Three Ways to Lower your Smartphone Bill

Cellular costs are for many companies their fastest growing, and most uncontrollable, expense. Everybody wants a Smartphone and sometimes they want two, a Blackberry for the office and an iPhone or Android for personal use. They quickly become your primary communication tool at home and the office and your voice calls, text and data charges ...

ADSL Network Latency Explained

Many of the network connections Skyway West provisions for customers are based on Telus ADSL. Like all network technologies, the ADSL link introduces latency into the network path. That latency is the result of a number of causes. The single largest cause of latency on Telus ADSL is the data interleave configuration on the DSLAM ...

Burstable Fibre compared to a Guaranteed Fibre Internet Connection

13. October 2011 Internet Services 0
A few weeks ago I wrote about a new 10 Mbps Burstable Fibre Internet service, available throughout most of Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton. We received lots of responses, with many asking how a Burstable Fiber service compares to an Internet connection with Guaranteed Bandwidth. Burstable fiber traffic is assigned a lower priority within our network ...

The Benefits of Combining Voice and Data over the Internet

11. October 2011 Internet Services 0
Yes, voice and data convergence was introduced back in the 80’s. ISDN (“Integrated Services Digital Network”, but some of its more unflattering nicknames included “It Still Does Nothing” or “I See Dollars Now “) was a common variant touted by most major telecom companies. But here we are 25 years later and we still have a ...

Thank you, Donald Rumsfeld

06. October 2011 Internet Services 0
“We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know.  But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” One of my favourite quotes is from former US Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld.  It’s interesting that he was ...

IT Support for Internet Connection Problems

04. October 2011 Internet Support 1
My next three blog entries will talk about things you can do to diagnose Internet connection problems. While we strive to keep our networks stable, problems can crop up. You will find it helpful to first try and determine if the problem originates at Skyway West or if the issue is on your own network. ...

8 Great reasons for combining ADSL and Cable Internet Access

27. September 2011 Internet Services 1
Combining Cable and ADSL Internet access makes for an easy business decision. The obvious reason is to add Internet redundancy because even a short outage can be costly. Email doesn’t arrive, orders are lost, staff are agitated. For most companies, the costs of lost productivity are much higher than paying the $3/day – the price ...

New 10 Mbps Burstable Fibre Internet Service

22. September 2011 Internet Services 0
For about the same cost as a 1.5 Mbps T1 service, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton businesses can take advantage of a new Full-Duplex 10 Mbps Burstable Fibre Service.  This 10 Mbps service is only $695 per month, and for a limited time we will offer a FREE installation, based on a 3-year term. Fibre (or, ...

A Telephone Man

15. September 2011 Uncategorized 0
Did you know what you wanted to be when you grew up?  I’m sure it’s different for everybody… some people finish school with a target trajectory firmly in mind. I suspect most people were like me, only knowing what they didn’t want. I kicked around Europe for a couple of years, doing odd jobs, occasionally ...