| COOPER CITY, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 27, 2006--Stephen McWilliam,
president of Florida State Realty Group in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was
one of the lucky ones. A customer of STS Telecom, a technology based telephone
company providing businesses with both state-of-the-art hosted voice over
Internet protocol (VoIP) and traditional telephone services, McWilliam's
business kept running during and after Hurricane Wilma hit, even though
his main office was without power from FPL and broadband services from
Comcast.
Thanks to services provided by STS Telecom, McWilliam simply unplugged
his VoIP handset, temporarily relocated to Orlando, and plugged into a
broadband connection there. "Even though phone service was down in Fort
Lauderdale, my current and potential clients were able to reach me at my
regular phone number as though it was business as usual. I didn't miss
one call."
Others were not as fortunate.
One of the largest Halloween costume sites, Extremehalloween.com, is
headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Since Hurricane Wilma hit the
local area just a week before Halloween, vice president Shari Maxwell scrambled
to get more than 3,000 orders out prior to the storm.
"Obviously, Halloween is our busiest time of year. It's normally when
we do our biggest volume of business," said Maxwell. "But once the storm
hit we lost power. We used generators at our warehouse to run four FedEx
computers to prepare shipments. We paid to upgrade all of our orders to
Next Day FedEx delivery to get costumes to people in time for Halloween,"
Maxwell said.
Unfortunately, it was not enough to prevent the storm from having a
dramatic impact on business.
"We lost Internet and phone access and likely missed out on more than
5,000 additional orders due to Hurricane Wilma," said Maxwell. "Business
owners should not make the same costly mistakes this hurricane season."
In 2005, Hurricane Wilma swept across Florida and left damage estimated
to cost in excess of $10 billion. With telephone service, electric, cellular
connectivity, and Internet access down for several weeks, Florida business
owners learned valuable lessons the hard way. If time is money, then down
time is missed opportunity for a business.
With the 2006 hurricane season beginning June 1st and with 17 named
storms, South Florida businesses may very well see a repeat of last year's
disruption in power and Internet services all over again. Now is the time
to prepare.
Thanks to a partnership with The NAP of the Americas (http://www.napoftheamericas.net),
a premier disaster-proof telecommunications fortress that provides interconnection
between global carriers, ISPs and others, STS Telecom is able to provide
world class reliability to their clients using VoIP, a technology that
allows phone calls to be transmitted via the Internet. With VoIP, voice
information is sent digitally rather than over the public telephone network.
Calls can be made from anywhere there is broadband connectivity. This means
that when a storm threatens, businesses can literally pack up their IP
phones and relocate to areas that are unaffected by a storm. The Nap continued
to operate throughout Hurricane Wilma without any interruptions to its
customers or critical infrastructure.
"Our clients' business can function anywhere so long as they have a
laptop and Internet access," said Keith Kramer, executive vice president
of STS Telecom. "Our service includes IP phones and a complete versatile
and customizable phone system. Business owners are no longer dependant
upon when the local telephone company can get the lines back up and running.
Business owners are now able to take control of their own telephone system.
It's revolutionary."
"Now is the time to protect your business. Don't take an unnecessary
gamble with your company's future," said Mark Amarant, chief executive
officer of STS Telecom. "The cost of a business continuity plan and a secure
technology infrastructure is minimal when compared with the potential financial
loss during and after a disaster hits. IP offers significant protection."
"Planning ahead is critical when a hurricane threatens to shut down
a business," said Jon Krutchik, president of STS Telecom. "As we brace
ourselves for another hurricane season, now is the time for South Florida
business owners to hurricane-proof their businesses," said Krutchik.
About STS Telecom
Established in 1994 as a long distance provider servicing the Florida
community, STS Telecom is a nationwide VoIP service provider. Through relationships
with Cisco Systems and Level 3, and capitalizing on cutting edge industry
leading hosted IP solutions, STS Telecom provides a full suite of software
based communications products and services including voice over IP applications,
dependable discounted local phone service, long distance service, as well
as Telephony hardware.
STS Telecom is not affiliated with BellSouth® or any other telephone
company. STS Telecom serves Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach Counties.
For additional information about STS Telecom, visit http://www.ststelecom.com. |
