Skinny pipes squeeze productivity
Pick up the pace and cut the costs by upgrading to broadband. Everyone wants more bandwidth. but have you ever stopped to calculate the costs of sleepy Internet connections?
"We still see a lot of businesses trying to manage dial-up connections," says IT outsourcer Brad Patten. "Just last year, we had a law firm with 30 people, and everyone had a 28.8Kbps modem in their computer; they couldn't be on the Internet and the phone at the same time.
"It had been like that for years, and the company was spending $500 to $600 per month on these dial-up connections."
Patten says he upgraded the company to DSL, and productivity received quite a boost.
"The financial savings were tremendous," says Mindy Clausen, the company's office manager. "Now we're paying about $100 per month for DSL, which reduced our monthly overhead by $500."
You can fatten your bandwidth with a fixed-wireless alternative too. Services such as Teligent, Fuzion, or even traditional telecommunications companies such as Sprint Broadband Direct now offer wireless Internet access at speeds that meet or exceed those of fast T1 connections across a company campus.
Meanwhile, costs for the industry-standard T1 or T3 line are decreasing. Yet companies often spend far more than necessary for these connections. Bruce Judson, a faculty fellow at Yale School of Management, founded a Web site called Speed Anywhere that specializes in finding businesses the best bandwidth system at the best price.
For small businesses, Speed Anywhere may simply provide the software that speeds up their existing Internet connections. But for large corporations, Speed Anywhere hooks companies up with T1 and satellite connections from providers such as CAIS Internet for as little as $699 per month.
