There are a ton of great ways to reduce your business’s overhead costs. If you employ these tips and tricks, and still find your utility bills are too high, then you’ll absolutely want to perform a Utility Bill Audit. Call 877-209-0021
“Tune-up” your heating, ventilating and air-conditioning (HVAC) system with an annual maintenance contract. Even a new ENERGY STAR qualified HVAC system, like a new car, will decline in performance without regular maintenance. A contract automatically ensures that your HVAC contractor will provide “pre-season” tune-ups before each cooling and heating season. You save energy and money, and your system may last years longer with minimal costs for yearly maintenance fees.
Regularly change (or clean if reusable) HVAC filters every month during peak cooling or heating seasons. New filters usually only cost a few dollars. Dirty filters cost more to use, overwork the equipment and result in lower indoor air quality.
Control direct sun through windows, depending on the season and local climate. During cooling season, block direct heat gain from the sun shining through glass on the East and especially West sides of the facility. Depending on your facility, options such as “solar screens,” “solar films,” awnings, and vegetation can help keep facilities more cool. Over time, trees can attractively shade the facility, and help clean the air. Interior curtains or drapes can help, but it’s best to prevent the summer heat from getting past the glass and inside. During heating season, with the sun low in the South, unobstructed southern windows can contribute solar heat gained during the day.
Use fans to maintain comfortable temperature, humidity and air movement, and save energy year round. Moving air can make a somewhat higher temperature and/or humidity feel comfortable. Fans can help delay or reduce the need for air conditioning, and a temperature setting of only three to five degrees higher can feel as comfortable with fans. Each degree of higher temperature can save about 3 percent on cooling costs. When the temperature outside is more comfortable than inside, a “box fan” in the window, or large “whole facility” fan in the attic can push air out and pull in comfortable air from the outside.
Plug leaks with weather stripping and caulking. Caulking and weather stripping let you manage your ventilation, which is the deliberate controlled exchange of stuffy inside air for fresher outdoor air. To learn more about indoor air quality in your facility visit the Environmental Protection Agency’s EPA Indoor Air Quality.
Install switch plate occupancy sensors in proper locations to automatically turn off lighting when no one is present and back on when people return. Even good equipment can be installed wrong, so don’t install the sensor behind a coat rack, door, bookcase, etc. It must be able to “see” an approaching person’s motion to turn on the light before or as they enter an unlit area.
Adjust lighting to your actual needs; use free “daylight” during the day.
To prevent glare, eyestrain and headaches, do not “over-light.” Too much light can be as bad for visual quality as too little light – and it costs a lot more.
Install ENERGY STAR qualified exit signs. These exit signs can dramatically reduce maintenance by eliminating lamp replacement, and can save up to $10 dollars per sign annually in electricity costs while preventing up to 500 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions.
Consider upgrading to T8 (1″ diameter) fluorescent lamp tubes with solid-state electronic ballasts that are more efficient than older T12 (1.5″ diameter) tubes with magnetic ballasts.
Always buy ENERGY STAR qualified products for your small business. The ENERGY STAR mark indicates the most efficient computers, printers, copiers, refrigerators, televisions, windows, thermostats, ceiling fans, and other appliances and equipment.
Turning off machines when they are not in use can result in enormous energy savings. There is a common misconception that screen savers reduce energy use by monitors; they do not. Automatic switching to sleep mode or manually turning monitors off is always the better energy-saving strategy.
To maximize savings with a laptop, put the AC adapter on a power strip that can be turned off (or will turn off automatically); the transformer in the AC adapter draws power continuously, even when the laptop is not plugged into the adapter.
Common misconceptions sometimes account for the failure to turn off equipment. Many people believe that equipment lasts longer if it is never turned off. This incorrect perception carries over from the days of older mainframe computers.
Consider buying a laptop for your next computer upgrade; they use much less energy than desktop computers, resulting in long-term savings.
Many appliances continue to draw a small amount of power when they are switched off. These “phantom” loads occur in most appliances that use electricity, such as VCRs, televisions, stereos, computers, and kitchen appliances. In the average home, 75 percent of the electricity used to power home electronics is consumed while the products are turned off. This can be avoided by unplugging the appliance, or using a power strip and the strip’s on/off switch to cut all power to the appliance.
Unplug battery chargers when the batteries are fully charged or the chargers are not in use.
Studies have shown that using rechargeable batteries for products like cordless phones and PDAs is more cost effective than throwaway batteries. If you must use throwaways, check with your trash removal company about safe disposal options.
Purchase ENERGY STAR qualified commercial food service equipment. For example, qualified refrigerators and freezers can save over 45% of the energy used by conventional models, which equals as much as $140 annually for refrigerators and $100 for freezers; deep fryers can save between $60 and $180 per year; hot food holding cabinets can save up to $280 per year; and steam cookers can save between $450 and $820 per year depending on fuel.
For existing refrigerators, clean refrigerator coils twice a year and replace door gaskets if a dollar bill easily slips out when closed between the door’s seals.
Have large and walk-in refrigeration systems serviced at least annually. This includes cleaning, refrigerant top off, lubrication of moving parts, and adjustment of belts. This will help ensure efficient operation and longer equipment life.
Consider retrofitting existing refrigerators and display cases with anti-sweat door heater controls, and variable speed evaporator fan motors and controls.
Energy Saving Tips: Vehicles Save money by improving the fuel economy of your business vehicles. Use the links below to find information and tools that can help you get started. Fuel Economy
Fix leaks. Small leaks add up to many gallons of water and dollars wasted each month. Water conservation saves energy and money.
Use water-saving faucets and showerheads and urinals to save water.
Install an insulation blanket on water heaters seven years of age or older, and insulate the first 3 feet of the heated water “out” pipe on both old and new units.
If buying a new water heater, always buy the most efficient model possible. In areas of infrequent use, consider “tankless” water heaters to reduce “standby” storage costs and waste.
Set water temperature only as hot as needed (110-120 degrees) to prevent scalds and save energy (check local codes for specific temperatures).
When landscaping, practice xeriscaping by using plants native to your climate that require minimal watering and possess better pest resistance. If local code allows, consider diverting “gray water” for irrigation.
As Telecom and Cloud Consultants, we may not select Salesforce as the best solution for every business, but we have to hand it to them… they do have the best video description of cloud computing out there… If you need help navigating through all of the various cloud solutions available, we can help. Call 877-209-0021
This article is just another example of how absolutely essential it is to have all telecommunications, cloud services and technical components SECURE. It costs more in the long run to be faced with destroyed or unusable data. To be sure that your hospital or medical facility’s security is secure, Applied Utility Auditors LLC, can provide a thorough test of your current security levels.
While it was not the first hacked organization to acquiesce to attackers’ demands, the California hospital that paid $17,000 in ransom to hackers to regain control of its computer system was unusual in one notable way: It went public with the news.
Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center relented to the demands, President Allen Stefanek said, because he believed it was the “quickest and most efficient way” to free the Los Angeles hospital’s network, which was paralyzed for about 10 days.
That announcement sparked fears Thursday among hospitals and security experts that it would embolden hackers to launch more “ransomware” attacks and calls in California for tougher laws. “It’s no different than if they took all the patients and held them in one room at gunpoint,” said California State Senator Robert Hertzberg, who on Thursday introduced legislation to make a ransomware attack equivalent to extortion and punishable by up to four years in prison.
Usually embarrassment and a desire to discourage hackers keep attacked companies quiet. Hollywood Presbyterian did not say why it made the disclosure, but its hand may have been forced by spreading rumors a week after the hack. Stefanek confirmed the cyber attack after at least one doctor appeared to have told local media.
In addition, he disputed media reports the 434-bed hospital had faced a ransom demand of $3.4 million, far more than the amount paid in the hard-to-trace cyber-currency bitcoin.
In a ransomware attack, hackers infect PCs with malicious software that encrypts valuable files so they are inaccessible, then offer to unlock the data only if the victim pays a ransom.
The hack at Hollywood Presbyterian forced doctors to use pen and paper in an age of computerization. News reports said its fax lines were jammed because normal e-mail communication was unavailable, and some emergency patients had to be diverted to other hospitals.
Investigators said administrators were so alarmed that they may have paid ransom first and called police later.
Medical facilities in the area plan to consult cyber security experts on how to protect themselves, the Hospital Association of Southern California said. “Hospitals are certainly now aware of ransomware more than they ever were before, and this has become a very real threat,” said spokeswoman Jennifer Bayer.
Some experts said ransomware encryption can be so hard to crack that victims feel they have little choice but to pay if they want their systems back. The hackers’ success could also prompt other hospitals to make quick payments to avoid the disruption and bad publicity Hollywood Presbyterian faced.
“Our number one fear is that this now pretty much opens the door for other people to pay,” said Bob Shaker, a manager at cyber security firm Symantec Corp.
‘CAT AND MOUSE’
He knew of at least 20 other attacks on healthcare facilities in the past year and hundreds more in other industries that had been kept secret.
Some of those put patients at risk and affected infusion pumps that deliver chemotherapy drugs, risking patient overdoses, he said.
Because hackers hide their identities and demand payment in bitcoin, authorities may have to work harder to find them than if they used old-fashioned methods.
But cyber-crime experts say that they can still be traced.
“The public nature of the network does give law enforcement an angle to help defeat them,” said Jonathan Levin, co-founder of Chainalysis, a New York company working with bitcoin users. “But it’s a game of cat and mouse.”
Ransomware is big business for cyber criminals and security professionals. Although ransoms typically are less than the hospital paid, $200 to $10,000, victims of a ransomware known as CryptoWall reported losses over $18 million from April 2014 to June 2015, the FBI said.
Ransomware attacks climbed sharply in 2014, when Symantec observed some 8.8 million cases, more than double the previous year. IBM said that last year more than half of all customer calls reporting cyber attacks involved ransomware.
To be properly vetted a cloud provider needs a reputable CPA firm to perform this certification, and the usual cost is between $75,000 and $100,000.
Are you sure your cloud provider obtain this certification?
Learn About the SSAE16 History here, or read on to learn more about Service Organization Control Reports in the words of SSAE16.com:
Service Organization Control (SOC) reports
One of the most effective ways a service organization can communicate information about its controls is through a Service Organization Control (SOC) report. A SOC 1 report focuses on controls at the service organization that would be useful to user entities and their auditors for the purpose of planning a financial statement audit of the user entity and evaluating internal control over financial reporting at the user entity. The SOC 1 report contains the service organization’s system description and an assertion from management. In addition, the independent service auditor (i.e., CPA firm) opinion or service auditor report is included. There are two types of SOC 1 reports: Type I and Type II. A Type I report is intended to cover the service organization’s system description at a specific point in time (e.g. June 30, 2012). A Type II report not only includes the service organization’s system description, but also includes detailed testing of the service organization’s controls over a minimum six month period (e.g. January 1, 20xx to June 30, 20xx) – also known as Tests of Operating Effectiveness. The contents of each type of SOC 1 report is described in the following table:
In a Type I report, the service auditor will express an opinion and report on the subject matter provided by the management of the service organization as to (1) whether the service organization’s description of its system fairly presents the service organization’s system that was designed and implemented as of a specific date; and (2) whether the controls related to the control objectives stated in management’s description of the service organization’s system were suitably designed to achieve those control objectives – also as of a specified date. In a Type II report, the service auditor will express an opinion and report on the subject matter provided by the management of the service organization as to (1) whether the service organization’s description of its system fairly presents the service organization’s system that was designed and implemented throughout the specified period; (2) whether the controls related to the control objectives stated in management’s description of the service organization’s system were suitably designed throughout the specified period to achieve those control objectives; and (3) whether the controls related to the control objectives stated in management’s description of the service organization’s system operated effectively throughout the specified period to achieve those control objectives.
SOC 2 and SOC 3 reports are designed to allow service organizations to communicate information about their system description in accordance with specific criteria related to availability, security, and confidentiality. You can read more about SOC 2 and SOC 3 reports in the Trust Services section [of SSAE16.com.]
No business can be too careful when it comes to managing overhead costs… especially when those costs relate to utility expenses. There are upwards of 100+ factors that affect utility billsand some industry estimates and studies report that as many as 70% of businesses are being overcharged by utility companies due to any number of these factors. The three biggest culprits are:
Faulty Meter Equipment Unfortunately, one of the only ways to notice a faulty meter is to know how the meter used to behave. A sudden increase or decrease in usage reflected on your bill with no external factors to attribute it to are a good indication of your meter not working properly. Even if the bill is your favor, be sure to have the faulty meter replaced immediately in order to avoid being charged a very large lump sum in the future. Conversely, if you’ve been overpaying, the utility company is required to give you a refund. is if you receive a utility bill that is much higher or much lower than what you’ve come to expect. Unfortunately, in either case, both parties must accept the results.
Incorrect Rate Class A rate class is designed to categorize users by the amount of energy they use. If you are in a “small use” rate class, but use a lot of energy, then you’ll be paying much more than necessary. It is not the responsibility of the utility company to place their customers in the appropriate rate class, and therefore, they often do not bother to check.
In order to determine if you are in the right rate class, you will want to reach out to Utility Bill Experts who deal with these issues on a daily basis.Applied Utility Auditors works on a contingency basis, so it costs nothing to determine if you are being overcharged.
Bundled Rates Never give an energy supplier a reason to estimate your rates. If you are lumped in with a number of other businesses, especially if those other businesses are less energy efficient, there is a good chance that you are being overcharged. Suppliers are certainly not known for estimating low.
If your energy supplier doesn’t use smart meters for tracking individual customer usage, you may be permitted to submit your own meter readings. Contact a Utility Bill Auditor to assess the situation and possibly secure you a refund from your energy supplier.
Applied Utility Auditors works on a contingency basis, so it costs nothing to determine if you are being overcharged.
Contact Paul Steberger of Applied Utility Auditors Today to Discuss your Utility Bill Concerns. (877) 209-0021
WASHINGTON, Dec 21 (Reuters) – Iranian hackers breached the control system of a dam near New York City in 2013, an infiltration that raised concerns about the security of the country’s infrastructure, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing former and current U.S. officials. Two people familiar with the breach told the newspaper it occurred at the Bowman Avenue Dam in Rye, New York. The small structure about 20 miles from New York City is used for flood control. The hackers gained access to the dam through a cellular modem, the Journal said, citing an unclassified Department of Homeland Security summary of the incident that did not specify the type of infrastructure.
The dam is a 20-foot-tall concrete slab across Blind Brook, about five miles from Long Island Sound. “It’s very, very small,” Rye City Manager Marcus Serrano told the newspaper. He said FBI agents visited in 2013 to ask the city’s information-technology manager about a hacking incident. The dam breach was difficult to pin down, and federal investigators at first thought the target was a much larger dam in Oregon, the Journal said.
The breach came as hackers linked to the Iranian government were attacking U.S. bank websites after American spies damaged an Iranian nuclear facility with the Stuxnet computer worm. It illustrated concerns about many of the old computers controlling industrial systems, and the White House was notified of the infiltration, the Journal said.
The newspaper said the United States had more than 57,000 industrial control systems connected to the Internet, citing Shodan, a search engine that catalogs each machine. Homeland Security spokesman S.Y. Lee would not confirm the breach to Reuters. He said the department’s 24-hour cybersecurity information-sharing hub and an emergency response team coordinate responses to threats to and vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure.
Like any other utility expense, street lights can cause unnecessary overhead costs to the towns and cities who run them. So what does one need in order to perform a Street Light Audit?
The Street light Audit Checklist:
1.Does the city have any metered street lights, or are they all unmetered?
2.An inventory of street lights
3.A current month’s copy of all bills associated with street lights and outdoor/security lighting. (There may be only one, but there can be more. We received an excel spreadsheet that may have had some billing information in it, but a scanned copy of the bill(s) would be better.
4.A copy of the letter of authorization/agency (assuming it covers subs) so we can speak directly to the utility company.
5.Copies of any agreements between the DOT and the client regarding highway lighting and/or maintenance.
6.Copies of any service agreements between the utility and the client.
7.A list of outdoor (security) lighting, including number, wattage and type, if known, and whether metered or unmetered.
8.A copy of the sales tax exemption certificate for the city (seller: please leave blank)
9.Any previous electric providers that may have served the city, if applicable, and the approximate dates of service.
10.Contact Information:
oWho in the organization pays the bills?
oWho is most familiar with street lights?
oWho is the account manager at the utility company who handles the city’s account?
These are the items we will need for every city we audit for street lights and outdoor/security lighting. Not every city will have every piece of information, but if they don’t have it, it is better to make a note of the missing items, or else we will delay the audit not knowing they don’t have it.
Contact Paul Steberger of Applied Utility Auditors Today to get started. 877•209•0021
Applied Utility Auditors helps a wide range of businesses update and select the best telecom solutions for their needs. This is an example of a Cisco Call Manager Solution that moved a premise based Call manager to the cloud. It is one of many Call Manger Solutions offered by or Partners.
ABT ASSOCIATES
ABT Associates is a mission-driven, global leader in research and program implementation in the fields of health, social and environmental policy, and international development. Known for its rigorous approach to solving complex challenges, ABT Associates is regularly ranked as one of the top 20 global research firms and one of the top 40 international development innovators.
HEADQUARTERS: Cambridge, Massachusetts
EMPLOYEES: 1045 domestic, 2000 in Africa
LOCATIONS: 4 US locations
NUMBER OF SEATS: 1045
THE CHALLENGE
Abt Assoc. had been using NWN for premise-based Cisco Call Manager services. With very limited IT resources the company lacked the expertise to pull together its disparate communications tools. It was also using different collaboration tools – Cisco Jabber, Microsoft Lync and Google apps – that did not integrate with each other.
SOLUTION
We moved the voice services to VoiceMaxx CE and into the cloud. We also supplied ControlMaxx for their 20 contact center workers. Since the company was using Cisco already, the interfaces for VoiceMaxx CE were nearly identical to those of the Call Manager. InterCall also provided Abt with 3000 WebEx licenses. In order to federate their disparate messaging and presence platforms, We also implemented NextPlane, which allowed their US locations using Cisco Jabber to integrate with their Australian location, which was locked into Microsoft Lync.
YOUR SOLUTION
Every business faces unique challenges. The best solution for you may have more to do with integration of current applications than with apparent rates and fees. Applied Utility Auditors and Applied Telecom Solutions make your solution seeking simple. We know the industry inside and out, and can help you get running efficiently and effectively. Call Paul Steberger today to learn more. 877-209-0021
It’s both amazing and saddening to comprehend just how often and how easy it is for a utility company to overcharge businesses and residents alike. As Elizabeth City Electric Customers found out over this holiday season, its can be as simple as employee laziness and an overeager rush to holiday vacation. In an effort to get to Christmas vacation as quickly as possible, Elizabeth City Meter Readers read the meters early for over 600 customers, including business and residential electric customers. Somehow this resulted in these customers being charged for two months worth of electricity in December rather than one. Merry Christmas Elizabeth City! Double bills for everyone!
Luckily, customers were able to spot the error and call attention to it.
In our experience at Applied Utility Auditors, these overcharges, more often than not, go unnoticed and unresolved on over-complicated utility bill statements. Luckily for our business customers, it costs nothing to have your utility bills examined for overcharges. We only get paid if you get a refund from the utility.
Resolve to not get ripped off by the utilities in the New Year. Call Paul at AUA: 877 -209-0021
By TMCnet Special GuestJoel Maloff, Vice President, Marketing, BandTel For a service that was forecast by Gartner (News – Alert) last year to be part of a more than $2 billion market segment by 2011, SIP trunking remains one of those technical phrases used in vendor circles that is marched out with pride to prospective distributors and customers and received by the marketplace with bewilderment. SIP trunking – despite the name – can be a valuable service alternative for many enterprises, and we will do our best to dispel the confusion.
In a survey commissioned by my company earlier this year, we discovered that even so-called industry experts – analysts, reporters, and others – could not agree on a definition for SIP trunking, nor could they consistently identify the leaders in delivery of SIP trunking services. However, it is not hard to understand the confusion in the general marketplace. For example, a February 2008 Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) draft document entitled “What is a Session Initiation Protocol (News – Alert) (SIP) Trunk Anyway?” provided the following definition:
The same draft also describes SIP trunking in more mainstream circles as a service for enterprises that allows connection to the PSTN as a displacement for circuit-based connections, and as a replacement for costly leased lines connecting distributed telephone systems within an enterprise.
So let’s cut through the mystery and confusion. SIP trunking, simply put, is a way for organizations to accomplish something that they already do, but for less money, with equal or better quality, and with greater functionality. It is also a way for enterprises that were too small and could not afford leased line services to achieve comparable benefits as the big boys but for much more attractive fees than previously. All of this is now achievable because of the underlying packet-switched technology of the Internet as opposed to circuit-switched architecture from the past. SIP is simply the framework that vendors and service providers have agreed to use to accomplish the completion of telephone calls and much more.
Another challenge is that SIP trunking providers differ from one another, and can roughly be grouped in the following three categories: SIP trunks via dedicated lines, SIP trunks in conjunction with hosted services, and pure SIP trunking providers.
The first group – SIP trunks via dedicated lines – includes all of those service providers that require a T-1, PRI, DSL, or other similar “circuit” for utilization of their services. Given that our definition earlier for SIP trunking was the elimination of dedicated circuits and their associated costs, this group seems to be a hybrid of past and present. The advantage offered by this group is that they can control the quality of the service from the enterprise into their network. When Internet telephony was in its infancy, this was beneficial to those organizations that could afford leased lines. Today, Internet telephony via SIP continues to achieve outstanding quality, bringing into question the value of a leased connection. Additionally, SIP trunk providers requiring a leased line for access are inherently limited in service delivery regions by the availability of such circuits. That is not the case for SIP trunk providers that can use any broadband connection to the enterprise.
The second group provides SIP trunks as an adjunct to the delivery of hosted IP PBX (News – Alert) or other comparable services. SIP trunking is secondary. Whereas SIP trunks may be quite beneficial to organizations with legacy telephone systems, this group of providers is oftentimes most interested in displacing the existing system. Furthermore, these service providers may not be able to provide services in widely dispersed geographic areas due to the deployment and scalability of their systems.
The last group – pure SIP trunk providers – has created underlying network architectures that are focused on the delivery of SIP trunking. These organizations do not compete with premises equipment implementations or providers, do not require a dedicated circuit, generally cover a wide range of locations, and are focused on delivery of excellent quality and value.
SIP trunking may not be a great service name but it is, without question, a great service with significant benefits for many enterprises worldwide.
Joel Maloff (News – Alert) serves as Vice President of Marketing for BandTel, and is responsible for creation of the product and services roadmap, marketing documentation, and communications with customers, prospects, and the industry at large. A frequent speaker at industry conferences, he has authored four books and numerous articles on Internet, business applications for Internet, network security, and international Internet development. He has also served as advisor to former Senator Al Gore and Senator John Kyl on Internet-related issues.
TMCnet publishes expert commentary on various telecommunications, IT, call center, CRM and other technology-related topics. Are you an expert in one of these fields, and interested in having your perspective published on a site that gets several million unique visitors each month? Get in touch.
