Residential service? No problem. Quick like a bunny. Like today, I went to CenturyLink online, qualified my residence for faster Internet and chose my product (100 Mbps Internet). It took me less than 5 minutes to order the service and it's scheduled to be installed in 5 business days. Hop hop!

Business services? Thirty to 90 days is standard depending on what you order. It takes a minimum of 30 days to turn up DSL. It takes months to turn on Fiber service (60 - 90 days is standard turnaround for Fiber installs). Need any augmentation or builds? That can take up to 6 months. That's S-L-O-W like a tortoise. Not to mention maddening. Especially this day in age when retailers are delivering items same day.

Here's the scoop:

Lineman Broc and Bob, members of CWA Local 7800 were on the 4000 block of SW Frontenac Street in the Gatewood area of West Seattle installing a CenturyLink fiber slice box on an aerial line in the neighborhood.

Residential and business phone, Internet and TV services will be delivered across this new fiber facility (i.e. fiber cable carrying two shielded fiber bundles with 12 strands per bundle). 

The speeds will be much faster than current DSL services, according to CenturyLink.

Two wonderful companies are going to become one big awesome company. Colorado-based Level 3 Communications, Inc. and tw telecom, also based in CO, announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement, intended to qualify as a tax-free reorganization, whereby Level 3 will acquire tw telecom in a stock-and-cash transaction valued at $40.86 per share based on market close as of June 13, 2014.

From their joint press release:

"The combination leverages the highly complementary strengths of the two companies to create a stronger, more nimble, customer service-oriented competitor to meet customers’ increasingly complex local, national and global communications needs."

I'm an agent in good standing with both companies. Have been for years. I have clients with services from both companies. For my small business clients, tw telecom offers better customer service. While Level 3 is a strong, good company, they are known for just showing up and doing their job and not for add-on services and customer service. For this reason, I hope the acquisition generates a gigantic tw telecom and not a faceless Level 3.

tw telecom CEO says the following in the press release:

Toll fraud is on the rise. Just last month, one of my clients faced a $1,200 bill due to fraudulent activity on their phone system. Somebody hacked into their system by using a default user name and password for a conference phone and made hundreds of minutes of international calls.

Toll fraud is more common today because VoIP phone systems are more popular. VoIP systems can be hacked because they are connected to the Internet. The costs associated with fraudulent activity add up fast.

Digital phone systems can be hacked, too, but it's much harder and thus rarely happens.

Here are 2 ways to protect your business from toll fraud:

Indirect Sales Agents are an unconventional, benefits-driven solution.

Indirect sales agents are the alternative to direct sales when buying telecom. Also known as consultants or brokers, indirect sales agents sell telecom products and services through a strategic partnership offered by providers. However, they are completely independent from the provider and their services are free to business customers.

This is not resale. By partnering with providers, indirect agents gain access to the same promotional pricing, new product and service training and customer support networks that direct sales agent use. 

News for Caisson customers:

Nationwide business phone and Internet service provider, XO Communications just announced that it's moving away from TDM based products and will attempt to migrate legacy customers to corresponding IP based services.