet. A typical Metro Ethernet system has a star network or mesh network topology with individual routers or servers interconnected through cable or fiber optic media.

"Pure" Ethernet technology in the MAN environment is relatively inexpensive compared with Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) or Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) systems of similar bandwidth. However, the latter technologies can be applied to Metro Ethernet in urban areas willing to devote the necessary financial resources to the task.

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Top Network and T1 Glossary Terms

Glossary
I have included here a few of the most commonly used T1 and Network Cabling keywords. For an in depth list. Just use one of the blue links.


Cat 3 Cable: The Cat 3 Cable is a UTP (Unshielded Twisted Pair) cable, which reliably carries up to 10 Mbit/s of data. It has a possible bandwidth of 16Mhz. Cat 3 is still mostly in use in two-line telephone systems, but has been mostly superceded by the higher performing Cat 5 standard.

Cat 5 Cable: The Cat 5 Cable is a twisted pair cable, mostly unshielded (but there are shielded types.) It is designed for high signal integrity, and can carry up to 155 Mbit/s over short distances. It is used mostly for Ethernet networks, basic voice services and ATM's, but has been superceded on many industries by the Category 5e specification.

Cat 5e Cable: The Cat 5e cable is an enhanced Cat 5 cable, with added specifications for far end crosswalk. With its tighter specifications, it is an excellent choice for 1000BASE-T.

Cat 6 Cable: The Cat 6 cable is standard for Gigabit Ethernet and similar network protocols. It is backward compatible with the Category 5 and Category 5e standards. The Cat 6 cable standard delivers a bandwidth of up to 250Mhz. The Cat 6 cable is more effective for system noise and crosstalk.

Coaxial Cable: Coaxial Cable is an electrical cable, and consists of a round counducting wire covered by an insulating spacer, which is covered by a cylindrical conducting sheath, lastly covered by a final insulating layer. It is used for high-frequency transmissions and broadband.

Structured Cabling: The term “Structured Cabling” refers to a cabling infrastructure for a building or campus. It consists of many smaller elements, all standardized according to a specification. These are called subsystems.

Plenum Cabling: The term “Plenum Cabling” refers to structured cabling laid in the plenum of buildings (the space where air circulation – heating and air conditioning systems – are facilitated.) It has a slow-burning, fire-resistant casing.

Non-Plenum: Non-Plenum refers to structured cabling that run between floors (non-plenum areas), and rated more as riser cable.

Fiber Cabling: Fiber Cabling is the term used to refer to structured cabling using the Fiber Optic standard.

Fiber Optics: Fiber Optics is a loose term that refers to both the applied science and engineering fields that overlap in structuring fiber optic systems using optical fiber. Optical Fiber is very thin plastic or glass fiber wire, made from incredibly pure optical glass, designed to use light to carry digital signals.

Network Cabling: Network Cabling is a broad term referring to network or ethernet structures or cabling, for a building, office or campus.

RJ 45: The RJ-45 is the standard connector used for Ethernet, T1, ISDN, or 4-pair UTP cables.

RJ 11: RJ-11 is the standard connector used for 2-pair (4 wire) telephone wiring. It comes in both UTP or untwisted cable.

Ethernet: An Ethernet refers to the various computer networking technologies for a Local Area Network (LAN.)

LAN: LAN stands for Local Area Network and refers to a computer network for a small area, such as an office, home or group of buildings.

WAN: WAN stands for Wide area Network and refers to a computer network that covers a broad area, where communications can cross national, regional or metropolitan boundaries.

MEGABYTE: A unit for measuring computer memory or data storage. A unit of information equal to 1000 kilobytes.

GIGABYTE: A unit for measuring computer memory or data storage. A unit of information equal to 1000 megabytes.

TERABYTE: A unit for measuring computer memory or data storage. A unit of information equal to 1000 gigabytes.



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Top Reasons for Using Avaya IP Office:

Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC (News - Alert)), recently honored Avaya’s IP Office as a recipient of 2008 INTERNET TELEPHONY Excellence Award, which was presented by INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine.

Avaya IP Office is a modular IP (Internet protocol) telephone system with a suite of applications specially designed to meet the needs of small or medium sized enterprises (SMEs). This communications solution offers all the benefits of voice and Internet technologies, thereby helping SMEs to have business-critical applications at affordable prices. With this, SMEs can increase productivity of their workforce through anytime-anywhere communication, reduce operating costs and improve customer service.

Geoffrey Baird, vice president and general manager, integrated office communications group, Avaya, said, "This honor reinforces our leadership and future investment in bringing IP communications to the millions of small to medium sized organizations that need to communicate with partners, customers and colleagues with the same sophistication and efficiencies of their larger competitors."

The IP Office system can be either configured as a voice-only PBX (News - Alert) (using traditional circuit-switched lines) or as an IP telephony server using high-speed ISDN/PRI dial-up access and/or direct leased line connectivity and/or SIP (session initiation protocol) trunks.

The product family incorporates - IP Office 500 and IP Office 412 communications solutions. The IP Office 412 supports up to 360 telephones and 4 T1/E1 trunks and the IP Office 500 communication solution can scale up to 272 telephones and 8 T1/E1 trunks.

The IP Office system also features unified communications (UC) technology and includes a set of tools for administration (Manager), call tracking (SMDR), system monitoring and diagnostics (System Status Application). A simple GUI, Phone Manager also helps users to manage their own calls.

Top Reasons for Using Avaya IP Office:

1. Employees can turn their home phones into office phones,

2. Access emails and business calls via their mobile devices,

3. Use laptops to create conference calls

4. Work full-time from home - increasing productivity

5. And cost savings for small businesses.

"Advancing IP communications and providing solutions that add significant value in this marketplace has earned Avaya recognition from the editors of INTERNET TELEPHONY in the form of an INTERNET TELEPHONY Excellence Award," said Greg Galitzine, editorial director of INTERNET TELEPHONY. "IP Office has excelled in delivering communications solutions for its customers, who are extremely pleased and have offered their testaments of support."

The winners of the 2008 INTERNET TELEPHONY Excellence Award were published in the October 2008 issue of INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine.

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