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It seems like hacks and thefts of information are in the news daily, from Ashley Madison to the US Government, airlines, and businesses, no one seems to be exempt from the threat.  So what can you do to protect your organization and your client or members’ information.

If you couldn’t make it to the seminar, check out the live tweets from the event at #ARGSeminar. You can also reach out to us through our Contact page or info@myarg.com. An ARG consultant can set up a meeting to review UC best practices, and help you find a solution that best fits your unique business needs.

Matt West, one of ARG’s resident Implementation Engineers, saved a client some money last week by helping him short out a binding post with a quarter.

The client has a few plain old telephone lines. The first three lines were delivered to the wrong demarc, so Matt figured this one would be delivered to the wrong place as well.  The carrier ordered the line, and then sent the number and binding post information.  Matt called the new number and it was ring no answer, which is what it should have been.

We did it! For the second year in a row, ARG has been selected for The Washington Post’s Top Workplaces list.

The Washington Post partnered with WorkplaceDynamics, an employee-survey firm based in Philadelphia, and asked the employees of nominated companies to evaluate their employers based on 22 questions covering the job, leadership and organizational health.  Within each size category, the employers were ranked based solely on employee responses to the survey statements.

DC got a wake up call yesterday as a piece of PEPCO equipment broke loose in Mechanicsville, Md and knocked out electricity to the White House, State Department, a large chunk of the nation’s capital and Maryland suburbs early yesterday afternoon.  The outage wasn’t caused by a natural disaster or terrorism and served as reminder to many of the importance of having a backup plan.

Life as we know it has changed drastically in the business world.  In the last ten years, we’ve seen massive adoption of smartphones, tablets, and phablets. Cloud has emerged as a major initiative and with it, bandwidth requirements have skyrocketed from T1’s to Ethernet. Telecommuting has become commonplace at companies large and small.  In order to better support clients and attract and retain staff, companies are working smarter by embracing new technologies.

Do you hear office grumbling about slow internet?  Bandwidth can seriously impact productivity. At some point we’ve all had the feeling of “taking forever” as we twiddle our thumbs waiting for a large file to download.

You may have also experienced latency — when the media file you are watching on line stops or stutters repeatedly. These interruptions waste valuable employee time and can lead to unhappy customers who have to wait for customer service because “the system is slow today.”

March Madness is just beginning and hosted voice is heavily favored to win here at ARG. So far this month, a big win for ARG has been installing 400 Hosted Voice seats for one long time ARG customer.

This major health association has been a client of ARG for nearly two decades, and we have worked with the organization through a myriad of technologies and platforms. From switched long distance and DSL, dedicated long distance and analog lines, then PRIs, Dynamic services, colocation and now hosted voice, ARG has coached them in order to stay in the lead as technology changes.

Mobility was such a hot topic at our September seminar that we featured it in our November webinar on Best Practices for Developing a Mobile Strategy. We had a great turn out and good split of attendees who currently support BYOD (33%)  Corporate Liable (44%) and Hybrid (21%) policies for their users. ARG’s very own PatRead more

Follow ARG on LinkedIn for access to all of our daily updates, including blog posts, customer testimonials, outages and issues, seminars, and other events that are taking place.  You can expand your networks and get connected to the telecom world while staying up to date on news, policy, and deals. If you’ve worked with ARGRead more

The DC area is in for another rough winter, according to predictions from the Old Farmer’s Almanac.  “It’s going to be colder, wetter, and snowier than usual — so, almost like last year,” says Old Farmer’s Almanac senior associate editor Sarah Perreault.  Snowfall in 2014-15 is predicted in our area every winter month between NovemberRead more

ARG loves to help organizations that help our community. Community Residences is a local organization that we are proud to support and we were delighted that they were willing to share their experience working with us. “I have been working with ARG for a few years now and can’t tell you how impressed we areRead more

Looking for Microsoft 365 Email archiving security and continuity in the cloud? Mimecast’s online software as a Service (SaaS) solution may be the answer. With a single platform to streamline business email management and help eliminate growing risks and complications, Mimecast Unified Email Management bundles security with continuity, 24×7 access, and more on a scalableRead more

Kristine Barton celebrated her 11th year with ARG in 2014, and in 2015 she’s looking to Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) as a key factor in company productivity. VDI’s are built to be easy to navigate, and contain the ability to front end any infrastructure that lives in the Cloud. Kristine uses an all too familiarRead more

In Technology M&A news, Level 3 announced the close of their acquisition of tw telecom today.  During the months ahead they will be working to integrate the two companies and leverage their assets.  If you have any questions on how this impacts your ARG supported services on either provider, don’t hesitate to reach out.Read more

Tip 9 Failover or Failure Do you have backup Internet with failover?  Are you configured so that if your primary circuit goes down you can failover without missing a beat? If not, you are not alone.  ARG has interviewed hundreds of customers over the past 15 months and about 46% of them do not haveRead more

Are you struggling to develop a mobility policy? From HR and finance to IT and corporate tax implications,  businesses are dramatically impacted by mobile device policy. Cell phones, tablets, and other mobile devices have permeated almost every aspect of our lives and it is difficult to navigate all the possible pitfalls.  Make sure you haveRead more

You can follow ARG on Twitter!  We wanted to make sure you were aware of this valuable service. If you follow us at www.twitter.com/my_ARG you will have visibility into major & regional outages or issues. Whether it’s a fiber cut, a portal down, switching issues or weather related mishaps that may affect your service youRead more

Boy!  When ARG Implementation Engineers say they’ll do just about anything to save a cut, they mean it!  Yesterday, Matt West went WAY above the call of duty by dumpster diving to save a cut that was going south due to a missing cable.  Here is what the phone vendor had to say afterwards: “TheRead more

The Court of Appeal in Cochran v. Schwan’s Home Service stated: “We hold that when employees must use their personal cellphones for work-related calls, Labor Code section 2802 requires the employer to reimburse them. Whether the employees have cellphone plans with unlimited minutes or limited minutes, the reimbursement owed is a reasonable percentage of theirRead more

1.  The gift of time:  When you have an issue simply make one to ARG Client Services (703-770-2407) and we’ll take care of the rest.  We will reach out to the carrier to open and track a ticket until resolution.  If escalation is needed ARG will manage that process as well.  You will be updatedRead more

We had a great response to the Top 15 for 2015 seminar with almost every attendee saying that the content was relevant and helpful in their role.  You may have missed the event, but we don’t want you to miss out on this valuable information.   Keep an eye on our blog and your inbox as weRead more

What a great morning thank you all so much for attending and for making it such a great interactive event.  I hope everyone enjoyed the Astro Doughnuts and found the content valuable.  A special congratulations to Javiar Pelham, Ali Forrest, & Scott Mearns for winning our 3 Bose Soundlink Mini Speakers!Read more

We are filling up fast for our September 23rd breakfast event.  Whether you come for an update on what your peers are doing to update their environment or the Astro Doughnuts and breakfast, we hope you can join us next week. ARG has made the investment to meet with over a thousand of the mid-Atlantic’sRead more

Frequently there is a lot of anxiety about changing voice providers.  This is understandable and ARG project managers and engineers do everything possible to minimize customer risk. We are aware that any interruption of service is disruptive and can be perceived as a stressful by someone who is responsible for their company’s phone service.  A largeRead more

So encouraging to see more and more cloud providers adopting both multi-access solutions and direct connect high bandwidth access.  Just two years ago, ARG argued in meeting after meeting for the need to put greater priority on network connectivity.  Back then, we met a lot of resistance.  Now, we’re being greeted with excitement about broadRead more

Stepping back from all the activity around the show, it’s pretty stunning how far the service providers have shifted towards the channel.  15-20 years ago, a couple dozen of us spent all our time at these shows trying to convince providers that together, we could offer a much stronger solution to businesses.  The response wasRead more

It is pretty clear that the cloud companies are really gaining traction.  From our first 11 meetings, year over year growth consistently up 30-50%.   For years, there’s been more talk than action.  We’ve definitely crossed the inflection point.Read more

Carissa Seligman is a graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park and spent most of her life in the Washington, DC area. Carissa began her career with Nordstrom in late 2008. Two years with the company provided her with a deep understanding of what good customer service really is, which she still values today.Read more

We’ve got a team down in New Orleans this week meeting with all the carriers – stay tuned for updates from the front lines!Read more