Have You Talked to Your Telecom Vendors Recently?

By Anthony M. Puntillo DDS, MSD

Dr.-Puntillo-PictureMany of you have no doubt seen the television commercials announcing the merger of AT&T and Direct TV. This merger is just another sign of the digital transformation the United States telecommunication industry is undergoing. This transformation is being driven largely by an insatiable consumer desire for data and bandwidth. If you have transitioned your practice to digital, and many have, chances are high that you discovered your office hard drive was full and needed to be upgraded. Furthermore, single location practices are becoming more rare and it can be challenging to access all of this additional data when and where you need it. This issue is even more pronounced in the increasing number of practices that utilize 3D CBCT machines, as the DICOM files generated by these machines can be as large as 700 megabytes.

My practice consists of four office locations, three doctors, and three CBCT machines. All our locations are networked to a single sever and all patient data is securely accessible at each location and externally via a virtual private network (VPN). Our Voice over IP (VoIP- see Dr. William Engilman’s post from May 2012) telephone system connects all our offices and staff seamlessly. To make all these systems work we require stable bandwidth and lots of it. That bandwidth comes at a significant monthly fixed cost for our practice. Recently, in an effort to make sure we were getting the most for our money, we asked our IT consultant to review our contracts and plans with all our telecommunication network providers (i.e. AT&T, Comcast, etc.). Their review found that by bundling some services (i.e. phone, internet access, etc.) additional bandwidth, and subsequently improved efficiency, was available for a similar monthly cost. In the cellular world, companies such as AT&T, Verizon, T Mobile, and Sprint are investing heavily in infrastructure upgrades. These upgrades are being used to offer consumers deals that were unheard of just 12 months ago. If you have not reviewed you offices telecommunication vendors and plans within the last 12 months, I would encourage you to use the slower time in your office this fall to do so. You may find significant cost savings or improved services are also available.

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