Innovation is about taking risks and getting there first. It’s about providing services that customers want and need – before they know they want and need them. Innovators have a reputation for being leaders where others merely follow. ONRAMP has established a long history of innovation, bringing scores of new Internet and networking services to West Alabama ahead of trends and competitors.

For over eight years, ONRAMP has blazed a trail into the electronic frontier by offering the commercial T1′s, server colocation, DS3 bandwidth and Tuscaloosa’s first DSL network. Along the way, ONRAMP has developed a network of services with local access and local support in several West Alabama communities including Fayette, Greene, Lamar, Marion, Perry, Pickens, and Tuscaloosa counties.

Since becoming the first West Alabama Internet Service Provider in December 1994, ONRAMP has consistantly been there first with the speed and technology to give its customers a competitive edge in business. Here is a list of the many innovations that ONRAMP has brought to West Alabama:

• First to offer direct connections to the Internet (12/1994),
• First to offer dial-up Internet access (12/1994),
• First with Basic Rate ISDN connections (9/1994),
• First with a Tier 1 backbone connection, SURA/NET (12/1994),
• First to deliver T1 connectivity to a subscriber (12/1995),
• First with backbone server colocation (3/1996),
• First with an intrastate backbone serving multiple POPs (4/1996),
• First with Internet POP in Fayette County (4/1996),
• First with Internet POP in Pickens County (5/1996),
• First with Internet POP in Lamar County (6/1996),
• First to deliver a 200Mbps fiber-optic Metropolitan Area Network,
• First with 100% 56K dial-up network (8/1998),
• First to provide T1-to-subscriber access for under $300/month (3/1999),
• First with DS3 Internet backbone connectivity (8/1999),
• First to deliver a high-speed wireless DSL/ADSL network (3/2000),
• First DSL/ADSL subscriber network (4/2000),

ONRAMP is not just a data aggregator, we are a full-fledged IP and networking consulting firm. We live and breathe Internet Protocol and liberally share our knowledge with our customers. We render our knowledge and experience, at no cost, to our dedicated and business customers, and provide skilled design, contracting and improvement services at a reasonable charge.

With the only “Tier 1″ DS3 backbone connection in Tuscaloosa, we are the only provider that can satisfy the bandwidth-thirsty T1 and DSL market, providing up to 45Mbps of online bandwidth to our customers. In fact, our T1 customers consume more bandwidth daily than all of our local competitors “Tier 1″ capacities combined. In Tuscaloosa County and West Alabama, ONRAMP owns the high-speed business market.

In the DSL market, we offer business class services and technology where our competitors concentrate on mass-market, consumer strategies. Using our exclusive secure-link DSL technology, we provide safe, point-to-point equivalency from the subscriber’s site directly to our network. In contrast, competing broadcast DSL/ADSL and cable products mix customers in the same insecure broadcast networks, rendering your data and information exposed to snoopers, hackers and even competitors.

Backbone
High-speed interconnect between one POP and another. Usually much greater in capacity than any single “tributary” or customer connection.

T1 Line
A high-speed, digital, four wire telephone line capable of transmitting data at a rate of 1.5Mbps in both directions simultaneously.

T3/DS3 Line
A high-speed, fiber-optic line capable of transmitting data at a rate of up to 45Mbps in both directions, simultaneously. Alternately, a T3 can be used to carry up to 28 T1 lines in a channelized manner, or broken-up into some mixture of the two: data and voice.

ADSL
Asymetric Digital Subscriber Line. A digital telephone line or other means of digital transit that carries data faster in one direction than another. In some cases, the speed differences are inherent due to limitations to the technology used, in others, the limit is imposed to insure quality of service for subscribers.

We are members of your community, bringing local access to thousands of West Alabamians every day through our dedicated network. Our points of presence are occupied by members of the local community, not automated or unmanned computer centers. Our customers are the ultimate beneficiaries of our pioneering work: from the design and development of our own high-speed subscriber network to the design and deployment of Tuscaloosa City School System’s 200Mbps Metropolitan Area Network, our efforts translate into performance for our customers. With so many Internet firsts and a solid reputation for building high performance networks, we have set the standard for Internet businesses in West Alabama.

A Message from Our Chief Executive

“The new millenium brings new challenges and new innovations to the IT and Internet forum. Chief among these challenges in the management of an unprecidented number of high-bandwidth subscribers, precipitated by the explosion of DSL, wireless and cable modems. Many would be Internet resellers are scrambling to the new market trying to grab customers and market share without understanding the demands of high-speed Internet delivery or the specialized needs of their new customers.

The mass-market approach to Internet service, spawned by the highly-competitive dial-up resale market, simply does not work in the high-speed market if you include Quality of Service (QoS) as an important factor. Insuring that customers have available bandwidth “on-demand” is what QoS management is all about, but the mass-marketers care about only one thing: high subscription density and low operating costs.

ONRAMP meets this new challenge with an innovative approach: we deliver high QoS to our customers by catering to one market segment: the business and professional customer. We leave the least cost, lowest price consumer market to the mass-marketers where service quality is a marketing tag-line and customers are “a dime a dozen.” While they scramble for the bottom 80% of the market, we are content to provide an extraordinary service to the remaining 20%. This focus frees us to deliver great customer service and a high-speed, highly-available network connection that beats the competition in every way, and we deliver it at all a reasonable price.”