By: John Shepler
Your trusty T1 line has served you well for years, maybe even decades. You appreciate its reliability, consistent bandwidth, minimal lag, and decreasing contract prices. However, the bandwidth is becoming a constraint. While 1.5 Mbps was sufficient a decade ago, it’s no longer enough. Can you maintain T1’s performance with faster speeds? Absolutely!
What Makes a Good T1 Replacement
You had good reasons for choosing T1 when you signed your first contract. DSL was popular for businesses, but it was notoriously unreliable. T1 was a “professional grade” service from the start, designed by telephone companies for telephone companies, not a cheap “consumer” service offered to businesses.
T1’s fixed 1.5 Mbps bandwidth was determined by the need to combine 24 individual analog phone lines into a single digital equivalent without sacrificing voice quality, including minimal latency. T1 also had to work over existing twisted pair telephone lines, regardless of length. As a result, T1 is available in remote areas where other options are unavailable.
T1 is still used to provide multiple phone lines for key telephone and PBX systems. It has been expanded to support packet-based digital networks, such as point-to-point dedicated lines and dedicated Internet access. Many T1 lines include a Service Level Agreement (SLA) that guarantees service availability and performance.
Bonded T1
One way to increase T1 bandwidth is to simply add more lines. Most businesses want that bandwidth combined, which carriers can easily do through a process called bonding. All T1s to be bonded must be from the same provider. Two T1 lines provide 3 Mbps, four lines provide 6 Mbps, and so on. You can bond up to 10 or 12 T1 lines, but the cost becomes prohibitive unless this is your only option.
Ethernet over Copper
Ethernet over Copper employs the same twisted pair infrastructure as T1, but with a newer modulation technology. You sacrifice the unlimited distance advantage in exchange for significantly higher bandwidths, typically up to 10 or 20 Mbps, at lower costs. EoC can provide the service you require at a fraction of the cost of bonded T1 lines if you are located in a densely populated area.
DS3 Bandwidth
DS3 is a T-Carrier specification that also defines T1. DS3 provides 45 Mbps, which is sufficient for many businesses. Dedicated lines, low latency, and dependable service are comparable to T1 lines. The only caveat is that DS3’s higher bandwidth is not supported over twisted pair copper. Instead, DS3 travels over a fiber optic backbone to the curb, then to your router’s DS3 interface card via a pair of small-diameter coaxial copper lines.
Fiber Optic Service
Fiber service was once prohibitively expensive for most businesses, even if it was available… and it frequently wasn’t. That has completely changed. SONET technology, which transports DS3 and higher bandwidth services such as OC3, OC 12, and OC48, has become more widely available and less expensive. Ethernet over Fiber is a newer technology that provides the same high-quality service at a much lower cost. Many businesses order 10 Mbps Ethernet over Fiber service and then easily upgrade to 50 or 100 Mbps as needed. Bandwidths of up to 1 Gbps and even 10 Gbps are widely available.
What about Cable, Satellite, Wireless, Etc?
These less expensive services provide shared rather than dedicated bandwidth. That is a major factor in their lower cost. The majority are asymmetrical, meaning that upload speeds are significantly slower than download speeds. Satellite has significant latency issues, and both satellite and wireless services frequently have data caps. However, many businesses save a significant amount of money each month, especially if they combine two low-cost broadband services in an SD-WAN or Software Defined Wide Area Network. It all depends on the demands of your applications and whether you prefer to connect locations without using the Internet. Seek expert advice before selecting the best bandwidth option for your company’s needs.
