In light of the passing storms and massive unprecedented flooding, I wanted to send an email out to let everyone know about our datacenter in Downtown Nashville. Windstream has allocated rack space and bandwidth along with placing extra Cisco certified technicians in our datacenter to help with relocation efforts.

I’ve spoken to several business owners today and they are doing their best to deal with the disaster. If you know of anyone who needs to relocate telephone or data equipment please let me know. So far today, I’ve spoken to twelve businesses who were trying  get their communications relocated. If I can be of any assistance to you, your friends or colleagues please let me know. Our thoughts and prayers go out to those affected. We’re here to help with the recovery effort. Thanks for your time.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Kirby

Account Executive

(615)620-5223 (w)

(615)995-2105 (C)

(615)327-8598(F)

The RHC Program, administered by the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC), offers discounts on services such as high-speed Internet access and other advanced telecom services to eligible rural health care providers. The program was created to ensure that these providers pay no more than their urban counterparts for telecommunications solutions used to provision health care services. These discounts enable rural health care providers to save on current products, upgrade to more advanced solutions, or even install new and improved technology.

Today’s health care industry faces a wide range of transformational challenges — such as medical error reduction, efficient practice management, asset and resource tracking, patient privacy requirements, patient data storage, government regulation compliance, limited financial resources and professional development requirements — all while maintaining and improving the quality of patient care.

“As an approved service provider for USAC programs with solid experience in delivering state-of-the-art communication services to the medical industry, Windstream can help rural health care providers navigate the challenges they face in today’s changing medical world while continuing their quest for quality patient care,” said Don Perkins, Windstream vice president of business marketing. “The possibilities and benefits are virtually endless.”

With Windstream’s customized solutions, hospitals, clinics and physicians in our rural areas are able to quickly collaborate and consult with resources in urban areas for more rapid patient diagnosis. Using Windstream’s network products, they can access continuing education programs remotely, saving both time and money. By reducing expenses and travel time for patients and practitioners, decreasing medical errors and quickly sharing critical patient information, health care providers are able to focus on their ultimate goal of providing patient-centric, affordable care.

Windstream’s variety of communications options for the healthcare industry includes options such as MPLS and Virtual Private Networking (VPN), which provide secure connections when transmitting confidential patient data, allow for real-time communication and collaboration, or even facilitate multimedia access for specialist consultations. Ethernet Internet allows physicians to download and upload large data files, up to 100 Mbps, with dedicated Internet access, and Windstream’s Managed Security solution delivers comprehensive privacy protection against network-level and content-level threats, ensuring patient records are kept confidential.

Customers who are interested in the Rural Health Care program should go to www.windstream.com/business/enterprise/healthcare-industry.html for more information.

On Tuesday the company announced the CRS-3, its next-generation Internet router for the world’s largest Internet service providers. Cisco may have overhyped the announcement just a tad. After a two-week countdown to an announcement that it said would “forever change the Internet,” the company unveiled what looks like an upgrade to its existing “core” router called the CRS-1.

While the hype machine may have failed to deliver something truly revolutionary, Cisco’s announcement is still significant. The new router offers 12 times the traffic capacity than its older-generation routers offer. It’s three times faster than the older CRS-1, which was introduced in 2004. And it can handle 322 terabits of traffic per second, or simultaneous video calls for every person in China, the company said.

The new router, which starts at $90,000, will be sold to the world’s largest Internet service providers. These aren’t your run-of-the-mill ISPs selling 10 Mbps broadband service to consumers. These companies, such as AT&T, Verizon Communications, Level3, and Sprint, are the Internet service providers that aggregate and shuttle the bulk of the nation’s Internet traffic across what is known as “the Internet backbone.”

When the new Cisco routers are installed, the average broadband consumer likely won’t notice anything new. But over time, they will see the benefits of the upgraded infrastructure. The Cisco CRS-3 will allow these Internet backbone service providers to increase capacity so that new applications, especially video-based applications, like high-definition TV, video conferencing, and 3D TV, can be offered to the mass market.

Cisco CEO John Chambers said this new router will serve as the foundation of the next-generation Internet that will see tremendous growth due to video.

“Video is the killer app,” he said. “Video brings the Internet to life and most of the devices that will be coming on the network will evolve quickly into video. ”

Chambers said just looking at the devices and applications that were at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February are a good indication of what is to come in the future. And he said all these products feed into the Internet, which will load the network with more traffic.

“Whether it was gaming or video or tablets or ESPN bringing 3D sports to TV, it’s about video,” he said. Chambers added that this video traffic, along with other data intensive applications for things such as health care, will require more bandwidth than anyone could have imagined a short time ago.

Indeed, the new router will play a significant role in enabling all kinds of new applications and services to be rolled out. And as the access broadband networks get faster, more capacity will be needed in the backbone of the Internet to accommodate the traffic. Several broadband providers are already offering 50Mbps and 100Mbps broadband service to consumers. Google also recently announced that it plans to build ultra-high speed broadband networks to test new services and applications that use 1Gigabit-per-second speeds. And if history has taught the industry anything, it’s that when more bandwidth is made available, applications quickly come online to use it. Once consumers start using high-capacity applications that necessitate these speeds, infrastructure equipment deep in the Internet backbone will have to be in place to support the flood of traffic.

While the scale and speed of the new CRS-3 is impressive and definitely takes the Internet to a new level of capacity, will it really “forever change the Internet?” as Cisco billed the announcement.

The Cisco’s announcement is more of an incremental upgrade to the company’s existing product, the CRS-1. IP routing is Cisco’s bread and butter. It’s not surprising that the company has developed yet another big router to keep up with growing Internet traffic demand.

Zeus Kerravala, a senior vice president at the market research firm Yankee Group, agreed. But he said the announcement is still very important to the growth of the Internet and future innovation of new applications.

“There is no way that a routing announcement could live up to the hype that Cisco created,” he said. “But if you look down the road, when consumers want to watch multiple channels of high-definition video and 3D programming, and as more mobile apps come onto 4G wireless networks, companies like Cisco and its rival Juniper Networks need to push the envelope in terms of routing engineering.”

As for Cisco’s consumer strategy, which this announcement was rumored to be about, we’re still waiting for a killer set-top box or some other revolutionary product that will truly change the Internet as we know it.

Glad to know NuVox now windstream is a fully Cisco powered ISP. For more information on our company call Jonathan at 615-620-5223!

Let me start by explaining what a SIP trunk is. In traditional telephony, the phone company delivers telephony services over a wire, or a “trunk,” that connects the corporate private branch exchange (PBX) to the public switched telephone network (PSTN). This physical trunk carries the phone calls from the corporation to the PSTN providing the corporation with phone service. A SIP trunk allows companies to replace physical cables with telephone service over a data network — whether it’s through a dedicated line, a shared connection with a data service or even by using the Internet for connectivity.

A SIP trunk can deliver much more value to a company than a traditional PSTN trunk. First, there’s no real limit to the number of voice sessions that can be carried over a SIP trunk (other than bandwidth), whereas a traditional PSTN trunk is limited to the number of channels available. Also, SIP can deliver many of the unified communications (UC) functions that companies are looking at today. Chat services, presence, conferencing capabilities, the ability to share applications, etc., can all be delivered over a SIP trunk, allowing companies to look at purchasing UC as a service rather than investing in premise-based hardware and software.

SIP trunks also allow organizations to extend VoIP past the physical LAN, where most of the deployments are today. This removes the need for organizations to purchase costly gateways, bridges or other equipment that help connect the corporate VoIP environment to the PSTN. That connectivity is done within the IP telephony service provider’s network, which means the enterprise does not have to incur the cost.

To deploy a SIP trunk you really need only three things: An IP PBX with a SIP-ready trunk, a device that sits at the edge of the enterprise that can talk SIP and a service provider that offers a SIP-trunking service (not all do today). The device is similar to the gateway needed for PSTN connectivity, but it’s typically much cheaper on a per-user basis than a gateway and it can be a gateway to many more services, other than just voice, providing a much faster return on investment than with a traditional trunk.

Overall, a SIP trunk is a simple, cost-effective method of increasing the value of the investment you’ve made in VoIP. There are many other benefits as well, such as increased user productivity, convergence of multiple lines, better bandwidth utilization and, if deployed correctly, more uptime than traditional telephony .

I urge anyone who has deployed VoIP or has a rollout under way to take a serious look at using SIP trunks to maximize the benefits of your investment. For more information on Windstream/NuVox’s SIP options, call Jonathan Kirby 615-620-5223

Windstream, in its new efforts to move away from consumer landline services, is emphasizing business communications products – hence its takeover of CLEC NuVox Corp. To that point, it’s installing Hatteras Ethernet-over-copper and TDM gear so it can provision up to 40gbps of bandwidth.

“Our modular solution affords Windstream the long-term flexibility to pursue a gradual, pay-as-you-grow strategy while ensuring that its customers stay availed to the leading edge of Ethernet service innovation,” said Kevin Sheehan, CEO of Hatteras Networks, in a prepared statement.

Windstream sells IP voice and data services, along with phone systems and equipment, to companies and government agencies. Of course, it also still provisions phone, Internet and television access to residential users; but the company is reducing its reliance on that sector as more people cut the cord, for which the wireless migration, high unemployment and a weak economy all are to blame.

To that point, Windstream executives said on Feb. 28 during a Telarus-hosted conference that Windstream is not taking over NuVox to dismantle what works. Rather, Windstream wants its employees to assume NuVox’s competition- and business-focused ways of thinking so the rural LEC can grow past its revenue-losing legacy residential base and into the profitable business-services market. And NuVox staff are thrilled.

Windstream’s installation of Hatteras infrastructure should help the new Windstream-NuVox reach that sales goal. The deal with Hatteras includes an Ethernet switching and labeling platform for delivering up to 100mpbs of symmetrical services; customer premise equipment for Ethernet-over-copper; demarcation devices for Ethernet over TDM; and repeaters for interconnecting with enterprises or mobile towers.

The jobs will be spread through various sectors of the company and will take place over the next few weeks, said Brent Whittington, Windstream’s chief operating officer.

Not all of the 60 jobs will come in Greenville, he said. Some will be in other parts of NuVox’s locations. NuVox has 700 people in Greenville and 1,700 across the Southeast.

However, Whittington said he foresees future job growth for the company as Windstream moves all of its business service customers to the Greenville offices.

Windstream purchased the Greenville-based NuVox this week for $647 million. It will soon rebrand the downtown offices, which are split between 90,000 square feet of space at the corner of Main Street and McBee Avenue and 85,000 square feet of space on four floors in the Landmark Building, as Windstream.

He does not foresee the company moving into one large office space downtown.

Windstream started courting NuVox officials, who were not looking to sell, during the summer as a way to grow its business service sector, Whittington said. NuVox did roughly $565 million in revenue last year and has 90,000 customers in 16 states.

Many telecommunications companies prefer to purchase existing businesses as opposed to battling them for potential clients because of the capital investment of starting a business in a new region.

In NuVox’s offices in the Landmark offices, there are banks and banks of computer processors, hundreds of employees in a call center and a mission control center where staff monitor network lines 24 hours a day.

A company couldn’t build that kind of network over night, so it makes more financial sense to acquire an existing firm, Whittington said.

Windstream is an S&P 500 company with about $3.7 billion in annual revenues. Windstream provides phone, high-speed Internet and high-definition digital TV services to customers in 21 states.

NuVox was started in 1998 as TriVergent and provides telephone and IP networks for businesses. By 2004 it was known New South and merged with NuVox, which was then based in St. Louis.

WindStream and NuVox delivers T1 lines, Metro Ethernet Connections, Etherloop technologies as well as MPLS. For more information on this strong company call Jonathan at 615-620-5223

Windstream today completed its acquisition of NuVox, Inc., a privately held competitive local exchange carrier based at Greenville, S.C., in a transaction valued at approximately $647 million.

Windstream acquired approximately 90,000 business Customers in complementary markets in 16 states across the Southeast and Midwest, providing the company expanded reach to focus on small and medium business growth opportunities.

The acquisition advances Windstream’s strategy to grow broadband and business revenues, which now represent more than half of the company’s annual revenues – approximately $3.7 billion on a pro forma basis, which includes the acquisitions of NuVox, Lexcom and D&E Communications. Windstream now operates in 21 states and has approximately 8,800 employees.

“NuVox is a great strategic fit for Windstream,” said Pres.-CEO Jeff Gardner. “The NuVox markets are contiguous to our properties and the transaction bolsters our strategy to focus more on the business Customer,” he said, adding, “NuVox is a very strong company that has steadily delivered revenue growth and improved margins. These markets have the potential for good growth opportunities in the future.”