Low-cost help with telecomm for start-up?

Fri Jun 20 09:31:08 PDT 2003

For the last couple of moths, I've been working (on an equity-only
basis, same as everyone else involved) with a start-up.  Folks
typically do a fair amount of work from home; when folks need to
gather, the site is a carriage-house in back of the residence of
one of the senior managers.  That is also where most of the computers
are.

It appears that we may have an opportunity to move into some "real"
office-space near the southern border of Belmont, just east of the
Bayshore Freeway (between Hobee's & Jameco, for folks who know the
area).  The previous tenants left behind their patch-panel, interior
wiring, a Mitel PBX, and various office furnishings.  (I spent most
of yesterday verifying that the wiring did, in fact, work and
documenting the status -- as well as making a couple of small
adjustments to some of the 66 ("punch-down") blocks to make things
a bit more nearly consistent.)

While I think I can cope with the internal wiring, we're going to
need to connect this space to the Outside World in order for it to
actually be useful.  And there are aspects of telecomm provisioning
that come pretty close to Black Magic.  :-}

Further, this exercise, at best, has a rather constrained budget --
certainly for now.

I need to figure out what to do about an Internet connection (we had
been making do with ADSL at the carriage house) and trunk (as well as
other) provisioning for the Mitel PBX.

Does anyone has suggestions for telecomm folks who would be willing
and able to work with such a company?  I'd prefer to work with folks
who are near the area.

Thanks,
david
-- 
David H. Wolfskill				david at catwhisker.org
Based on what I have seen to date, the use of Microsoft products is not
consistent with reliability.  I recommend FreeBSD for reliable systems.