For many companies, T1 lines have become a standard over time. Larger corporations adopted them early on for dedicated internet access, while smaller businesses often turned to T1 lines after encountering limitations with shared bandwidth services like DSL and Cable. The only drawback to T1 lines was their cost—or was it?
](If you associate T1 lines with exorbitant prices, your perception might be outdated. Less than ten years ago, a monthly fee of $1,000 for a standard T1 line wasn’t unusual. However, T1 service types and pricing have always varied by location. Currently, prices have fallen to about one-third of that amount in most areas across the country.
This price reduction is attributed to the service’s maturity, deregulation leading to increased competition among carriers, and the emergence of new technologies vying for your bandwidth budget.
If it meets your requirements, there’s never been a better opportunity to adopt T1 line service. Let’s explore how T1 lines function, their applications, and how to determine if it’s the right fit for your business.
Developed by Bell System for telephone trunking, T1 is a well-established telecom technology. Initially forming the foundation of digital phone service, it was later adapted for data transmission. Decades of experience have made T1 a widely understood, available, and well-supported technology. Carriers prioritize T1 as a tariffed telecom service, often accompanied by a Service Level Agreement (SLA) outlining availability guarantees, outage response times, and average repair durations.
T1 lines are designed for deployment on two pairs of standard telephone wire: one for transmission (upload) and the other for reception (download). This symmetrical bandwidth service provides equal upload and download speeds simultaneously (full duplex), a feature inherent in its design to support full-duplex phone calls.
Telephone trunking was the primary purpose of T1 lines. A single T1 line can accommodate up to 24 individual phone conversations on separate, synchronized channels, similar to business phone lines. Using a channel bank, these 24 channels can be converted to 24 analog phone lines.
ISDN PRI, or T1 PRI, is another widely used T1 line configuration. While it also divides the line into 24 channels, 23 are dedicated to phone lines, reserving one for signaling and data transmission, such as Caller ID. Many PBX phone systems utilize ISDN PRI as a direct trunk line connection.
When used for data transport, the concept of channels becomes irrelevant, utilizing the entire line’s capacity for data packet transmission. With a payload capacity of 1.536 Mbps and an actual line speed of 1.544 Mbps, the remaining 8 Kbps are allocated for line synchronization and maintenance. A T1 line is generally considered to offer 1.5 Mbps of bandwidth.
This bandwidth enables Dedicated Internet Access (DIA). “Dedicated” signifies exclusive bandwidth usage, allowing you to consume as much or as little as needed without sharing with other users.
Point-to-point connections between business locations frequently rely on T1 lines. One specialized application is transmitting digitized audio from radio studios to distant transmitter sites. Cellular wireless towers also rely on T1 as the primary backhaul technology to connect to telephone switching systems.
Have T1 line costs become appealing enough for your business? If so, consider comparing it with the newer Ethernet over Copper (EoC), often offering double the bandwidth at a similar price. When available, EoC provides an even better value proposition. Request quotes for EoC and T1 line services at your business locations today.
