Increase Your Bandwidth Beyond T1

By: John Shepler

You’e had your faithful T1 line service for years, maybe even decades. You love the reliability, solid bandwidth, low latency and the fact that prices have even declined from contract to contract. The one limitation that’s becoming a real bottleneck is the bandwidth. While 1.5 Mbps was plenty a decade ago, it’s not keeping up anymore. Is there any way to keep the performance of T1 but goose up the speed? Most definitely!

What Makes a Good T1 line Replacement
When you first took out your T1 contract, you chose this technology for good reasons. DSL was popular for business at the time, but notoriously unreliable. T1 had the advantage of being a service that was developed by the telephone companies for the telephone companies. That meant it was professional grade from the beginning and not a “consumer” service being offered for business as a cheap option.

T1’s fixed 1.5 Mbps bandwidth was dictated by the need to multiplex or combine 24 individual analog phone lines into a single digital equivalent that maintained all the voice quality, including minimal latency. T1 also had to run on existing twisted pair telco lines no matter how far they stretched. That’s why T1 is available far out into rural areas beyond the reach of other options.

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 including point to point dedicated lines and dedicated Internet access. Many T1 lines come with a Service Level Agreement (SLA) that provides a guarantee of availability and performance from the service provider.

Bonded T1
One way to increase the bandwidth of T1 lines is to simply add more of them. Most companies want that bandwidth combined, which is easily done by carriers using a process called bonding. All of the T1s you want bonded must be from the same provider. Two T1 lines gives you 3 Mbps, 4 lines give 6 Mbps and so on. You can go up to 10 or 12 bonded T1 lines, but the cost gets prohibitive unless this is your only option.

Ethernet over Copper
Ethernet over Copper uses the same twisted pair infrastructure as T1, but a newer modulation technology. You lose the unlimited distance advantage but gain much higher bandwidths, generally up to 10 or 20 Mbps, at more reasonable prices. If you are located in a populated area, EoC can give you the service you want at a fraction of the cost of bonded T1 lines.

DS3 Bandwidth
DS3 is part of the T-Carrier specification that also defines T1. DS3 offers 45 Mbps, enough for many businesses. Low latency, dedicated lines and reliable service are similar to T1 lines. The only wrinkle is that the higher bandwidth of DS3 isn’t supported over twisted pair copper. Instead, DS3 rides a fiber optic backbone to the curb and then a pair of small diameter coaxial copper lines to your router DS3 interface card.

Fiber Optic Service
Fiber service used to be well beyond the financial reach of most companies even if it was available… and it often wasn’t. That’s all changed. SONET technology, which transports DS3 and the higher bandwidth services like OC3, OC 12, and OC48, has become more available and less expensive. Ethernet over Fiber is the newer technology and it is much less expensive for the same high quality service. Many, many companies order 10 Mbps Ethernet over Fiber service and then easily upgrade to 50 or 100 Mbps as they need it. Bandwidths are readily available to 1 Gbps and even 10 Gbps in many areas.

What about Cable, Satellite, Wireless, Etc?
These less expensive services are shared, not dedicated bandwidth. That’s a major reason they are less expensive. Most are asymmetrical, meaning that upload speed is only a fraction of download speed. Satellite has tremendous latency effects and both satellite and wireless tend to have data caps. That said, a lot of businesses are saving a lot of money each month, especially if they combine a couple of low cost broadband services in a SD-WAN or Software Defined Wide Area Network. It all depends on how demanding your applications are and whether you prefer to avoid the Internet to connect locations. Get some expert advice and then pick the best bandwidth option appropriate for your business needs.

Gigabit Metro Fiber Ethernet Means Business

By: John Shepler

More and more companies are running out of bandwidth as demanding applications eat up every Mbps of LAN, MAN and WAN bandwidth they can access. Are you doomed to fight a losing battle or is there a good technical solution available?

More Bandwidth to the Rescue
Don’t expect to roll back the clock and be able to do business today and tomorrow with the connections you ordered yesterday. X.25 is long gone. T1 lines have about had their last hurrah. Ethernet over Copper is a temporary solution, at best, to buy you time for what you really need to do. That is, connect to the world via fiber optic bandwidth

But What About Cable?
Cable broadband, also called D3 or DOCSIS 3 for the technical standard, is actually a good solution for some applications. Just don’t kid yourself. That cable connection doesn’t really go very far until it hooks up with the cable company’s metro fiber plant. The junction box may be a few blocks away or it might be handing on the utility pole you can see from your office.

The same is true for T3 or DS3 bandwidth, the longstanding upgrade path from T1 lines. The connection to your equipment may be a pair of coaxial cables, but they only go out to the street. At they point they join up with a SONET fiber optic system owned and maintained by the local telephone company.

What’s Special About MetroE Fiber?
Ethernet is the newer and future-proof technology for carrying digital traffic on fiber optic systems. It is based on the same Ethernet standards used for your local area networks. Certain standards have been added to fit with carrier operations, but otherwise it is switched Ethernet.

That means the interface between your LAN and the carrier’s MAN or WAN is trivially simple. Just plug in and go, like you would with any router or switch. No special interface cards are needed. Chances are that the carrier who is providing your service will install a managed router at your business to define the network edge.

Metro vs Internet
Metro Ethernet, strictly speaking, is a network that serves a particular city or city plus suburbs. The most common use has been to interconnect business locations that are geographically close. These may include headquarters, data centers, warehouses and branch offices. Some companies choose to include suppliers and important customers on their MetroE network for high connection speed and security.

Metro Ethernet is a point to point or multipoint service that directly connects particular locations. You can elect to order ELAN service that actually extends your local network to the other locations. It’s just like you ran your own cables across town, but without the prohibitive expense of doing so.

The Internet is another animal. It’s actually a massive worldwide network made up of national, regional and city-wide networks that all agree to a common standard. Metro Ethernet is not the Internet, but it can connect to it. MetroE networks can also connect to each other over longer distances, especially when ordered through the same carrier.

Why Order Metro Ethernet?
You can think of Carrier Ethernet or Metro Ethernet as the new gold standard in telecommunications. It gives you high bandwidth connections that are easily scalable and low in latency, jitter and packet loss. You have exclusive use of the bandwidth you’ve ordered. It’s also generally covered by a service level agreement to ensure that you get the highest level of availability.

That’s important because the tradeoff between Metro Ethernet and Cable Broadband is not so much in the connection method. Cable provides you with a shared bandwidth service that varies in speed depending on how heavy the usage is. Service is generally on a “best effort” basis rather than any particular guarantees of performance or availability. Thus, the lower price for a given bandwidth level. Some businesses, especially smaller ones, find this tradeoff well worth making. Others with large user bases and critical applications may find that only dedicated service is acceptable.

By the way, many Cable companies also offer Metro Ethernet service on their fiber backbones. It’s a different class of service with a different pricing structure than the coax connected business broadband offering.

Is Metro Ethernet For You?
If you are running out of bandwidth or already at the limit, or simply want a service that can easily be upgraded in the future, you should take a serious look at Metro Ethernet for your business. You may be able to get a break on construction costs or even have them waived if you sign a long term contract, have high enough bandwidth requirements or can join forces with other business customers in your building. There are likely multiple carriers serving your area. Find out what each can offer with a set of competitive quotes for Metro Ethernet service now.

Your Options For Business Internet Broadband

By: John Shepler

The range of broadband Internet connectivity solutions available for your business location is greater than ever before. Let’s take a look at what’s available and appropriate for companies of all sizes.

Starting at the Top
We’ll start at the top, since Gigabit Internet is the gold standard that everyone would really like to have… if they could afford it. Chances are, you probably can if you have a medium or larger size company in most locations or smaller businesses in select areas.

Where You Are Counts
This is an important point for all connectivity services. What you get and what you pay for it depends a lot on your particular business location. That’s because not all areas are built out equally. Major metro downtowns have a wealth of services and are highly competitive on price. Large business and office parks are also well connected. In smaller towns or out in rural areas, pickings are slim, as they say. Even so, you can get some form of broadband Internet connection no matter where you are.

Options at 1 Gbps
The most popular form of Gigabit Ethernet or GigE service for business right now is Gigabit Ethernet over Fiber. It is a more modern technology than SONET and excels in both ease of connectivity and price. The ease of connectivity comes from the fact that Carrier Ethernet is really just an extension of the same switched Ethernet that runs on your company LAN. Features necessary to long distance operation and maintenance have been added to the Ethernet standard. Otherwise it’s the same packets you already know and love.

Gigabit Ethernet is priced at a fraction of what traditional SONET OC3, OC12, OC48 etc costs. These are still viable options and are embedded into many, many regional and national networks. Ethernet can run over SONET or be natively hosted on the fiber. Competitive providers have pushed prices lower and lower, to the point that if you really need this much bandwidth you can probably afford it.

Another advantage of Carrier Ethernet is that it is easily scalable. You can install fiber services with a Gigabit speed port today but only take 100 Mbps service if that is all you need. The price will be considerably less and you can upgrade to 200, 500, 750 or 1,000 Mbps whenever you like. No equipment changes will be needed.

Even Higher Speeds
The relentless migration of data centers to the cloud and higher performance hosted business applications have pushed demands on WAN networks to higher and higher speeds. While most companies are getting used to the idea of having Gigabit connectivity, some, like video producers and larger medical complexes, find that bandwidth a bit limiting. No problem. If you can get Ethernet over Fiber, you can likely get 10 Gbps as easily as 1 Gbps. In larger markets, 100 Gbps is readily available for business use.

Fractional Gigabit Options
If your needs are more modest, say in the range of 50 to 500 Mbps, you have multiple options for service. Certainly, rate limited GigE can work in this range. You can also opt for traditional DS3 service at 45 Mbps. This bandwidth, which once was a corporate standard, is provisioned on copper coaxial cables. Most of the delivery is done over fiber, however, running as a service on OC3 fiber to the curb.

How about business cable broadband? The price is certainly right and you can easily get bandwidths to 100 Mbps, and often 300 Mbps. In some areas Gigabit service over cable is available. Limitations of this service are that the bandwidth is shared, and thus varies during the day. It is also asymmetrical with download speed 10x that of upload speed. Finally, there are usually no service level agreements. Its a best effort service. Even so, if the cable runs by your location and the service will meet your needs, you’ll pay only a fraction of what equivalent fiber bandwidth costs.

The Low End
Small businesses may find 50 Mbps more than they need, especially if the Internet is used primarily for email, purchasing, web browsing and similar applications. In this case, cable broadband at 30 Mbps can be your lowest cost option. Ethernet over Copper will give you symmetrical bandwidth from 5 to 50 Mbps and is also very cost effective.

Have you considered a T1 line? Yes, the bandwidth is only 1.5 Mbps, but it is rock solid and suitable for things like credit card verification and email. Not so much for video or other demanding applications. The beauty of T1 lines is that they have been around so long they are available just about everywhere you can get landline telephone service. That means out in rural areas where just about nothing else is available.

Business satellite broadband is another option for just about any location where power is available and you have a clear view of the Southern sky. The downsides of satellite are that usage is limited to a fixed number of GB per month, just like cellular, and the latency from the satellite being so far up make applications slow to respond and telephone calls more like two-way radio conversations.

How About SDN?
Software Defined Networks are taking the industry by storm. These are collections of similar or dissimilar broadband services that are managed by a special controller that makes instant decisions about which path each packet should take. The effect is that your WAN connection becomes more robust and even lower cost options can be integrated to create a high performing network.

Which business Internet option is right for your business? Get quote for multiple business Internet broadband services and see which fits best to your requirements.

Backing Up Broadband

By: John Shepler

In the last couple of decades, broadband Internet access has gone from being a marginally used business tool to a critical infrastructure for most companies. Both speeds and traffic have increased by orders of magnitude. So, answer this question: “what happens if your broadband goes down?”

We’ve Quietly Become Dependent
The conversion from traditional to automated business processes and digital communications have taken place so gradually that many companies don’t quite realize what would happen if it all suddenly went dead. You know what happens if you lose power. That facility is temporarily out of business. You know what happens if your data center loses power. Your computer-based processes are out of business. If that’s not acceptable, then what have you done to ensure continuing operations?

The Danger of Single Point Failures
What is the communications equivalent of battery and diesel generator backup for electrical power? It’s one or more redundant communications paths. If you have a single broadband line powering your network, you have what’s known as a “single point failure”. That’s one place where a failure of any sort puts you out of business. You can have all sorts of extra computers, printers, servers, battery backup and people cross-trained to take over whatever is a priority task regardless of who gets sick. It’s all for naught if yours is an online business and there is no way you and your customers can connect.

Start With the Best Line You Can Get
There are broadband services and then there are broadband services. They really break down into two categories. There are telecom services designed for high reliability and often available with service level agreements, a type of performance guarantee. Then there are “best effort” services designed for low cost and no performance guarantees. Which do you suppose is best for your critical operations?

Telecom based services, such as T1, DS3, SONET, Ethernet over Copper and Ethernet over Fiber are examples of dedicated high reliability services. So are MPLS networks if you want to create a private “Intranet” among your own facilities. DSL, Cable, Cellular and other broadband services popular with consumers generally fall into the “best effort” category. Best effort means just that. The carrier will make their best effort to keep you up and running, but there is no guarantee of what that will wind up being.

The Need For Redundancy
Even the best technology can go awry. Amplifiers short out, backhoes cut through copper and fiber cables with alarming regularity, and technicians make mistakes, perhaps disconnecting your circuit instead of the one they intended. Accidents will, indeed, happen, but that doesn’t mean your business has to be the victim.

One tried and true way to protect yourself from equipment failure is to have a backup in place. If one fiber optic line is good, two are better… with some caveats. Redundant lines really need to be independent. Ideally, you want to get them from different carriers who run them in different cable bundles that even leave your facility in different directions.

I remember a few years ago when our Cable company had one of those backhoe mishaps. It took two days to get TV and broadband restored because they had to splice over 100 fiber strands to complete the repair. You could have leased ten of those strands to make your connection redundant and you would have lost everything in one big chop.

Can Cable Backup Fiber?
Business cable broadband can actually be a very good way to get redundancy into your communications without doubling the budget. Cable services have gotten a lot more reliable since they switched from large coaxial trunks to fiber optic runs to the curb or neighborhood.

The DOCSIS 3 standard, that is now almost universal, offers bandwidth capability in the hundreds of Mbps, even up to 1 Gbps in some locations. The cost per Mbps is just a fraction of what you’d pay for Ethernet over Fiber or legacy SONET. That’s because cable service is, indeed, “best effort”, the bandwidth is shared, not dedicated, and the bandwidth is asymmetrical. That is, download speeds are much higher than upload speeds.

Taking all that into account, you may sleep a lot better at night knowing that if your premium dedicated fiber takes a hit, you can continue operations uninterrupted with broadband cable that is unrelated to your main service. You simply need a way to ensure automatic failover so that your employees and customers won’t see a service interruption.

Other Options
Some companies are quite happy to have T1 lines, Ethernet over Copper, two-way satellite, or even 4G LTE wireless as backup services for their main channel. Any channel that is completely independent is a good backup candidate. The only real limitation to any of these is the amount of bandwidth available and latency low enough not to impact what you are doing with the broadband connection.

Are you feeling that a single high capacity line is leaving you vulnerable to a service interruption? Why not look into an affordable broadband backup service for peace of mind?



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T1, DS3, EoC or Fiber?

if you need more than a Gigabit of bandwidth, you’re down to a choice of fiber or fiber. But what about less demanding network needs? Say you need from 1 Mbps on up to 100 Mbps. Now you have a number of flavors of twisted pair copper and coaxial cable connectivity, as well as fiber optics. What’s the best way to go these days?

It’s Important and It Isn’t
What you choose for a bandwidth connection can seem like a critical decision. Relax. The fact is that as long as you choose dedicated Internet access or point to point private lines, you’ll be getting similar performance. What’s different will be the availability of each service and the price.

A Word About Dedicated vs Shared
I should point out that there is a tremendous difference between dedicated and shared bandwidth. You get a lot more bandwidth when you choose something like business cable broadband. But, that bandwidth has different upload and download speeds and you share what’s available with other users. That means your slice of the pie will vary all the time. Even so, when you get up to 10 or 100 times the download bandwidth at the same price, it’s a pretty enticing deal. If it works for your needs, that can be the smart way to go.

T1 vs EoC
T1 lines have traditionally been the entry point for business bandwidth. You get a rock solid 1.5 Mbps x 1.5 Mbps circuit with low latency, jitter and packet loss. Availability is excellent. Even prices have come down dramatically in recent years. The only weakness is that bandwidth level. While 1.5 Mbps used to be pretty decent broadband, it hardly qualifies anymore.

You can bond T1 lines together to create higher connection bandwidths. Two lines give you twice the bandwidth or 3 Mbps. Add more and you can ramp this up to 10 or 12 Mbps. That’s still plenty for many businesses, but it gets a bit pricey as you go up in bandwidth.

A competing technology is EoC or Ethernet over Copper. This service uses the same multiple twisted pair copper, but bandwidths are usually higher. EoC starts about 3 Mbps and easily goes up to 10 or 15 Mbps. Maximum bandwidth capability goes down with distance from the originating office, but close-in you can get 25, 30 or 50 Mbps. Occasionally even higher.

How about the cost comparison between T1 and EoC. EoC is cheaper for the same quality of service. If available, you can often cut you bandwidth costs in half for symmetrical, dedicated private lines or Internet access. The higher the bandwidth, the better the deal.

T1 or EoC vs DS3
The traditional upgrade path from T1 used to be DS3. It’s a jump from 1.5 Mbps (or 12 Mbps bonded) up to 45 Mbps. In some cases you can get fractional DS3 that creates intermediate bandwidth options.

The thing about DS3 is that it really isn’t a completely copper solution. The connection to your equipment is a pair of coax cables. But, most of the distance to the carrier’s office is handled by SONET fiber, typically OC3. That means there needs to be some fiber in the area for DS3 to be available.

Today the upgrade path is from T1 to Ethernet over Copper. DS3 is a possibility, but you need to compare costs to see what is a better deal at your particular location. Any of these technologies will give you reliable high performing connections.

Ethernet over Fiber
Fiber optic service used to mean SONET, the legacy telecom standard. SONET is still available with service levels of OC-3, OC-12 and OC-48. It’s a rock solid service, but doesn’t upgrade quickly or easily and can be pricey by today’s standards.

The new gold standard is Ethernet over Fiber. Most new network services are designed around Ethernet for several reasons.

First, it’s a very easy interface to your local network. Ethernet connects to Ethernet seamlessly. It also enables additional services, such as layer 2 switched LAN to LAN connections.

Second, Carrier Ethernet has been designed to be easily scalable. Instead of a few fixed service levels, you can order just about any bandwidth increment. If you change your mind or have a greater need later, you can get a bandwidth increase with a simple phone call to you provider. In some cases, you can do it yourself via a Web browser.

Third is cost. Ethernet over Fiber is the core of many new service providers with regional, national and international footprints. Even the big legacy carriers are making the move from switched circuit to packet switching technology (Ethernet) because that’s the future. As a result, there are a lot more opportunities for Fiber Ethernet service options than traditional fiber services and greater competition. You’ll generally pay dramatically less for service at the 10, 100 and 1000 Mbps level. Even 10 Gbps is becoming readily available at affordable prices for more demanding needs.

Choosing Your Bandwidth Options
Like every other business decision, the best option is to gather as much information and quotes from as many service providers as possible. You can do this with one simple inquiry to get competitive bandwidth service quotes and expert recommendations.



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Connecting Offices Between the US and Mexico

By: John Shepler

Many companies do business in both the United States and Mexico. There are numerous carriers that serve the US market and others that serve the Mexican market. But what do you do when you need the same service level in both countries?

International Connections
Companies that do business internationally need telecom services that cross national borders. Fortunately, there are a number of carriers that offer international line services. These include connections between US cities and those in Mexico.

What type of connections? Today you have options for voice, data and video services. You can connect just two locations or create a large virtual LAN that includes all of your business locations in North America and beyond.

International Private Lines
The Bell Labs developed T-Carrier system is a standard used throughout North America. That includes the US, Canada and Mexico.

T-Carrier includes T1 (DS1) that runs at 1.5 Mbps and T3 (DS3) at 45 Mbps. In-between those standard levels additional bandwidths can be created by bonding T1 lines together. Two T1 lines give you 3 Mbps, three lines offers 4.5 Mbps and so on. The maximum bandwidth available by T1 line bonding is 10 to 12 Mbps. Above that, you generally run out of copper pairs available to be pressed into service or the bonded service become cost prohibitive.

T3 lines can be rate limited to bridge that gap between 10 Mbps and 45 Mbps. The line itself runs at full speed, but you only pay for the bandwidth that is actually enabled. The cost savings may or may not be attractive for fractional T3 service, depending on your needs.

It’s important to note that T1 and T3 lines are dedicated private circuits that are always available or “nailed up.” You don’t need to dial into them and they are reserved for your exclusive use. Since you are the only customer on the line, the only network congestion possible is due to your own demands on the circuit.

Fiber Optic International Lines
Fiber optic lines were originally developed using SONET (Synchronous Optical NETwork) standards deliberately chosen to be compatible with the T-Carrier system. The entry level service is OC3 which runs at 155 Mbps. It is designed to easily transport 3 T3 line services. In fact, T3 is most often carried for most of the transmission distance by OC-3 fiber service and then provisioned by coaxial copper cable at the customer demarcation point.

SONET is still the core transmission technology of most wide area networks. OC-3 is just the starting point. Other commonly available services include OC-12 at 622 Mbps, OC-48 at 2.5 Gbps, OC-192 at 10 Gbps and OC-768 at 40 Gbps.

Like T-Carrier, SONET services are dedicated private lines. You don’t shared the bandwidth with anyone. It is completely reserved for your use and sits idle when there is no traffic.

Ethernet International Services
Telephone traffic was dominant on international telecom circuits for a century. That has changed dramatically to where voice is now the minor traffic and data is dominant. On some networks, video is not the big bandwidth user, followed by large data transfers and then voice traffic.

This change in the nature of telecommunications traffic has spurred a change in the transmission technology. Nearly all local area networks have adopted the Ethernet standard. It’s logical that metro and wide area networks do the same.

The equivalent to T-Carrier or SONET is EPL or Ethernet Private Line. The beauty of Ethernet is that you plug the network line into your headquarters LAN at one end and your branch office LAN at the other. It’s Ethernet all the way. Because of this, you can bridge two LANs so that they perform as one large local network.

Carrier Ethernet, as it is called, offers another service called Ethernet LAN service. This is a meshed network that can connect 3 or more locations as one LAN. It’s perfect for companies with operations in multiple locations.

MPLS Networks
For international connections, like US and Mexico, MPLS networks often offer the best value. MPLS is a private “cloud” network with nationwide and international nodes. You can get the same point to point connections offered by dedicated private lines, only on MPLS they are called virtual private lines and virtual private LAN. The virtual designation comes from the cloud structure of the network. You are sharing the network with other traffic rather than having a circuit all to yourself. The MPLS network operator sets up your virtual paths and guarantees bandwidth, latency, jitter and packet loss.

In the end, you have the sense of private line performance, but a much more affordable rate with the shared network infrastructure.

MPLS networks can carry voice and data traffic simultaneously with class of service provisions to prevent data from overwhelming voice. VoMPLS or Voice over MPLS is VoIP carried on MPLS networks. It provides your telephone service among multiple business locations.

Do you have a need to interconnect offices between the US and Mexico? If so, check out the options available with International private lines and MPLS networks.

Is a Virtual Leased Line Right For Your Applications?

By: John Shepler

Leased lines have been popular with businesses since they were made available from the telephone companies decades ago. But how about a virtual leased line? Could you make good use of this technology?

Before we get into virtual leased lines, let’s take a quick review of what leased lines are and how they work.

Leased Lines vs Shared Bandwidth
A leased line is a telecommunications line that you lease for a particular time period. This is typically 1 to 3 years. During that time, you have exclusive use of the line for your applications.

Contrast that with shared bandwidth, the norm on the Internet. You don’t lease the Internet, you may lease access to the Internet. Once you are on the Internet, your traffic gets in line with everyone else’s and traverses the various networks that get your packets from source to destination.

Last Mile Often Determines Performance
Actually, the core of the Internet works pretty well most of the time. The congestion and latency you may experience is generally caused by the access or last mile connection. Shared bandwidth services such as cellular broadband, satellite, DSL or cable broadband are shared “best effort” services. You get what you get at any particular time because your performance is determined by how much of the bandwidth pool is being used by other customers.

How Can You Improve This Situation?
With a leased line, of course. This is called DIA or Dedicated Internet Access. Typical leased lines include T1 (1.5 Mbps), Ethernet over Copper ( 10 to 50 Mbps), DS3 (45 Mbps), OCx (155 Mbps and up) and Ethernet over Fiber (10 Mbps to 10 Gbps and more).

Why choose this hybrid approach of dedicated access and public shared Internet? It’s to improve the performance of your Internet connection end to end. You need the Internet to connect with customers and vendors and gain access to the wealth of content that is the World Wide Web. DIA gives you the best shot at excellent performance for business.

Dedicated lines are for much more than simply connecting to the Internet. They were in heavy use before there even was an Internet. Radio stations employed specially equalized analog lines to get their signals from studio to transmitter. Fire alarm systems use low bandwidth dedicated lines to send alerts to monitoring stations.

Rise of the T1 Line
Computerization of business made the T1 line popular. This is a dedicated private leased line that offers 1.5 Mbps of bandwidth. It’s still used to interconnect retail franchises to headquarters and for connectivity in rural locations where other services aren’t available. T1 has been the standard way to connect cell phone towers to central offices, but that is giving way to fiber optical lines that support 4G and beyond. If 1.5 Mbps isn’t enough for your needs, you can bond T1 lines to get up to 10 or 12 Mbps. A specialized version of T1, called ISDN PRI, provides telephone line trunking for PBX telephone systems.

What T1 and other leased lines offer beyond dedicated use of the line capacity is low latency, jitter and packet loss, along with the security of knowing that you are the only one with access. This is especially valuable for banks and other financial institutions where maximizing security is a very high priority.

Low latency is an important characteristic in preserving the quality of voice communications and teleconferencing. It’s also key to getting the fastest response from cloud based services.

Addressing the Cost Issue
The one drawback of leased lines is that they get expensive over long distances. Every leg in the path requires dedicating or “nailing up” a hardwired circuit (or fiber channel) almost indefinitely. Is there any other suitable option?

Yes. It’s called the virtual leased line (VLL). “Virtual” may sound a bit like “Internet,” but this is something different. Virtual does mean that you share a connectivity resource. In this case, that resource is a privately run MPLS (Multi Protocol Label Switching) network.

MPLS is the answer to cost effective private bandwidth service for nationwide and International connection. Few companies can afford true dedicated private circuits on transatlantic cable or even to multiple locations in the US. MPLS providers create their own core fiber optic networks with huge service footprints. This gives you the connectivity you need to the locations you want to interconnect. The core of the network runs at 10, 40 or 100 Gbps, so you’ll have all the bandwidth you need now and for growth, without having to commit to line capacity you can’t load up at the moment.

How MPLS Works
MPLS is a specialized technology that uses proprietary label switching to set up communications paths. These paths support IP traffic, but the network is not based on IP. That’s a security benefit. More security is derived from MPLS being a “private” network with no access by the general public. If you still want more security, you have the option to encrypt your traffic. The MPLS network will transport it.

The MPLS network operator sets up your virtual leased line from point to point, as you specify. You have a committed information rate (CIR) that defines the bandwidth you are guaranteed. A bonus is that some MPLS carriers allow you to burst above that rate for show intervals, something a hardwired circuit can’t do. MPLS service level agreements also specify the latency, jitter and packet loss you can expect. These are similar to what you’d get with other leased line options.

Related Services
You may hear VLL also described as Virtual Private Wire Service (VPWS) or EoMPLS (Ethernet over MPLS). A related service is Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) that is a many to many meshed network. It gives you the option of creating a LAN that interconnects all of your business locations over a large MPLS network.

Does this technology sound like what you need right now for your applications? Get more information and latest pricing on dedicated leased private lines and virtual leased line options now.

WAN Network Connections From Copper to Fiber

By: John Shepler

LAN, MAN and WAN speeds continue to rise as content demands more and more bandwidth. This is increasing pressure on both copper and fiber based telecommunication networks for more frequent speed upgrades. Let’s take a look at what the options are for both traditional TDM (Time division Multiplexing) and IP (Internet Protocol) networks.

The Legacy of Copper Telecom Lines
Copper has been the mainstay of electronic communications, starting with the telegraph and then the telephone networks. The telegraph, of course, is long gone. The telephone is undergoing a technology shift where voice is becoming a converged network service. With the implementation of 4G LTE wireless, even cellular phone will soon move away from voice only channels to integration with data.

Clearly, analog POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) is in its twilight years. What will remain for decades to come is its installed base of twisted pair copper lines that connect to nearly every building, commercial and residential. That copper still has value because it can transport digital signals as well as analog.

Digital T1 Lines
The oldest digital protocol for data transmission on twisted pair copper (not including telegraph) is still going strong. It’s the T1 line used for telephone trunking, point to point data, and dedicated Internet connections. T1’s history is that it was developed to transport multiple phone conversations digitally using existing telephone cabling. T1 can transport service over wide areas using signal regenerators to clean up the signal every 6,000 ft. You can get T1 nearly anywhere you can get landline phone service. The one limitation is its 1.5 Mbps bandwidth.

While 1.5 Mbps used to be considered broadband, it’s no longer adequate except for PBX telephony, casual Web access, email and point of sale credit card verification. This bandwidth is similar to 3G wireless. Wireless is rapidly moving to 4G wireless, with speeds an order of magnitude higher. Wired services are also moving to 10 or 15 Mbps as a minimal requirement.

Bonding T1 Lines & Ethernet over Copper
T1 is enjoying continued usefulness by bonding the bandwidth of multiple T1 lines to make one larger service level. This is practical up to 10 or 12 Mbps, but gets too expensive and hard to find available bundles of unused copper pair above that. What’s needed is a different technology that gets more bandwidth out of the same copper.

That technology is now available and called Ethernet over Copper or EoC. Ethernet is a departure from T1 in the way the bits are organized on the line, but serves the same purpose. It uses exactly the same copper pair cabling with multiple pairs bonded to increase bandwidth. The differences are that EoC is available in increments from about 3 to 45 Mbps and it is distance limited. Near the central offices, high speeds are available. A few miles away there may be no EoC service at all. In between, there are different service levels possible.

There have been some major advances in transmission of data over copper pair wiring, with some installations supporting bandwidths as high as 100 or 200 Mbps. These are uncommon. Another copper technology, Cable broadband using coaxial copper cables and a modulation scheme called DOCSIS 3, can reliably deliver 100 Mbps or more bandwidth. Even 1 Gbps is not unheard of, although not that widely available. Another service called DS3 or T3 offers 45 Mbps over a pair of coaxial lines where available.

Fiber Optic Services for Unlimited Bandwidth
What really gets the job done at higher bandwidths is fiber optic cabling. Fiber bandwidth is nearly unlimited, especially when wavelengths are bonded to create very large services. Like, copper, fiber also has a legacy history and a newer technical approach.

Traditional fiber optic service is based on a telephony standard called SONET (Synchronous Optical NETwork). Familiar service levels are OC-3 at 155 Mbps, OC-12 at 622 Mbps and OC-48 at 2.4 Gbps. Higher levels include 10 Gbps and 40 Gbps.

Ethernet over Fiber (EoF) is a Carrier Ethernet service like EoC, but using fiber rather than copper transmission. Fiber Ethernet is highly cost competitive and readily available from 10 Mbps on up to 10 Gbps. Today’s most popular service levels are 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet and 1,000 Mbps Gigabit Ethernet (GigE). In some areas, 100 Gbps service is available to businesses.

Wavelengths Options
Fiber enjoys another advantage over copper in that it supports multiple 10 Gbps wavelengths through a process called WDM or Wavelength Division Multiplexing. This means you can run different protocols on completely separate wavelengths within the same fiber strand. This provides a high degree of flexibility for financial institutions and others with demanding applications.

As you can see, there are a wide variety of options on both copper and fiber transmissionall currently available. What works best for your organization is a function of application requirements, scale and budget. You’ll likely have multiple technologies and multiple vendors to choose from.

Dedicated vs Shared Internet

By: John Shepler

Business Internet service options can be defined by bandwidth level, but it may be more important to distinguish between dedicated and shared service types.

What is Dedicated?
Dedicated bandwidth means what it sounds like. This bandwidth is dedicated to your use and no one else’s. That may seem obvious, but the rise of shared bandwidth in recent years has muddied the waters. Why would you share bandwidth if you could have it all to yourself?

The reason is cost
Shared bandwidth options are available at just a fraction of the cost you’d pay for similar speed dedicated options. That makes some business users think twice about how much they really need exclusive use of the line. You should make this choice after careful consideration, though, and not just as a knee jerk reaction to the sticker prices. If you make the wrong decision you could suffer with a connection that frustrates employees and kills productivity.

T1 and DS3
Dedicated bandwidth was long the standard for business. Once companies migrated from low speed dial-up or 64Kbps lines to broadband, the popular telecom standard services became T1 at 1.5 Mbps and DS3 at 45 Mbps. These are repurposed telephone trunks and offer both dedicated and symmetrical bandwidth. Both T1 and DS3 have been popular for decades are still available at very reasonable prices for both point to point and Internet access.

Unlimited Usage
A characteristic of dedicated line services is that there are no usage limits. You can load up the line with continuous file transfers, like for remote data center backups, or use it lightly for email and Web access or occasional communications with remote offices. Either way, the maximum amount of data you can transfer in a month is the line rate in Mbps time the number of seconds in the month. Whatever isn’t used just sits idle because no one else can make use of it.

About Symmetry
The symmetry of the bandwidth is also important. Symmetrical means that you get the same amount of bandwidth in both the upload and download directions. This is typical for commercial telecom services. It is essential for PBX telephone trunks, but also valuable if your traffic is heavily bi-directional. Branch office to headquarters connections, video conferencing and cloud access tend to be bi-directional.

Asymmetrical / Shared
The other types of bandwidth are asymmetrical and shared. These tend to go together. Shared bandwidth became popular when residential broadband was established. Home users couldn’t afford commercial telecom lines and rarely needed that level of performance. Most Internet access is skewed in the download direction. This includes Web pages and, especially, streaming and downloaded multimedia. Email tends to be bi-directional, but the files are generally fairly small and infrequent.

Cable & DSL
The Cable and Telephone companies took advantage of the fact that few users are online all day every day to divvy up a large dedicated telecommunications service among dozens or hundreds of individual users. Each user pays a modest fee. All the fees collected go to pay the much larger cost of the dedicated high speed line that feeds all users.

Cost of Bandwidth
It is not uncommon for shared bandwidth services to offer 10 times or more download bandwidth for the same price as a dedicated line service. The upload speed of the shared service is only a tenth to a fifth of the download speed but that doesn’t generally matter if what you need is basic Internet access. The catch is that this shared bandwidth is a maximum figure. At any given time the bandwidth you measure can be all over the place. You may get 10 or 100 Mbps one minute and 1 or 10 Mbps the next. It’s impossible to predict your actual line speed because how much you get is dependent on how many other users are online and how heavily they are accessing the Internet.

Network Issues
There are a few other issues with shared bandwidth. One is network congestion. The Internet itself can become congested with too much traffic from time to time. Most often, though, it’s the access network that clogs up with too many simultaneous users. The other issue is latency and jitter. These are unimportant for file transfers, but will wreak havoc on VoIP telephony and two-way video. Geosynchronous satellite links suffer particularly high latency.

Fair Usage Limits
Also, bandwidth sharing leads to bandwidth rationing. If you look closely at the contract, even “unlimited” services have a “fair usage” limitation. If you hog so much bandwidth that it impacts other users, you may have your bandwidth throttled to a lower speed, get cut off or be charged overage fees. Cellular broadband is famous for overage charges. Satellite services tend to throttle bandwidth. DSL and Cable have much higher usage limits but may cut back or cut off your service above certain levels. None of this is experienced with dedicated line services.

Current Dedicated Services
Today, T1 and DS3 are being replaced by Ethernet over Copper and Ethernet over Fiber. These are both dedicated symmetrical bandwidth services. MPLS networks are multi-tenant wide area networks that offer better pricing for long haul connections with committed information rates and symmetrical bandwidth.

SOHO Needs
How do you choose between dedicated and shared Internet connections? It depends on how sensitive and critical your needs are. Small retail operations that only need Web access, email and credit card verification, and perhaps want to offer their customers a free WiFi hotspot can benefit from the cost savings of shared bandwidth services. So, too, independent professionals in small or home offices who choke at the prices of dedicated lines.

Enterprise Needs
Medium and larger size organizations generally go for dedicated line services. This is especially true if varying network performance affects productivity or if you use enterprise VoIP phone service, HD video conferencing, remote data center connections or cloud hosted services. In fact, for the highest performance, dedicated point to point lines and MPLS networks can ensure bandwidth, latency, jitter, packet loss and quality of service beyond what the Internet can offer.

How to Decide
How do you choose the right bandwidth option for your operation? Consider your requirements and compare a range of competitive services for cost and performance. It’s easy to do that with an automated online bandwidth finder, but be sure to get recommendations from a expert consultant also.

Your 50 Mbps WAN Bandwidth Options

By: John Shepler

The 50 Mbps bandwidth level has become very popular lately because of business requirements for cloud services, remote data center access, big data files, ecommerce, high resolution image transfer and video content distribution. You should know that there are several options to acquire 50 Mbps bandwidth connectivity. Let’s take a look at the advantages and limitations of each.


DS3 & T3
The classic telecom service at this level is DS3, also known as T3. It was developed by the telephone companies to transport large numbers of simultaneous calls between switching centers. DS3 actually runs at 45, not 50 Mbps, but this is close enough for many applications. DS3 is a time synchronous channel technology, not packet based. Therefore you need a DS3 interface module for your router. You may also acquire a managed router provided by your service provider to take care of this protocol conversion.

Copper / Fiber Hybrid
DS3 is actually a hybrid fiber & copper technology. It is delivered to the curb over fiber optic cable and then connected to your equipment using coaxial cables for transmit and receive. The same fiber optic cables that pass your location can also deliver true fiber bandwidth at the OC3 level. In fact DS3 likely rides as one signal on an OC3 carrier.

OC3 Fiber Optic
If you want the entire OC3 service, it runs at 155 Mbps, the equivalent of 3 DS3’s plus overhead. Some carriers will install OC3 but rate limit the bandwidth to 45 or 50 Mbps. If you don’t need more bandwidth than this, there are some cost savings involved. You may also have the option to upgrade to the full OC3 capability when you need it.

Carrier Ethernet
The new competitor to OC3 is Carrier Ethernet. This is an extension of the Ethernet that runs on your company network but scaled up for long distance transmission. The interface with your equipment is easy. You simply plug into an Ethernet connector installed by the service provider. Carrier Ethernet can be provided over twisted pair copper telco wiring or fiber optic cable. While it is possible to transmit 50 Mbps Ethernet over copper for limited distances, it is far more likely that you’ll have this service delivered over fiber.

DS3, OC3 & Ethernet Compared
Let’s compare DS3, OC3 and Ethernet over Fiber. All three will give you 45 to 50 Mbps in dedicated, symmetrical bandwidth. All three are highly reliable and come with service level agreements. DS3 and OC3 have been around longer and may be easier to find. Carrier Ethernet is newer, but where available it often has a significant cost advantage. It is also easier to scale Ethernet bandwidth up and down as you need to. Popular Ethernet bandwidths range from 10 Mbps on up to 10 Gbps, with 50 and 100 Mbps now commonly used in business.

The Cable Broadband Alternative
An alternative service called D3 or DOCSIS 3 is provided by cable companies. This is the same technology now used for residential cable broadband. The business version runs on the same cable but has options like static IP addresses and higher priority customer service. The advantage of D3 is that you get a lot of bandwidth for the money. For half what you’d pay for DS3 or Ethernet, you can get 50 Mbps business cable broadband. However this isn’t the same type of bandwidth. The total bandwidth on the cable is shared among many users, so your line speed will constantly vary. It is also asymmetrical, meaning that your download speed may be 50 Mbps, but your upload speed may be limited to 5 Mbps or so. This isn’t a problem for email or Web access, but may not work for other applications. Also, this service is provided on a “best effort” basis with no service level agreements. Availability of this service is limited to locations near the main cable run.

How to Choose?
Which type of bandwidth will work best for your business needs? Get advice and fast quotes on 50 Mbps WAN bandwidth or service from 10 Mbps on up to 10 Gbps and higher, please call toll free (888) 848-8749 or enter your inquiry.

Business Gigabit Ethernet Bandwidth Advantage

By: John Shepler

It’s time for a bandwidth upgrade. You’ve been getting by with bonded T1, DS3, OC3 or OC12 fiber service and it’s not getting the job done anymore. What about a move up to Gigabit service? Is that practical? Can it be done without destroying the budget? Yes, if you are savvy about what to pick for your next bandwidth service. Let’s take a quick look at something that may have only become available since you signed your last line lease. It’s Gigabit Ethernet.


In case you’re still wondering why you shouldn’t just upgrade with classical switched circuit line services instead of moving into Gigabit Ethernet, there are several points to consider.

T1, DS3 and SONET have been around for decades and are highly reliable telecom services. But did you know that all of these are designed around telephone company needs in transporting large numbers of simultaneous calls. This technology long predates the rise of packet switched networks.

As such, you are dealing with a protocol conversion when you go from your network to the WAN connection and back again. That works, but it’s less efficient, harder to scale and pricier than just keeping everything Ethernet from end to end.

Let’s talk about scaling for a second. Any service can be rate limited by the carrier so that you only get a portion of the available bandwidth. This is called fractional service. The reason to do this is that you don’t need the full bandwidth the line can provide and may be offered a cost savings if you take just a fraction. That cost savings hasn’t traditionally been anywhere near proportional to the speed reduction.

The bigger problem comes when you run out of bandwidth. Bonded T1 tops out about 10 Mbps or so, DS3 is 45 Mbps, OC3 runs 155 Mbps and OC12 delivers 622 Mbps. If you want to move up from one of these services to another, you need the provider to come in can change out equipment. Each interface is unique to that service level. The result is a step change in price level and delays of weeks or more to get the changes made.

Carrier Ethernet was designed from the get-go to be more scalable. Your interface is an Ethernet connection regardless of the service level. What varies is the maximum speed of the installed port. That can be 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, 1000 Mbps or 10,000 Mbps. Carriers typically install 100 Mbps or 1000 Mbps ports for most businesses to be sure there is more than enough bandwidth available.

You can have a Gigabit Ethernet port installed at your location and then elect to start off with 100 Mbps or 400 Mbps or the full 1000 Mbps. Later, you can scale up or down with just a phone call to your provider. There are no equipment changes needed unless you need to move up to, say, 10 Gigabit Ethernet.

Don’t forget that Ethernet gives you a choice of services. You can opt for E-Line, a simple dedicated point to point connection. But, you can also choose E-LAN, a fully meshed any to any connection that is perfect for linking multiple business locations on the same network. This is a layer 2 service, so you’re able to create one large bridged network. This beats trying to do the same by ordering multiple line services and switching or routing them at your headquarters.

High levels of bandwidth that didn’t make sense a few years ago are now easily affordable by medium size businesses, school districts, medical centers, banks, and other organizations. Get a quick quote on business Gigabit Ethernet bandwidth for your location or locations and see if it doesn’t make sense for you to upgrade now.

Why Fiber Optic Metro Ethernet Makes So Much Sense

By: John Shepler

You know that there are multiple options for connecting your headquarters, branch offices, warehouses, factories, stores, schools or medical centers. Are you sure that you have an optimum solution for the network performance you need? Let’s take a closer look at at Metro Ethernet networks and see why they might be exactly what you need.

Metro Ethernet or Metro E networks are a special implementation of Metro Area Networks (MAN). MEN instead of MAN give you two big advantages or other networking options. First is that your network protocol remains as Ethernet from end to end. Second is the pricing advantage that optical Metro Ethernet networks have over other solutions.

The Ethernet in Metro Ethernet is also called Carrier Ethernet. It’s the same switched Ethernet protocol that you have running on your local area networks, but extended for transport over longer distances. The big difference between LANs and MANs or WANs is that once the traffic leaves the network you own, it needs a telecom carrier to get it across town or across the country. You can’t provide this transport on your own. You need to contract with a carrier or service provider that has the long distance connectivity.

If you have been using T1 lines, DS3 bandwidth or SONET/SDH fiber optic services to carry your traffic, you know that a protocol conversion is involved. These telecom services are based on circuit switched technology rather than the packet switched technology running on your network.

The protocol conversion is done inside an appliance or, more often, a plug-in module for your network edge router. This makes the MAN setup unique to the service and bandwidth level that’s engineered for your specific needs. Anytime you need to change something, like make a bandwidth increase, equipment and perhaps network design needs to change. This takes a lot of time and sometimes a bundle of money to implement.

Metro Ethernet networks take a different approach. The core network is IP or MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching) so that it can easily transport Ethernet packets without having to convert to and from one of the TDM (Time Division Multiplexing) protocols. This opens up the opportunity to connect your networks at the layer 2 switching rather than the layer 3 routing level.

The three layer 2 Ethernet services you should be aware of are Ethernet Line (E-Line), Ethernet LAN (E-LAN) and Ethernet Tree (E-Tree). Ethernet Line is a private line connection from point A to point B. This can directly replace older technology T1, DS3 or OCx connections.

E-LAN is a meshed multipoint to multipoint service that is often the best answer for how to easily and securely connect multiple business locations on a single private network. All locations can talk to each other but each location only needs a last mile connection to the Metro Ethernet network.

E-Tree is a special service of interest to service or content providers. It is a one to many network topology that transfers files form your root out to dozens or hundreds or thousands of “leaves” that can communicate with you but not each other.

Metro Ethernet networks have a cost advantage over dedicated point to point services when you need more than a single line. You pay for use of the multi-tenant metro network plus the last mile connectivity for each location. There is another valuable cost and performance savings that comes from all-fiber solutions.

Remember that traditional Metropolitan Area Network connections are set up specifically for a certain bandwidth level. It’s hard to scale much because of equipment changes that are needed when you jump from one standard bandwidth to another. Carrier Ethernet works differently. An Ethernet connection can handle any bandwidth up to the maximum speed of the installed port. If you have a 10 Mbps port, you can have any bandwidth up to and including 10 Mbps. A 100 Mbps port will handle all bandwidth levels up to 100 Mbps. The service levels are easily scalable, often in increments as small as 1 Mbps.

What this means is that you don’t have to order all the bandwidth you think you’ll ever need just to be sure that you can quickly accommodate increases in business levels. You simply order ports (10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, 1000 Mbps or 10,000 Mbps) to support your expected requirements. Then order the bandwidth you need now with the knowledge that your ports have the reserve to quickly scale up later.

Why do all-optical Metro Ethernet solutions make sense? One advantage is that fiber can easily handle any bandwidth you require now or in the future. Another, more subtle, reason is that many service providers can connect you on fiber they own rather than something they have to lease from the local phone companies. This one-provider solution offers a significant cost savings as well as a single responsible service provider for all issues.

Do you need connectivity to multiple locations within one or more metropolitan areas? Learn more about your available Metro Ethernet options and pricing now.


Note: Photo of city lights courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.

Many Flavors of Business Internet

By: John Shepler

You need to connect your business to the Internet. In fact, it’s almost impossible to do business now without a broadband Internet connection. Your customers, your cloud services, your emergency backup, your suppliers and perhaps the connection to your home office, remote sites or franchisees are all via the Internet. The only question is how to best achieve that connectivity.

Most businesses don’t have a lack of options for getting Internet service. What they have is a confusing situation with may different services offering different characteristics at different price points. Choosing the lowest price option may result in frustration when the connection can’t support your particular business activities. Automatically picking the highest priced option can increase your internet costs significantly and may also not provide the connectivity you need. Let’s see if we add some clarity to this decidedly unclear situation.

Business Internet options generally fall within two categories. The first are telecom services, usually regulated and tariffed. These were the first connections invented and adopted by business as well as the carriers themselves. The other category includes information services that are were primarily designed to serve the consumer market but now available for businesses too.

Telecom services include familiar names such as T1 lines, DS3, SONET fiber optic services and the newer Ethernet over Copper and Ethernet over Fiber connections. These are almost always intended for commercial and large organizational use. Most carriers won’t even provision these services to residences. That’s seldom a problem, because these telecom services range from several times to an order of magnitude higher in price than what residential users are used to spending.

What do you get for your telecom dollar? These services almost always offer symmetrical, dedicated bandwidth with a service level agreement (SLA). The service level agreement specifies the technical characteristics of your line service, the expected availability and how fast problems get attention and repaired. It’s a type of guarantee that you’ll get top rate performance.

Dedicated bandwidth means that you have exclusive use of the bandwidth you are paying for. You have access to a certain number of Mbps or Gbps on a 24/7 basis. You can run traffic occasionally or load up the line to full capacity continuously. The price is the same. It’s your bandwidth and nobody else gets access.

Symmetrical means that you get the same bandwidth in both the upload (transmit) and download (receive) directions. This isn’t important if you are just browsing websites, but it can be critical if you are running a server, backing up files to a remote data center, using cloud computing services, video conferencing or VoIP telephone.

Consumer oriented services are also referred to as “information services.” This is intended to imply that they are not a guaranteed telecom service and offered on a more casual basis. That basis means “best effort” delivery. The providers will make a good faith effort to ensure that you have reliable bandwidth service, but there are no guarantees of performance.

Typical services that fall into this category are DSL, Cable broadband, WiFi hot spots, 3G and 4G wireless and consumer oriented satellite service. Beyond the best effort delivery, what helps to hold the cost down is the use of shared asymmetrical bandwidth.

Shared means just that. There is a pool of bandwidth to connect to the Internet that is shared among dozens or hundreds of simultaneous users. How much you get at any given moment is determined by how many other users are online to divide up that bandwidth pool.

Asymmetrical means that your download and upload speeds are different. Typically, you get several to a order of magnitude (10x) faster speed on download that upload. Why? It’s because most Internet users are accessing web pages or streaming video. These are primarily one way activities. You need the extra bandwidth for those large file transfers from the server on the Internet to your PC.

There are some factors that muddy the waters. The consumer oriented services have business equivalents that are basically the same service but installed at commercial than residential addresses. They are often 2x to 3x the cost for business users. You do get better customer service and, often, the option for static IP addresses if you need them to run a server. Most consumer services prohibit running servers or sharing the bandwidth, such as offering a free WiFi hotspot.

So are these lower cost services something to avoid? Not at all, if they meet your needs. Even home broadband can be highly reliable and quickly repaired if the line is cut or equipment fails. It’s not unusual to get higher bandwidths, as high as 50 or 100 Mbps download and 5 to 10 Mbps upload, for roughly the same cost as a 1.5 Mbps T1 or 3 Mbps EoC line. If most of what your employees do is use email and web browsers or view video clips, you’ll likely get faster speeds for everyone with cable broadband than even bonded T1 lines. Sometimes wireless is all that will work at your location. In that case, a 3G or 4G cellular broadband can save the day when there are no wireline services available.

On the other hand, if you are running enterprise applications, especially in the cloud, or have converted your entire telephone system to VoIP, you’re not going to be very happy with the lower end services. The variability in bandwidth, latency and jitter will drive you crazy and drive your customers crazy as well. You’ll be much better off with dedicated symmetrical bandwidth. In fact, you may well want a direct connection to your cloud service provider or between business locations rather than deal with the vagaries and security issues of the Internet. Many companies need both: dedicated private line service for internal operations and an Internet connection to reach customers and access data.

How do you sort through the myriad of options for business Internet and private line option? Get help from a bandwidth brokerage service that can give you a range of options and the consulting support to make the most effective choices for your business. Find business bandwidth options and prices instantly online now.

When Asymmetrical Bandwidth Works Just Fine

Asymmetrical bandwidth has been pooh-poohed for business applications in favor of symmetrical bandwidth options. In some cases, you can wind up spending too much for the service you really need. In other cases, picking the wrong option will leave you frustrated and unproductive.

How do these symmetries work? Symmetrical bandwidth means that the upload and download speeds are exactly the same. You’ll see this identified as 3 x 3 Mbps Ethernet or 100 x 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet. The classic example of symmetrical bandwidth is the venerable T1 line. It offers a fixed 1.5 Mbps in the upload or transmit direction and 1.5 Mbps in the download or receive direction.

T1, DS3 and SONET are all symmetrical bandwidth services. The reason for this is historical. These are standards developed by the telephone companies to transport phone calls in bulk. The same bandwidth is needed for talk as well as listen on both ends. Ethernet over Fiber and Copper also tends to be symmetrical. It’s because these services were designed as replacements for T1, DS3 and SONET when used in business.

Asymmetrical bandwidth is characterized by differences in the upload and download speeds. This can be as much as an order of magnitude or 10x. You might order a service with 20 Mbps download and 2 Mbps upload or 100 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload.

Asymmetrical bandwidth is dominant in consumer broadband services. These include DSL, Cable, 3G and 4G wireless, two-way satellite, WiFi hotspots and WiMAX. Why? It’s the nature of the Internet.

Most people browse the Web or download software and video while they are online. When you are doing these things, you are sending commands via your keyboard to the remotely located Web server. These commands are inherently low bandwidth and are based on text you type or links you click on. Neither of these has very many bytes of data involved. Downloads are another matter. Web pages, video clips and streams, music and other audio, software updates and large files are all bandwidth intensive because of their large file sizes. You want the maximum bandwidth available for downloads to minimize load times. You don’t need much bandwidth at all in the upload direction for the usual Web browsing.

What changes this picture? Any process that results in sending out large files as well as receiving them. Examples are remote backups, video conferencing, posting photos and movies online, and making large updates to Web servers. Most consumers do some of these things some of the time. Businesses are far more likely to be sending as much as they receive. But... not all.

If you are heavily involved in big data, cloud computing, enterprise VoIP, video production and distribution, medical image transmission or similar large file operations, you’ll want to opt for symmetrical bandwidth. Fast download speeds may not be so valuable when you wait forever to upload something or try to conduct an HD video conference.

Why pick asymmetrical bandwidth options? The primary reason is to save money. The asymmetrical services like Cable, DSL and 3G wireless are usually priced at a fraction of the cost for symmetrical services. This is generally due to more than symmetry. Asymmetrical services are most often shared rather than dedicated bandwidth. This reduces costs dramatically but means that your bandwidth will vary depending on what other users are doing. There are generally no service level agreements or performance guarantees on asymmetrical bandwidth services. That may be changing as business service providers begin offering dedicated asymmetrical bandwidth options.

What is the best bandwidth option for your business? Find out by comparing prices and features for a wide variety of asymmetrical and symmetrical bandwidth options on carriers serving your business location. Free consulting is also available to help you make the appropriate choice.

Fiber Optic Leased Lines for Business

Copper-based leased lines have been the go-to solution for connecting business sites and for dedicated access to the Internet. However, copper’s days are numbered as big data, HD video and a migration out of the corporate data centers and into the cloud accelerate. The era of fiber-everything is approaching. Fortunately, prices are lower and options greater than ever before.

Fiber optic leased lines have been employed for decades by major corporations and businesses, like video production and distribution, that can’t function without the bandwidth fiber affords. Nearly all of this bandwidth has been supplied by a telephone industry standard called SONET for Synchronous Optical NETworking.

SONET picks up where T-carrier stops. T1 is good for 1.5 Mbps and up to 12 Mbps when multiple T1 lines are bonded. T3, often called DS3, is a 45 Mbps service, although it can be rate limited to 10 or 20 Mbps to lower costs. DS3 stands at the crossroads between copper and fiber. DS3 bandwidth is most often carried on a multiplexed SONET service for most of the transport distance and then converted to coaxial copper connections at the customer site.

SONET fiber optic lines start with OC-3 at 155 Mbps. Like DS3, OC-3 can be rate limited to offer fractional OC-3 bandwidth at 50 or 100 Mbps. Most often it is leased as a full rate OC-3 service.

Other SONET service levels offer increasing bandwidth. OC-12 runs at 622 Mbps. OC-24 is a Gigabit service running at 1.2 Gbps. It is not widely offered. The next popular SONET service is OC-48 at 2.5 Gbps. OC-192 steps this up to 10 Gbps. OC-768 is a 40 Gbps line service that has been popular as a carrier backbone but now offered to businesses in some areas.

Note the big gaps in bandwidth between the SONET optical carrier levels. If you need a Gigabit connection, you may have to order an OC-48 service even though it has twice the bandwidth you require. We’ll take a look at how Carrier Ethernet is far more scalable and can give you fine degree of granularity for selecting just the right bandwidth for your applications.

Another thing about SONET is that it is a TDM or Time Division Multiplexed technology. This means that the signal is a string of bits divided into small channels and carefully synchronized to communicate with other SONET lines. Why this arrangement? It is the telephony legacy of SONET. It was designed to be compatible with Bell’s T-Carrier standards that are also TDM-based. Each channel in a T1 line or OC-768 is 64 Kbps to support one telephone call. Of course, these channels can now be combined so that you can use the entire line capacity less overhead to transport your data packets.

Since SONET is not a packet switched protocol, you need a protocol converter to translate between TDM and Ethernet in order to get your network data from place to place. That is generally a plug-in module for your router. Each SONET level has a specifically designed module that is unique to that optical carrier level.

What SONET has going for it is a long history and extensive deployment worldwide. You don’t have to worry about the intricacies of protocol conversion or signal interfacing, as they problems were solved long ago. SONET is most popular when deployed in rings of two redundant fibers that can switch in under 50 Msec to keep the data flowing even when faults in the system occur. Most metropolitan and long haul fiber optic networks are set up in the SONET ring topology for reliability.

What now competes with SONET is Ethernet over Fiber (EoF). Yes, this is the familiar Ethernet protocol that runs on your LAN but extended for long haul transport. The extended protocol is called Carrier Ethernet.

The advantages of Carrier Ethernet include easy and rapid scalability, a packet oriented protocol directly compatible with nearly all company networks and edge routers, and a considerable cost savings compared with SONET. Typical service levels start at 10 Mbps, the standard Ethernet service level. Other popular options are 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet, 1000 Mbps Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) and 10,000 Mbps or 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 GigE).

You aren’t limited to these particular service levels. You can pretty much pick any bandwidth you like as long as the Ethernet Port installed at your facility can support the maximum speed you require. Easy scalability also means that you can often simply call your service provider and request an increase in bandwidth. It’s likely to be available in a matter of days if not hours.

Ethernet over FIber was almost unknown even a few years ago but now widely deployed. If available at your location, you’ll find that the cost per Mbps is much lower than SONET, perhaps half the cost for the same bandwidth. This is why Carrier Ethernet is rapidly taking over the fiber optic transport market, although SONET prices have also been plunging in response to the new competition.

Does your company require higher bandwidths that you can get from copper wireline services? Are you using fiber now but wondering if you can get a better price? Do you have a new application and want to get the best deal on bandwidth? If any of these apply, get competitive quotes on SONET and Ethernet fiber optic leased lines available for your business location.

Business Fiber Optic Connections Nearby

Are you running out of bandwidth on your telecom connections? You’ve gone as far as you can with bonded T1 lines. Now you’re considering making the move up to fiber optic services. You’ve heard that those are really expensive and that you can get hit with construction costs on top of the monthly lease price. Is that really true? Is there such as thing as cost effective fiber optic connections?

A lot of what everybody knows about fiber optics is long out of date and may be preventing them from making a smooth and painless transition to unlimited bandwidth options. For one thing, there are options available right now that weren’t around even a few years ago. Pricing has also come down considerably due to competition and new technology. Let’s take a closer look at the fiber optic connections that are located nearby.

Before we start looking down fiber strands for a solution, have you considered the latest in copper technology? Copper is way more than T1 or DSL these days. Ethernet over Copper technology gives you up to 45 Mbps in many business locations. That’s as much as many businesses really need. It’s relatively inexpensive, highly reliable and is provisioned over multiple twisted pairs. Those pairs, by the way, are probably already installed in your building for multi-line telephone service.

Another copper service is cable business broadband. It’s not for everyone, but if you can benefit from shared bandwidth up to 100 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload for Internet access, the price is right. It’s about the same as a T1 line.

Entry level fiber optic service actually starts with DS3 at 45 Mbps. Nobody thinks about DS3 being a fiber service. It’s delivered over two coaxial cables and often referred to as a T3 line. However, that copper cable only goes as far as the street at most. The rest of the path is over a multiplexed SONET fiber optic service.

It is OC-3 SONET fiber optic service that is fiber all the way. OC-3 was the first fiber optic service available to most businesses. It offers bi-directional 155 Mbps dedicated bandwidth for point to point or dedicated Internet access connections. OC-3 is part of the SONET (Synchronous Optical NETwork) family of traditional telecom services. Next up the line is OC-12 at 622 Mbps, OC-24 at 1.2 Gbps, OC-48 at 2.4 Gbps, OC-192 at 10 Gbps and OC-768 at 40 Gbps.

Competing directly with SONET is now Ethernet over Fiber (EoF). Ethernet over Fiber is a Carrier Ethernet service that is easily scalable so you can increase bandwidth incrementally. That means more intermediate bandwidth steps than SONET and fewer equipment changes. The provider installs an Ethernet port that delivers your service. This is almost always selected at 100 Mbps, 1 Gbps or 10 Gbps. You can get any speed service you want up to the capacity of the installed port. Many carriers are now routinely installing 1 Gbps ports so that start off as low as 10 Mbps and work your way up to 1 Gbps with only a phone call.

How about pricing and availability? It varies greatly, although you should know that there is a big competitive buildout underway nationwide. It’s not just the traditional telecom companies. There are new players with their own fiber networks that run IP at the core. They don’t have a legacy SONET infrastructure to maintain, so they’ll run Ethernet over Fiber right to your door.

The big trick is to have your building “lit” by one or more carriers for fiber optic service. In multiple tenant business buildings there is enough opportunity to attract carriers to install service at little or no cost. If you are the only user, the bar is higher. Some providers are so aggressive that they’ll waive construction costs if you buy a reasonable amount of bandwidth and they don’t have to run the drop too far. Others will ask you to kick in at least a small portion of the construction expenses.

Monthly lease prices have plunged over the last decade for both SONET and the newer Ethernet services. Competition from peers and Ethernet vs SONET has driven fiber optic bandwidth costs down to a fraction of what they were during all the hoopla of the tech boom years before 2000. If you haven’t gone out for quotes in, say the last few months, your jaw will likely drop when you see how much you can get for your bandwidth dollar these days.

What’s the best way to get a reasonable suite of competitive quotes? Use a bandwidth broker, like Telarus, to get multiple fiber optic service quotes for your location. Their automated GeoQuote (tm) system is so fast that you can get quotes up to 1 Gbps instantly online with no cost or obligation. If you like what you see, an expert consultant will help you sort through the options at your convenience. Go ahead and give it a try now.



Note: Photo of fiber optic conduit spools courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.