More than just Internet Bandwidth

Skyway West will soon be rolling out a 15.0 Mbps ADSL service for BC and Alberta businesses.  However we are finding that just increasing the speed of your Internet connection will not always increase the performance of business applications.

For example, businesses are adding SIP trunking and unlike web surfing, applications like Voice over IP use both the Upstream and Downstream connection of your Internet service.  But voice also requires low latency, or the time it takes for the data packets to go from point A to point B.  A good voice connection needs lower than 150 ms (Milliseconds), so if you are connecting the phone systems from 2 offices, a branch office in Toronto and your main location in Vancouver, you need to ensure that the Internet connect at both sites have good networking to each other.

Or, if your office has implemented an IP PBX or are using a Hosted Telephone Service, a low latency connection between your office and your supplier’s network will also be important for the quality of each phone call.

Skyway West has direct connections to a number of SIP trunk suppliers and Hosted Phone System Service Providers. Our direct connections give our customers 20 to 30 ms latency to their VoIP provider.

You also want to ensure that your Internet connections include QoS (Quality of Service) giving your voice traffic priority over basic web surfing. Otherwise, your data traffic will overwhelm your VoIP traffic. Skyway can deliver IP QoS between any locations on, of off, our network.  We give not only Voice, but other important applications like DNS queries and Video conferencing priority between locations.

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Chris Miles | cmiles@skywaywest.com | 604 484 5257