WIRELESS INDUSTRY CHANGES IMPACTING YOUR BUSINESS
          What do the mergers mean to you?

  VOIP IN PLAY:  TIME WARNER CABLE
          Cable giant leverages new technology to compete and win!

  NEED MORE NETWORK BANDWIDTH? – HAVE YOU CONSIDERED MANAGED OR PRIVATE FIBER?
          Discovering the ability, cost and benefits of managed and private fiber network

  SIMPLE SOLUTION FOR GETTING $$$ FROM STRANDED EQUIPMENT
          APTO Solutions creates value from old voice/data network equipment

   TELERAZOR TECHNOLOGIES SELECTED AS “GEORGIA INNOVATOR TOP 40”
          Technology Association of Georgia awards TeleRazor for innovation in telecommunications asset
          management

MOTLEY-RICE, LLP – ANOTHER SATISFIED CUSTOMER

In 2002, Stephen Beckman, Chief Information Officer at Motley Rice LLC, a law firm based in Charleston, South Carolina was looking for expertise to assist in managing various telecommunications and service provider issues.  During the course of several years, Tim Wise, Advocate Networks, assisted in a variety of projects and reduced annual telecommunications costs by more than 40%.  Beckman said “Your prior experience with companies and law firms of a wide variety gave you, and us, the needed breadth of domain knowledge to help us sort through the telecommunications maze and determine and acquire the best overall solutions for our firm.”  Thanks to Stephen for putting his trust in us!

WIRELESS INDUSTRY CHANGES IMPACTING YOUR BUSINESS

Mergers and consolidation of the major wireless services providers in 2004 have created opportunities for corporate customers to review, update and possibly renegotiate wireless service agreements in 2005:

• Cingular acquired AT&T Wireless

• Sprint acquired Nextel

• AllTel acquired Western Wireless

All told, over 75 million wireless subscribers are affected.  Business customers could benefit from reviewing and renegotiating their service agreements.  For example, if your company has a Cingular service agreement and an AT&T Wireless service agreement, you may be able to renegotiate to one agreement with the new Cingular, combine the revenue commitments, and increase your discounts.  If you have outstanding billing disputes or service issues with either service provider, this could be a good time to combine contract, billing and escalate quality of service issues to maximum leverage.

Also, we have recently found a number of wireless billing issues that may be costing you money.  For example, we have discovered discounts not being applied to billing, and customers with wireless services where the wireless service agreement has expired and services are billed at full retail rates.  A complete wireless bill review could be valuable to create an accurate baseline of billing and hold your service providers accountable.

Please call us if you would like to discuss further.  We can help you assess the opportunity and/or determine an appropriate starting point.

VOIP IN PLAY:  TIME WARNER CABLE

Time Warner Cable is the cable TV arm of Time Warner, the multimedia giant.  In 2004, Time Warner Cable launched its “DigitalPhone” service in 31 markets in the United States and acquired over 250,000 subscribers.  The DigitalPhone service is delivered via VOICE OVER IP with all the features delivered in a traditional local and long distance telephone service at 20% lower price.

Advocate Networks has provided market price research, analysis and support services during the planning and launch of the DigitalPhone services, and is happy to be growing our relationship with Time Warner Cable in 2005.  Best of luck in 2005!

NEED MORE BANDWIDTH? – HAVE YOU CONSIDERED PRIVATE OR MANAGED FIBER?

Like most network managers, you probably never have enough bandwidth.  While prices have decreased for private lines, frame relay and Internet access over the last four years, budgets are still limited and bandwidth is scarce.  Have you considered private or managed fiber networks to serve your campus or operations in a metropolitan area?  Tradition telecommunications service providers, utility companies and railroad operators have utilized their under- and above-ground right-of-ways to install thousands of miles of fiber in the last five years.  A private or managed fiber network can provide GigaBit Ethernet services and beyond for a fraction of the cost of private line, frame relay and Internet-based VPN transport.  Based on the actual design of this fiber access you can achieve additional benefits of access redundancy, site back up and recovery and information storage.

Advocate Networks worked with a healthcare customer in 2003 to plan, design and build a 12-node private fiber network using the fiber network assets of a local electric power company.  Today, that network is providing a GigaBit Ethernet core and distribution network to each node at less than $200 per site per month.   In 2004, Advocate Networks has conducted a number of FIBER NETWORK FEASIBILITY STUDIES and the results have been very valuable to the network managers in evaluating options and planning their future network design.

Let us know if we can assist you in an investigation of your options.

SIMPLE SOLUTION FOR GETTING $$$ FROM STRANDED EQUIPMENT

Have you replaced a PBX, switches, routers or other network gear in 2004, and placed the old equipment in a closet or storeroom to deal with later?  If so, you may want to talk with APTO Solutions (www.aptosolutions.com).   During 2004, APTO served a number of Advocate Networks customers and provided significant value from equipment that was discarded and a challenge to correctly dispose.  If you would like a free estimate on the value of stranded equipment, please call Jason Jellie at (404) 961-9620 or jjellie@aptosolutions.com.

TELERAZOR TECHNOLOGIES SELECTED AS “GEORGIA INNOVATOR TOP 40”

Atlanta, Georgia – January 19, 2005:  The Technology Association of Georgia (aka “TAG”) named TELERAZOR TECHNOLOGIES as a “Georgia TOP 40 Innovator” for the toolset created to simplify the storage, tracking and management of telecommunications assets.  In accepting the recognition, Scott Fogle, Co-Founder and CEO of TeleRazor Technologies, thanked TAG for the selection, and said “TAG has provided us with a forum to share and network among Georgia technology leaders.  We have been members since 2002 and value the role the association plays in promoting technology and fostering a positive environment for technology entrepreneurs.”  Visit www.tagonline.org for more information on TAG or to join the association.

A number of businesses are using TELERAZOR including CheckFree, Mirant, Arris International and United Regional Health Care System to store, track and manage their telecom services and equipment inventory.  The tool is a hosted application and available for a monthly subscription charge that requires no internal deployment of server, network or infrastructure to turn-up.  Call us to arrange a demonstration or visit www.telerazor.com for more information.

Feel free to forward the “THE ADVOCATE” newsletter to your colleagues!

QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS?

Feel free to write us at theadvocate@advocatenetworks.com to share your opinion or experiences on these topics, or request more information on a specific topic.

To learn more about Advocate Networks, please visit Advocate Networks (http://www.advocatenetworks.com).

© Advocate Networks, LLC 2002-2005  ●  3625 Cumberland Blvd., Suite 350 - Atlanta, GA 30339
Main: 770.984.4650  ●  Toll free: 800.675.9014  ●  Fax: 770.984.4670

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