AT&T is one of the largest service providers in the telecommunication industry in United States. With more than 150 million customers it is the second largest wireless service provider in United States. It was honored with ‘Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards’ in 2008 for developing the ‘Coaxial Cable Technology’. The company’s range of products includes Telephone, Internet and Television.
AT&T has innumerous network and coverage issues and many of its customers are complaining. Recently it had a coverage issue in New England area when almost 60% of the international calls were shut down. Its long-distance service delivery is very poor in this area and this led many dissatisfied customers, switch to other telecom networks. Some common complaints are call dropping, dead/ no coverage areas; incoming calls go directly to voice mails, overcharges, poor customer service quality and many more. Though its has pros such as flexible plans, excellent data services, coverage on major highways and roadways, however, it still is unable to work well in rural areas and its coverage is really bad in northern New England.
Verizon Communications is one such American broadband and telecommunications company that is taking advantage of the current situation of AT&T. The market opportunity is bright enough for Verizon to grab as much market share as they can and they are putting in efforts well to do so. The high quality of customer service, better network and coverage, cheaper call rates are some of the factors where Verizon is playing to gain market share. According to a research report, Verizon’s ‘Dropped Call’ rate for 90 days is only 2.7% where as AT&T has a 3.6% rate. The customer satisfaction level on the basis of the service deliver is also higher for Verizon being 43% and on the other hand AT&T has only 29%.
AT&T even though is having coverage issues; it still has an important share in the market. The main reason for that is: The Apple iPhone. But customers cannot do without proper coverage. They will soon switch to other networks. Thus, the company is finding ways to satisfy their customers. Recently, AT&T released free application to report network problems. Just like we report crashes in Windows or Mac OS X, we can now mark the spot where and what network problems we faced and submit it so that it can be reviewed and rectified by the company.
If you travel a lot, then AT&T can be very annoying, but if you stay in an area where coverage is good, then you must opt for AT&T. You can see the coverage of AT&T’s network in your location by entering your area in this website:
http://www.wireless.att.com/coverageviewer/#?type=voice
When two large telecom companies compete with each other, the result is always excellent. The one who will benefit is the customer. Verizon and AT&T are trying their best to win the loyalty of their customers. Hence, an excellent product and a fantabulous service experience can be expected soon.
- Brian Kingsley, Director of Technical Services, ACS Services, Boston
In all cases one-way communication always lacks efficiency. Due to many disadvantages of Web 1.0, Web 2.0 came into existence. The term Web 2.0 is usually associated with web applications that help in two-way communication. It is basically a user-centered design that is associated with terms such as interactive, collaborative, information/ knowledge sharing, etc. Earlier, only the advertisers, publishers and website owners were allowed to share their knowledge and information in the worldwide web. Today, it is more than just sharing knowledge and information. Web 2.0 gives the freedom to each and every individual to post their thoughts, views, philosophies, likes and dislikes. It is all about interaction, sharing and networking.
Web 2.0 websites include some of the following features:
• Information Search: Search engine helps in finding relevant information for the keywords entered. It includes website designing, website ranking in search engine, keyword research, etc.
• Links: Low-barrier social tool. It includes one-way linking, link exchange, etc.
• Authoring: This gives the right to create, publish and upload content, videos, audios of your own. It includes blogs, press releases, articles, newsletters, etc.
• Tags: These are one word descriptions of the entire content written by the owner.
• Extensions: It is software that makes web an application platform as well as a document server.
• Signals: It is the use of syndicate technology that informs users of content changes. RSS, Really Simple Syndication, is a tool from where you can get the latest updates of your area of interest.
Things that you can do in Web 2.0:
• Social Networking
• Content writing and submission
• Post blogs
• Post comments, reviews, etc.
• Information Search
• Slide share
• Social Bookmarking
• RSS feeds
• Online Gaming
• And many more
Now let’s discuss few of the pros and cons of Web 2.0
Pros:
• Social Media Marketing and Search Engine Optimization.
• Equal chance to all to post their views and comments.
• Increase the circle of friends and contacts through social networking.
• Latest update and content can be received if you are a RSS reader.
• Online promotion of businesses, products and services.
• Engaging the customers. Customers can write their views about the products and services.
Cons:
• Information overload. Too much information is daily posted by many people with different thought. This creates confusion for the readers and the quality of the content is not reliable.
• Freedom to post views and comments provides good opportunities for competitors and rivals to post negative comments about other companies.
• Too many fake ID’s and spammers.
• Forgeries and hackers commit crimes.
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING is one of the biggest and most significant results of Web 2.0. Websites like Facebook, Orkut, LinkedIn, Twitter, MySpace, You Tube, etc are the top visited websites. It is because networking is one of the most essential needs in today’s world. Efficient networking is backed by internet. Thus, two-thirds of the total number of internet users visit social media websites daily. It has become an addiction to many. Again this brings many advantages and disadvantages along with it. Few of them are:
Advantages:
• Create a large and strong network.
• Increase in number of friends.
• More interaction leads to higher exchange of knowledge.
• Build strong relationships.
Disadvantages:
• People are highly dependent on internet to network.
• Wastage of time.
• High number of frauds and hackers.
People now-a-days are so addicted to update their Facebook and LinkedIn accounts that they do not realize the amount of time they are spending in such activities.
According to a survey, every individual working in an organization spends an average time of about 40 minutes daily on social media websites. This incurs loss to the organizations as their valuable and knowledgeable employees are busy chatting online with their friends. The organizations are taking the following steps to eliminate this problem:
• Organizations now-a-days block all social media websites.
• They encourage employees to indulge in activities organized within the company, where they can socialize and relax.
• An interesting work environment can help employees to concentrate more on their work.
- Brian Kingsley, Director of Technical Services, ACS Services, Boston
Networking in the Enterprise Environment can be very challenging. With hundreds of devices on a network, broadcasts can get of control. Fortunately, there are methods to design a network to virtually eliminate the adverse effects of too many computers on the network.
VLANS, or Virtual LANS, are the building blocks to a better Enterprise Network. A VLAN is a logical network provisioned on a switch. This effectively segments the traffic on the network ports of the switch. A single switch can have hundreds of VLANS or may have just a few, or even as little as one. The network switches in production today have a very robust feature set to enable the configuration of VLANS.
Enabling a VLAN is a simple process and typically can be done in very little time. Once a switch has multiple VLANS configured you would need to add in some sort of router to enable traffic between the VLANS. Years ago, at the first introduction to VLAN technology and managed switches, the routing had to be done with an actual router. This could be a router that was just attached with a single connection or a router switch module installed in a chassis switch. Cisco’s Catalyst 4000 was one of these switches. The advantage to the chassis switch was the high speed backplane that the switch modules communicated on. This made the routing happen at near wire speed. Todays layer three and four switches perform the routing function as part of its feature set. These high speed switches can route packets at wire speed.
Best practice network design includes separate VLANS for at least the networking equipment, servers and users. This will reduce processor utilization of the servers and allow for a protected management network for the switches. This can be taken much further and VLANS for departments, printers, wireless and other groups can also be provisioned.
The next step in the design of an Enterprise network will be the ACL list. This is a security list that a switch, router or firewall uses to allow or deny traffic. Once a solid VLAN design is implemented ACLS can be applied to enhance the network’s performance and security.
Stay tuned, next month I will talk about ACL configuration in the Enterprise network.
Howard Cathcart
Director of Enterprise Services
Phone 877-227-7773
Email 