Customer Stories

Covad’s Bandwidth Helps to Increase the Speed of Sound

“Covad DSL has freed me from the stress of last-minute CD burning and FedEx scrambles. Now I can spend more time doing my real work.”
—Jeff Essex, Owner
Audiosyncrasy

For Audiosyncrasy, a San Francisco Bay Area-based multimedia company, the speed of sound is significantly faster than it used to be. Impossible, you say? Not when the “sound” is a professional-quality audio file traveling along the company’s Covad DSL connection.

Owner Jeff Essex produces audio for Web sites, CD-ROM games, corporate video, and cell phones. He supports an impressive clientele-including Disney and a contractor who produces trade show videos for Oracle and PeopleSoft-all while working remotely from his home office. Critical to the success of his business is the ability to quickly and reliably send large audio files to clients.

“I have clients in Los Angeles, Seattle, and New York,” says Essex, “and audio files can be massive. CD-quality audio takes 10 MB per minute of sound. If you’re trying to send a three-minute piece to someone, that’s a 30 MB file.”

Reliable Covad DSL facilitates on-time deliveries

According to Essex, the fast-paced multimedia industry is not tolerant of missed deadlines. But until he had Covad DSL, Essex’s file-transfer options were unreliable and slow. Essex had an ISDN connection, but in addition to being expensive (the service requires a special phone line), ISDN is slow compared to DSL.

“I have a vivid memory of trying to send a file to a client by a certain time using ISDN,” says Essex. “I was watching my progress meter, saw that that the file had 25 more minutes to go, and realized that I was not going to make my deadline.”

Essex also used overnight courier services to send CDs and DAT cassettes to his clients: a process that he describes as time-consuming and stressful.

“I had to give myself two extra hours to burn the CD and make sure that it was working well. Then I had to make it to the FedEx box. If the FedEx box was closed, I had to drive to the FedEx office. If I missed it by a minute, I had to drive all the way to the airport to deliver my package. Covad DSL has freed me from the stress of last-minute CD burning and FedEx scrambles. Now I can spend more time doing my real work.”

Covad DSL: Service you can trust

Essex didn’t bother to try any DSL providers other than Covad-and has no regrets about that decision. “I bypassed other service providers,” says Essex, “and I’m really glad that I did. I kept hearing horror stories about two-day outages with other providers. It’s been a joy to keep my productivity up while my poor friends who have DSL through the local phone company are struggling with downtime and delays.”

“Time is money,” says Essex. “I can’t afford to have my line go down frequently. Now, I don’t even worry about that.”

Quicker turnaround times lead to greater productivity

The multimedia industry eagerly welcomed DSL when it became available just a few years ago-and nowadays cannot live without it. “Clients have readjusted their expectations,” Essex explains. “Now they simply expect to be able to make changes at the last minute.”

“I am now able to meet the faster deadlines that have become commonplace,” says Essex. “Covad DSL enables me to provide instant turnaround as conveniently and reliably as if each of my clients were next door to my house.”