The Inside Track - May 8th, 2009 - Trim your telecom expenses

With the economy in a slump I thought it might be a good time to remind our customers that we are available to perform inventory audits on your Qwest service accounts to make sure you are not spending more than you need to on the services your are being billed for. We recommend scheduling a periodic review of your accounts every 12 months if possible. If your company has not used CTG3 before, this is a great way to get started with us.

We have a designed an easy way to sign up for an account review at http://audit.ctg3.com. We have also published (10) tips for ways to save money on your current services as well so take time to read even if you do not signup. Keep in mind that our primary expertise is with Qwest but we can also take into account other carriers for dedicated Internet service since we have a lot of attractive cost saving options in this area. Read more about this at http://audit.ctg3.com.

We recently joined WISPA (Wireless Internet Service Provider Association) as a vendor partner. Even though we do not deal with wireless ourselves, I thought it might be good for us to offer our capabilities in the "wired" world to this group since they could have a demand for upstream dedicated internet and connections between POPs. Check out their website at www.wispa.org.

Now some good news for our Bandwidth Builder ISP partners, Qwest will now allow you to remain on the line with your residential customer orders (hooray!). For business orders you do not need customer on the phone assuming you have LOA on file with them. We have posted a quick reference guide on how to use the Bandwidth Builders / Qwest call center on our website at www.bandwidthbuilders.com in the support section or click here for the direct link.

We are getting nice traffic on our www.npanxx.net site. This site helps you find the valid "LEC" npa/nxx by entering physical address. If you have suggestions on new features that should be added to the site just email them to me and I will consider making the changes. We have added lots of other useful telco sites on our website at www.ctg3.com. Just click on "Telco Links".

There are still lots of questions about the recent deregulation of Qwest ATM, Frame, QMOE, and SST OCx services. Keep in mind that standard pricing remains the same and the only difference are the contracts that we use. I had a inquiry from one of our customers asking if FUSF charges would disappear like they did when DSL went un-regulated. Sorry to say the answer is no because unlike DSL which is considered an information service, ATM and QMOE are still considered telecom services.

We have heard Qwest is beta testing low speed QMOE in Denver. As reported earlier this year, speeds will be 3,5,7mbps. No information or pricing is available so this is just a heads up.

Qwest will be coming out with a new PRI promotion later this month so stay tuned. Also remember that we can now provide PRI service over the Qwest OneFlex product as well. Just remember that since this is a VOIP service, we do not recommend using it for modem related services.

More carrier choices for IP Bandwidth over QMOE - Mammoth Networks now provides IP bandwidth over QMOE in the Denver and Seattle markets. Internap has Denver QMOE market and will be soon adding capability in the Seattle market. TMC has lowered Qwest IP pricing for 200mps and above if ordered over QMOE to $22 per meg. Since the service comes directly from Qwest this is a Tier-1 service at a fantastic price.

That's about it for now!

Keep in mind that if you need pricing requests orQMOE engineering checks, just send request to quotes@ctg3.com.

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Dave Laskowski
CTG3 - Managing Partner
425-458-4070 Voice
425-696-1337 Fax

Blog: http://ctg3.squarespace.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/davelaskowski
URL: http://www.ctg3.com