GWI Blog
Welcome to the GWI blog regarding telecommunications policy, rural broadband, and economic development in Maine and New England.
Innovation Engineering: Teaching Entrepreneurs to Embrace Rapid Change
Maine has an exceptional all fiber network, the Three Ring Binder, which will be completed this year. Large sections of it are already available, and several customers have already been connected. This network has the potential to drive gigabit speeds to homes and businesses all over Maine. Of course, it’s not what the network is made of, but what you can do with it that matters. To that end, GWI has been talking to businesses about how they can reduce their IT expenses and improve the reliability of their network infrastructure by hosting critical applications in data centers and employing cloud computing to outsource data storage, backup and recovery, and email and calendar systems. At the same time, we’re engaged in conversations with developers and local governments about the potential of these ultra fast connections to aid in economic development. It was at one of these meetings of local government … Continue reading
P&C Insurance Connects Offices with Ethernet over Copper & Hosted PBX
Established in 1885, Biddeford based P&C Insurance is an independent insurance agency offering home, auto, and business insurance and employee benefits throughout southern Maine. The agency employs 30 Maine people in its four offices in Cumberland and York County. The agency’s Senior Vice President, Roland Eon, recently sat down with us to talk about the technological challenges the agency faced last year and how they were able to overcome them. The Challenge After expanding beyond its Main St. headquarters into three additional locations in South Berwick, Westbrook, and Kennebunk, P&C Insurance was able to better service clients outside Biddeford. However, the existing telephone system and Internet connections did present some challenges to communications between branches, which were cumbersome and costly with the old system. Employees in the branch offices needed to access files and software located in the Biddeford office, and P&C’s existing cable modem connection did not provide … Continue reading
5 Simple Steps to Save Money on Phone Service for Home or Business
Times are tight, and businesses and individuals are continually looking for ways to save money anywhere they can. One way to save is to take a close look at what you spend each month for phone service. Here are five simple steps you can take to save money on your phone service. 1. Eliminate extra lines you don’t need. Very often when our business communications specialists give a free audit of a business’s voice and data network, we find that lines have been added over the years and never removed when they were no longer needed. Some examples of these include lines for credit card processing or modems that were not removed when those functions were switched to broadband, or private lines that were no longer needed. 2. Remove unwanted calling features. Some phone plans include features at no charge, but in many cases you pay a monthly fee for … Continue reading
Is Your Network Ready for IP Telephony? 5 Things to Check.
As aging phone systems reach end of life, Maine businesses large and small are migrating their business phone systems to Voice over IP (VoIP). Whether the customer chooses a premise based VoIP phone system or a Hosted PBX, the move to VoIP offers businesses the chance to converge their voice and data networks, eliminating the need to maintain separate wiring for phones and PC’s and separate skill sets for phones and data in the IT department. At first blush, cutting back from two network platforms to one seems like it would significantly simplify life and it will, but there are steps you need to take to ensure that your computer network can support VoIP service and deliver the voice quality you’re used to getting from traditional systems. Failing to check these things out before you install a Hosted PBX or premise based system could result in echo, garbled calls, and … Continue reading
Street Smarts: Understanding the Differences in Cloud Applications
Over the past week I’ve been involved in several discussions about Hosted Exchange, hosted fileshare, and hosted backup applications. In each conversation, it was clear that there are marked differences between offerings that might not be apparent the average business owner and this understanding is critical to making a good purchase decision. Making an assumption that all such products are created equal and deciding on price alone is likely to get you burned. Backup and Restoration Practices and Policies For starters, it’s important to understand how frequently data is backed up and what the process (and charges) are for restoring your data. For example: while some Hosted Exchange services are backed up every 15 minutes and allow the restoration of a single email or calendar item at no charge, other services charge extra for this service, and if you’re not paying the extra fee, your data might not be backed … Continue reading
Understanding SOPA & PIPA and Why Major Websites Are Offline Wednesday
Where is my Wikipedia? Why can I not see the Google logo? These are questions many people are asking today as Internet giants are blacking out their sites in protest against Congressional legislation that could have great impact on how the Internet is regulated and operated. Currently, two bills are slowly moving through Congress, known as SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect-IP Act), both with similar goals: to prevent the piracy of copyrighted material by foreign sites from being traded and sold via the Internet. Originally introduced in the House of Representatives late last year, SOPA was designed to protect intellectual property and, according to the bills sponsor, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), “. . . to protect American workers, inventors and job creators from foreign thieves who steal our products, technology, and intellectual property.” The bill would allow for the U.S. Department of Justice and copyright holders … Continue reading
Five Reasons Carriers are Better Partners for Cloud Computing in Maine
More and more, businesses are turning to Cloud Computing for many key functions that were formerly accomplished with on-site equipment. Some use a Hosted PBX for a Business Phone System, Hosted Exchange for email and calendar management, or a Hosted Storage product for data backup and recovery. Others may be using applications like Salesforce.com for customer relationship management. Whatever application you use, you’ll have number of vendors to choose from. Some, large and small, market their services mainly by the Internet and do business from faraway places and data centers. Their customers rely on the public Internet to access their data. More and more however, the carriers that operate local broadband networks are getting into Cloud computing. These carriers offer a number of benefits vis-a-vis their faraway competitors, including: 1. High Performance: Carriers, who control both the Cloud Computing and the network connecting the business to the cloud, can manage … Continue reading
5 Reasons Your Small Business Should Use a Managed Firewall Service
Businesses use high speed Internet connections to connect offices, store data, and use cloud computing to manage customer relationships, billing, and office productivity. The more connected your business becomes, the more important it is that the data stored inside its network is protected from those outside your business who steal data for nefarious purposes. Many small businesses lack a robust firewall that can protect them from these external threats. Instead, they use the on-board firewall on their Windows PC coupled with the minimal protection offered by a residential grade router. Such solutions don’t offer much protection from sophisticated threats, however, so it makes sense to upgrade to a true business class firewall. Even if you have a firewall it may not provide complete protection if you don’t have qualified people monitoring and managing it. The best device on the market will become less effective over time without upkeep. A managed … Continue reading
Pat Sweeney Joins GWI Senior Leadership To Help Achieve Aggressive Growth Plan
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Do you need managed network security? Find out with 5 questions
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