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Are You Listening To Your Customers?

Your customers are trying to communicate with you, are you listening?

32% of consumers attest to texting a business and never receiving a reply. AT&T reports that 150 million texts are sent every day to numbers that are not text-enabled. 

90% of people want to use messaging to interact with businesses and 93% of consumers trust text messaging as a communication channel.

HostMyCalls Business-Grade SMS System makes engagement easy. You can send and receive SMS messaging on all of your existing telephone numbers while leaving your current voice services entirely intact. That’s right – you do not have to replace your phone system to enable SMS texting.

To learn more about our SMS platform, visit hostmycalls.com. You can engage with real humans using our SMS chat initiation widget in the lower right corner of our web page. You can also request sales contact by texting ‘learnsms’ to (678) 916-1952.

It’s time for your business to stop surviving and start thriving!

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Governor Brian Kemp recently announced nearly $15 million in grants for broadband expansion across the state of Georgia

Image of people connected online in background with state of Georgia in foreground plus text saying "Georgia Gets An Upgrade."

This article was originally published on Newsbreak.com. Authored by Matt Lillywhite. Link: https://original.newsbreak.com/@matt-lillywhite-561024/3062302137293-governor-kemp-surprises-georgia-with-amazing-news

Governor Brian Kemp recently announced nearly $15 million in preliminary grant awards for broadband internet expansion via the Capital Projects Fund Grant Program. These grants will help communities, households, businesses, and anchor institutions in several Georgia counties improve their connectivity, per a press release by the Governor’s office.

Governor Kemp announced the establishment of the Capital Projects Fund Grant Program last year, which would use funds from the American Rescue Plan Act. The Georgia Technology Authority and the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget collaborated to identify the state’s most unserved and underserved counties and to establish a competitive grant process to receive applications for Governor Kemp’s consideration.

“Since day one, my administration has prioritized bringing opportunity to all parts of our state, including those areas often overlooked,” said Governor Kemp. “These projects are just the latest steps we’ve taken to connect Georgians in rural communities with professional and educational opportunities, building on the significant progress we have made in recent years to close the digital divide.”

According to a statement released by the Governor’s office, nearly $30 million will be invested to serve over 3,500 locations in areas most in need of high-speed internet access. These awards follow the state of Georgia’s announcement in January of $234 million in preliminary grant funds for 28 counties.

“High-speed internet access is critical for both academic and economic opportunities, as well as overall quality of life,” said Governor Kemp. “These projects announced today will go a long way to helping Georgians in some of the most unserved and underserved parts of the state become better connected.”

Key Take-Aways of this Announcement:

  • The goal is universal  broadband availability
  • The government is paying for almost all of it
  • This will mean more choices for business as well as home users 
  • The carriers will not tell customers about this, using an independent agent (like OTA) will give them all of the available options

Reach out to Online Technology Associates today to learn more, at no cost to you!

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AI + Telecom?

AI + Telecom Online Technology Associates

Nothing New Here: Artificial Intelligence Has Been In Telecom for Years!

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the latest trend in many areas, but telecom has used the concept for years. SDWAN  (Software Defined Networks)  have been around for years, but are they really AI?  Well…technically, YES!

It all started with the quest for more reliability in business and residential internet circuits. The fact is that there are NO internet circuits that are 100% reliable, even though there is high demand for the highest reliability available…The solution is to stack two or more circuits, then intelligently send and receive data on a combination or selection of the available services.

SDWAN uses a device onsite that is connected to multiple circuits, usually diverse types, such as cable, copper, fiber, satellite, ETC. The onsite device combines the circuits and points the incoming and outgoing data to a SDWAN provider, which receives the traffic from a customer and resends it according to preset priorities and programming.

The result is that missing packets and down circuits are rectified by simultaneous transmission of the data so the SDWAN provider can sort it out, replace missing packets and resend it over clean fiber connections. The customer also gets to take advantage of the combined capacity through load balancing to for a larger, faster, and more reliable circuit than any of the circuits in the mix.

Customers can also choose to send critical data over the most secure and clean circuit in use – and relegate less critical traffic, such as casual surfing, social media, etc., to a cable or other less secure broadband circuit to keep the secure capacity available for more important data.

SDWAN is not just an appliance, it is a service that can ensure the most secure, clean, and reliable connections available. There are also other AI services in telecom, such as “Smart Networks” – but we will discuss that at a later time.    

Got Questions? Yep, AI is a lot to ponder…Just reach out to Online Technology Associates to make sense of it all…we’re here to untangle the info and help you get the best connection for your business!

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Satellite Service Deserves A Second Look

Wireless Providing Satellite in orbit over Earth

Things have certainly changed for the better!

The satellite service of our past had earned a well-deserved reputation for being slow and delivering erratic service. But, that was the past – Now, with new technology and supersized satellites already in orbit are delivering speeds and quality that are competitive with other technology here on the ground. This new and improved satellite tech is providing you with enhanced coverage in many more areas.

A case in point is the new ViaSat -3 launched just this week. This supersized satellite has the capacity of 1TB of bandwidth and can deliver 100M of high-quality bandwidth to individual customers! ViaSat’s Constellation of the America satellites will be able to service businesses as well as residential customers in the Americas, the Middle East, and Africa when all of the 3 series satellites are in orbit.

These high-powered satellites will also be servicing customers at sea and in the air, resulting in seamless coverage for travelers in aircraft and aboard ships. These particular satellites will be placed in a traditional “high orbit”. But, AT&T, StarLink, Oneweb, and Amazon’s Kuiper project, etc. are deploying Low Earth Orbit (LEO) smaller satellites that could potentially replace cell towers.

The best news here is that cable, fiber, and cellular providers will have to up their games in order to compete with this new tech in the sky! When shopping for internet service, go with the Pros to help guide you through the choices that you might not know about. Reach out to OTA today!

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What’s Complicated But Simple at the Same Time? The Future, My Friend!

Complicated Highway OverPass System with text overlay: What's Complicated But Simple at the Same Time? The Future, My Friend!

What does the future hold for Telecom Services?

How can that be?  Well, as usual, there are many new products coming out – many more choices for you to choose from for your business or home – which makes choosing more complicated. Also, the providers are using new product names and company names, which makes our choosing more complicated! So, what’s the simple part you may ask?

Right now, there are many choices for businesses and several for most homes. The technology, performance, and cost can vary a lot! To make matters worse, it is quite difficult to tell what you are actually getting due to the providers intentionally using terms such as fiber, VoIP, secure, firewall in ways that can be very deceptive to the average consumer… For instance, cable providers use the term “fiber optic” to describe services that have little or no actual fiber in them, so you can’t distinguish “fiber service” from “cable service.” In the future, this will not be an issue since the major cable providers are working hard to convert the cable infrastructure to real fiber. So in the near future, say the next 10 years or so – there will be no cable service, so all wired services will be only fiber.

Let’s talk about Fiber service, the many types of fiber, and fiber providers…Which is the most reliable network: Shared or Dedicated? Broadband service, which is shared, is not going away, in fact, it is expanding rapidly. Government regulations are forcing the providers to share networks, which makes a lot more sense than tearing up the public infrastructure – AKA roads, sidewalks, and other utilities, multiple times so each fiber provider can have their own network installed. Providers are forced to share networks – so that makes it simpler. Also the new technology being used right now, these provider companies can use the same fiber trunks to provide different qualities of service at the same time… so much more simple!

Now we have 4G, 4G LTE, plus the many flavors of 5G… and 6G is already in the works. In the near future, these will all be consolidated into a single technology so all cellular devices will work on all cellular networks. Which is simpler, right? But we still have analog, cellular, digital, and VoIP phone traffic – these all require different equipment. We are already moving to an all VoIP or cellular infrastructure, so voice services will be simpler.

Technology has always been a double-edged sword. Out with the old and in with the new, means we have more functionality and more to learn! Reach out to Online Technology Associates to learn more, or just to chat about what’s available now and how to get your ducks in a row for what’s coming down the line.

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Is 5G As Good As Promised?

New Cell Tower with 5G capabilities.

5G signals are delivered on various platforms with VERY different results – Basically, 5G can be divided into three very different types:

Think of 5G as three different flashlights; the first flashlight has a broad beam but has limited strength and intensity (like a lantern). The second flashlight covers a smaller area (like a traditional flashlight) but is brighter and the third is more like a laser – very, very bright, but has a tiny coverage area…

The most popular 5G is a lower frequency (600-900MHz  range) which is similar to 4G cell service. It covers an area similar to 4G, with very broad coverage, but has limited strength and bandwidth. This is what is being offered by cell carriers now.

Then there is mid-range 5G which covers a smaller area, but with more bandwidth and is stronger.  It uses frequencies in the 30-250 MBPS, giving download speed higher than 4G cellular, but has coverage issues that make it impractical for the current cellular antenna network. This is well suited for fixed applications as opposed to mobile devices since it has a narrow coverage area.

Those big promises you hear about 5G are based on high band, or millimeter wave, using frequencies in the  24-54GHz range. This is more like a laser beam – very strong, has very high bandwidth, and covers a very small area. This high-frequency 5G is suited for very limited areas, often within a building that needs a local network (LAN) with a very high capacity in a small, well-defined space.

However, technology marches on! While 5G is being refined, 6G is on the way with frequencies in the sub-THz range – which is very, very high and very narrow (at least for now). The likely outcome is a network with multiple layers of frequencies for different purposes and types of users.

Want to know more about how this affects you and your options for connectivity? Reach out today for a chat: Online Technology Associates (770) 446-7199.

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