Reliability and Performance Data of Internet Service Providers - Coming Soon to Your State?

Finding the best internet service providers in your city may be a lot easier if other states follow the example of Vermont. For years Vermont has had a statewide website that encourages citizens to log in and rate the cell reception in their specific area. This has allowed millions of people to find out how much reception they'd get in their own neighborhood.

Recently Vermont has been taking steps to create a broadband site that will allow citizens to log in and rate various aspects of their providers. The goal of the administration is to ensure that every citizen is able to make the most informed decision about the providers that are available to them and to ensure that everyone has access to a high speed connection. Supporters believe that this website will make it much easier to decide which company is offering the best service on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis.

Why is high speed internet so important to Vermont's government? The reality is that virtually no one can succeed in this day and age without access to a fast connection. Students who use the internet for studying or research need a reliable connection that allows them to quickly complete their studies. Parents rely on the internet for everything from parenting advice to booking travel reservations. For most of us, it's difficult to imagine what our lives would be like without the internet.

However, the site is designed for more than just information - it's designed to highlight areas that don't have access to a reliable connection. The administration points out that this can be more than an annoyance - it can actually lead to small businesses having to close their doors. Without the ability to process orders online, take credit cards or keep up on social marketing campaigns, many companies are simply unable to compete without the internet. Once these problem areas are identified, high speed access can be spread throughout the state to ensure everyone is connected.

While this is currently happening in Vermont, the question remains if we'll soon see more states tracking access to internet service providers. After Vermont rolled out their similar program for cell phone coverage, several other states did follow suit. Many states still have large areas without a reliable connection. What would it mean if each of these states were fully connected?

Those who oppose this move point out that it's costing the taxpayers money to study the issue. Additionally, they feel that if certain areas don't have reliable providers, it's simply a matter of there not being enough business there for it to make sense. While citizens in more remote areas may want high speed access, some wonder why the entire state should shoulder the burden of a few people who choose to live in remote areas.

No matter which side you agree with, it will be interesting to see how this all plays out in the next few years. Will the entire country eventually be connected? Will satellite internet become a more feasible option for those in remote areas? Only time will tell.

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Mobility Management - Automation Is Key to Efficient Corporate Labor Performance

Government, business, and consumers are swimming together in a debt laden pool. All alike are being sucked into the vortex of an ever expanding burdensome financial debt load. The newspapers scream about deficits, businesses are rocked with one fiscal blow after another, and fear of the dreaded double dip is the elephant in your executive's board room. The knowledgeable use of automation is a real key to efficiently managing, competing and generally surviving in such dangerous economic waters.

Thirty years ago I was visiting a third world country. Early one morning I was awaken with a horrendous shrill metal scraping metal noise. It was a train derailing next to the Hostel I was staying in. A few hours later I looked out the window and saw a mass of humanity struggling to right the train and repair the mess with human power, animal power, simple levers and ingenuity. I was amazed at the controlled chaos I was witnessing and asked my translator, why not bring in some lifts, tractors, cranes and help all these poor folks out doing this dangerous labor in the extreme heat? My translator matter of factly said, "We have a billion people in this country. We choose not to use such equipment so we can provide our people the work they need".

Simply speaking it was just their way. It wasn't efficient, it wasn't safe, and it wasn't really even cheaper in the long run. It explained a lot as to why this country at that time was not able to compete in an international economy. Currently it is transforming itself into a developing powerhouse. This same country is becoming an automated, efficient, dominating economic entity as it is lifting millions of its people out of poverty and servicing many of the worlds corporate powerhouses. Telecommunications automation is one of the keys to this economic renaissance.

Telecommunications An Enterprise TOP Spend Category

Telecom is often one of the top spend categories most companies require. Wireless spend has recently surpassed landline corporate costs in the Telecommunications subset. Automation of your enterprises Mobility/Wireless Expense Management is as fundamental to your organizations competitiveness as an advancing third world country employing both cheap labor and automation to give it the edge it needed to propel forward into the world economy.

Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

Aberdeen Group found the following Key Performance Indicators (KPI's) demonstrating why automating your enterprises Wireless Expense Management (WEM) efforts make a world of sense in a world of expense.

Best-in-class companies exhibited the following characteristics:

45 percent average productivity increase for fixed invoice reconciliation, audit and disputes41 percent average productivity increase for fixed procurement and service order tracking42 percent average productivity increase for mobile invoice reconciliation, audit and disputes40 percent average productivity increase for mobile procurement and service order tracking

Additional Aberdeen Findings reported;

Execute on Wireless Expense Management to Drive ROI, showed that best-in-class companies accomplished a:

31 percent decrease in the cost of monthly wireless voice services24 percent decrease in the cost of monthly wireless data services26 percent decrease in the cost of managing devices"

Automated Efficiency Saves Big Dollars on Corporate Telecom Spend

This important KPI data demonstrates that best-in-class companies lower telecom spend management as much as 40 percent. Extraordinary labor cost reduction will optimize a company's telecom management team's time and overall corporate spend. Such efficiency will free your human assets to focus on other critical areas of telecom infrastructure, delve into optimum capacity issues and evaluate additional expense management savings opportunities they have been too busy to investigate or uncover. Compounding your telecom team's optimization effectiveness while resulting in corporate savings will far surpass any costs incurred during the update while enhancing your ROI.

eProcurement and Help Desk Time/Cost Savings Generator

Another key efficiency generator is the Wireless Procurement and Help Desk modules of Wireless Expense Management. Employees will inevitably require new device activations and upgrades or at least Help Desk support on issues that arise. Combining the automated solution with a centralized data base useful for reporting and asset management, with a knowledgeable wireless support staff will allow your wireless end-users the opportunity to quickly communicate their issues, submit a ticket and get back to work. This wile your (or your outsource experts) wireless support team procures the devices or resolves the issues. This as your corporate personnell is diligently fulfilling their core responsibilities without needless distraction.

Optimal Team Performance

It is exceedingly important to integrate tested automated solutions with TEM/WEM Best Practices to give your management team the best possible chance for their team to perform optimally.

Whether your in-house team avails itself of the best TEM/WEM software available, you choose to outsource to those with the automated tools and the expertise to utilize it, or an intelligent blend of the two (we will call Smart-Sourcing); such knowledgeable use of automation may be as critical to your company's survival as it was critical for the country I visited so long ago reversing 1,000 years of decline while leaping into the 21st century.

Like my translator, your management team can undoubtedly explain many reasons why the status quo is the best your company can hope to achieve when it comes to telecom/wireless optimization. We've never did it like this before..., Such automation may be too costly..., we have no in-house expertise..., or even "We choose not to use such automation, so we can provide our people the work they need". However, if a third world country can turn it around and make such a leap forward with great benefit, your telecom management team can dynamically improve its efficiency realizing the terrific advantage automation coupled with industry best practices a Wireless/Telecom Expense Management solution can afford.

Let me know if I can help you determine how best your team can utilize a Telecom Expense Management or Mobility Cost Management solution.

About The Author: Gary is the Business Development Manager for Integrity Communications. With a wealth of telecom marketing experience, Gary provides useful insights for those seeking help with various telecom cost reduction strategies as they work to improve their telecom teams efficiencies concerning their business' telecom environment.

The Integrity Communications web site: http://www.integritycsi.com/ will provide quick links to a variety of telecom management discipline offerings. For additional important information feel free to check out Gary's Blog at: http://integritycsi.wordpress.com/

Ask about Integrity's ALL REWARD/NO RISK telecom analysis at your earliest convenience!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gary_Sambursky

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Wireless eProcurement and Help Desk - Power Performance Twins For Mobility Management

Economic realities demand your business find savings opportunities where ever you can. Optimization of spend in critical sector management categories is essential to the viability of many enterprises in such difficult times. A holistic approach to your companies procure to pay process will produce bottom-line results strengthening your businesses competitive position and providing your enterprise the margin needed to persevere through economic hardships during this current negative business cycle.

The mobility portion of your telecommunications spend category is one of those areas that is often increasing in cost while other categories are being radically reduced. New wireless technologies, increased capabilities, and an employee's/management assumption Smartphone's are a needed benefit by all forward thinking institutions. This makes the Power Twins of an automated/centralized procurement and Wireless Support/Help Desk service offering essential to both an accurate inventory/asset management as well as the best possible cost/usage optimization.

Power Twin Wireless eProcurement/Fulfillment
For these reasons it is vital to implement a procurement strategy that permits only corporate approved assets to corporate approved employees and into the wireless inventory to be tracked, device histories recorded, and monthly optimized.

Automating procurement and centralized control of wireless life-cycle management is a real key to overall asset/device optimization. A web-based procurement/fulfillment solution is the first step to the holistic Mobility Telecom Expense Management approach companies must require. Outsourced managed services by wireless fulfillment professionals will efficiently introduce the wireless devices into your company's inventory meeting and exceeding all vendors SLA's while provisioning the devices with your end-users needs being fully realized. The entire process is recorded, tracked, and reportable for inventory and expense management purposes.

Power Twin Help Desk/Wireless Support
Once your telecom assets have been accurately entered into your wireless inventory, it is crucial to continually maintain the inventory's veracity. Help Desk is an important means by which you can preserve wireless device asset accuracy while establishing process efficiencies to optimize employee time/cost factors end-users inevitably require.

All employees using wireless devices will inevitably require assistance either from a provisioning standpoint and/or a move, add, change, or delete (MACD) perspective. In either case employees are being distracted from their core responsibilities. The more time these issues take to resolve the more time/labor costs are drained from your companies bottom-line. Help Desk professionals will take your employees call, enter a time,date and name stamped ticket on their behalf, allowing the end-user to get back to work, as your wireless support representative is solving the problem and gaining a timely resolution. A outsource professional help desk management team will collapse those labor time frames into efficient resolutions saving your enterprise both labor/time and spend. Freeing both your end-user and telecom team to focus on more important company required tasks is a desired result company's should enjoy.

These power twins of eProcurement and Wireless Support will lay the essential foundation for true cradle to grave Wireless Mobility Management. Providing real muscle to your life-cycle wireless expense management system and a Best in Class optimization performance your company both needs and desires.

About The Author

Gary is the Business Development Manager for Integrity Communications. With a wealth of telecom marketing experience, Gary provides useful insights for those seeking help with various telecom cost reduction strategies as they work to improve their telecom teams efficiencies concerning their business' telecom environment.

The Integrity Communications web site: http://www.integritycsi.com/ will provide quick links to a variety of telecom management discipline offerings. For additional important information feel free to check out Gary's Blog at: http://integritycsi.wordpress.com/.

Ask about Integrity's ALL REWARD/NO RISK telecom analysis at your earliest convenience!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gary_Sambursky

View the original article here