Scale Your Enterprise with WOW! Business Fiber and Voice Solutions

Welcome to the WOW! Business Evaluation Guide. As organizations increasingly rely on high-speed connectivity and cloud-based communication, selecting a regional provider that balances enterprise-grade reliability with local-market agility is critical. WOW! Business operates a robust fiber-rich network across the Midwest and Southeast United States, positioning itself as a high-value alternative to national incumbents. This guide is designed to help IT leaders and procurement officers evaluate WOW! Business’s suite of Fiber Internet, Data Networking, and Hosted Voice solutions. You will learn about their ideal customer fit, technical prerequisites, and the implementation realities of deploying their infrastructure. Whether you are looking to upgrade a single office or interconnect a regional multi-site operation, this guide provides the objective criteria needed to determine if WOW! Business is the right partner for your connectivity roadmap.

• High-Capacity Fiber Internet: Symmetrical upload and download speeds ranging from 10 Mbps to 10 Gbps, backed by Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for uptime and latency.
• Hosted Voice (UCaaS): A cloud-based PBX solution that includes features like auto-attendant, visual voicemail, and mobile integration, eliminating the need for on-premises hardware maintenance.
• Managed Wi-Fi: End-to-end management of wireless access points, providing secure employee access and customizable guest portals with analytics.
• Data Networking (Ethernet Services): Layer 2 VPN and E-LAN services to securely connect multiple office locations at wire-speed without traversing the public internet.
• Business Security: Comprehensive protection including cloud-based firewalls, DDoS mitigation, and endpoint security to safeguard the network perimeter.
• SIP Trunking: Allows businesses with existing IP-PBX systems to leverage VoIP efficiencies while maintaining their current hardware investment.

• Healthcare Clinic Expansion: A regional medical group uses WOW! Fiber to securely transmit large imaging files (PACS) between clinics and their data center while utilizing Hosted Voice for patient scheduling.
• Professional Services Firm: A mid-sized law firm replaces an aging on-premise PBX with WOW! Hosted Voice, enabling remote attorneys to use mobile apps that appear as their office line.
• Manufacturing Continuity: A factory utilizes WOW! Business Internet as a primary fiber circuit with a secondary coax or wireless backup to ensure their cloud-based ERP system never goes offline.
• Multi-Site Retail: A regional restaurant chain uses Managed Wi-Fi to provide free guest access while maintaining a secure, isolated VLAN for their POS systems and back-office operations.

• Contract-Based Tiers: Pricing is primarily driven by the length of the service agreement (typically 12, 24, 36, or 60 months), with significant discounts for longer commitments.
• Bandwidth Tiers: For internet and data services, cost is scaled based on committed information rates (CIR).
• Per-Seat Licensing: Hosted Voice is billed on a per-user, per-month basis, often categorized into 'Basic', 'Standard', and 'Premium' seats.
• NRC (Non-Recurring Charges): One-time fees for installation and activation. For fiber builds, these can be substantial but are often waived or amortized in exchange for longer contract terms.
• Bundling Discounts: Significant cost reductions are available when combining Fiber Internet with Hosted Voice or Managed Security services.

• Power & Space: A minimum of 2U of rack space and dedicated 110V power (preferably on a UPS) for the WOW! provided Network Interface Device (NID) or ONT.
• Cabling: Cat5e or Cat6 internal cabling is required for copper handoffs; Multi-mode or Single-mode fiber jumpers are needed for SFP handoffs.
• Voice Hardware: For Hosted Voice, IP-enabled handsets (Poly or Yealink) are required. Existing analog phones may require an ATA (Analog Telephone Adapter).
• Environment: Installation area must be climate-controlled to prevent equipment overheating.
• IP Addressing: Documentation of current internal IP schemes if requesting static IP blocks to avoid routing conflicts.

• Site Access Coordination: Organizations must provide clear access to internal wiring closets (MPOE) and secure necessary landlord permissions for fiber lateral builds if fiber is not already on-net.
• IT Point of Contact: While WOW! offers managed services, a designated internal lead is required to coordinate IP schema requirements, firewall configurations, and porting schedules for voice services.
• Process Readiness: For voice migrations, businesses must have a clean inventory of current phone numbers and billing records (CSRs) to prevent delays during the Porting Authority (LNP) process.
• Stakeholder Buy-in: Financial stakeholders should be prepared for potential construction NRCs (Non-Recurring Charges) if the business location requires a new fiber build-out.

• Discovery & Site Survey (Weeks 1-2): Engineering review of the physical location to determine if the site is "On-Net" or requires a construction build.
• Contracting & Design (Weeks 2-3): Finalization of service tiers, IP requirements, and voice hardware selections.
• Construction/Permitting (Weeks 4-12+): This phase varies significantly. If fiber is already in the building, this is bypassed. If a street-to-suite build is needed, local permitting and physical trenching can take 60-90 days.
• Equipment Install & Testing (1 Week): Installation of the ONT (Optical Network Terminal), routers, and Hosted Voice handsets.
• Go-Live & Porting (1 Day): The final cutover of internet services and the porting of existing phone numbers, typically scheduled during off-hours to minimize disruption.

• 24/7/365 Business Service Center: A dedicated US-based support team specifically for business customers, separate from residential queues.
• Local Account Management: Dedicated account executives and sales engineers based in the local market to assist with scaling and solution design.
• On-Site Technicians: Local dispatch capabilities for physical hardware repairs or line maintenance within the WOW! footprint.
• Online Customer Portal: Self-service tools for viewing invoices, managing support tickets, and monitoring bandwidth utilization.
• Service Level Agreements (SLAs): Enterprise fiber products include formal commitments on "Mean Time to Repair" (MTTR) and network availability.

• Voice Integration: Hosted Voice services integrate with mobile devices via the MaX UC app and offer CRM connectors for platforms like Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics.
• Network Hardware: Services are delivered via standard Ethernet handoffs (RJ-45 or SFP), making them compatible with virtually any modern enterprise firewall (Cisco, Fortinet, Palo Alto).
• SD-WAN Compatibility: WOW! Business fiber can serve as the primary or secondary transport for third-party SD-WAN orchestrators.
• API/Data Access: For enterprise-grade accounts, BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) peering is supported for organizations managing their own IP space.

• Network Security: Core network features built-in DDoS monitoring and mitigation to prevent volumetric attacks from disrupting service.
• Physical Security: Data centers and headends are monitored 24/7 with restricted biometric or badge access.
• Compliance Support: WOW! Business services can be configured to support HIPAA and PCI-DSS compliant environments, though the customer remains responsible for end-to-end application-level compliance.
• Managed Firewall: Offers Unified Threat Management (UTM) features including intrusion prevention, URL filtering, and anti-malware at the gateway.
• Private Networking: Ethernet Private Lines (EPL) provide physical-layer-like security by keeping traffic entirely off the public internet.