Thursday, July 14, 2005

VoIP Service Provider - My Phone Company - Make It Yours

VoIP Residential Service - Stop using annoying phone cards, stop overpaying that other phone company and start with crisp clear broadband communication with more than 11 included free features and the lowest international rates possible.

VoIP Business Service - Business is business and your main focus shouldn't be your phone bill or paying extra for features. Join us today and feel the difference in savings and the quality of personalized service. All My Office plans include a 2nd voice / fax line.

VoIP Travel Service - The Soft Phone option allows you to make & receive calls anywhere with an internet access or hotspot. Simply download it, and your ready to make any type of calls. The only hardware required is a headset. The greatest option for people on the move. Best of all you get a new phone number!

Lean more about the freedom of VoIP technology

Friday, July 08, 2005

Virtual Private Networks (VPN) 101

Written by - Jeff Johnson, Staff Writer

As the VPN market approaches maturity at a brisk pace, vendors have been forced to rethink the tradition identity of their IP Security-based technology for letting users securely access enterprise resources via the Internet. Most large companies in need of linking their offices together have done so on frame relay networks. Although frame is still a useful product many users have found that the reduced cost of VPN gives them an attractive alternative.

'During the last 18 months, vendors have pushed VPN technology into different devices, have lessened the distinction between VPN and firewall products, and have demonstrated a strong willingness to deviate from standardized technology to meet corporate remote access requirements. VPN services now come bundled with many dedicated services and several service providers are using VPN products as a loss leader so they can sell circuits. When investigating the use of VPN products make sure you speak with a professional who can guide you through the strengths as well as the weaknesses of the product. While it is a cost reduced alternative to frame it is a different product and should be thoroughly researched.

One of the advantages of a VPN is that internet access is not based only on the hub and spoke layout. The users away from the hub are able to access the internet through their own connection rather than going through the hub and creating a bottleneck. Users will only need to connect through the hub if they need to access information from the central database. When researching alternatives such as VPN, like always, we recommend you consult with a professional and not just a salesman for a VPN company. Make sure the individual you speak with is unbiased and will give you the strengths and weaknesses of each product. We recommend one of the brokers at ShopforT1.net for unbiased recommendations of multiple carriers.

Let them have DSL!

Written by - Hunter Sheffield, Staff Writer

DSL has been hailed as a great solution for residential broadband needs. You may have heard this term from friends and neighbors when talking about their fast internet connection. It's true, DSL is much faster then a dial-up internet connection, but is it all it's cracked up to be?

With speeds of up to 140 times faster than dial up internet access its definitely fast but the problem is you don't always get the advertised speed. You DSL connection is highly dependant on your distance from the phone company. If you're over 5,000 feet your signal will begin to drop off and your connection will be degraded, i.e. slower speed. At about 15,000 feet from the phone company (3 miles) your signal will completely cut off.

The second problem with DSL is the fact that it's highly over subscribed. Oversubscription means that many people are pulling from the same resource. During the afternoon when people are at work there may be plenty of bandwidth to have, but in the evening when everyone is looking up the news, going through e-mail, or shopping online, access tends to be strained. Many people pulling from the same limited resource will find that there's only so much to go around. What does this mean to you? Slow speeds! It's interesting to note that DSL companies lampooned cable internet access as being shared by the neighborhood. Commercials displayed neighbors at each others throats for overusing the connection because it affected other's use. The irony of the commercials is that DSL users suffer from the same problem of common access. It's a great solution, but don't let them fool you….It's not perfect!