EF summer 08.indd - National Association of Professional Allstate ...

high-speed Internet access connection,
also known as “broadband.” You can do
this either through SPOC or on your own.
SPOC will charge $400 for the setup of the
connection, plus $200 for equipment. You
will pay Verizon up front. Once you register
with Verizon, a $600 payment will be
credited to your next month’s comp. You
can register right away, and order the data
line and/or equipment from them later,
if you decide to go that way. If you want
to work your own deal, you may find that
your local telephone company, or cable Internet
provider, can offer installation and
service for less. You’ll still receive the $600
and will be able to use it with your choice
of provider. With Verizon, the circuit is
DSL, or digital subscriber line. It will be
a stable, always-on connection to the local
telephone office with a fixed service bandwidth.
It is similar to your existing Alstar
circuit, but it won’t have anything to do
with that service. The company’s existing
circuit will be disconnected at some point,
which is the company’s responsibility.
If you decide on the ‘a la carte’ option,
your costs will be whatever your service
provider charges for installation and for
service to your office, plus the cost of a
router. Your provider may include a router
or not.
In my opinion, the existing circuit,
or data line, for the present Alstar connection
restricts much of our ability to
work efficiently with Impact, Alstar, and
the Web. This is because of its limited
bandwidth and its use of proxy servers,
etc. It is referred to as a T1 line. It has a
small bandwidth of about 56k, which is
comparable in speed to a ‘dial up’ connection.
The minimum bandwidth you
should expect from your new circuit is
1.5mbps down and 384k up. This is actually
about 25 times faster than the existing
Alstar circuit, but is considered at
the lower end of broadband connections.
With cable or telephone service providers
of Internet access, you’ll experience
even higher bandwidth, equal to 4 or 5
times the 1.5mbps rate. There is a difference
in their connection performance
because they can fluctuate, depending
on demand. However, they are reliable
at a higher speed. It can also be affected
by service or power interruptions which
may affect your business. Then again,
if the electric power is off or the phone
doesn’t work, who can process endorsements
or quote anyway
You should order your broadband
connection as soon as possible following
registration, as it could take two or three
weeks for installation. It would be wise to
start checking what your options are and
how much they cost so you are able to
make prudent decisions. As an example,
last year I installed Internet cable, partly
in anticipation of the company’s move
and partly to use the Internet separately
from Alstar. I pay $49.95 a month for
small business Internet, which allows me
to connect up to 5 PCs in my location.
The service is 8mbps down and 768k up
consistently. I also received free installation
and no contract requirement. This
will vary by market and competition.
Each location will receive an annual
allowance from the company equal to the
lowest cost service based upon the DSL
business line availability. Some offices have
less service availability than other offices,
resulting in higher costs. This is being addressed
on an office-by-office basis. Based
on the figures I’ve seen and heard, $72 a
month seems to about the minimum cost
for DSL, at least in my area.
For your equipment, SPOC has a
limited, but good, selection of Dell business
computers, with or without monitors,
and a Dell laptop. A nice part of
the offer is the ability to lease the equipment
of your choice for 12, 24, 36 or 48
months. The SPOC offer through Verizon
includes a 36 month next day warranty
and parts service on both computer
and monitor. In addition, the PCs are
configured to company specifications.
You will find the equipment allowance
will more than likely cover the monthly
lease cost for a configuration similar to
what you currently have in your office, at
least for 2008 and 2009. After that, there
is no telling what your allowance will be
because it will be tied to your RFG.
Everyone has a brother, friend, client
or neighbor ‘in the computer business.’
The equipment you obtain to run your
agency is crucial, so I would be wary of
trying to ‘save a few bucks’. The lease options
from Verizon are attractive from a
cash flow standpoint. They also exceed
the minimum requirements of AOT
and, in fact, allow for future computing
requirements. You can shop Dell Small
Business and others for comparison, but
service, warranty and reliability should
be at the top of your list. Do you really
want to spend your business day troubleshooting
a computer problem, replacing
a hard drive or power supply, or removing
a virus or spyware when you could be
selling and servicing policies
Minimum specifications should include
1 gigabyte of RAM for XP Pro or
2 gigabytes of RAM for VISTA, a hard
drive of 80 gigabytes or larger, a Pentium
class processor or equivalent, sound, an
Summer 2008 Exclusivefocus — 41