We understand the critical importance of your connectivity at a time like this. We are here should you need to help your employees work and stay connected remotely, or upgrade critical business applications.

Here are some things we’re doing for many businesses – these services may be available to you right now as well.

Whether you need to order new service, get help with an existing service, or just have general questions - we can help. Talk to your Consolidated Communications Account Manager or email CCI.business@consolidated.com to learn more.

If you work in our northern New England region, ask about our Enterprise@Home solution to help your employees collaborate and work more productively from home.

 

Virtualizing the Enterprise


The steps we are all taking to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic are unprecedented, and have dramatically changed the way we think about and approach work. As employees are actively encouraged to work remotely, business leaders face a significant challenge – how to virtualize their organizations to ensure the safety of their employees, while maintaining the productivity necessary to serve customers and keep their businesses afloat. Success depends on the degree to which businesses can ensure they have sufficient bandwidth to virtualize critical functions and applications – moving as much as they can to the cloud.

Here are some critical functions businesses must focus on – especially as they virtualize their enterprise due to pandemic response.

 

Connectivity & Bandwidth


As businesses send many employees to work from home, you may need to increase bandwidth to ensure access to the corporate network and online resources. We are here to help.

Our fiber-based network can provide Internet speeds of up to 10 Gbps and provides 99.999% core network availability. If you have existing Consolidated service, we may be able to expedite a bandwidth upgrade to meet your increased demands.

Connectivity & Bandwidth Resources:

 

Communication & Collaboration


Whether in the office, on the road, or working from home during the current pandemic, employees still need to communicate and collaborate. Traditional PBX and IP-PBX-based platforms cannot fully address our new challenges. What’s needed is a feature-rich cloud solution that is accessible to everyone in the organization – wherever they may be. In addition to facilitating collaboration, our cloud-based platform offers better security, business continuity, and potentially lower costs.

Solution: ProConnect with UC-One

Consolidated Communications ProConnect is a cloud-based communications platform that supports HD video, voice, messaging, file sharing, screen sharing, and conferencing in a single easy-to-use application that seamlessly integrates with other business applications.

ProConnect allows you to adopt the precise capabilities your business needs, whether it’s simple but powerful cloud-based business phone service, or the latest in advanced unified communications and collaboration services. ProConnect also delivers the mobility required to support fast-paced, on-the-go employees. ProConnect UC-One mobile applications connect to any network, so whether in the office, at home, or anywhere else, your office features are with you on your mobile phone.

ProConnect Resources:

 

Network Security


Shifting to a remotely connected workforce introduces new security threats and challenges. Is your network security posture strong enough to address these threats? Is it cloud-based? Effective Unified Threat Management is critical to ensuring that corporate network resources are protected and available. It must address:

  • Threat prevention – proactively identify malicious attempts to damage the network
  • Streamlined security network deployment
  • Reduced end-user downtime and improved response times to incidents
  • Decreased security operation costs
  • Identification and elimination of unneeded applications to reduce the threat footprint
  • Increased visibility and control over the network

Solution: Cloud Secure

Consolidated Communications can help companies of all sizes better protect their networks against system intrusions and security threats that put critical applications and data at risk. Cloud Secure addresses an ever-growing list of innovative security attacks automatically, allowing IT resources to stay focused on strategic initiatives that ensure productivity, save money, or protect your business reputation. Cloud Secure is a fully-managed security platform that operates on industry-leading technology and uniquely integrates next-generation firewall capabilities, advanced endpoint protection, and threat intelligence.

With more companies asking their employees to connect to company Virtual Private Network (VPN) from home during the Coronavirus outbreak, network security is more challenging than ever. During this time, we encourage businesses to take advantage of Consolidated’s complimentary Security Lifecycle Review (SLR) that analyzes network activity and provides a customized report to help identify security risks confronting your organization.

Cloud Security Resources:

 

Business Continuity


The COVID-19 pandemic is forcing many businesses to reevaluate their business continuity strategies. What happens if your corporate data center goes down or becomes inaccessible? Does your business continuity plan include data center colocation for primary or secondary backup sites?

Solution: Data Center Colocation Services

With the right data center colocation provider, you can ensure the reliability and availability of critical applications and data while minimizing the risk of unplanned outages. When choosing a provider, you should consider these factors:

  • Location – An off-site data center should be located in an accessible area with a low risk of natural disasters, minimal adverse weather conditions, and adequate transportation infrastructure.
  • Reliability – The data center should eliminate points of failure by integrating multiple levels of redundancy. Be sure to check the provider’s track record on outages, availability and service level history, as well as its maintenance procedures.
  • Commercial Power – A resilient data center will provide diverse power feeds from utilities into the facility. If one feed is compromised, another feed can keep operations running.
  • Network Availability – Access to a reliable network and high-speed connectivity is a major benefit for businesses.
  • Physical Security – The right data center provider will implement multiple levels of physical security inside and outside the facility. External physical security measures, such as barriers, reduce the likelihood of vandalism or break-in while sophisticated access control and monitoring systems can prevent unauthorized access to secure areas.
  • Staff Expertise – The best data center providers will employ experienced, knowledgeable and highly skilled IT staff. The right solution will offer support staff around-the-clock, every day of the year.

Solution: Disaster Recovery

Consolidated also offers data protection services that ensure your data is backed up and available for seamless recovery. Our cloud-based solution provides rapid failover of mission-critical applications and data with continuous protection and leading RPO and RTO standards. Consolidated Communications Data Protection services adhere fully to HIPAA, PCI and Safe Harbor standards and meet stringent audit requirements to protect organizations from unnecessary risks.

Data Center Colocation Resources:

Disaster Recovery Resources:

 

Access to Cloud Providers


To ensure the availability of applications and data, many organizations are moving critical production workloads to the cloud, leveraging the on-demand resources of providers, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. With this shift, businesses must optimize both bandwidth and reliability.

Solution: Cloud Peer Connect

Consolidated Communications’ Cloud Peer Connect provides secure, reliable dedicated bandwidth to support cloud applications such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Oracle FastConnect. Cloud Peer Connect offers:

  • Improved network performance – Dedicated connections, redundancy, and diverse routes ensure your critical cloud-based workloads get the network performance they require to improve business productivity.
  • Greater security – Cloud traffic does not traverse the public Internet. Direct connections to cloud service providers ensure lower latency and mitigate security risks, such as Distributed Denial of Service (DdoS) attacks.
  • Support for multiple Cloud Service Providers – Support includes AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and Oracle FastConnect.

Cloud Peer Connect Resources:

 

Virtual Office Productivity


Office Productivity has taken on new meaning in our current work environment. Employees need to be productive in the office, the hotel, at home, and many other places. Moving critical office productivity applications to the cloud, including email and Microsoft Office, ensures that employees can access them, whenever and wherever.

Solution: Microsoft 365 and Office 365

Microsoft 365 empowers your employees to work efficiently using today’s latest business software while ensuring business data is secure and protected. Microsoft 365 is an integrated cloud-based solution that simplifies IT, improves data security and keeps employees’ devices up-to-date with the latest Windows 10 and Microsoft Office 365 features.

Microsoft Office 365 also has a highly relevant unified communication and collaboration platform called Microsoft Teams. Microsoft Teams combines persistent workplace chat, video meetings, file storage, and application integration. It can be used as the hub for teamwork in office or school environments.

Learn more about how you can maximize employee productivity with the entire Microsoft Productivity Suite. Don’t work harder. Work smarter.

Microsoft 365 and Office 365 Resources:

 

Small Business Security Systems


With many small businesses having to close temporarily due to stay-at-home orders across the nation, you may be considering a physical security system for your business. Finding a reliable system that fits your budget and is easy to install and use is key. Consolidated offers a small business security solution powered by SimpliSafeTM to keep you connected to what’s happening at your business – even if you or your employees aren’t there. And right now, get a limited-time offer on a FREE SimpliCam + 2 months of FREE Professional Monitoring. Check pricing and get more information on a small business security surveillance system.

 

Online Marketing


It’s important to consider marketing your business in new and different ways. We offer expert support with online local search marketing, website creation and management, social media, and online display advertising. Because you may have new hours of operation or you may even be temporarily closed, your customers need to understand how they can still do business with you.

Here are some ways Consolidated can help you continue to build your brand awareness and acquire new customers while they may not be visiting you in person.

  • Let us help you with organic search, paid search and social media so you can join the conversation and stay connected with your current and future customers.
  • While it’s not so much business as usual right now, let us take this time to create a professional website presence for your business.
  • Social media is more useful than ever right now. Get custom, quality content on Facebook with up to eight monthly posts through our Social Media Promotion service. Account Monitoring will help you know when your business is getting mentioned, good and bad, so you can solve complaints before they became problems. And you’ll have monthly access to dedicated social media experts to discuss your strategy as you go.
  • With Search Engine Optimization services from Consolidated, you’ll get placement in over 40 directories, up to 7 blog posts a month, and a social media presence on every major platform. Our blend of products and services is the very best way to drive qualified customer traffic to your website. Our team of experts will be on hand to answer questions and tailor your strategy for optimum results. Learn more about SEO services for your business.
  • Pay-per-click (PPC) or paid search drives customers to your site from paid ads on search engines like Google. Consolidated helps your business test different keywords and make sure to target customers searching in your market. PPC is a way to get search results quickly in the Sponsored Ads section of Google.