New technology improves quality, speed of communication

The vocabulary is confusing and the technology bewildering for the average Joe or Josephine, but new telecommunications advances keep on coming.

They speed Internet connections, improving the quality of communication services, and creating software and hardware that make businesses more efficient.

Sometimes the advances come so fast that consumers can't keep up. Bonnie Mills is sales manager for ProTel Systems & Supplies Inc., a company that provides business telephone and voice mail systems, video conferencing, computer networks, call center services and Internet and wireless cellular services.

Her take is simple: "A lot of advanced technology is not common in Springfield yet," she said, "because people don't realize what they can do with their computers."

Telecommunications providers come in various forms. Both ProTel and Atlas Communications are agents of Southwestern Bell, which means that they provide the services and Bell provides the phone lines. Dale Mickelson, Atlas information technology manager, said that his company offers a variety of Internet, cellular phone and paging services.

Then there are companies such as NuVox Communications (a merger of Gabriel Communications and TriVergent Communications), that are not phone company agents but facilities-based providers.

Myron Hosea, manager of public relations for NuVox, said that means "NuVox provides a variety of communications products and services through our own facility. We've set up our own switches and have our own co-locations in central offices physical locations ... where customer lines are terminated and connected to equipment."

NuVox provides various levels of Internet access, phone lines and trunks, long-distance service, Web hosting and other business services.

Digital subscriber line

One of the hottest topics for Internet users is digital subscriber line, a new technology that, with the addition of a special DSL modem, dramatically increases the speed of the Internet connection and at the same time allows multiple applications through existing phone lines.

"For example, you can use your computer for teleconferencing," Mills said.

"With the right software you can hold a meeting over the Internet and all the conference members on line can view the same document simultaneously on their own screens. When anyone corrects the document, everyone sees the changes at once. If you all had computers with video cameras, then you could be viewing each other, as well, during the meeting," she said.

Another advantage of DSL, according to Mills, is cost.

Many companies previously using separate phone lines for voice and data transmission through an ISDN system find their service bills dropping dramatically when they switch to DSL, which can piggyback other information over a standard analog phone line, Mills said.

She added that residential customers are probably still better served by using an ISDN line over their home phone lines, simply because they do not need the power and speed required in business communications.

Fiber optics

Most phone systems comprise copper wiring, but advances in technology have "brought fiber optics in as the cabling backbone of some phone systems, such as campus systems," Mills said.

She explained that a university campus or any other complex of buildings may choose to install a "fiber backbone" to support each building, then use copper for internal system connections.

The irony is that while the internal copper phone links improve phone service considerably (because radio and electrical interference can affect fiber lines), a system must be entirely copper for DSL service.

Mickelson said that "fiber has such superior qualities over copper, that once a system is using fiber optics, there's really no need to convert to DSL."

Currently, a "loop limitation" on DSL service exists in Springfield, meaning that a business must be within 17,000 feet of the Southwestern Bell central phone office in order to access DSL.

Mickelson said, however, that "Southwestern Bell is working on expanding DSL service for the city, although there are currently some regulations issues to work out."

What's next?

In terms of what lies ahead for the Springfield area, "we see the industry growing towards CTI, computer telephony integration, which marries a company's database to the phone system," Mills said. "Simply put, that means that when a customer calls a business, his caller ID information transfers from the phone system to the business's PC, and triggers his account information to pop up on the screen."

Unified messaging is here also, a technology finally affordable five years after its creation, according to the tech experts.

With unified messaging, a user clicks on one resource, such as Microsoft Outlook, and the records of a customer's e-mails, voice mails and faxes are displayed in one business folder, making it easy to review all communications from that customer at one time, and with no further searching.

Mickelson predicted that in five more years, "DSL telephone service will mean a possibility of up to eight phone lines, plus an Internet connection into your house. And it will just be running over the old copper you already have in place."

The costs of high-tech services and equipment are obviously becoming more affordable, and as they do, more local companies should be able to rev their engines on the information superhighway.