Re: [PLUG] T1 Connections..

[Bill Jonas <bj@netaxs.com>]

On Wed, 28 Jun 2000 DrexelDG@aol.com wrote:

>    We are a small business.. and are wondering if it is a viable option to 
>get a T1.  I have heard it can replace your phone line... and serveral of 
>them.  Example.. we have 10 lines coming in, and I was informed today that a 
>T1 can replace all of them.  Now that makes sense.... do the rates go up for 
>it when that happens?  Is there a bill based on how many calls you do?  What 
>about long distance calls?  

Leased lines work a little differently than regular phone lines.

You pay the phone company (who most people get their leased lines from,
although with deregulation you can get lines from other companies such
as PECO/Hyperion) based on the mileage from your place to their CO
(central office), and from the CO to your ISP.  All that Bell (or
whoever, but I'll stick to saying Bell for the sake of clarity and
simplicity) does is provide you with a pipe to the ISP, who then
provides your actual internet service.

When you order a T-1, Bell, after a (usually seemingly
interminable) period of time, runs "dry copper" (just a copper
twisted-pair wire, with no other services on it) to your place of
business.  They then connect to the ISP (how they do it depends on the
type of T-1 you get).  Bell will charge you for the line, and the ISP
charges you for the bandwidth.

The main types of T-1 are Point-to-Point (PtP) and frame relay.  The
main differences are a PtP pretty much directly connects you to your
ISP, while the other two connect you through various "clouds" of lines
(think: I get a web page from your company web server; the connection is
established across the internet, which is represented by a cloud, most
of the time, in diagrams).  The latter is less expensive, but the former
has lower latency (although they both have the same bandwidth).

T-1s come with a fixed charge per month, and you cannot make voice calls
over them (unless you do something like Voice over IP); it's just a data
connection.

>We only have a hand full of CPUs so we really dont need all that much speed.. 
>but we would, like just about everyone else, be intrested in saving money.

Well, a T-1 could certainly replace all 10 data lines.  Assuming you
have 56K modems, that's 560Kb/s total bandwidth you have right now.  A
full T-1 provides ~1.5Mb/s, or roughly 3 times what you have now.  And
you still need voice lines.

As far as cost savings, you won't see any.  Assuming you pay
$100/month/phone line (on the high side) for basic service, not counting
long distance, that's a total of $1,000/month.  A T-1 will cost around
1.5-2 times that much, depnding on who you go with and whether you get a
PtP, FR, or SMDS (Frame Relay tends to be cheapest).  You can also get a
"fractional T-1" for less money, but you pay the same amount to Bell.  
The provider charges less because you don't use as much bandwidth, but
it's not significant.

If it's cost savings you want, go with DSL.  ADSL is the cheapest,
running less than $100/month for ~1.5Mb/s download speeds (but I believe
this is residential).  Commercial SDSL (which provides the same speed
upstream as well as down) should be around $100-$200/month for the
lowest speeds, which would provide you with some savings.  Part of what
you're paying for, though, with a T-1 is the guaranteed response time if
there are problems with your circuit; generally, it's a guaranteed
dispatch within 4 hours if the problems persist.  Compare that with DSL,
where the attitude seems to be "we'll get around to it if we feel like
it".  :)  (My fiancee's DSL was down for a week shortly after she got
it, and it was like, "Well, we're sorry, there's not a whole lot we can
do.  Our T-3 into the area is down. (!)")

>Any information would be helpful.  Thanks

Hope I was of some help.

Bill
-- 
>Ever heard of .cshrc?             | "Linux means never having to delete
That's a city in Bosnia. Right?    |  your love mail." -- Don Marti
(Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc  |  http://www.billjonas.com/
on the intuitiveness of commands.) |  http://www.harrybrowne.org/




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