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My company currently has AT&T “Xtreme” DSL service, which is advertised at a max of 6Mbps down and 384Kbps up. We also have five phone lines through them. There’s really not a lot in our area - it more or less jumps from that to fiber connections that cost a ton. I really hate our service - anyone here probably knows how lame and unreliable DSL is. On a good day it generally will speed test at around 4Mbps, but it varies often.

Recently though, a local provider stopped by talking about their T-1 connection. They’re telling me they can get us a bonded T-1 connection for 3Mbps down and 3Mbps up, as well as five phone lines, for about $75/month more than we’re at now.

I’ve never dealt with T-1, and really don’t know how it’d compare. I obviously don’t want to go to anything that will turn out slower, but something reliable and steady would be great as well. Any thoughts? Should I look into this more?

7 Spice ups
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T1 is a dedicated service. One T1 is actually 24 channels of 56K each giving you a better speed then a single channel DSL line where multiple people in the area are sharing the same bandwidth.

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Definately look into this - The big difference is that it’s dedicated - You are getting the full band up and down and you are not sharing with anyone.

If they will setup a sandbox for you to test, that would be the best.

Reliability on the T1 will be much much better than DSL, and should never go down other than scheduled maintenance.

IMHO

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We use T1’s as well as bonded T1’s and would never use DSL. However, we have six locations interconnected via static VPN tunnels to create an internetwork. When you have to send data as well as receiving it, DSL becomes impractical. Additionally with T1 service you should also get a service agreement that guarantees your circuit stays up. If your service goes down, you get a credit.

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The T1 is a dedicated line so the service iis more reliable and with DSL the speed you get depends on how far you are from the CO and how many other users are currently online as well. The only thing I would say is to check out the T1 vendor and make sure they are reputable because if you do have issues you will want to make sure they give you the attention you deserve.

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DSL? Ewww! I get 30mbps down and 5mbps up at my house, lol. We have DSL to some of our remote sites, because there are only like 4 users on it, but it still blows. Dedicated is the way to go. 75 bucks a month extra will seem like the best investment your company has made in a long time I’m sure.

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+1 for the bonded T1’s - exactly what I have - 100 users - no complaints about internet access.

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Thanks all - I’m scheduled to meet with them Thursday to go over it more. I had a feeling it’d be worth looking at.

Noitall - hehe, yeah, my service at home is cable, 15/2. I usually do my big downloads at home and carry it in on my thumb drive, it’s always worked out better that way.

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T1’s are regulated by the FCC, meaning that down time is minimized by the provider, by law. You get an actual Service Level Agreement, or SLA. Not so with DSL or cable modem access. T1’s are almost never down, at least in my area (Atlanta).

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Why would you need the 5 analog phone lines, run your voice through the T1’s, you will still have plenty left for data. Even if you were getting those lines for as low as $20 a month that’s a $100 so then the new setup should be cheaper than what you have now and far more reliable

MY company has had 2 bonded T1’s as the primary connection with a cable 15/2 connection as a backup. The T1’s were about 2/3 as fast as the cable connection.

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If I remember correctly from the last time I talked to them (which was several months ago), they do run the voice through the T1. Good to know it could compare fairly well with the cable connection, the DSL is pathetic in comparison to that.

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Remember with a T1 you will also get an SLA, which means it will be MUCH more reliable than DSL. If your DSL goes down it could be down for days. When a T1 goes down they will get it back up ASAP. That is part of the reason a T1 is so much more expensive…that SLA is not cheap.

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Have in mind that T-1 are dedicated and tended specifically for the client, so you can go with a ton of other vendors. Most will be glad to run the cabling

T-1 usually have a 3 year contract also. Each T-1 has 1.5 Mbps upload and download. A bundled T-1 basically is 2 T-1 offering 3 Mbps.

Usual T-1 vendors include Qwest (ATT&T), Verizon, Cavalier, Covad, etc).

Our main internet at corporate is a MPLS on 2 T-1 using Covad as the ISP, for 400$ a month per line.

We also have in remote locations hybrid T-1 with Cavalier. They are T-1 with 3 lines on them. 325$ for the data connection and 25$ per line.

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That’s a good deal, you should take it. The T-1 will be much more reliable.

DSL is a public highway; if there’s lots of traffic it’s slow, no matter how many lanes there are, and if there’s a breakdown then you’re stuck waiting for it to be fixed along with all the other mugs.

T-1 is your own private road; only your cars travel on it, and if there’s a breakdown the VIP maintenance crews rush out to fix it, since they’re under contract to do so.

The Service Level Agreement or SLA is the key - read that over when you’re checking out the deal. It’s a contract with them that 3mbps is 3mbps 24/7 - not 1.8, not 2.7, but 3.0 (and 3 on a dedicated T-1 is usually faster than 6 on shared DSL); there will also be terms for how fast service is to be restored in case of an outage.

It’s a pretty safe bet that a contract for dedicated service and support is worth the extra $75/month - but your mileage/budget may vary.

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Bryan4107 I did not read your last post before I posted mine.

So, yes T-1 can be used for Data exclusively, For Voice Exclusively (it can carry 24 channels), or Hybrid. I have T-1 for all those types.

T-1 are a lot cheaper now that they used to be. When I first encountered T-1 they were a little above 1000$ a month per line and we had 7.

I am also planning to get our Untangle box working, and do balancing our T-1 with a Comcast cable connection. Comcast in the area are stupid fast (most people here like FIOS…suckers :slight_smile:

3Mbps is fast, but when I do windows update in more than one machine our network slow down to a crawl. I have my big suspicion that is the QoS, but our router is managed by the ISP and they swear it is setup correctly.

I simply dislike DSL. In my experience it is extremely unreliable. I would not use it even at home

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Wow, $75 difference…either that’s crazy expensive DSL or crazy cheap bonded T1s…I’d jump all over it for that kind of price difference!

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Well, we currently have AT&T phone and DSL for $360 a month. This guy is telling me they can do the bonded T1 with five voice lines for $480 - I originally thought our current bill was a bit higher than it is. Still, it’s not too big a difference, especially since it sounds like it’d be a lot better.

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for 480$ are you sure you are getting a bonded T-1, and not a hybrid or acelerated T-1?

Bonded T-1 is 2 T-1 which is 3Mbps data, or 46 channels (not 48)

In a hybrid or Acelerated T-1 you would get 1.5 Mbps of transfer and it allows voice lines, each taking 64 Kbps, for all 5 it would be 320 Kbps less if all the lines are active. I never heard of a bonded and hybrid T-1 at the same time. I suppose it is possible, but I would guess the equipment would not be very cheap.

As for the 360$ you pay right now it makes sense.

A regular POT line is between 75 and 100$, your DSL is probably the cheap part of the bill there. In the T-1 is the other way around, your data will be expensive and reliable, and your voice is going to be dirt cheap.

We pay 325$ per Hybrid T-1 (with 3 lines), so if you get it in writing that it is 3 Mbps and 5 lines for that price (plus taxes and service fees…don’t forget to include them) then it is a good deal

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I’ll have to ask this afternoon. I had talked to them several months ago, but their pricing didn’t fit my budget at the time, so I’ve forgotten most of what they told me :wink:

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Okay, I just got done with them. I’m also looking at my AT&T bill, so let me start with that.

We currently get 6Mbps FastAccess DSL with 5 phone lines. This has some long distance, but the bill isn’t doing a good job of showing how much. We’ve also got a /29 block of IP addresses. This bill is $350.

The company I talked to today can do a T1 with 6 phone lines (part of the T1, not separate analog), along with the same number of IP addresses, as well as tons of long distance (5000 minutes - more than we’d use) and a larger local area, for the same price. For $570, the T1 can be bonded for 3Mbps. There’s also the responding within 2 hours, a local office, and the 99.9xx uptime.

Knowing this place, if I can make things better for the same price, it’s a win, but increasing $200 a month isn’t likely to fly. So - thoughts on the plain T1 vs. the DSL? Obviously I know everything that comes into play, but the end users are only going to care about the web experience.