GWI Blog
Welcome to the GWI blog regarding telecommunications policy, rural broadband, and economic development in Maine and New England.
Five Ways a Hosted Exchange Platform Makes Office Collaboration More Efficient
How does your business handle scheduling meetings and appointments? How do you access contact information for important business partners that normally work with another department? How are tasks assigned and tracked in your organization? If your response to any of these questions involved an email or a phone call so someone, you’re probably not managing these vital business functions efficiently. We often think of platforms like Microsoft Exchange as email platforms, but Exchange, and its competing platforms like Google Apps are much more about facilitating collaboration in your office, and they can make you more efficient in a way that a simple email client cannot. Make scheduling meetings is easier. With Exchange’s shared calendar, users can see time when otherusers are available for meetings, in a meeting, or out of the office. This eliminates the need for calls or emails to every meeting participant to verify availability. Let work done … Continue reading
Progress Update on the Three Ring Binder
As the weather begins to cool down and we move into the fall months, Maine Fiber Company is busily working to continue construction on the Three Ring Binder network. The network, which will span from Biddeford to Fort Kent, is scheduled to be finished at the end of the 2012 calendar year. Currently, Maine Fiber Company is reporting that they have successfully hung 150 miles of fiber with another 300+ more miles expected by years’ end. The Three Ring Binder construction schedule states that sections from Portland to Brunswick and Orient to Hodgdon are completed as well as segments from Bar Harbor to Ellsworth and Bangor to Orono. The following segments are scheduled to be completed by month’s end: Segment and Corresponding Completion Date Portland to Biddeford/Arundel: 8/31/11 Belfast/Northport to Bucksport/Orrington to Ellsworth/Hancock: 8/31/11 Brownsville/Ebeemee TWP to TA R7 WELS/E. Millinocket: 8/31/11 To date, we at GWI are already providing … Continue reading
Legacy Telephone Company Pricing Structures Negatively Impact the Cost of Broadband Internet Access
In a recent blog post on Carrier Ethernet for TMCnet.com, ionary Consulting’s Fred Goldstein made a strong case that incumbent telephone companies are maintaining artificially high prices for network access in less competitive areas by continuing to maintain Special Access pricing structures that were created in the eighties and nineties using older, less efficient technologies to support phone calls. Moreover, he suggests that the broadband stimulus networks funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act were an imperfect solution because of inconsistencies in the pricing models adopted by the firms who were awarded grants. Together, these two factors have a dampening effect on the efforts of competitive carriers to drive down the cost of broadband Internet access. Mr. Goldstein’s principal points are quite sound, and we thought it worth emphasizing them again here in the GWI blog with a few thoughts of our own: The monopoly phone companies used to … Continue reading
Four Big Reasons why GWI is Connecting its Broadband Network to Two Big Cities
Recently, we released a joint press release with Sidera Networks about our new 10 Gig Ethernet Ring Connecting Portland, Maine to Boston, MA and New York, NY. This network expansion is an important step for GWI that will enable us to continue to offer better, faster broadband Internet service in Maine and market our cloud computing solutions to far more customers. For the non-technical reader, the benefits of this network may be a bit hard to comprehend, and we wanted to take a few minutes here to expand on why we’ve invested significant time and money building this extensive new network. 1.) There is a big fiber optic broadband network being built within Maine that needs a big connection to the rest of the world. Maine is fortunate to have a state of the art, 1,100 mile fiber optic network being built statewide: The Three Ring Binder. This network will … Continue reading
Five Reasons it Made Sense to Give Away Additional Speed on Broadband Services in Maine
Recently, GWI announced that we are increasing the speed of all of our residential broadband Internet services in Maine in July and August. When this process is complete, most customers will see a significant improvement in the speed of their connections, and many others will see a reduction in price. None of our customers will pay more as a consequence of this change. You might ask why we gave faster broadband service to thousands of customers for less money. There are a variety of reasons, but the truth is that the more we examined the possible results of this change, the more obvious it became that it would benefit not only GWI, but also our customers and their communities. We thought we’d share five of the main reasons why we decided to go ahead with this change. 1.) The US shouldn’t settle for slower broadband Internet service than other countries. … Continue reading
Maine Broadband Service Leads to High Ranking for Maine from U.S. Chamber of Commerce
At the end of June, 2011, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in conjunction with the National Chamber Foundation, produced a study titled “Enterprising States: Recovery and Renewal for the 21st Century.” The study depicts reasoning behind why certain states are more attractive for economic expansion efforts and migration. It highlights state-run efforts to attract more enterprise and what each state is doing to aid in the forward progression of the economy during a time of recession. In the study, the U.S. Chamber and the National Chamber Foundation break out each state’s national ranking on topics such as median family income, budget gap, job placement efficiency, and business-friendly infrastructure. Where does Maine rank in all of this? Well, according to the report, Maine is currently 25th in higher-education efficiency, 20th in per capita income growth, and 19th in job placement efficiency. Though we are not at the bottom of the … Continue reading
Eight Reasons to Consider a Cloud Backup for Your Business
If you own or operate a business, large or small, you likely have information stored on your computers which, if lost, would set you back considerably in time and money. To protect yourself, you need to consider not just the likelihood of a failure of your IT hardware, but the possible consequences of a fire, flood or other disaster. You need a process for creating a backup, storing it in a secure location, preferably off-site, and ultimately restoring the backup in the event of a failure. These procedure vary widely from business to business. Traditional methods for backing up data include tape backups, external hard drives, and even backups to CD’s and DVD’s. These all require some member of your IT staff to carry the backup off-site in order to protect from disasters. For highly sensitive data, this requires considerable trust in the individual charged with carrying and storing the … Continue reading
Understanding IPv6 and What it Means to Internet Connections in Maine
You may have seen news stories about the depletion of IPv4 address space, the need to transition to IPv6 sooner rather than later, potential purchases of IPv4 space, and buying or selling IPv4 addresses. So, what is IPv6? Does IPv6 apply to you? Does it have any impact to broadband Internet connectivity in Maine? Let’s begin with an analogy that should help explain how and why IP addresses are consumed using a typical business phone system as a comparison. Initially when a business opens, it purchases a single phone line with a single number assigned to it. In a similar fashion it would have a single IP address for Internet connectivity. As the business grows, more telephone numbers are purchased for each additional employee. This allows everyone to have a direct line. Similarly, an ISP might assign you more IP addresses as you turn up PC’s in your office, or … Continue reading
GWI Broadband and Phone Services Now Available in Lincoln and Danforth, Maine
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Six Reasons Employers are Reluctant to let Employees Work From Home
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