ShopForT1.com today announced the grand launch of the long anticipated Real-Time quote engine designed to give the T1 shopper instant feedback, with 95% accurate loop pricing. Real time T1 prices have not existed until now. Many brokers claim to deliver real time information but the closest anyone has come to real time has been a page that you can check back and see vendors fill in prices the following 48 hours from when you entered your request.

"The real-time shopping model works" commented Adam Edwards, CEO of ShopForT1.com. "The travel industry is a perfect example of how the internet can enable everyday people to access very complicated databases. Now, we are pleased to bring instant gratification to those looking to price T1 lines." Apart from allowing people to research rates, ShopForT1.com also has a number of other unique features; most notably the ability to track leads referred by online affiliates and direct them to one of many part-time "closer" agents for personal care. This functionality allows ShopForT1.com to improve the shopping experience, opens the door for online affiliates to earn residual commissions by driving traffic, and manages professional part-time sales agents from all over the counrty.

"Many people have asked how exactly we figure out T1 pricing, since it is so sensitive to the geographic location of each customer with relation to the carriers' physical equipment. Our T1 Quote software is able to calculate the distance from any location in the continental United States to any of our providers' Points of Presence (POPs). From there, we use proprietary pricing algorithms to convert the distance into a price" commented Patrick Oborn, CTO of ShopForT1.com.

Telecommunications contracts can be much like a marriage and as we all know there are good and bad marriages. The fact is, when you enter into a telecommunications contract with a T1 provider for reasonalble amount of bandwidth or voice service you will have to enter into a long term contract. Telecommunications contracts for T1's and T3's typically range from 1 years to 3 years. Anything longer than a 3 year contract is usually only seen in very large applicatons like OC3 and OC12 or complex frame relay connections with many nodes. While the term of the contract will not be a problem if you have the right provider, the contract could prove extrememly burdomsome with the wrong provider.

We suggest using a broker to walk you through your options and show you the providers and services available. A broker or independent agent can help reduce the time it takes you to shop around for a T1 provider by asking you the questions once and searching through multiple providers to get the service that is right for you. The agent helps steer clear of the bias you will receive when speaking with one vendor as the agent will be paid no matter which service you choose. As the agent doesn't work with a specific provider like AT&T or Sprint, he or she will not push you in that direction if they are not right for you.

Remeber that the t1 provider you select will be your partner for quite some time so take caution in your decision. The worst part of being with a bad provider is the fact that it will affect your business. Dropped calls or an internet connection that goes down can be disastrous to a business. We found that the larger companies like AT&T and Sprint will release companies from long term contracts it if is shown that the voice or data T1 service was faulty on a regular basis, however the release from such a contract will not help recoup the damages of the lost calls and e-mails from the poor service. When shopping for a T1 provider we suggest using a broker and asking for referals from current customers to give you an indication of what you can expect.