There are five main methods of delivery of your telephone dial-tone. POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service), Cable, DSL, T1 and above, along with PRI. On each of these methods of delivery, you have choices on the service and how it is provided and terminated. Depending on the customer requirements you'll need to help your customer understand each of these by how they are delivered and the QoS they will receive. Each organization has a budget and a concern for QoS and how they will make their connection. Understanding each of these services will help you decide on how you will terminate their PBX. Make certain you understand what you are delivering to your customer so you don't get calls talking about the problems with their Quality of Service.

Cable and DSL

Cable and most DSL is provided on a best-effort network or service deli every and in most cases does not support Quality of Service required for your SIP service. Probably the least expensive method of delivery of Internet services, it also presents the most problems. An alternative to complex QoS control mechanisms is to provide high quality communication over a best-effort network by over-provisioning the capacity so that it is sufficient for the expected peak traffic load. The resulting absence of network congestion eliminates the need for QoS mechanisms.

Understand what your local Cable and DSL reps are telling you

You'll hear things like "we have great service" or "we'll get you the bandwidth you need" and more. You'll need to read the SLA agreement you are being provided before you do anything. Most Cable and DSL are delivered on a best effort, meaning you'll experience jidder and other issues with your telephone service. The bottom line is that it's a crap shoot and you may or may not find the service your customer demands. As an example, and over many years of providing SIP services, we find that the main problem with the services are that the service just doesn't measure up to the standards you expect. You'll end up signing 2 or 3 year contacts only to find that the service isn't what was expected and the provider will be more than happy to deliver POTS or their propriety SIP to you at a much higher cost. In order to make certain you aren't stuck after the provider tells you everything you want to hear such as "if the service isn't there we'll let you out of the agreement" to only find out you can't without penalties, make certain it's in writing and in your agreement or your customer's agreement. If they won't put it in writing, walk away.

You get what you pay for sometimes

There are companies that provide an SLA on DSL, and you will pay a higher price for those circuits, but you'll get the service you require. nexMatrix Telecom provides DSL circuits with an SLA, and many times they are comparable to DSL prices offered by your local provider, but most times they are more. You'll still provide your customer with a great savings and more features on the Protel PBX and the telephone service, and you won't get the calls saying "I'm having problems with my phone service" and if you do, you can make one call instead of two or three to find where the trouble is. Again, make certain you understand what you're getting and read the SLA, listen to the representative and what they are saying to you, and make certain you get it in writing, if you don't your customer will be stuck in a contract that doesn't help. You may also go with a month to month agreement and pay more on installation and then switch to a term contract if the service is good, but understand that the service may get bad at a later date. If the provider won't let your customer out of an agreement, you'll end up with more problems then you want and only able to purchase services, such as POTS, at a much higher cost. Don't get us wrong, sometimes you end up with perfect service from your local Cable and DSL companies. Just make certain you have some type of SLA.

Services from nexMatrix Telecom

As your one stop provider for DSL and T1, DS3, OC3 and more, we guarantee services to your customer. We route traffic from your connection to our servers and provide the ability to place one call if there is a problem. An alternative and disputable definition of QoS, used especially in application layer services such as telephony and streaming video, is requirements on a metric that reflects or predicts the subjectively experienced quality. In this context, QoS is the acceptable cumulative effect on subscriber satisfaction of all imperfections affecting the service. Other terms with similar meaning are the quality of experience (QoE) subjective business concept, the required “user perceived performance”, the required “degree of satisfaction of the user” or the targeted “number of happy customers”. Examples of measures and measurement methods are Mean Opinion Score (MOS), Perceptual Speech Quality Measure (PSQM) and Perceptual Evaluation of Video Quality (PEVQ). What nexMatrix Telecom provides is the route of least resistance to deliver the service to your customer either with a Protel PBX or other service. We do it better so you don't have to deal with poor services and explain problems to your customers and you have a one stop shop. We'll eliminate the finger pointing and deliver our services with an SLA you and your customers demand!

How we deliver services - The Speed of Light

Optical fiber can be used as a medium for telecommunication and networking because it is flexible and can be bundled as cables. It is especially advantageous for long-distance communications, because light propagates through the fiber with little attenuation compared to electrical cables. This allows long distances to be spanned with few repeaters. For short distance applications, such as a network in an office building, fiber-optic cabling can save space in cable ducts. This is because a single fiber can carry much more data than electrical cables such as 4 pair Cat-5 Ethernet cabling. Fiber is also immune to electrical interference; there is no cross-talk between signals in different cables, and no pickup of environmental noise.

Our communications backbone uses fiber to transport communications via connected resources in multiple locations. Let's take a look at our map to gain a better understanding of using our fiber backbone. Understanding this will allow you to understand how services are delivered and how we can provide a better SLA than most companies. Remember, nexMatrix Telecom attempts to partner with providers in all areas of the country, and at times we are unable to deliver an SLA because of the transport to our fiber network(s). We will explain how services are delivered so you can understand how the SLA works with different technologies The map below shows our network as of June 2011.

T1 direct connection from nexMatrix Telecom at the Speed of light

Let's take a look at an office somewhere in Kentucky and another in Idaho and a direct connection to our fiber backbone. These connections in this example would be a direct run from the end-point connections to our services. A provider, partner provider of nexMatrix Telecom, would connect the T1, or greater, to our backbone in our cage(s). With a direct connection to our facilities, we now provide an SLA based on the distance and the services being utilized. The SLA is based on a direct connection to our service. Going one step further, we route traffic (or the call) to the closest nexSwitch softswitch in order to reduce the latency. Even though traveling at the speed of light, there are still milliseconds involved. Other nexSwitch technologies continuously check the path which is the best of the call also. Each nexSwitch has multiple fiber connects so the call can be routed to the best switch. For example, a call is placed in Paducah, KY to New York City and the call is routed directly to a connection in Atlanta. This call then connects to Atlanta and is passed to a softswitch in NYC to terminate the call. This basically is what a telephone company does when it delivers a call using POTS.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line is nexMatrix Telecom can deliver services to your Protel PBX or other PBX manufacturer and allow you to provide a service that allows your company to provide the service required to your customer. Using a T1 circuit directly connected will allow you to move your telephone calls at a lower cost in most cases over a PRI circuit with an equivalent SLA. The trick is avoiding the Internet connection between you and your phone service, or cutting down the amount of time your calls spend on the Internet making it to the softswitch with any SIP provider.

If you have any questions on our technology or how we transport traffic, or even about using a DSL or Cable connection, please contact your MSR or Sales Representative for more assistance.