Q. Telecommunications have evolved considerably in the last years. We see them changing our world every day. How does Internet speed evolve? What is the speed limit for users and ISP’s?Answer.To begin with, let us know that the unit to measure broadband speed -which is internet speed- is the “Bit”. (let us not think “Bit” is the same as “Byte”, which is a storage unit). One bit is either a “1″ or a “0″. This means fundamentally that there is a moment that an electrical signal is sent or not. Commonly the bits are transmitted from one point to another in “packages”. These packages are the digitalized information that communicates us with the world through internet. It can be voice, e-mail, video, music, etc. They are all narrowed down to thousands and thousands of 1′s and 0′s. Think of something like Morse code at an incredible speed.There are international standards and protocols established to define the structure of those packets, each bit means something different depending of its location in the “package”. The size of the package also differs according to the needs of the network.Many years ago our internet connection was established by a phone line connection, the modem used the phone cable to send and receive these packets of information. My father owned a common one that handled a 14.4Kbps speed rate; this means that the data transfer was 14 thousand bits per second. Fast?Later in 1998 was approved the first standard for ADSL, this new technology enabled faster data transmission over copper wires and used different frequencies from those used by the voice telephone call. Splitters or filters are used to enable the use of the phone line (PSTN) simultaneously with the ADSL service. Latest versions of this technology allow faster rates up to 24Mbps downstream; this means 24 Megabit or 24 million of signals per second.Are these numbers large enough? Another standard that has evolved tremendously in the last years is Ethernet. Though it was commercially introduced in 1980 with a basic 1Mbps speed, now has surpassed the 10G barrier. By 10Gbps, we are talking about 10 Gigabit or Billion of Bits per second. Of course, copper wires cannot withstand such speeds. Even with modern modulation techniques electrical signals are far from being profitable at extraordinarily high rate speeds. That is why another physical wire is used, the Optical Wire.At the very beginning, the ultra high speed rates were used only to connect bulk signals at extraordinarily long distances throughout countries, states and even continents. These days network architectures like FTT-x (Fiber To The X) allows users to take advantage of optical networks in their home and office by the Last Mile services as fast as 1Gbps. Why is fiber optics faster than copper based cables? Simply put, optical wires are not filled with electrical signals, but light. How fast can light be? This is when real enormous numbers would enter the picture.An optical fiber is a flexible, transparent fiber made of glass or plastic and slightly thicker than a human hair. It is used as a “pipe”. This “pipe” transmits light from one end to another by reflecting it in the “walls” of the wire. The light is emitted by a finely adjusted laser. This wire is well shielded to prevent the escape of light and favor the internal reflection. Today, the WDM (wavelength-division multiplexing) technology, allows transmitting different wavelengths (channels-colors) in a single optical carrier. To put it in basic words is possible to send many light beams of different colors into the same optical wire. Each one of them carries its own data of 1′s and 0′s.How fast is it? In year 2011, a record was established when tests reached 273Gbit per second in each of the 370 channels; all summed up are 101Tbit, meaning 101 Terabit per second, this equals to 101 trillion bits per second. January 2013 saw a new record reached in a multi-core fiber wire with 1.05Pbit. 1 Peta bit equals to 1,000,000,000,000,000 bits, one quadrillion bits per second. This means that we could transfer as much information as 2328 double-layer Blu-Ray discs each second.The numbers are astronomical, and also the cost. Services provided directly through Fiber Optics are expensive at the moment. Later on as technology keeps evolving these insane speeds will become cheaper, right now some Fiber To The Home services of 100Mbps are not that expensive though they are not available everywhere.We can finally say that we achieved warp speed in data transfer. Will we find the limit of fiber optics capacity? How will this keep growing? Only time will tell.
We live in a 15-second world. Modern news agencies gives us news from all over the world in small sound bites. When you’re looking for a lender or investor to help finance your small business you need to craft your first presentation with this 15-second sound bite model in mind.Investors and money people are busy. They need to filter out a glut of information every day. Make it easy on them and yourself.With a concise capsule that captures the excitement and potential of your idea or concept you can help investors make an initial decision to pursue your project or decline because it’s not right for them.You’ll also save time by not scheduling a full presentation of your business plan if you’re just going to get a no.Use your well-crafted elevator pitch to quickly sift and sort through potential money sources and find the ones that make a good match.Crafting Your Pitch…1. What is the nature of your business idea or concept? Is it retail, wholesale, a product, a service?2. Capture the excitement and potential of your idea. What is the most compelling elements of your business idea? Make a list then prioritize them. Use the first one or two entries on your list as the meat of your message.3. What makes your idea different or unique? Is it a new product? Do you have a novel way to market it? Does it have a loyal following already? Any famous endorsers?Use these three simple steps to clarify your idea then construct it into an exciting 15-second elevator pitch. Make your pitch easy to remember for both you and the investor.Practice, drill and rehearse until you can present it without thinking. Say it out loud. Does it flow and have a nice ring? Practice it on a family member or friend – does it make sense to them?When you’re ready find some investors and go for it.
Many people online are not using one of the best advertising methods around. I’m talking about offline print advertising. I’ve been using it since 1998, and I have a secret to share with you. Over 60% of my online business comes from offline print advertising. I know that 60% sounds very high, but it’s because I use offline print advertising as my main advertising method.Before we go any further, I’d first like to tell you to not give up on your online advertising methods. You just need to learn to use online and offline advertising methods together.Here is how I used offline print advertising to drive people to a struggling “name squeeze” page.I know that many of you are frustrated with your online advertising methods. Email advertising, PPC advertising, website advertising, and the like can all be very over whelming. A few years ago when I was new to Internet marketing, I tried everything under the sun to get people to a “name squeeze” page I had built to promote a product. I finally decided to go back to what I knew worked. Offline print advertising!I took all the copy that was on my “name squeeze” page. I opened up Microsoft Publisher (All it is, is a word processor program.) and pasted all of my copy from my “name squeeze” page into Publisher. I took the ad copy and made it into a full page (8×11) ad. It’s very easy to do, so don’t let this part scare you.Now, I had an ad that looked just like my online “name squeeze” page, but without the email sign up box. Instead of the email sign up box, I directed the reader to my website address.I looked for places I could now advertise my ad in. Since I had been using offline print advertising, I knew exactly where to go. You may be new to this kind of advertising, and that’s okay because I have one of the only websites that will thoroughly teach you how to use many offline advertising techniques like this one at little or no cost. It’s loaded with resources on where and how to advertising offline.I placed my “name squeeze” website ad in several publications. The total readership was about 200,000Once my ad for my “name squeeze” website hit, my site was flooded with visitors, and I had people signing up left and right via my email form on my website. It’s a little harder to track when using offline advertising methods. When I ran the ad to promote my “name squeeze” page, I made a special page just for my offline advertising people. That way I could track my ROI.When it was all said and done, I had spent $120 on advertising. The counter on my special page for my offline advertising people showed that I had gotten almost 16,000 unique visitors to the site. Out of those 16,000 unique visitors, almost 2,000 of those visitors signed up for my offer on my “name squeeze” page. Out of those 2,000 people, 156 of them bought my $9.95 product. I made a total of $1,552.20. I only spent $120 on advertising, and the product only cost me $2.83 to fill and ship. My total profit was $990.72! Now that’s not a bad ROI at all!As you can see, using offline advertising methods is very powerful. There is an art to it, but once you get it all figured out, you will be making incredible profits every time you start a new advertising campaign!I wish you much success in all of your offline advertising adventures.Liz Tomey