As a managed IT services provider, our goal is to be your single source for all your IT needs. We will partner and coordinate with your line of business software providers, your telecomm companies, etc., but our philosophy is your outsourced IT company should know everything about your IT.

Telecomm is a huge part of how most small and midsized businesses do their business. In recent weeks, we have been reviewing some of our client’s telecomm costs and are finding there is great opportunity to save some precious cash.

Should you consider reviewing your telecomm needs? Look over this list and if there are any triggers, give your outsourced IT or network management guys a call (or better yet, contact Mother!)

1.    Telecomm costs fall year to year, not rise.  Unlike many other types of expenses, telecomm costs fall each year.  Vendors that are “willing to lock this price for 3 years” are really not giving you a deal at all.  There are great incentives to shorter term contracts.

2.    Contracts coming due.  Many clients’ contracts are close to expiring or already have expired.  They are on a month-to-month contract, paying rates that were competitive 2 or 3 years ago.  See point #1.  Renegotiating would allow a lower contract price.

3.    POTS Lines are Expensive.  POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) lines are expensive, highly regulated products.  There are cheaper alternatives on the market, depending on your needs.  PRI circuits, VOIP, cable service all are cheaper alternatives to the expensive old technology.

4.    Cable and DSL Service.  The traditional high capacity internet service was the T1.  Although they are reliable, the alternatives are now rivaling the same stability at greater levels of performance.  The typical T1 line costs $300 to $500 per month for 1.5 MB download and upload speed.  Cable offers 16MB down and 2 MB up for prices around $200 per month, and the uptime is almost the same as T1. 

Here’s the bottom line – don’t live with the telecomm and internet connection service you have today.  Ask for some help. Mother can give you an assessment of both your needs and what options exist. We are at the frontline and have access to information (and time to understand it) that is not even available to the end user. Most of our outsourced IT clients today are getting much better service speeds at lower prices. Best of both worlds – no sacrifice.  Few things like this exist in our world…