The MegaPath Connectivity Blog

It’s been a fairly busy couple of weeks since our hosted VoIP solution, Duet Hosted Voice, was first announced at the Channel Partners Conference in Las Vegas. We’ve been fortunate to have held numerous conversations with technology, telecom trade writers, editors, bloggers, and industry analysts about why all hosted VoIP services are NOT alike. There are no shortage of issues to share with them, especially when the conversation turns to delivering calls in the cloud. Mention the cloud in relation to business-class hosted voice services and it brings up the subject of phone features delivery,  business continuity, secure call delivery, broadband service connectivity uptime, public vs. private clouds, and of course, ensuring call quality. In fact, network and voice quality are two very significant issues. Many hosted VoIP providers tout a high-quality voice experience, but they neglect to inform potential customers that their voice traffic is routed over the public Internet, where it is highly susceptible to jitter and packet-loss, plus a list of security concerns. That’s a fairly big gap in information. Considering that the voice communications in your organization are the ultimate real-time communications, ensuring that jitter and packet-loss on the public internet don’t translate into echo, static, buzz, hiss and other distinctively low-quality call experiences should be high priorities. MegaPath addresses those priorities by carrying voice traffic on our own private, secure MPLS VPN network to guarantee bi-directional voice quality. Our Duet Hosted customers’ calls will always be insulated from the unpredictable realities of the public internet.

In fact Robin Gareiss of Nemertes Research noted in her Network World blog “Hosted VoIP Needs QoS” how network-enabled quality of service (QoS) is an important consideration in selecting a hosted voice service provider, but something that is NOT found in bring-your-own-broadband (BYOB) offerings. I appreciate her insights on that point.

Getting back to the idea of why hosted VoIP providers are not all alike, we put together the Duet 2-Minute Test that will challenge what you know about hosted voice. It’s short — just 5 questions — about the risks of cloud-powered calling. Click the link, take the test, and enter to win a $100.00 Amazon.com gift card to be awarded April 1. Feel free to share the test link, too.

If you’re ready to learn more about the top considerations for choosing a hosted voice service provider, download our latest white paper. You’ll get practical guidance on purchasing hosted VoIP solutions. And of course, let us know what you think.

This requirement to protect and secure private data is more than a trend.  In fact, it is simply a best practice to protect any personally identifiable information that your business encounters.  Some states have taken the PCI DSS standard as a starting point, but here we see a government entity laying down the law on steps a business must take to make sure the data they handle is secure and encrypted, with a written plan on how they are doing so. BankInfoSecurity.com has a good post that discusses what businesses should be doing to ensure personal data is secured through encryption. The post points out that it is unlikely there will be proactive enforcement of the new law’s provision, as limited resources make it fairly impossible to see if everyone is in compliance.  It does point out, though, that if a data breach occurs, they [Massachusetts state government] will certainly check to make sure required procedures were being followed, and that companies who do not follow the law will face stiff penalties in such situations.

Security is something that you cannot afford to ignore, and using a managed SSL VPN service, combined with choosing a network provider who is PCI DSS compliant (pdf), is a great first step to ensuring critical data moving across your network is encrypted and secure.  Your business simply cannot afford the costs associated with a data breach, but not doing so at this point would be breaking the law.

Speak with your managed services network partner today to make sure both you and they are compliant.  If you find your current provider can’t meet your PCI and managed security needs, give us a call.  We’ll be more than happy to share our expertise in managed security solutions with your business.

As promised in my post yesterday, I’m pleased to introduce the Connectivity community today to Diane Giuffre, Voice Product Manager here at MegaPath, and a welcome new voice for voice over MPLS solutions. You’ll be hearing regularly from Diane as she takes voice-related questions from you, and helps to develop a deeper discussion about a key focus area for voice solutions at MegaPath: putting the quality back in voice. But first, you need to know a little something about Diane’s background and her tenure in voice communications.

Diane has 25 years experience in telecommunications, 17 of which was spent at MCI Communications.  She spent the first 10 years in voice network engineering, and then made the switch to marketing.  Diane’s product management focus has been on products like voice conferencing, collaboration, unified communications, and VoIP.  Her first introduction to VoIP was in 2004, when MCI rolled out its VoIP audio conferencing product. Subsequent to MCI, Diane worked for a hosted IP PBX company, working on introducing new features.

Fast forward to late 2009 when Diane joined MegaPath and jumped right into the thick of the development process of bringing our latest voice and data service, Duet(SM) Hosted Voice, to market. By now you may have seen yesterday’s announcement on our hosted business voip service, so indeed, Diane’s timing for joining the voice product team could not have been better. On Paul Marra, VP Voice Products’ team, Diane helped to develop what is unique about Duet Hosted. Officially described as a complete, cost-effective hosted IP PBX solution that gives businesses a feature-rich and scalable alternative to traditional phone service and expensive equipment, Duet Hosted is also the industry’s first true, national, Voice over MPLS solution. It’s because of the MegaPath network – the largest broadband reach of any network in North America, and the broadest Quality of Service (QoS)-enabled voice network – that Diane, Paul, and the rest of the voice team can confidently offer any size organization an enterprise-level hosted voice experience. I’m looking forward to the opportunities in this forum to spend some time talking about putting the quality back into voice. I’m also interested in learning more from Diane as she addresses call quality and secure call delivery issues that happen when mission-critical voice services are exposed to the public internet. Priority issue #1: dynamic bandwidth allocation. If you’re a network engineer, that’s an issue near and dear to you. You’re in the right place.

If you have hosted VoIP, integrated voice and data (managed voice services), or QoS questions for Diane, go ahead and submit a comment and she’ll be glad to address them. Stop back soon for regular voice posts from Diane, and feel free to share what you learn.

Ask the Voice Expert, Diane Giuffre

If you haven’t had a chance to read Michael Francois’ last post; now is a good time because his insights are closely related to today’s Managed Services workshop at Channel Partners Conference in Las Vegas. MegaPath’s Bernie McGroder, who heads our sales engineering team, will be participating on the panel “Becoming an MSP: Is Managed Services Right for You?”  He’ll be in good company with industry leaders from Nemertes Research and CompTIA, among others. If you’re at the show today in Vegas, definitely plan to join Bernie at 2:30 pm.

On a daily basis Bernie and his team of sales engineers work closely with customers to help them identify the most pressing issues in IT operations and service delivery for the companies they support; and of course, to counsel those teams on the value that a dedicated outside team of voice, data, and security network experts can provide as a managed services partner. Bernie will be tackling the subject of earned and learned experience when he covers what becoming an MSP entails — from building and staffing a 24/7 NOC, to developing a service portfolio, to building processes and transitioning customers to the new delivery platform. In a recent conversation with an engineer from Bernie’s team, he noted “there really isn’t a customer network problem or situation we haven’t seen before. Our customers seem to appreciate all the experience we draw from, and our ability to meet their issue where it’s at, with the right advice.”

It’s this collective knowledge base and the experience gained from running 24/7/365 NOCs  that Michael Francois talked about in his insights on MegaPath’s successful certification process to achieve Cisco Master Managed Services Provider status. There may be a long list of MSPs in North America, but we’re honored to be part of this elite group of Cisco MSP partners.  Few MSPs can claim their expertise across voice, data, and secure network operations. In addition to NOCs, MegaPath runs a Secure Operations Center.  Back in a June 2009 post we noted the success our SOC team has had in supporting security customers by surpassing a 300,000 user milestone on our SSL platform, and more than 3.5 billion sessions. We’re seeing much demand for SSL VPN services, and just last month we passed another record.

Now that brings me to voice, which is a significant and growing part of MegaPath’s business. Our Connecticut-based voice operations team has been successfully providing managed Duet(SM) integrated voice and data services to customers and addressing 3 varieties – analog, PRI, and SIP trunking — for several years. Starting today MegaPath is introducing Duet Hosted Voice, a new hosted service solution addition to the Duet product family. We’re unquestionably excited about it, because even though MegaPath has been providing cloud-powered calling before the cloud was cool; many customers have been asking for a hosted VoIP service. For a sneak peek of what’s really special about Duet Hosted, stop by Booth 1301 at the Channel Partners show. You can also get a deeper dive into Duet Hosted by attending MegaPath University (also at Channel Partners in Room Islander B). The sessions are FREE, just register online for tomorrow’s courses.

Finally, since I’m on the subject of hosted voice, this is a great time to welcome a new voice for voice to Connectivity. Tomorrow you’ll get a chance to meet Diane Giuffre who has been knee-deep in getting Duet Hosted ready for our customers. Remember, if you’re in Vegas for Channel Partners, don’t miss Bernie McGroder’s session today or MegaPath University tomorrow!

Mastering the Triple Play

I grew up in Maryland, and when I was a kid my baseball hero was Brooks Robinson.  Nobody could turn a ball around faster than he could, and I know I will never forget 1973, when “The Human Vacuum Cleaner” started not one, but two triple plays that season.    That gave him a trio of triple plays for his career, 3 of the 679 all time triple plays. When I look for inspiration when it comes to executing a triple play, I look to Brooks Robinson.  (I am not going to mention that he also hit into a record 4 triple plays in his career).

As it turns out, I didn’t end up being a ball player.  Instead, my chance to make ‘triple plays’ came in communications,  providing a trio of voice, data and security solutions to our customers.   And I’m proud to say that we are recognized as having mastery skills at providing these managed services.

More small businesses than ever are achieving increased efficiencies while lowering costs by using managed voice, data and security services.   Economic realities, IT staff & budget compression, and increased service expectations from users — whether you’re in a small business or a distributed enterprise — have really created the perfect storm for greater reliance on a managed services provider for voice, data, and security.   The benefits of doing so include the peace of mind that comes from knowing that your services are being monitored 24-7-365 by experienced experts, as well as knowing that well defined Service Level Assurances (SLAs) are standing behind the network services you rely on.  But most importantly, partnering with a Master Managed Service Provider will help your business prosper.

Having a single point of contact for these three services will lower your support costs, while using outsourced expertise will allow you to mitigate the costs of building out management and reporting capabilities that are not core to your business.  You can focus on implementing the best practices of your business, knowing that we are following the best practices of our industry.

MegaPath is one of only a handful of Cisco Managed Services Channel Partners to receive the Master designation.  To achieve this, Cisco made an extensive audit of our NOC  capabilities, checked out our SLAs, and verified that we have both CCIE and ITIL certified team members.  At the end of this process, Cisco said we not only qualified for the Master designation, but that both our MPLS VPN Service and Managed IP Trunking VoIP product qualified for the Cisco Powered designation.

Recently Cisco did a case study of MegaPath (pdf), and put the spotlight on how we work together as an example of the benefits that can be achieved by gaining this designation.  Of course, the real benefit of this goes to our customers, who have come to rely on us for mission critical triple play solutions.

And yes, I know that Donie Bush shares the record with Bid McPhee for turning 9 triple plays, but I never spent summer nights as a kid listening to them play games at Memorial Stadium with Boog Powell, Jim Palmer, Frank Robinson and Earl Weaver on my transistor radio.