For many, life without Facebook, Twitter or other social media platforms is almost unthinkable. These social networks are heavily integrated in to everyday life and the amount of personal information revealed has never been greater than now.

Communicating at work should be as simple as pulling up a chair, anywhere. Knowledge workers carry the essential communication tools with them: cellphones, laptops and their inquisitive minds.

In their daily lives outside of work, video, instant messaging and consumer cloud apps help today’s people share information with friends and family. Teams now want to apply similar tools to be more productive at work. Knowledge workers who bring their own mobile devices to work can be more effective and save the company hardware expenses—but only if their office messages, files and contacts stay in sync, and their valuable data is safe within the network.

“Possession is not as important as it once was.
Accessing is more important than ever.”

Kevin Kelly, The Inevitable

Not all things are always created equal, and they shouldn’t be treated equally. It’s a basic efficiency principle, one that we apply every day. Think about your inbox. There are messages that we all give almost immediate attention to (from our supervisor, an important investor, or our most valued customer) and others we pay less or no attention to (think that reply-all e-mail or the e-mail from a salesperson we don’t know asking to get on our calendars). Sorting different types of e-mail is so valuable to increasing efficiency, that Microsoft created not just a Spam, but a Clutter folder in Outlook to enable us to quickly differentiate between emails. Indeed, I can designate “VIP”s on my iPhone to bring my attention to e-mails from high-priority contacts.

The same principle applies to traffic over your business communications network. That video conference with a high-value potential customer’s decision makers to close the deal is certainly not equal to one of your employee’s sending a link to his or her favorite “cat video” on youtube.

Yet, traditional business communications networks assigned the same priority to both—that is, unless you had separate infrastructure for each type of communication, which increased network and communications costs. In addition, this is inefficient since the network your business paid for that crucial connection was only used a fraction of the time.

That’s where Call One’s SmartWAN comes in: it enables you to use existing business communications infrastructure to differentiate between the uber-important customer video conference and the cat video and give the former greater bandwidth priority. Best of all, SmartWAN technology can reduce your telecommunications costs by using existing networks and avoiding the need for multiple networks.

More for less—the greatest efficiency of all.

Read more about Call One’s SmartWAN at  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-wynn/calling-911-on-bandwidth_b_11548882.html

I was extremely skeptical of “Madonna” sightings until 2005. But Easter Week of that year a figure of the Virgin Mary appeared under the overpass at Fullerton Avenue and the Kennedy Expressway—the exit for Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago. My daughter, Sarah, who had an extremely severe case of acute viral myocarditis, was dying with little hope of recovery. Yet, as the figure of the Madonna became more visible between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, Sarah began her miraculous recovery.
 
My skepticism certainly hasn’t disappeared but it’s waned. That sign, exactly where it was and how it became more visible in proportion to Sarah’s recovery, inspired my belief in a relationship between the “Madonna of Fullerton Avenue” and Sarah’s recovery.

“Security is not a product but a process.” 
        - Bruce Schneier, Harvard Fellow and noted security expert

For just over a year now, I’ve been training for a cross-country cycling adventure that starts mid-August. I will ride 3,750 miles in 42 days with only three rest days. A daunting challenge for sure, especially for someone in their mid-50s. Getting the most out of my “legacy physical infrastructure” has been tough. New training technologies have made the challenge much easier by enabling me to strengthen the capabilities of my existing “infrastructure.” Therefore, I can increase the efficiency of workouts, which is important because I still have a day job.

Call One has the privilege to serve the small- and medium-size businesses (SMBs) that face that same challenge. How can SMBs leverage existing telecommunications infrastructures to take advantage of the greater functionalities and efficiencies of new technologies? That challenge, like mine, may seem daunting, but the payback can be substantial. SMBs can now have enterprise-level networks at the same or lower costs of their existing networks. Like me, many SMBs do not have the ability to switch out their current infrastructure. What’s really great about these new technologies is that a total swap is no longer necessary. Call One can design customized solutions using new technologies to strengthen and enhance that existing infrastructure, therefore providing substantially increased functionalities.

That’s exactly what Call One has done for Athletico, one of the nation’s leading fitness and rehabilitation service providers. Athletico’s mission is built on providing exceptional, progressive and cost-effective personalized care for its clients. Call One’s mission is similar for the telecom services we provide. Working together with Athletico, Call One was able to strengthen and enhance the capabilities and efficiencies of Athletico’s existing telecom infrastructure, consistent with both Athletico’s and Call One’s missions.

Getting greater efficiency, flexibility and capabilities from legacy infrastructures through new technologies, is working for me, is working for Athletico and it can work for your business, too. Read more about how Call One call help your SMB enhance the functionality and capabilities of your existing network infrastructure at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-wynn/ceos--cfos-do-better-with_b_9738160.html

1996 was a momentous year for telecommunications, my career and personal life. First, I was the relatively new General Counsel of Ameritech’s wholesale business unit when we became the focal point for implementing the new federal telecommunications law. Second, my wife and I also learned we were expecting our 4th child, who was due on the one-year anniversary of the Act. (Spoiler alert: fortunately, she was born a few days later—or I never would have lived that down at work or home!)



Almost twenty years ago today, on February 8, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 created a regulatory, government-driven telecommunications revolution. The act increased competitive alternatives to AT&T local monopolies—including alternatives Call One could offer to our customers. 


While not tied to a specific date like the aforementioned Act, 2016 will also be an important year in evolutionary, market-driven changes to telecommunications. For small- and medium-sized business customers (SMBs), these changes are likely to be exceptionally significant. In particular, there will be an intensified focus on the “cloud” and data security. The “cloud” (which is nothing more than third-party off-site storage and processing of data) will become the enabler of the Internet of Things (IoT) and business-focused apps. IoT and business-focused apps will exponentially increase the efficiency and productivity of SMBs. Security, which has been an increasing hot topic as a result of data breach events in the intervening 20 years between now and 1996, will also become increasingly more important. Fortunately, SMBs will have available comprehensive services to help provide sophisticated security solutions.



Call One has experience and expertise in delivering advanced telecommunications solutions, including cloud-based and security services. Our services are specifically designed to enable our SMBs to take advantage of the continued evolution we’ll see in telecommunications in 2016. Happy 20th Anniversary to the Telecom Act of 1996 and cheers to the changes 2016 will bring to help increase your productivity and efficiency! Now if you don’t mind, I have to go get my daughter’s birthday present!

Read more about telecommunications predictions for 2016: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-wynn/2016-telecommunications-t_b_9078948.html?utm_content=25887118&utm_medium=social&utm