Call One, a Chicago-based full service telecommunications company, is announcing their latest solution, which provides businesses a comprehensive set of traffic controls and security features for their wide-area network (WAN). Call One’s SmartWAN solution allows business owners the proper amount of bandwidth needed while maintaining an effective budget.

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

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