DIA and VPN For Europe

Level 3 Communications, a Tier 1 Internet networking services company with a global fiber optic footprint, is bringing its Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) and Virtual Private Network (VPN) services portfolio to European markets, including France, Germany and the United Kingdom. As the worldwide business climate improves, international connectivity will become more and more important for business success in a global marketplace.

Major multinational corporations and larger Internet Service Providers may operate their own Autonomous System (AS) networks that give them the ability to peer with other networks and purchase IP transit services to get to the Internet backbone. But many businesses don’t have or want the level of investment that it takes to operate an International private network. These companies still need high quality, reliable Internet access for e-commerce, communication with their customers, and private connections between far-flung company locations.

Dedicated Internet Access is the service of choice for most business users. What dedicated means is that you have exclusive use of the bandwidth that you purchase to connect to the Internet. But isn’t that always the case? Not really. Residential users and smaller businesses get by with shared bandwidth arrangements such as DSL, Cable broadband, two-way high speed satellite Internet, and 3G or 4G wireless.

The motivation behind bandwidth sharing is that costs are shared as well. The cost of shared bandwidth broadband services is usually well below equivalent speed dedicated bandwidth services. The price you pay is acceptance of not having a guaranteed bandwidth. Indeed, the bandwidth at any given time is a function of how many other users are sharing the service and what they are doing. Just a few people download huge software, database or video files can bring a speedy line to a crawl.

You don’t experience this with Dedicated Internet Access. You have the full T1 line speed of 1.5 Mbps or E1 line speed of 2.0 Mbps available in both upload and download directions at all times. Ethernet access connections are becoming popular as replacements for legacy T1/E1 lines. Ethernet is highly scalable from 1 Mbps on up to 10 Gbps. The lower line speeds can be provisioned over twisted pair copper, while higher speeds require fiber optic connections.

The VPN or Virtual Private Network is a way to take advantage of the universal reach of the Internet while adding a layer of security to protect your data during the time it is traversing the Internet.

Many companies have private point to point connections to securely link multiple business locations within a metropolitan areas or in nearby states. International private lines are also available, but they are pretty expensive for smaller companies to connect with sales offices overseas.

The Virtual Private Network makes it possible for businesses of all sizes to interconnect their domestic or global facilities. Another popular use for VPNs is to provide access to company networks for employees working from home or on the road. Without VPN capability, the organization would have to install a dedicated line between the corporate data center and they employee’s home at considerable cost.

The way a VPN works is that it encrypts the data packets so that they can’t be decoded by anyone who happens to gain access to them along the way. The process is said to create a “tunnel” through the Internet. There a two popular ways to do this. One is IPSec, which requires special client software at each end to perform the encryption and decryption of the data. Another approach is SSL or Secure Socket Layer. This technique requires only a standard Web browser for access. It uses the same encryption employed by ecommerce sites so that visitors can make online purchases securely.

Do you have need for Dedicated Internet Access or Virtual Private Network service to support your business or organization? If so, get prices and availability for DIA and VPN services to meet your requirements.



Note: Physical map of Europe courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Metro Ethernet MPLS Combo

Two of the hottest networking technologies now are Metro Ethernet and MPLS networks. We normally think of using one or the other. But what advantages are gained when you combine the two?

Metro Ethernet is the familiar Ethernet protocol that we’ve come to know and love on our LAN networks. It’s not exactly the same, because it needs to be adapted to work over longer distances than typical building and campus runs.

This, and other service enhancements, have been standardized by the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF), an industry group comprised of over 170 companies and more than 75 service providers. The MEF has defined five attributes that distinguish what they call Carrier Ethernet from the familiar LAN based Ethernet. These are standardized services, scalability, reliability, service management and quality of service.

What carriers get is a set of certified network elements that work to connect users on a local or worldwide basis. They also have services that can be transported over whatever physical networks they have available, including legacy TDM networks originally designed for telephony.

Metro Ethernet is Carrier Ethernet implemented within a city or metropolitan area. Two of the popular standardized services are Ethernet Line Service, a point to point connection, and Ethernet LAN Service, a multipoint connection. Companies use Metro Ethernet to link branch office buildings, factories, warehouses, data centers and other locations in the area.

Ethernet can also be used as a last mile access connection to larger private networks or the public Internet. These links have traditionally been T1 lines, DS3 connections, or SONET/SDH fiber optic services. Ethernet is growing in popularity as a network access service because it is lower in cost and more scalable than legacy telecom services.

At the same time that Carrier Ethernet has soared in popularity, MPLS networks have seen a similar growth in demand. Most networks have a defined protocol that they run. This can be TDM, IP, Frame Relay, or something else. The beauty of MPLS networks is that they are designed to support all protocols. Hence, the name Multi-Protocol Label Switching. The label switching part has to do with a tagging system that is used to encapsulate and route packets while they are on the network. Since the MPLS network doesn’t need to use the internal packet structure for routing, it doesn’t matter what those labels are attached to.

Most new large scale networks are based on MPLS. It doesn’t matter what’s running as the core network. It might be IP. It might be SONET. What the user sees is a privately run network that can securely transport voice, data, video or converged network traffic within a city, between cities or around the world. MPLS networks have all but completely replaced the older Frame Relay networks that were once used to link computers over wide areas.

What you probably have guessed is that Ethernet and MPLS are very compatible. Many carriers have nationwide or international MPLS network service footprints. You can combine Ethernet access with a large MPLS network and create a very cost effective way to link your geographically diverse business locations.

Large scale Carrier Ethernet networks are also on the ascendency. A new interconnection standard called ENNI or Ethernet Network to Network Interface connects Carrier Ethernet service providers so they can share traffic and effectively increase their service footprints. The underlying transport networks may or may not be MPLS networks themselves.

What’s combination of Ethernet and MPLS offers the highest performance at the lowest cost for your applications? There are network consultants available right now to provide you with Metro Ethernet and MPLS service options and pricing at no charge for serious business and organizational users.

Benefits of a Gigabit Ethernet Network Connection

The need for high bandwidth connectivity has sneaked up on some companies. That T1 line they ordered years ago turned into a DS3 connection and perhaps a move to OC3 fiber optic service. But it still seems like there is a bottleneck. Perhaps it is time to consider a move to GigE or Gigabit Ethernet.

One thing you should know about the other telecom services you’ve ordered over the years is that they are derived from telephone company technology. Yes, they’re reliable. Yes, they work just fine. But they weren’t designed from the ground up to mirror what you are running on your network today. As a consequence, you may have interface issues and you are probably paying a lot more than you would have to for the same connection speed.

The beauty of having Ethernet as your standard protocol both inside and outside of your facility is that there are no connectivity issues. It’s Ethernet all the way. You can use it like you use any other high bandwidth connection to transport voice, video or data packets from point to point. You also have the option to employ your Ethernet connection as a way to link multiple LANs together in one large bridged LAN. It’s a way to connect all your geographically diverse locations as if they were simply on different floors of the same building.

There was a time just a few years ago when Gigabit Ethernet running on a local area networks was as absurd an idea as ordering up a Gigabit Ethernet WAN connection. For one thing, Metro Ethernet and Carrier Ethernet are relatively new services. For another, Gigabit Ethernet was considered a ridiculously large amount of bandwidth.

Nobody laughs at GigE anymore. They don’t even shake their head in disbelief. What they want to know is where they can get Gigabit Ethernet service and how much it will cost them.

The reason for this change of attitude is that computer applications are sucking up bandwidth like it is an infinite resource. It’s the way that microprocessor clock speed just couldn’t get high enough or that RAM memory was always about half what you really needed. Multiple core processors and lower RAM prices have allowed computers to keep up with demanding applications such as video processing. It’s networks that are now under pressure.

You may already be running Gigabit Ethernet on your LAN. Many PCs, peripherals, switches, routers and network appliances come with 10/100/1000 Mbps Network Interface Cards standard. GigE gives you the network throughput you need to efficiently transfer files and run real time simulations and processes without creating time wasting bottlenecks. Now, what about connections that leave your facility?

If you need to transfer medical images or do video production, a Gigabit Ethernet connection may at the low end of what you’ll be needing. If you’ve consolidated data centers and need to access files remotely from a large facility, GigE is no luxury.

Fortunately, Gigabit Ethernet WAN connections are readily available in metropolitan areas. Downtown in major cities you may even have two or more carriers bidding for your business. What’s important is that you have or can easily get a fiber optic connection to your building. GigE is way beyond the capability of copper-based facilities and most wireless services.

Can you get Gigabit Ethernet at a reasonable cost? It’s more affordable than ever and competitive carriers are more inclined to bring in fiber service by aerial line or underground. See if you have fiber facilities already in your area. Check now to find fiber optic services at or near your business location. If it’s on the map, you may be in luck.



Note: Photo of Gigabit Ethernet switch and cables courtesy of J. Smith on Wikimedia Commons.

Ethernet over Copper vs Bonded T1

T1 lines have been the gold standard for small and medium business connectivity. Their popularity has grown as pricing has plunged in recent years. Now there’s a newer technology service that gives you even more bandwidth for less money and is even easier to interface. That service is Ethernet over Copper.

Ethernet over Copper, or EoC, leverages one of the primary attributes of T1 lines. That’s their ability to be provisioned over ordinary twisted pair telephone wiring. A T1 lines comes into your facility in the same bundle of installed telephone wire that brings in multi-line telephone service. Because it is ordinary telco wire, most every business location in the country is already wired for service and enabled for T1.

T1 lines use two twisted pair versus one pair for an analog telephone line. One pair is used for the upstream connection. The other is used for the downstream connection. This gives you 1.5 Mbps in both directions at the same time, also called full duplex operation. T1 line prices have come down to several hundred dollars per month, although that number varies with location.

For about the same money you can get Ethernet over Copper bandwidth. But your Ethernet link will be running at 3 Mbps rather than 1.5 Mbps. Why the difference? It’s a matter of more efficient modulation technology. T1 was designed by the phone companies right after WWII to transport telephone calls digitally. Thus, it was designed as a synchronized system subdivided into 24 precise channels. It’s a great match for loading phone lines onto a digital trunk, but bears no resemblance to today’s network protocols. Ethernet is based on packets, not channels, and doesn’t need the T1 system for transport. In fact, it takes a protocol conversion to go back and forth from T1 to Ethernet.

T1 lines can compete with Ethernet over Copper by using more lines to increase bandwidth. Add another 2 pair for an additional T1 line and you can double your bandwidth from 1.5 Mbps to 3 Mbps. The process used to couple multiple T1 lines to create one effectively larger line is called bonding. As you might expect, Ethernet over Copper lines can also be bonded to create a larger bandwidth connection. T1 line bonding is practical up to 10 or 12 Mbps. EoC bonding can deliver bandwidths as high as 100 Mbps over very short distances. Standard Ethernet network speed of 10 Mbps is readily available. You can also get 15 or 20 Mbps service without too much trouble. Once bandwidth gets above 45 to 50 Mbps, it generally makes sense to move up to fiber optic connections.

The one rub with Ethernet over Copper technology is that it is distance limited. That’s why EoC is often called a Metro Ethernet service. You’ll find it readily available in major metropolitan areas, but not farther out in sparsely populated areas. EoC delivery is generally limited to a few miles from the central office where the termination equipment is installed. For higher bandwidths, it’s only a matter of blocks away from the nearest point of presence. Downtown that’s no concern because of the concentration of both users and service provider facilities.

T1, on the other hand, has no distance limitation. It was designed from the beginning to have regenerators placed every mile or so in the line to restore the signal to a perfect wave shape. Longer spans require more engineering and construction effort, so cost goes up. Even so, you can get T1 service from coast to coast if you like. Actually, the T1 line is only carried by copper to the nearest telco central office. From there it rides on a fiber optic network to the central office nearest the far location and is then delivered on copper wiring.

Business bandwidth demands are increasing faster than fiber is being trenched to every business. That doesn’t mean you are stuck with a basic 1.5 Mbps of service when you really need 10 or 20 Mbps. Find out what’s available for your business location and compare prices for Ethernet over Copper vs Bonded T1 services now.

Content Delivery Networks Transformed

It’s no secret that bandwidth requirements are increasing across the board. Much of this has resulted from the move to IP video streaming and downloads. It’s also a function of more sophisticated websites than what were envisioned in the early days of HTML. Now graphics are huge and sites are interactive, with all sorts of browser and server based application code. The issue has been how to deal with network bandwidth requirements that are accelerating with no end in site. One answer is to transform the network and the sites that use it.

Why isn’t simply increasing WAN bandwidth sufficient? Indeed, WAN bandwidth is increasing by leaps and bounds. In fact, the flood of packets on the Internet has resulted in such traffic jams that CDNs or Content Delivery Networks have arisen to create fast bypass lanes around the Internet superhighway.

Bandwidth is expensive. Both copper and fiber based network bandwidth prices have plunged in recent years. Even so, the demand to transport more and more data per user is causing many companies to increase their telecom services budgets to keep up. The end user has also increased their DSL, Cable and wireless broadband service speeds, but there is a limit to what they will pay and what is even available in many areas.

Two companies have teamed up to deal with this dilemma head-on. Level 3 is a global connectivity and content delivery network services provider. Strangeloop is a company that specializes in network and website acceleration. Combine a CDN with advanced acceleration techniques and you create a much faster network. How much faster? Up to a 30% performance improvement compared with what’s been available previously.

Note that this 30% performance boost is not a simple cranking up of network bandwidth. What these techniques do is actively manage three aspects of the process: network, delivery and code. Both Level 3 and Strangeloop actively manage how Web content is delivered to an end user without that user being aware that anything other than a simple file transfer is going on.

For instance, multiple copies of website files are hosted on Level 3’s Content Delivery Network and sent to the user from the most optimal cache server for that user location. Level 3 has 35 strategically placed caching locations. They also offer a streaming service for real-time content such as video.

Strangeloop goes further by actively managing how each page is rendered. They do things like compressing images for mobile viewers, increasing parallel data download from server to browser, reducing roundtrips by consolidating similar resources into single files, and delaying execution of non-critical scripts until the rest of the page has loaded and been rendered on the browser. Their process also lets the browser start downloading page resources while the server is busy generating the HTML page. Normally this is a serial process that takes longer than necessary.

Human nature dictates that the longer it takes for a page to load, the more people bail out due to impatience or mistakenly thinking that the site is broken and will never load. By speeding up the site rendering process so that users see the result in a second or two can dramatically improve the stickiness of the site and desired actions they take while visiting.

Are you frustrated with the sluggish performance of your site or streaming content because of too much information taking too long to reach your users? Perhaps you can benefit from the Level 3 CDN Site Transformer for enterprise users or other network improvements. Explain your need and get pricing and availability on high performance bandwidth services now.

A Myriad of Business Broadband Options

Business class broadband comes in more flavors that ever before. Your options include DSL, 3G & 4G Wireless, Cable broadband, Satellite, T1 lines, and Ethernet over Copper. Those are just for small business locations. Fiber optic services expand the menu for medium and large scale business users. What is it that distinguishes these broadband options and how do you choose?

You should know that there are two different types of Internet broadband access regardless of the medium used. The medium might be wireless, twisted pair copper, coaxial cable, or fiber optic strand. That’s just the physical layer. What makes even more difference is whether you are on a dedicated or shared broadband connection.

Your lowest cost options fall into the shared bandwidth category. These include DSL, Cable, 3G & 4G Wireless and Satellite. What these all have in common is that the bandwidth is shared among multiple users. A tip-off to shared bandwidth is a statement that your service speed is “up to” so many Mbps. The upper limit, be it 2 or 20 Mbps, is the maximum you’ll experience. How much you get in practice depends on how many other people are trying to use the connection at the same time.

Shared bandwidth services don’t have to be asymmetrical, but they often are. What that means is that the upload and download speed differ, often by a large amount. You might get 5 Mbps in the download direction, but only 1 Mbps in the upload direction. Why is it done this way? It’s because these services are most often used for email and Web access. When using a Web browser, you typically type in an address and then download a page of text and graphics. The upload to request the page is a very few packets. The download of everything from the page is a much larger collection of packets.

The same is true of accessing audio and video content or downloading software. It’s primarily a one-way transmission with the speed of the download much more important than the speed of the uploaded requests.

Another characteristic of shared bandwidth services is that they are promoted as “information” rather than “telecom” services. By using the information category, these services avoid regulatory constraints. What you get for your money in the way of bandwidth levels, availability, time to repair, latency, jitter, packet loss is completely up to the service provider.

Dedicated Internet Access or DIA services allocate the full bandwidth of the connection for your usage. A T1 line, for instance, has a speed of 1.5 Mbps at all times. If you aren’t using it, the line simply idles until needed. You can elect to access the Internet via your T1 line as needed, or you can keep the line busy uploading and downloading data files 100% of the time. There’s no such thing as user limits. You’ve got a pipe with a capacity of 1.5 Mbps and you can transport as many packets through it as it will carry.

T1 lines are symmetrical, also called full duplex. The bandwidth is the same in both the upload and download directions. In this case, it’s 1.5 Mbps. Ethernet over Copper, a newer competing service to T1 lines, is similar but offers more bandwidth options. You can often get 2, 3, 5, 10 and even 20 Mbps EoC service. It’s often stated in the form 10 x 10 Mbps Ethernet to show that you get 10 Mbps in the upload and 10 Mbps in the download direction.

T1 and Ethernet services are not information services. They are network telecom services, often with SLAs or Service Level Agreements. These agreements spell out what you can expect in the way of availability, time to repair, bandwidth, jitter and latency. Because these services are more costly to engineer and provide, they have higher pricing than shared bandwidth information services.

So does that mean that you always need a T1 line or Ethernet connection? Not necessarily. If your primary reason to have an Internet connection is to access information on the Web or maintain a Website and email on a remote hosting service, you may find that DSL, Cable, Satellite or Wireless service works just fine and costs half as much. Satellite and Wireless are especially useful for remote locations that aren’t within the service areas of DSL or Cable. You can use 3G and 4G cellular wireless for point of sale terminals, even at temporary locations.

On the other hand, if you want to run your own servers in-house or connect multiple business locations with a converged voice and data network, you’ll probably find that you absolutely need the more robust bandwidth services. The same is true if you are providing rather than consuming content or can’t stand having employee productivity impacted by bandwidth that varies up and down throughout the day. Would a multi-day outage put you out of business? It probably makes sense to either have a backup bandwidth service or pay up for a Service Level Agreement.

What Internet access options make the most sense for your particular business situation? Why not have a bandwidth expert call you with prices and availability for a wide range of bandwidth solutions? Then you can weigh the costs and benefits and make an better informed decision.

866 Toll Free Numbers

We’re all familiar with 800 numbers. They were the first numbers we recognized as toll free. But did you know that there are other toll free numbers, too? What about 866? Is that really a toll free prefix?

Indeed it is. But is there a difference between 800 and 866 as far as toll free operation is considered? No, they work exactly the same. Just as 202 and 302 are toll number prefixes assigned to different locations, 800 and 866 are toll free numbers used nationwide.

That’s one difference between toll prefixes and toll free prefixes. Toll prefixes are used to designed numbers in a particular area. That’s why they are called area codes. Area code 202 is assigned to Washington, DC. Area code 302 is assigned to the entire state of Delaware.

The toll free number prefixes 800 and 866 do not have a geographical assignment. You can call an 800 or 866 number from anywhere in the country and you’ll reach your destination. You just may not know where, geographically, the number is being answered.

It should be noted that the idea of associating area codes with the physical location of the assigned telephone is going away with landlines being replaced by cell phones and VoIP or broadband phone. Neither wireless or broadband users are tethered to a particular location by a copper wire. In fact, some VoIP providers let you pick your desired area code regardless of where you happen to reside. That’s especially valuable when most of your calls come from a particular regional area. Calls from an area code to the same area code don’t pay interstate long distance charges. If your phone has a New York City area code, it will work like any other NYC local phone, even if you pick up the calls in San Francisco.

Toll free numbers take this concept to the next level. When someone dials a toll free number, they don’t pay for the toll charges regardless of where they are calling from or where the call is picked up. Please note that most toll free numbers are US only. You have make special arrangements to get an International toll free number.

Now let’s look at what happens on the receiving end of the call. If you are the owner of the toll free number, you’ll pay the cost of any calls you receive. Fortunately, with an inexpensive toll free service that cost will be minimal. What you get in return is a caller who is much more likely to dial your number than if they knew they had to pay long distance charges. This is a powerful incentive for call-in orders and customer service. In fact, customers have come to expect a toll free number and may balk at dealing with companies that don’t offer one.

Are toll free numbers really affordable by smaller businesses? Absolutely. You can get an 866 number assigned to you for just $2 and pay just $2 a month to maintain service. That service includes your exclusive use of the number, forwarding to any working phone including a cell phone, voice mail, plus FAX reception that forwards to your email. The cost of the calls is just 6.9 cents per minute for the continuous 48 US states. Calls from Alaska and Hawaii cost a bit extra.

For the same price as an 866 toll free number, you can also get one with the prefix 877 or 888. They work just the same as 866. You can also get an 800 number for the slightly higher fee of $5 plus $5 per month service fee and the same 6.9 cents per minute rate.

Is your business losing business because you don’t have a toll free number yet? Perhaps you should give toll free service a try. There are no contracts involved. You pay via credit card from month to month. Learn more about low cost toll free numbers and get yours ready to use right now.

Note: Photo of telephone keypad courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.

Gigabit Wireless For TDM and IP Transport

What do you do when you need to get Gigabit bandwidth services into a building that has no fiber connection to your network? If you are XO Communications, you simply add a wireless hop using BridgeWave Communications FlexPort link. No stringing aerial wires on poles. No trenching fiber optic conduit. Just high bandwidth connectivity through the air.

We’re used to thinking of twisted pair copper and microwave wireless as the right solutions for moderate bandwidth needs. Gigabit bandwidth levels obviously require fiber optic strands, right? Not really. Point to point fixed wireless systems can give you fiber optic performance without the fiber or the optics.

I mention optics because there are laser based solutions designed to connect buildings at Gigabit levels. They are especially well suited for connecting networks between two tall office buildings separated by a freeway or river that makes installing fiber prohibitively expensive if even possible. But that’s maybe a thousand feet or so. How about when you need to link networks over a few miles line of sight?

This is the area where BridgeWave shines, so to speak. Actually, they’re using two-way millimeter wave transmissions in the 60 and 80 GHz radio bands. Those frequencies are high, but nowhere near the infrared or visible portion of the spectrum. Here’s something interesting, though. Oxygen attenuates signals in the 60 GHz band, a property unique to that portion of the spectrum. That limits transmission distance, but it also works to ensure that multiple users on the same frequency are unlikely to interfere with each other. The signal is simply absorbed by the air on either side of the narrow beam and past the receiving antenna.

If you’ve had a bad experience with RF links in the WiFi band or other microwave and UHF frequencies, you can appreciate both the interference avoidance and inherent security of the millimeter wave band. It’s likely that anyone trying to intercept a 60 GHz transmission would have to insert themselves in the path to such an extent that they would affect the strength of the signal at the intended receiver and give themselves away.

The 80 GHz band doesn’t have the oxygen absorption characteristics of the 60 GHz band, so it is better suited to medium haul rather than short haul links despite the higher frequencies. Still, the interference is minimized and security is enhanced due to the narrow beam width of the millimeter wavelength system.

The BridgeWave FlexPort80 link that XO is deploying is available in the 80 GHz millimeter wave band plus the licensed 18 and 23 GHz microwave bands for longer links. One of the attractive aspects of the BridgeWave equipment is that it is an all-outdoor solution. Some competing systems simply have an outdoor antenna with rack mounted transmission gear needed inside the building.

Another feature especially valuable for today’s corporate networks is the ability to transmit both TDM and IP traffic. The TDM capability is also being used by mobile carriers to backhaul their 3G and 4G networks from isolated base stations. It should be noted that FlexPort80 delivers simultaneous TDM + IP connectivity, making it truly a “flex port.”

Do you have a location that has been particularly difficult to supply with high bandwidth telecom services? Perhaps a combination of fiber optics and millimeter or microwave wireless transmission can get you the Gigabit connectivity you need at a cost you can afford. Discuss your situation now with one of our Telarus bandwidth consultants to get pricing and availability for high bandwidth business connectivity solutions.



Note: Graphic based on skyscraper image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.

IP Transit vs Peering vs DIA

We live in a world of networks and networks of networks. The Internet is the ultimate example of networks upon networks upon networks. All of these networks need some way to communicate. For that, you have the choice of IP transit or peering.

Network to network communication would be unnecessary if the Internet was constructed the way most people envision it. When we think of the Internet, we think of one giant network that links everyone to everyone. It generally works that way for the end user, but the notion of a monolithic universal network is an illusion. Look inside the Internet and you’ll find it to be a collection of large, medium and small networks that all work together to get packets from one point to another. Let’s see what that takes.

At the top of the heap are Tier 1 networks. These are huge international IP networks that have points of presence in key locations around the world. Tier 1 networks are indeed the superhighways of the Internet. But like all highway systems, they don’t go everywhere. In order to create an Internet, you need to connect these superhighways together.

The connection process is called peering. The name suggests that this is a connection between equals or peers. That’s exactly right. Huge networks have huge amounts of traffic. If two of these networks peer to exchange traffic on an equal basis, then each network effectively doubles its reach. Network A has access to all the customers on Network B and vice versa.

Tier 1 networks peer on a settlement free basis. In other words, the networks are interconnected via high capacity routers and the traffic flows back and forth at will. Settlement free means that there are no toll booths at the border. Neither network pays the other because they are getting equal value through peering.

Not all networks are the same size. Smaller networks, called Tier 2, have less capacity and less reach than Tier 1 networks. Tier 1 networks aren’t about to peer with Tier 2 networks at no charge because the smaller network would be getting a lot more value from the arrangement than the larger one. What Tier 2 networks can do is ban together and peer among themselves to create a much larger entity that can compete with those Tier 1 networks. If they want access to the Tier 1 networks, they can pay a settlement charge based on the traffic imbalance. That charge is called IP transit.

Internet Service Providers have a choice when it comes to accessing the Internet. They can spend the capital and maintenance cost to build out their networks to the point where they can peer with other large networks, or they can just purchase IP transit services from a large network and avoid the investment in equipment and personnel.

Very small networks or medium size companies with their own internal networks will choose to buy Dedicated Internet Access rather than IP transit. You need to be a network operator with an assigned AS or Autonomous System number (ASN) that identifies each network on the Internet in order to qualify for IP Transit services. Some large organizations with connections to multiple networks may fit this definition, as well as large scale ISPs.

Everyone else, from local WISPs (Wireless Internet Service Providers) to SMBs (Small to Medium Size Businesses) simply purchases Dedicated Internet Access by the Mbps or Gbps of bandwidth. Operation of the Internet is left to those networks who specialize in that service.

What type of Internet connectivity makes the most sense for your business? It depends on whether you are a large ISP, a content delivery network, a large corporation with international locations, or a network of retail stores. Why not compare pricing options for IP Transit, Peering, or Dedicated Internet Access, as appropriate? Complementary consulting services are available to help you sort through the possibilities.

Ethernet Exchange For Miami, Dallas and Los Angeles

It’s becoming increasingly apparent that the replacement for the Public Switched Telephone Network may well be Carrier Ethernet. More evidence for this is the expansion of Ethernet Exchanges that allow carriers to transport each other’s traffic. Telx, a major colocation and interconnection service company, has just added Miami, Dallas and Los Angeles to its suite of Ethernet Exchange facilities nationwide. Let’s take a look at why Ethernet Exchange matters and how it influences the direction of international wide area networking.

The century long dominance of the PSTN or Public Switched Telephone Network can be attributed to its universal acceptance. Every phone can connect to every other phone in the world and work correctly. This network has been adapted for data and well as voice service for worldwide connectivity. It’s a circuit switched rather than packet switched network, but with proper interfacing and protocol conversion it gets the job done.

Another model of universal connectivity is the Internet. The Internet is an IP network that is based on packet switching rather than circuit switching. Isn’t the Internet the model to emulate for the next generation in commercial connectivity?

Actually neither the PSTN nor the Internet are ideal for high performance network services. The PSTN has a telephone legacy and is organized around small independent channels bundled together to create larger amounts of bandwidth. It’s also a different set of protocols than are running on a majority of the world’s data networks. The Internet was designed by the government for survivability in the event of war or natural disaster. As such, it’s so autonomous that routes can change spontaneously and there is no such thing as class of service or guarantee of bandwidth, jitter, latency or packet loss.

Carrier Ethernet seems like the ideal protocol for today’s metropolitan and long haul networking. After all, the network most likely to need transport is running Ethernet in the LAN. More and more, that’s converged voice, data and video over Ethernet. When you go to the trouble of carefully engineering your internal networks, it only makes sense to expect to link those networks transparently.

The only fly in the ointment has been network reach. The companies most active in deploying Carrier Ethernet services have not had protected monopolies like the old telcos nor government R&D like the Internet. These are commercial companies, some with legacy telco assets and some with all-new IP core fiber optic networks. While each competitor may have thousands of buildings on-net, nobody blankets the Earth.

Here enters the Ethernet Exchange. The idea is a facility that enables Ethernet network operators to exchange traffic. By doing this, each carrier increases the reach of its network into the footprint of other carriers. Even Ethernet Exchanges can partner. Telx has a partnership with Neutral Tandem to provide access to each other’s exchange locations.

With demand for Ethernet services growing rapidly each year, cooperation benefits all parties involved in transporting high bandwidth Metro and Carrier Ethernet services. Ethernet connections are now available in metropolitan areas throughout the US and in many countries around the world. The cost advantage, scalability and portfolio of services available with Ethernet is working to establish Ethernet as the new WAN networking standard at the expense of legacy telecom services.

Have you been missing out by not taking advantage of Ethernet connectivity for your business? Get pricing and availability for Ethernet network services now. You may be surprised by what’s become available only recently.

WAN Network Design Options

It’s commonly assumed that the LAN (Local Area Network) and the WAN (Wide Area Network) are completely different animals. You need completely different network design philosophies for each... or do you?

The abyss between WAN and LAN became established by they way they came into being. LAN networks are owned by individuals, businesses and organizations and are based on packet switching. At one time, there were competing topographies such as ring, star and buss. Now it’s all Ethernet on the LAN, with some specialized networks used for such things as disk storage. Most networks are based on twisted pair copper, fiber optic cable, or some combination of the two.

WAN standards grew out of the telephone industry, which has a monopoly on twisted pair telco lines used for both voice and data. Until recently fiber optic networks were also primarily owned by or at least developed to telephone company SONET/SDH standards.

Clearly, there was a technological disconnect between packet switched LAN technology and circuit switched WAN technology. That’s not so much the case anymore, but it is true that you need to do a protocol conversion to connect point to point or to the Internet using telco services such as T1 lines, DS3 bandwidth or OC3 fiber optic connections. Both the circuitry and software needed for WAN network interface are off the shelf items. You simply by a T1 interface card for your router if you want to plug in a T1 line.

What this means is that you can generally mix and match WAN network technologies as long as you have the proper interfaces. T1 line prices have plunged in recent years, making them the entry level WAN option of choice. A T1 line can be used to provide a dedicated broadband connection to the Internet or a direct point to point connection between two business locations. Some companies build customized WAN networks by connecting each branch office back to headquarters using T1 lines to form a star network. The router at headquarters manages traffic between all locations.

What’s new in WAN networking is the rise of Carrier Ethernet and MPLS networks. These are very compatible technologies and can be used together or separately. Carrier Ethernet is a native packet switched technology that avoids LAN/WAN interface issues. You can replace point to point T1 lines with Ethernet line services. Ethernet can also be used to provide a last mile connection to the Internet. Unlike T1, there is an Ethernet LAN service that can be used to connect multiple locations together in a mesh network. Ethernet LAN is a direct replacement for private WAN networks based on T1 lines or higher bandwidth services.

MPLS networks provide a many to many WAN networking solution. MPLS is a protocol that can transport nearly any other protocol in a cloud network. You see T1 lines being used for network access. Ethernet service is also used for last mile network access to the same MPLS networks.

What Carrier Ethernet and MPLS networks offer compared to their telco WAN predecessors is a cost savings and the ability to get out from having to manage the WAN yourself. You can treat Ethernet LAN or MPLS network services as a true cloud that provides the bandwidth, latency and class of service controls you need for converged network operations. Competitive carriers own their core networks completely independent of the telephone companies. In major metropolitan areas, they also provide fiber optic access connections at considerable cost savings over legacy solutions.

What are the best WAN network design options for your company? Why not compare several competing architectures and see which offers the best cost savings for the performance required? Check WAN network solution prices and availability now.



Note: Photo of telecom equipment racks courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Ethernet Private Line Service With Granular Bandwidth

Our experience with private line service has always been with point to point dedicated telecom services, such as T1 lines, DS3 bandwidth, and OC3 fiber optic connections. Now there’s a new service available that gives you all the advantages of traditional private line services with some improvements and better pricing.

This new network service is called Ethernet Private Line Service, or E-Line. That’s not just a clever marketing term. It’s the official name of the service as defined by the MEF or Metro Ethernet Forum. In other words, E-Line is a standardized Carrier Ethernet service with enterprise level performance in metropolitan and long haul networks.

Let’s take a look a what we expect from a private line service and see how Ethernet Private Line Service measures up. A typical private line is a permanent point to point connection. For that reason, it is sometimes referred to as a “nailed up” connection to differentiate it from a temporary switched service connection such as a telephone call. The private line is truly private. The company that leases the private line expects to have full time exclusive use of the circuit. If they are not sending traffic at the moment, the line idles while it waits for the next burst of traffic.

A very typical implementation of private line service is the T1 point to point connection. A T1 line offers 1.5 Mbps of bandwidth in both directions. It behaves as an empty pipe connecting two locations for voice, data, video or whatever digital service is needed. T1 point to point lines are used to connect branch offices to headquarters, transmit medical images from a clinic to a hospital, or even carry program audio from a radio station studio to the transmitter site. A special arrangement called a “tie line” allows you to connect to PBX telephone systems together.

Higher bandwidth uses of point to point telecom lines include video transport for production and television broadcast, connecting business information systems, engineering simulation and overnight file backups to remote data centers. You can usually get as much bandwidth as you need for your application. It’s just a matter of price.

What makes private line services expensive is that they must be specifically engineered to meet a particular need. If the link is only across town, it may stay within the footprint of one carrier. But if you want to connect two locations in different states or on opposite coasts, your packets may traverse many different networks to get from point A to point B. That runs up the lease cost and may take a considerable time to install. If you want to change the amount of bandwidth once your connection is in place, the process has to start all over.

Qwest, a major player in the business bandwidth marketplace, is offering a private line service based on the latest technology. They already have in place a core MPLS (Multi Protocol Label Switching) network based on fiber optics using DWDM or Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing. That gives them the ability to offer 100% committed bandwidth and traffic engineering while being fully MEF certified.

The advantages of implementing E-LIne over a pre-provisioned MPLS 10 GigE backbone network are that implementation to connect your locations can be much faster and you can select from a huge range of bandwidth options between 5 Mbps and 1,000 Mbps. This is called granular bandwidth, something difficult or impossible to obtain with traditional telecom services. Those bandwidth options are scalable in the sense that you can generally change your bandwidth level quickly and easily with a call to your service provider.

Qwest calls their new low-latency Ethernet Private Line solution “Qwest iQ E-Line.” It allows for point to point or hub and spoke connections within or between any of their 16 markets that include Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Mo, Los Angeles, New York, Newark, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Sunnyvale, Tampa and Washington DC.

Are you in the market for high performance point to point network services or would you just like to see if you can get more bandwidth for less money? Check pricing and availability for Ethernet Private Line Service now.



Note: Photo of network switches courtesy of Wikipedia Commons

SIP Trunks vs ISDN PRI

Enterprise telephony long ago advanced beyond analog business lines in favor of PBX telephone systems and ISDN PRI trunking. Now there’s another option that may offer cost and performance advantages for companies that want to improve their voice services. It’s called SIP Trunking. Let’s compare and contrast SIP Trunks with ISDN PRI to see how to choose between them.

You should know that we are still talking exclusively about digital telephony. There is no analog transport in either a SIP Trunk or PRI. What differentiates the two is that ISDN PRI is based on a switched circuit model and SIP Trunking is based on packet switching.

For many companies it could be six of one and a half-dozen of the other. That’s because either trunking service can be made to work with your in-house phone system. The idea behind digital trunking is to carry a half-dozen or more outside phone lines on a single digital line. Usually that’s one or more T1 lines, although DS3, OC3 fiber or Ethernet can also be used.

ISDN PRI uses a T1 line configured into 23 separate voice channels plus one data and control channel. Most PBX systems and the newer IP PBX phone systems make it easy to connect to ISDN PRI. They either offer one or more PRI ports built-in or accommodate a plug-in adaptor card.

If you need more than 23 lines, you simply add more ISDN PRI lines incrementally. Each additional line can bring in up to 23 more business phone lines. You’ll have to check what’s available for your phone system, but it is not uncommon to have 2 to 4 PRI lines plugged into a PBX system.

The technology used for ISDN PRI is defined by the Integrated Systems Digital Network specification. PRI is the Primary Rate Interface. There is also a lower performance BRI or Basic Rate Interface that isn’t seen much anymore. This is a legacy telephone technology designed to support the idea of separate digitized telephone lines, one per channel. There’s no chance of interference between calls because the channels are strictly defined and timed using Time Division Multiplexing.

SIP Trunking is more of a network than a telephone based technology. It is a packet switched network line, much like you would use to connect two business locations. What SIP Trunking can do is directly support a converged voice and data network. You can run SIP Trunks between business locations to expand your voice and data network geographically.

The SIP in SIP Trunking stands for Session Initiation Protocol. That’s the switching technology used in VoIP telephone systems. In SIP trunking the control signals for the phone system are transported in packets that travel down the same network pipe as the voice packets.

ISDN PRI isn’t so much about convergence. It’s really about having separate telephone and data lines leave the premises, although you are free to converge your in-house network and let an IP PBX system on the network handle call routing, including outside calls on the ISDN PRI trunk line.

SIP Trunking doesn’t have to be about convergence, either. You can simply use a SIP Trunk to connect your PBX system to a telephone service provider rather than using an ISDN PRI. Depending on which CODEC or coding scheme you use, you may be able to handle more than 23 lines on a SIP Trunk. If you are using an Ethernet connection to your provider, you may be able to support dozens of phone lines depending on the bandwidth available.

For small businesses, SIP Trunks can be configured to transport both voice and data to your service provider. Most often this is used to bring in telephone lines and broadband Internet service on the same SIP Trunk. There’s a cost advantage, even if you are not running a converged voice and data in-house.

Since either ISDN PRI or SIP Trunking might be able to support your needs, how do you choose? That depends on the features you desire and what’s available to serve your particular business location. You may have several options to choose from. To find out, check out SIP Trunks and ISDN PRI availability and pricing now.

100 Mbps Colocation Center Bandwidth

Companies often look to colocation as a way to avoid the capital and operating expense of running their own data centers. There is also another important incentive to go the colocation route. It’s high bandwidth availability at lower costs.

A colocation center, or colo, is a facility that serves the data center needs of many businesses. Each server farm requires the servers themselves, networking switches, routers and appliances, equipment racks, rack wiring, electrical power, cooling air, and connectivity. Plus you’ll need physical security, fire suppression and a staff to monitor operations and take corrective action 24/7. You can provide all of this in-house or get it at a colocation center.

What makes a colo center cost effective is economy of scale. Instead of each customer having to maintain their own backup generators and fire suppression systems that are rarely used, the colocation facility has much larger units that serve all customers. The costs don’t scale linearly. The incremental cost of adding another user to the facility is pretty low and the facility cost spread over all users is less than what you can do on your own.

The somewhat hidden secret of colocation centers is that they have bandwidth available that you may not be able to afford on your own. A common connection is 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet. You know that it’s no great shakes to connect a 100 Mbps Ethernet node to your own LAN. Getting a 100 Mbps connection beyond your property line may be anywhere from expensive to impossible. At 100 Mbps, you are beyond the capability of twisted pair services such as EoC or T1/E1 lines. You’ll need fiber optic cabling brought into your building and lit for SONET/SDH or Metro Ethernet service.

Why is there such a difference in price between 100 Mbps bandwidth provided in a colocation center and the same level of service delivered to your facility? One big reason is construction costs. Downtown in a major metropolitan area there may be many fiber facilities in your office building or nearby. If you order a significant amount of bandwidth you might not even be charged construction costs. But move a bit off the beaten fiber path and those charges go up dramatically. If you are located in a smaller town, industrial park or rural area you can be looking at tens of thousands of dollars or more to trench fiber optic cable from the nearest carrier point of presence.

The other reason for bargain prices at colocation facilities is competition. Once again, depending on population density and popularity of high bandwidth network services, you might find yourself with only one carrier serving your location. Your negotiating ability is pretty limited without competition. Colocation centers, however, are carrier magnets. Service providers know that there are dozens or hundreds of customers in a single building who all need their services. It’s no wonder they all set up points of presence within the colo. Often, there is a “meet me room” where carriers and customers are connected.

The combination of having several or more eager carriers vying for your business combined with the trivial construction costs of running a drop to your equipment racks is what makes it easy and relatively inexpensive to get all the bandwidth you want in a colocation center. Can you say the same for where you are now? There’s an easy way to find out. Simply request bandwidth availability and pricing for both your location and a nearby colocation facility.



Note: Photo of server rack wiring courtesy of Guillaume Paumier on Wikipedia Commons

Do You Need A Managed Security Services Provider?

Network security worries have gotten way beyond concern over bemused hackers nosing around to see how far they can penetrate to achieve bragging rights among their peers. Cybercrime is now major crime. The goal is no longer the thrill of outwitting the local IT staff. It’s all about the money. If there is something worth stealing, there’s a motive for cyber criminals to target your network.

You really don’t have a choice when it comes to protecting your network, servers and other resources. The only choice you have is whether to do it yourself or outsource it. Outsourced security is often referred to as managed security services or SaaS, Security as a Service.

MegaPath, a major competitive carrier, offers a suite of managed security services that includes a managed firewall, intrusion prevention, anti-malware/anti-virus, web filtering, anti-spam, application control, data leak prevention, managed logging, vulnerability scanning, security information management, file integrity monitoring.

One area where the need for network security is particularly important is for electronic payments. There are millions, perhaps billions of dollars flying through networks as data packets at any given time. The payment card industry that includes all businesses involved in issuing and accepting electronic payments has strict standards in place for credit and debit cards, prepaid cards and other electronic payments. These are referred to as the PCI DSS for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard.

How confident are you that your retail or other business not only meets the letter of the law regarding PCI DSS but complies with industry best practices? It’s not just the large companies that are being targeted by organized crime. There is easier prey among smaller and mid-size organizations that lack the resources to adequately protect their own and cardholder data.

Don’t feel alone if you are concerned about being stretched thin and perhaps vulnerable when it comes to security resources. In a white paper called “The Compliance Trap”, MegaPath references comments by the Yankee Group that many companies with fewer than 50 employees often don’t even have a dedicated IT person. Companies with 100 employees typically have 2 IT staffers, and companies with 500 to 999 employees have five or fewer people with no security specialists on staff.

Certainly, you can take this as a cautionary tale and move to hire a security staff and the requisite hardware and software to fortify your network. Most companies with little or no security staff don’t have the budgets to embark on a major security upgrade in this challenging economic environment. But that needn’t stop you from improving the situation by getting your security as a service. Hiring an expert company that has already developed the necessary protocols and has trained staff available 24/7/365 can get you up to speed quickly and likely at a cost far below what you would have to spend yourself.

Do you need managed security services? If there is any question in your mind, why not get complementary cost quotes for security as a service and see how it fits your budget. You may decide that managed security is the way you want to go permanently.

The Multiple Data Center Dilemma

With mergers and acquisitions on the rise, companies are finding themselves with a multitude of data centers. So, do you leave things the way they are or try to capture some cost savings thorough data center consolidation?

The solution may not be as simple as picking one data center to expand and moving everything there. For one thing, each of those data centers is likely somewhat unique. They have different equipment, applications and expert personnel. Even if you take half a dozen small server rooms and move them intact to one big data center, you still have the matter of connectivity.

Most companies have networking set up to support much higher levels of traffic within the facility than to the outside world. That’s changing, as cloud services become more accepted. But even users of cloud computing and storage have to face the fact that they need much higher WAN (Wide Area Network) bandwidth than they used to. That drives two things: cost and availability.

Yes, availability can be a show stopper. If all your facilities are located downtown in major metropolitan areas, you have suite of services and providers to choose from. Telecom service competition in densely populated areas will work to ensure that you get excellent pricing on your service contracts. But what if your facilities are now scattered among small, medium and large cities with some locations out in the boonies?

This is why you start with a paper study before you do anything. Figure out what the new traffic levels will be to and from your main center or centers and then price out bandwidth that supports those levels with some margin for growth. Also make sure that you aren’t at the high end of available service levels or you’ll find future growth completely stifled. Do you really want to make a major move now and then make another one in a few years?

Calculate new bandwidth levels to serve the rest of your business locations. Note that while their data centers may now be downsized or empty, WAN traffic levels will almost certainly be higher. After all, all that data that was stored and processed locally will now have to come from somewhere else.

While virtualization and equipment consolidation may eliminate a lot of hardware and its associated power and cooling costs, you need to make sure that you aren’t just adding that cost back in network service expense. Perhaps you’ll find that modestly priced T1 lines or Ethernet connections are all you need to provide connectivity for those remote facilities.

By the way, if you are going to be ripping out facilities and re-installing equipment, this could be the perfect opportunity to take a look at cost savings you might not otherwise think were worth the effort. One approach is to move everything to a colocation center rather than try to operate your own. The advantage is that you’ll get a better deal on shared resources like HVAC and backup power. Also, bandwidth prices are often best within a colo. There are no availability issues and little or no provisioning costs because multiple carriers are right there in the same building.

Another option is to take a look at cloud services rather than providing your own. Once again, access bandwidth becomes critical with appropriate backup circuits to ensure that you’ll always be able to connect with the cloud. You’ll be trading off the capital expense and ongoing maintenance and operations costs of running your own data center for monthly fees to the cloud service provider. It is a better deal? Do the paper study and see what makes sense for your particular situation.

Would you like some help with this? Our Telarus bandwidth consultants are happy to get your requirements and work out pricing and availability for a variety of options. This consulting service is provided gratis to IT managers with serious requirements. Why not get started now? Put in a quick inquiry for enterprise voice and data services now.



Note: Photo of data center equipment courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Fixed Mobile Convergence Comes To the Cloud

Most business professionals today are toting smartphones as well as tablets and netbooks or laptop computers. At the office, there’s a large monitor desktop computer connected to the company LAN and a desk speakerphone. The challenge? How do you make these devices part of a unified whole?

This is the challenge corporate IT departments have been wrestling with as the variety of communications devices has multiplied faster than the means to interconnect them. Many times, the best option is to print new business cards with separate listings for office phone, mobile, FAX, toll free and email. Did you get an important call on your office phone while you were offsite making a presentation? Oops. You’ll get it when you get back to the desk tomorrow. Or you can call in and check your voice mails tonight, write down the number and then call back the client when business hours resume. Just hope your competition didn’t return the call sooner.

Modern solutions to this dilemma of integrating disparate tools into a common business system include enterprise VoIP, unified communications and fixed mobile convergence. Getting wireline or network voice telephony to mesh with cellular phones has been a particularly knotty problem. The one area of commonality has been the public switched telephone network. But the PSTN likes each device to have its own phone number. What if you want one number to be able to reach you no matter where you are or what phone is handy?

Smoothstone IP Communications specializes in converging voice and data networks.
They were first to introduce a converged voice and data service over an MPLS network. One of their specialties is hosted PBX or cloud based telephony. The beauty of hosted PBX is that you no longer need make a major capital investment every few years just to expand or improve your in-house telephone system. The expensive and complex switching system is provided as a service over a SIP trunk from Smoothstone to your company.

What’s new is that Smoothstone and Sprint are now partnering to include cell phones and smartphones within the cloud-based telephone system. Users get to have a single phone number, a single voice mail, abbreviated dialing plans and sophisticated group and personal call controls that would normally be available only within the office environment.

What’s tricky about this is to maintain full QoS or Quality of Service controls to ensure that voice services maintain enterprise levels of quality regardless of whether they are being handled wirelessly or through the company’s converged voice and data network. This is where the integration of Smoothstone’s cloud services and Sprint’s 3G, 4G and Global MPLS networks seamlessly manage voice and data communications.

From a user or IT management perspective, the complexity of FMC is moved to the cloud where it is fully managed by the service providers. At the same time, Smoothstone’s other cloud based communications services are available as needed by a single office or a geographically diverse workforce.

Has your company hit a frustration level caused by yesterday’s voice and data networking solutions trying to meet today’s needs? Don’t try to re-engineer and finance a complete overhaul until you look at the options available to you with converged cloud-based voice and data network services. Check pricing and availability with a quick inquiry right now.

2x2 Ethernet Takes on T-1

T1 lines have been the go-to commercial telecom service for small and medium businesses over the last decade. Now a challenger is taking on the venerable T1 line. It is a brand new service called 2x2 Ethernet that’s just been launched by MegaPath, a major nationwide competitive carrier. Let’s see what 2x2 Ethernet has to offer.

You might not think that T1 lines were subject to much competition. After all, the technology is half a century old and heavily entrenched. T1 was the first broadband digital line connection readily available to businesses. It came out of telephone company research and was used as a trunking system to transport telephone calls between switching centers long before it was offered to commercial companies. With repeater technology and the ability to be deployed over two unshielded twisted pair telco wires, T1 has risen to become dominant for digital telephone, point to point connections and dedicated broadband access.

Ethernet came out of the computer industry rather than telephony. Ethernet has grown to dominate local area networks for most companies. Until recently, Ethernet was considered a LAN technology and T1 was considered a WAN technology. There’s not much chance that T1 will move into the LAN, but Ethernet has been steadily encroaching on the metropolitan and wide area networks over the last few years. Now, it’s ready to make its move to take over the role that T1 lines still serve. But why?

Part of the answer is bandwidth. T1 lines offer a fixed 1.5 Mbps of symmetrical bandwidth. You get the same line speed in both the upload and download directions. Ethernet offers a variety of line speeds over both copper and fiber optic cables. The MegaPath 2x2 Ethernet runs at 2 Mbps for both upload and download. That’s a bit faster than T1, although the bandwidth increase alone isn’t what makes this service so attractive. In addition to the 33% increase in capacity, 2x2 Ethernet is easy to interface. The handoff from WAN to LAN is a standard Ethernet connector. No extra CSU/DSU interface circuitry is required, like you have with T1 lines.

What really makes the MegaPath 2x2 Ethernet service compelling is that it is priced less than a T1 line. Ethernet has enjoyed a per Mbps cost that often beats traditional telecom services, especially at the higher bandwidths. But this is a 2 Mbps service that costs less than a 1.5 Mbps service. Not only that, but you have a choice of configuring this service for either data only or voice plus data. With at least five lines of digital, analog or SIP trunking telephone service, the 2x2 Ethernet line cost is reduced even more. It would appear that we are in the twilight era of T1 dominance.

But what about availability? MegaPath has addressed this with Ethernet over Copper connections through 1,900 central offices nationwide. They estimate that over 90% of small and large businesses are within the footprint of one of these COs. MegaPath is actually a super CLEC or Competitive Local Exchange Carrier. The company is a merger of MegaPath, Covad and Speakeasy, all significant carriers in their own right.

Is your business in need of new connectivity or are you simply interested in seeing if you can get a better deal that what you’ve been paying for your existing T1 line service? If you have an older contract, that T1 might be costing you twice as much as it should. Find out for sure with a quick pricing and availability inquiry for Ethernet over Copper services. Higher bandwidths are also available for your more demanding applications.