Ethernet over Copper FAQ - Part 2

Ethernet over Copper has become a serious contender for business connectivity solutions traditionally provided by T1 lines, DS3 bandwidth and OC3 fiber. Consider the following FAQ, frequently asked questions and answers, to help you decide if EoC service is right for your business.

Q: What is the cost advantage of EoC versus other line services

A: EoC generally offers a significant cost savings compared to what you are used to paying for business bandwidth services. For instance, a 3 Mbps Ethernet connection is often priced the same as a 1.5 Mbps T1 line. The cost savings are even more pronounced at higher bandwidth levels.

Q: What determines Ethernet over Copper availability?

A: The two major elements are local availability of service and distance from the central office that connects your copper pair cabling. T1, DS3 and OC3 have been around much longer that Ethernet over Copper and are more readily available. Not all offices have the necessary terminal equipment to support EoC. The bandwidth available from Ethernet over Copper technology is much higher close to the central office than farther away. While nearly all business locations can get lower bandwidths if available, the higher bandwidth services may be available over short distances only.

Q: Why is dedicated bandwidth important?

A: Dedicated means that you have exclusive use of the available bandwidth on your line. Consumer oriented line services, such as DSL and Cable are shared bandwidth arrangements where the speed of your connection varies with the activity level of other residential and business users. Dedicated bandwidth ensures that your connection won’t get bogged down just when you need it to be productive.

Q: What is EoDS1 and what is its application?

A: EoDS1 is a hybrid between EoC and T1. It essentially uses T1 lines to transport Ethernet service. This increases the geographical area where Ethernet is available and is generally lower in cost than multiple bonded T1 lines to achieve the same bandwidth.

Q: What is Carrier Ethernet?

A: Carrier Ethernet is the same Ethernet protocol that runs on your company LAN but extended for operation over metropolitan and wide area distances. The standards for this technology have been established by an industry association called the Metro Ethernet Forum or MEF. Carrier Ethernet includes Ethernet over Copper and Ethernet over Fiber.

Q: What special network services are available over Carrier Ethernet?

A: There are 3 services you may find interesting. Ethernet Line service or E-Line is a point to point connection, similar to what you get with T1 and other telecom services. Because the protocol is Ethernet on both the LAN and WAN, you can bridge LANs at two business locations to create one larger business network. E-LAN or Ethernet LAN service is a meshed network arrangement that interconnects 3 or more business locations. E-Tree or Ethernet Tree service is a one to many connection suitable for content distribution.

Q: Is EoC suitable for Internet service?

A: Internet connectivity is one of the more popular ways that EoC is used for business. A dedicated Ethernet Internet connection gives you a highly reliable link from your location to the Internet. EoC bandwidth is symmetrical (the same in both upload and download directions) to support voice, video and cloud services as well as Web browsing and email.

Could Ethernet service be the right answer to your business connectivity needs? See what Ethernet over Copper bandwidths and pricing are available for your business location.


You may also be interested in reading Ethernet over Copper FAQ (Part 1) and Ethernet over Copper FAQ (Part 3).

California and Nevada Get 200 Mbps Bandwidth over Copper

It’s no secret that business bandwidth demands have been skyrocketing in the last decade or so. Companies that used to be successfully connected with T1 lines (1.5 to 12 Mbps) or DS3 (45 Mbps) are now finding that line speeds over 100 Mbps are needed to support HD video, big data and cloud computing.

Companies in California and Nevada now find it much easier to get up to 200 Mbps over multiple copper pair. Notice that I said copper, not fiber. It’s no trick to get bandwidths this high or higher over SONET or Ethernet over Fiber. The big stumbling block is getting the fiber installed.

The beauty of fiber optics is that the bandwidth is nearly unlimited. Once the fiber is in place you can swap out terminal equipment at each end to increase single wavelength fiber speed or install wavelength division multiplexing equipment to multiply the bandwidth capacity of each fiber strand. Now, if there was only a way to get fiber installed without breaking the bank.

You may not have to. Modulation technology developments have given a new lease on life to the same twisted copper pairs that carry your analog business phones or T1 data lines. Standard Ethernet over Copper (EoC) technology uses up to 8 twisted pair to deliver roughly 3 to 45 Mbps. In special cases that has been increased to 100 Mbps. There is no need to install new copper pair to the building, so construction costs are minimized and you don’t have to worry about fiber runs being available in the area.

Technology continues to advance rapidly. Now TelePacific is doubling the current offer of 100 Mbps Ethernet over Copper to 200 Mbps. They call the upgrade EEoC for Enhanced Ethernet over Copper. It’s already available in 247 of their LSOs (Local Service Offices) in California and Nevada. That number is increasing to 284 LSOs this year. That makes EEoC service available to a potential quarter million SMB (Small to Medium size Businesses).

Compare EEoC to services like OC-3 at 155 Mbps or Fast Ethernet over Fiber at 100 Mbps. The speed is higher and you don’t need fiber. For many if not most SMBs a bandwidth of 200 Mbps will meet their needs far into the future. By the time 200 Mbps is no longer adequate, technology will likely increase this speed again or fiber will be pulled into your building by TelePacific or another competitive service provider.

What if you don’t happen to be located in California or Nevada? Are you out of luck for any reasonable amount of bandwidth for your business?

Far from it. There are multiple options available just about anywhere to increase your line speed. The ubiquitous T1 line has been available to business users for decades and is still selling briskly. The only thing that’s changed over the years is the price. Competition from multiple providers and other services has dropped T1 prices significantly. Plus, lines can now to bonded to increase bandwidth from 1.5 Mbps on up to 10 or 12 Mbps. That’s plenty for many smaller companies.

Need more speed? Ethernet over Copper is available nationwide from multiple providers. It’s very easy to get EoC in speeds that range from 3 to 30 or even 50 Mbps in most business areas. Companies that are in smaller towers or out in the countryside are the exception. They’ve always been able to get T1, but now a variation on EoC called EoDS1 gives you Ethernet over Copper using beyond city limits. Fiber optic carriers are also aggressively building out their networks and wiring up multi-tenant buildings as fast as it makes sense. You may not have been able to get fiber last year, but this year could be a different story.

Are you looking for a bandwidth upgrade for your business? Would you be delighted to find out that you can get the same bandwidth you have now or even more for no additional cost? It’s time to check out your options. Get a complete list of options and prices, plus free consulting services to help you choose the best approach. You might be surprised by what’s available today.

Ethernet Connects Businesses Throughout Latin America

Over the last few years, Carrier Ethernet services have become the choice of many, many businesses for Dedicated Internet Access (DIA), private line point to point connections, last mile access to MPLS networks and meshed any-to-any connections to link multiple business sites in the United States. Now that capability is rolling out worldwide. As an example, Level 3, a major international carrier, has won an award from the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) for their service to the Caribbean and Latin America.

International voice and data services have been available for decades. We’re well aware of the extensive undersea fiber optic cables that link continents. What’s different now is a change of protocol and the availability of new services for companies and organizations worldwide.

The reason that Ethernet is displacing earlier protocols is that IP packets are now the dominant packaging for electronic communication. Nearly all Local Area Networks (LANs) are Ethernet based. The Internet, the largest and most connected set of networks, is based on routing IP or Internet Protocol packets. So why wouldn’t you simply extend the networks you have now using an Ethernet protocol?

The only thing stopping a faster switch over to IP based core networks is legacy. The massive investment in infrastructure over the last century isn’t going to go away all at once. That infrastructure was largely built by the telephone companies for their own use and is based on Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) telco standards such as T1, DS3 and SONET.

Fortunately, it isn’t necessary to rip out all the existing telecom equipment that works perfectly well just to have Ethernet services available. Carrier Ethernet can run over IP core networks or TDM networks. Ethernet over T1 (EoDS1) works well as a last mile connection to join MPLS networks or as a point to point private line. The existing T1 infrastructure is so extensive that it can be brought into nearly any business, even in rural areas. Ethernet over DS3 (EoDS3) up the bandwidth to 45 Mbps. Ethernet over SONET picks up at 155 Mbps and goes to at least 10 Gbps, with some connections available at 40 Gbps and 100 Gbps.

One factor that has hastened the adoption of Carrier Ethernet is the existence of an industry standards group called the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF). This group serves to establish and maintain the standards that all manufacturers and Ethernet service providers will use to enter the Ethernet marketplace. One standard of note is the E-NNI or Ethernet Network to Network Interface. This provides a predictable and carrier-agnostic way for two networks to exchange traffic. As they do this, each carrier expands the reach of its own services. It is no longer necessary to lay fiber around the world to connect to international destinations. Carriers can create peering arrangements through E-NNIs to gain access to the markets that they don’t directly serve.

Level 3’s award winning project involved one of the world’s largest banking and financial services companies. The Ethernet business solution supported this customer’s connectivity throughout Brazil. More and more large and medium size corporations are looking at Ethernet services to interconnect their various locations worldwide. Smaller companies are finding that the cost advantages and easy connectivity of Ethernet makes it well worthwhile to switch services at contract renewal time for for new installations.

Does your large, medium or small organization need better connectivity at lower prices than what you’ve traditionally paid for legacy telecom services? If so, check pricing and features of Carrier Ethernet services now.



Note: Map of Latin America image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

EoDS1 Extends Ethernet over Copper Distance

Demand for Ethernet over Copper has outstripped its availability. Some of this is because
EoC termination equipment is not available yet in all central offices. More is caused by simple distance limitations. What can be done to make Carrier Ethernet available to all the businesses that want it?

MegaPath, a major competitive carrier, has an answer. It’s called EoDS1 or Ethernet over DS1. Now, just what is EoDS1 and how does it differ from EoC?

Both EoC and EoDS1 are copper wireline services. Both are provisioned over ordinary twisted pair telco wiring. This is the same copper bundle that brings in multi-line telephone service. Both use multiple bonded pairs to increase bandwidth. However, one has distance limitations and the other doesn’t. Why is that?

It has to do with the technology that sends the digital signals down the line. Ethernet over Copper is seen as a big improvement over T1 lines because bandwidth options go far beyond the 1.5 Mbps that T1 offers. Typical entry level for EoC is 3 Mbps. Many companies are opting for 10 Mbps now. High bandwidth users can get 20, 30, 45, 60 and even 100 Mbps using the copper plant that is already installed to their business. Prior to Ethernet over Copper, companies that needed higher bandwidths had to bring in fiber or do without.

Ethernet over Copper has changed all that for many businesses, especially those in dense metropolitan areas where central offices are plentiful and nearby. The technical issue is that high speed digital signals degrade rapidly with distance. You can only send data so fast on a twisted pair of small diameter copper wires buried in the ground. EoC gets around this to some extent by using multiple pairs to divvy up the datastream so that each pair can run at a slower speed. When added together at the far end, you can get a lot of bandwidth out of 4 or 8 pairs. Even so, the closer you are to the central office that terminates the wiring from your location, the more bandwidth options will be available.

So why does EoDS1 not suffer from these same limitations? Remember the venerable T1 line running along at 1.5 Mbps? DS1 or Digital Signal level 1 is the definition of the way the data is formatted on a T1 line. Sometimes the terms DS1 and T1 are used interchangeably.

You know that T1 lines and their DS1 signals can be connected miles from the central office. In fact, there aren’t very many locations even out in the boonies that don’t qualify for T1 line service. Until recently, it was the preferred backhaul connectivity for cell phone towers. It’s not just the lower line speed that makes this possible. T1 was developed by the telephone companies to interconnect their own switching centers. These can be long distances apart, so a signal regenerator was designed to boost the T1 signal every 6,000 feet or so. Multiple regenerators can be used on one line, greatly extending the transmission distance.

Here’s something else you should know about T1 lines. They can be pair-bonded, just like EoC, to increase the delivered bandwidth. Bond two T1 lines together and you get a 3 Mbps service. Bond 8 T1 lines to get 12 Mbps, pretty much the maximum speed available using multiple T1 lines.

As you might suspect, EoDS1 is nothing more than Ethernet over T1 lines. In many cases, you can order bonded T1 or EoDS1 and get the same bandwidth result. So why not just stick with T1?

The reason is Ethernet services. Your local area networks run the Ethernet protocol. You can interconnect LANs at multiple locations with T1 lines by going through protocol conversions to and from Ethernet. If you keep everything in the Ethernet protocol, the transmission process is more efficient and you have the option to link your LANs at the layer 2 level. This means that ordinary Ethernet switches can be used to route traffic on what is essentially one large Ethernet network.

Are you considering new Carrier Ethernet service or wish to expand your multi-location links to include places where EoC isn’t available yet? If so, take a closer look at the cost and benefit of Ethernet over DS1 bandwidth service.

Instant Metro Ethernet Provider Maps

Metro Ethernet (Metro E) services have big advantages for businesses and organizations. These include higher bandwidths, lower costs and special services such as meshed WAN connections. The big question is what Metro E services are available for your business. For that, you need a Metro Ethernet provider map.

Why bother mapping out Ethernet availability? This service is so new that it is not yet universally available. You can call up just about any major carrier and ask about T1 service with the expectation that you can get one or more T1 lines anytime you want them. If you want Metro Ethernet, however, you may well find that your usual provider has no Ethernet capability as of yet or that they don’t service your business location.

Besides the newness of the service, there are a couple of other tricky aspects to Metro E. First, there are several methods of providing service. High bandwidth connections, say 50 Mbps and above, almost always require fiber optic lines. It is estimated that fewer than 30% of all business locations are currently “lit” for fiber optic service. If you don’t have it, or have service from a carrier that only deals in the older SONET protocol, there may be costs and/or time delays in getting your building connected.

Your odds of getting the Metro Ethernet service you want increase dramatically when you include a multitude of competitive service providers in your assessment. The problem is that the time honored ways of looking for service providers in the phone book or industrial directories may miss many good opportunities. What you really want is a service that specializes in business bandwidth. That service is readily available at no cost through a bandwidth services broker.

One of the best in the business is Telarus, Inc. They’ve made available a self-service mapping tool called GeoQuote (tm). The GeoQuote search requires only some basic location information such as street address, city and state of the location you want to check. The patented system then searches a massive database and even accesses carrier IT systems to gather information on the Ethernet services at or near your building. The results are presented on a standard street map plus a listing of distance and capability of each service available. If you wish, you can then go on to get a detailed real-time price quote by entering your contact information.

By knowing where high bandwidth fiber is already installed, you can then get competitive quotes and see just what the construction costs are. You may get lucky and find that your building is “on-net” for one or more providers. That means there is already fiber in the building and it only has to be installed to your offices.

What if there is no fiber nearby? You may still be able to get Ethernet bandwidths from 3 to 50 Mbps using a technology called “Ethernet over Copper (EoC).” This service uses the same twisted pair telco wiring that bring in multi-line phone service and T1. The technology is a bit different and requires that the central office where your copper lines are connected has the specialized interface equipment needed for EoC. Many, many COs now have that capability. The speed of the service depends highly on how far you are away from the CO. If you are located nearby, you can get EoC bandwidth that rivals entry level fiber services. If farther away, you may be limited to 10 or 20 Mbps or not be able to get service at all.

Even if Ethernet over Copper is unavailable, there is a chance that a related technology called EoDS1 can work for your situation. This involves using multiple T1 lines to bring in the Ethernet signal. Distance isn’t an issue for this approach, although you are limited to 10 or 12 Mbps max.

Are you curious now about the fiber and copper based Ethernet services available to your business? Try using the GeoQuote instant Metro Ethernet provider maps and get complete price quotes for each competitive service.

Ethernet In The First Mile Advantages

Metropolitan and Wide Area Networks can transport your packets anywhere you wish them to go. Regardless of what type of network you are connecting to, there’s one more thing you are going to need. It’s a way to get to the nearest on-ramp. This is often called first or last mile connectivity. Ethernet offers some real advantages to that first mile link that you should know about.

There are a number of technologies that work well for first mile connections. These include T1 lines, DSL, SONET fiber optic services and even microwave or 3G/4G wireless. The idea is to connect your building to your service provider, or at least a portal to your service provider. In many cases, you can’t connect directly to your preferred network service provider because they don’t have any resources close enough. In other cases, it’s more cost effective to do it in a couple of hops.

A very typical case is the venerable T1 line. These are almost universally used by businesses as first mile links. Why? Because they are highly reliable, reasonably priced and almost always available. That availability is based on using telco twisted pair copper wire bundles that run from the business directly to the nearest Central Office (CO). That CO is owned by the incumbent local phone company, but copper pairs and rack space for equipment are leased to other service providers. This is where you connect to your provider’s network.

In many areas you now have the option of connecting via T1 lines or Ethernet over Copper (EoC). They both use exactly the same bundled twisted pairs but have different interfacing equipment at each end. This may not make any difference to you if your provider is installing a managed router as part of the service. You’ll connect to the router with a standard Ethernet LAN cable. What will make a difference is the lease price you’ll pay each month and the bandwidth options available.

Ethernet over Copper is less expensive per Mbps in most areas. You can typically get 2 Mbps or even 3 Mbps EoC for the same price as a 1.5 Mbps T1 line. It’s an even better deal as you go up in bandwidth. T1 lines can be bonded to double, triple or quadruple line speed or even more. You can stretch this technology up to 10 or 12 Mbps, but it starts to get pricey at the high end. Ethernet over Copper scales much less expensively and to higher bandwidths. While 3 Mbps EoC is a popular replacement for T1 service, many companies order 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 or even 45 Mbps Ethernet over Copper bandwidth. You can even get increments between these levels so that you don’t have to pay for any more connectivity than you actually need.

In addition to cost savings and increased bandwidth, there’s another reason that you may want to opt for Ethernet rather than T1 in the first mile. Standardized Carrier Ethernet services are now widely available. These include Ethernet Line (E-Line), Ethernet LAN (E-LAN) and VPLS (Virtual Private LAN Service). What they have in common is layer 2 connectivity that gives you the option to bridge your company LANs regardless of how far apart they may be separated. You need to keep everything in the Ethernet protocol to make this work. EoC will do that, T1 won’t. However, there is a service called EoDS1 that uses T1 lines to transport Ethernet where EoC isn’t available.

If you need higher speeds than Ethernet over Copper affords, you should take look at Ethernet over Fiber (EoF). It’s a replacement for SONET fiber optic services that include OC-3, OC-12, OC-48 and so on. Like EoC, EoF has both scalability and cost advantages. If you order a 1 Gbps port, as many companies do, you can have your provider deliver any bandwidth up to 1,000 Mbps and pay only for what you need. When your requirements increase, a simple phone call to your provider will get you higher bandwidth quickly. Ethernet over Fiber has the same Carrier Ethernet services available as Ethernet over Copper.

Are you thinking that Ethernet may be a better solution to your connectivity needs that what you have now? If so, get prices, bandwidths and availability of First Mile Ethernet services for your business locations.

Ethernet Bandwidth For Rural Areas

It is commonly assumed that there is no such thing as Ethernet WAN service beyond the city limits. That’s not really true, as you do have Ethernet connectivity options even in rural areas. Let’s see how that’s done.

Ethernet over Copper (EoC) is becoming the bandwidth service of choice for small and medium businesses. It offers the ease of Ethernet interfacing, ability to transport Ethernet services like E-Line, E-LAN and VPLS, relatively high bandwidths of 3 to 50 Mbps and even 100+ Mbps in select areas, all with provisioning over multiple twisted pair telco wiring that is already installed. Best of all, pricing is more than competitive. Where available, you’ll pay a lot less for EoC vs traditional telecom services like T1 or DS3 on an Mbps basis.

"Where available" is the catch. Ethernet over Copper technology has strict distance limitations. The modulation scheme that is used can transport high bandwidth levels, but signal levels fade rapidly as you get farther and farther away from the telco Central Office (CO). Within a mile or so you can get all sorts of bandwidth options using 2 to 8 twisted pair. As you start moving out to 2 or 3 miles away, signal levels degrade to the point where they are unusable even at low bandwidths.

That pretty much rules out EoC for most rural locations. Beyond the city limits, population densities are low and wire runs are long for telecom services. Fiber may be running right next to the gravel road you are standing on. The hitch is that there is no drop-off. The fiber just keeps on going to the next metropolitan area.

Now, there are exceptions. If you have a rural business location that luckily happens to be within a few thousand feet of the incumbent telephone company’s office, you may qualify for Ethernet over Copper services. What’s needed is for the telco or a competitive service provider to have EoC terminal equipment installed in that CO. You are less likely to find EoC equipment in smaller offices because of the limited number of businesses connected to that facility.

Don’t despair. As I said earlier, you may still have options. There is another way to transport Ethernet over copper lines with virtually unlimited reach. This is called Ethernet over DS1 or EoDS1. If DS1 sounds familiar, it’s because DS1 is the Digital Signal protocol used for T1 lines. DS1 is part of the half-century old T-Carrier specifications that define the technology for T1 and T3 lines. DS1 was originally developed to transport telephone conversations in groups of 24 channels or time slots within a time division multiplexed bit stream. Later, a concept called clear channel T1 was implemented to combine all those channels into one larger channel. That boosted bandwidth per channel from 64 Kbps up to 1.5 Mbps and made it practical to transport data using DS1.

DS1 defines the signal. T1 is the particular physical line consisting of 2 twisted pair copper telco wires with particular voltage and signal shape characteristics. Normally, DS1 and T1 go together. However, It is possible technically to transport Ethernet using DS1. What that means is that Ethernet can be sent over T1 lines. Since T1 was designed to use signal regenerators to boost sagging signal levels every mile or so, T1 service can go out into the boonies for miles, sometimes even 20 miles or more.

Ethernet over DS1 gives you the option to get Ethernet service where only T1 is available. You aren’t limited to the T1 line bandwidth of 1.5 Mbps. T1 lines can be bonded to increase bandwidth, which works for EoDS1 too. Add more lines and you get more bandwidth. It’s the number of lines bonded times 1.5 Mbps.

What about cost? EoDS1 doesn’t offer the same cost advantages as EoC because the price of T1 lines doesn’t go down if you bond more of them together. You have to pay for each line. EoDS1 also isn’t available from all carriers or in all locations.

What’s the best bandwidth solution for your company? It depends a lot on where you are located and what services you require. There’s an easy way to compare options. Simply get competitive quotes for Ethernet and other telecom services from multiple service providers, each tailored to your particular requirements.

IP T1 Line Service

T1 line service has been available for decades. It originated as a proprietary telephone company technology designed as a trunk for transporting multiple phone calls between switching centers. Later, T1 was made available for businesses to support their PBX phone systems. When the Internet came along, T1 lines were pressed into service as dedicated Internet connections. But now we live in an IP world. Can T1 also act as an IP connection?

Yes, it can. That may seem counterintuitive to those who understand the origins and technology behind T1 service. The T-Carrier specifications, of which T1 is the most popular line service, describe a system organized as multiplexed channels 64 Kbps wide. That channel size was optimized to transport a single independent digitized telephone call using PCM (Pulse Code Modulation). Clearly, T1 is oriented toward the switched circuit based public telephone network.

That’s true, but the important thing to remember about digital network technologies is that a bit is a bit. It’s either true or false, one or zero, regardless of the particular physical layer or higher level protocols involved. That means that a time division multiplexing technology like T1 can be used to transport a packet oriented technology like IP or Ethernet with a little protocol conversion.

That’s essentially what’s being done when T1 lines are used for data transmission. It’s been a long time since anything but Ethernet has been the standard for local area networks. Ethernet is an IP technology, based on packet switching. Those packets can be queued up and loaded into T1 frames for transmission through T1 lines and even multiplexed into T3 and SONET frames for longer haul transmission. At the far end, the packets are offloaded and sent on their way through an IP edge router connected to the T1 CPE (Customer Premises Equipment.)

If you want to connect your Ethernet networks over metropolitan and wide area networks, one technology you’ll be interested in is called Ethernet over T1 or EoT1. This is also called EoDS1 for Ethernet over DS1.

DS1 is simply the data service or protocol that runs on T1 lines. The reason there are two designations is that T1 describes a physical line consisting of two twisted pair copper telco loops running at 1.5 Mbps. The DS1 is all the bits formated for transmission just before loading into the actual T1 line. You can take that same DS1 and feed it into an add/drop multiplexer and transport it along with many others on a T3 circuit or a fiber optic service like OC-3. At the other end, the DS1 can be demultiplexed from the other services on the same line and delivered separately.

In practice T1 and DS1 refer to the same thing to the actual user. What’s important is that Carrier Ethernet service can be delivered on a T1 line, albeit bandwidth limited to 1.5 Mbps. Who would want service that slow? Lots of companies need connectivity between locations, but don’t require high speeds. They may be using the service for retail credit card verification, communication with corporate headquarters, or to upload files to their web server. The big advantage they have with T1 lines is that they are almost universally available. If you can get business phone service, chances are that you can also get a T1 line installed. They are connected over the same telco wiring.

The competing service to Ethernet over T1 is Ethernet over Copper. That may seem like a fine line of distinction, but it is important. Ethernet over Copper (EoC) also uses twisted pair copper but a different modulation scheme that offers higher bandwidths but with distance limitations. If you are within a mile or two of the central office that has Ethernet over Copper equipment, you may be able to get 10 Mbps, 20 Mbps or even higher bandwidths from EoC. Some installations are transporting in excess of 100 Mbps over multiple copper pair.

Ethernet over T1 bandwidth can also be improved by adding more copper pair. The process of combining the bandwidths of several T1 lines into one larger bandwidth is called bonding. EoT1 bonding can deliver up to 10 or 12 Mbps to both metropolitan and rural areas, providing the equipment is available.

Are you interested in an IP connection for your computer or converged voice and data networks? If so, get pricing and availability for Ethernet over T1 or Copper now to see how much bandwidth is available for your business locations.

Is Metro Ethernet Available?

You’re looking to initiate or expand bandwidth for your company. What type of service should you go with? Metro Ethernet is in the news these days. You may have heard that it offers more bandwidth for less money than traditional telecom solutions. But, is Metro Ethernet even available?

There’s a quick way to find out. Use an Ethernet service finder to get a map of the lit buildings near you. What’s a lit building? No, that doesn’t refer to how many lights are on in the offices. It refers to the presence of fiber optic service to that building. Lit means that the service is turned up and active with laser light shining through the fiber. There’s also such a thing as dark fiber, which is just the fiber optic cabling installed but not connected to anything.

Why are lit buildings important? Because those are places where you can get fiber optic service quickly and easily. All the hard work of digging trenches or attaching new fiber cables to utility poles has already been done. It’s just a matter of connecting to an almost limitless supply of bandwidth available through the fiber.

If you are in or can readily move to a lit building you can almost certainly get Metro Ethernet service at an attractive price. You might even decide to share a high bandwidth connection with other tenants to get an even lower price that comes with high volume usage. But what if your building has no fiber optic service yet? Is there any chance you can get Metro E?

There certainly is. If the building next door has fiber coming in, chances are high that you can get the same service. Most of the hard work has been done already in getting fiber strung from the carrier POP (Point of Presence) to the telecom room in the facility. It’s not that big a deal to extend fiber next door. In fact, you may pay little or nothing to get your building lit if you require a reasonable level of bandwidth.

What if there is no fiber anywhere nearby? That’s a little more tricky. It depends on where you are and how much bandwidth you require. You may not realize it, but Ethernet can be delivered on twisted pair copper telco cables as well as fiber. Not every business requires Gbps data pipes. In fact, two of the most popular Metro Ethernet services are 3 Mbps and 10 Mbps. Both of those easily qualify to be brought in on existing copper cable. You can be several miles from the nearest point of presence and still get Ethernet over Copper. Speeds up to 45 Mbps are available, but you’ll need to have a carrier POP much closer for those higher bandwidths.

Is Metro Ethernet available out in the boonies? Probably not. That’s what the “Metro” part implies. Even so, you may be able to get something called EoDS1 or Ethernet over DS1. That services uses T1 lines to bring in Ethernet service. Alternatively, you could simply order a T1 line or multiple bonded T1 lines to meet your bandwidth needs no matter where you are located.

Ready to see if Metro Ethernet is available for you? Simply enter your business address (not for residential locations) in to the Shop For Ethernet WAN Search box and have a look at the map results. You’ll see just how close you are to a lit building. Then get availability and pricing for Ethernet and other telecom services from our Telarus consultants. Your location probably qualifies for more services at lower prices than you expect.

What Makes 10 Mbps Ethernet So Popular?

One of the most popular bandwidth services for business right now is 10 Mbps Ethernet. What’s that about and how can you benefit too?

What we’re talking about here is Metro Ethernet or Carrier Ethernet connections running at 10 Mbps. They can be used to connect two business locations in a point to point setup. They can be used to provided a dedicated Internet access connection. They can also be used as an on-ramp to a larger cloud network for national or even international connectivity.

So why 10 Mbps? It’s a bit of a sweet spot in the spectrum of bandwidth choices. T1 lines have been that sweet spot for the last decade. But business applications are getting more and more bandwidth hungry. The 1.5 Mbps provided by a T1 connection isn’t really enough anymore, even though T1 line prices have come down considerably. The Ethernet equivalent is a 3 Mbps connection for about the same money as T1, but offering twice the bandwidth. For many small businesses, 3 Mbps Ethernet may be all that’s needed for the time being.

Companies with more that a few employees or using video conferencing, on-site web hosting and other demanding services find that 10 Mbps Ethernet offers a considerable bandwidth upgrade at a reasonable cost. It’s not that much more expensive than T1 was a contract or two ago.

One technical reason that 10 Mbps Ethernet is in a “sweet spot” of bandwidth pricing is that you can often get it delivered on copper as well as fiber optic cabling. By copper, I mean multiple pair of twisted copper telco wiring. It’s the same bundle that’s used to bring in analog telephone and T1 lines. The service provider leases this already-installed copper from the local telephone company and then connects those pair to special EoC termination equipment. That’s the magic that makes it possible to get such a bandwidth jump without an equivalent jump in cost.

Where is 10 Mbps Ethernet service available? It’s offered now in most metropolitan areas from multiple competitive service providers. Downtown in major cities, you can almost always get 10 to 50 Mbps Ethernet over Copper. The exact speed available is determined by the distance from your location to the nearest carrier point of presence. In suburban areas and smaller cites, you may also find EoC. If not, some carriers are offering Ethernet over DS1 or EoDS1. This is a similar service, but uses T1 line technology with signal regenerators to extend the service range.

What if you need even higher bandwidths? Ethernet is probably still your most cost effective choice, but it will be provisioned on fiber optic cable rather than copper twisted pair. Way out in the boonies, that can be a problem when there are no fiber cables for miles around. In town, construction costs may not be that expensive if you are close to a service provider’s office. If you, or you plus other businesses in your building or industrial park, order enough bandwidth, construction costs may be waived or greatly reduced.

Does this sound like a promising bandwidth service for your organization? The way to find out is to get a summary of availability and competitive pricing for 10 Mbps Ethernet Service. Quotes for higher speeds up to 10 GigE are also available.

T1 Broadband For Rural Business

Rural broadband is the subject of government stimulus dollars. It’s widely accepted that rural residential broadband users have been generally ignored by service providers due to low population densities. But what about businesses in rural areas? Are they also bandwidth starved?

For the most part, there is no reason that a business in rural America need be deprived of broadband Internet access any more than they are deprived of multi-line telephone service. In fact, the same copper pair that transport telephone calls are also used to bring in broadband service.

Now, it’s true that low cost business DSL services are largely unavailable much beyond city limits. That’s because DSL is a distance limited technology. It’s very fast near the telephone company central office and drops off in speed as line length increases. Beyond a few miles there just isn’t anything left.

That problem doesn’t plague T1 lines. T1 service also uses twisted copper pair, usually in the same bundle with lines providing telephone service to business and residential users. But T1 was designed as a long-haul service to begin with. It is the foundation technology that telephone companies used to transform their office to office connections from analog to digital. Yes, the high frequency signals used by T1 do degrade with distance. But unlike DSL, T1 signals can be regenerated every mile or so to make them good as new.

If your business is located out in the sticks, you should still be able to get T1 service. T1 lines can bring in as many as 24 telephone calls for your PBX telephone system. They can provide a private point to point connection between multiple business locations. Or they can carry broadband Internet service at 1.5 Mbps for both upload and download. Note that T1 service is symmetrical. The upload and download speeds are the same. That’s almost never true with consumer broadband or many business DSL services.

While 1.5 Mbps is more than adequate for many small businesses, what if you need more? That’s also possible through a process called bonding. Bonding T1 lines together combines their bandwidth. For instance, with 2 T1 lines you get 2x the bandwidth or 3 Mbps. With 3 lines it moves up to 4.5 Mbps. Bonding 4 T1 lines gives you 6 Mbps, and so on. The practical limit to this is somewhere around 10 to 12 Mbps.

You should also be aware that Ethernet broadband services may be available in your area. Ethernet over DS1 or EoDS1 basically turns T1 lines into Ethernet transport lines. It’s not a universally available service at this time, but there might be cost or performance advantages if you can get it.

How much does all of this cost? Much less than ever before and perhaps a lot less than you’ve been thinking. There’s a good way to find out for sure. Get quotes for T1 and Ethernet broadband now. You may be surprised at your options.

The Many Flavors of Ethernet Transport

The availability of Ethernet for MAN (Metropolitan Area Network) and WAN (Wide Area Network) transport is popping up all over. Why? Simply because Ethernet is in demand by IT and telecommunications managers looking to get the most Megabits per second at the lowest price for their companies. Ethernet also offers easier management. Multiple locations can be tied together as a large single network.

The very best situation is a direct fiber optic connection from a competitive carrier's point of presence (POP) to your premises. A large national carrier, such as XO communications, can provide first mile connectivity, transport throughout your metro area, and long haul service across the country. Ethernet over Fiber, or EoF, on a carrier designed for IP transport is highly efficient and results in cost savings far beyond what you may be expecting.

But what if you aren't lucky enough to be in a major office complex located in a metropolitan downtown area, just blocks from carrier facilities and already provisioned or "lit" for fiber optic service? Ah, that's were the creative solutions come in.

Ethernet has been widely implemented as a baseband technology for LAN networks. This means that rather than multiplexing the Ethernet signal on a carrier of any sort, it occupies the entire bandwidth of the cabling that carries it. This is still reflected in terms like 10 Base T or 100 Base T. the word "base" refers to baseband. The Ethernet signal is actually packets of information, each carrying up to 1500 bytes of user data.

Once you want to transport your LAN traffic over longer distances than local area network connections, it needs to be carried by a signal or "carrier" that can travel long distances. Actually, just about any digital communications system can carry the individual Ethernet packets as long as it has enough speed or bandwidth to be worthwhile. That includes the T-Carrier system developed by the phone companies to transport digitized phone calls, SONET (Synchronous Optical NETwork) fiber optic carriers, microwave relay and WiFi radios, and point to point optical lasers.

The T-Carriers are especially useful because they've been deployed all over the country and are a mature technology of the phone companies. T1 is the most familiar of the T-Carriers. It is the defacto standard for PBX telephone, dedicated Internet and point to point data transfers for small and medium sized companies. T1 lines are provisioned on twisted pair copper wire. In other words, phone lines. So, T1 lines go everywhere. Using protocol conversion to get packets to and from T1 frames, T1 lines can carry Ethernet. This is often referred to as Ethernet over T1( EoT1) or Ethernet over DS1 (EoDS1). DS1 is the definition of the Data Signal or framing specification for T1 lines.

A related service is Ethernet over DS3, EoDS3. DS3 is the Data Signal level for T3 lines that is also used for SONET fiber optic service. DS1 offers 1.5 Mbps of bandwidth, just a fraction of standard 10 Mbps Ethernet. DS3, however, offers 45 Mbps of bandwidth, almost half of a 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet signal.

When Ethernet is provisioned on T1 twisted pair or T3 coaxial cable, it may be referred to as EoC or Ethernet over Copper. There are other short distance modulation schemes that offer higher bandwidths using in-place copper wiring for that last mile or few hundred feet of connectivity. The big advantage of copper is that it is likely already in place for phone service. Fiber optic carriers offer higher bandwidths to easily support 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps and 1,000 Mbps Ethernet transport, but the cost of construction may be prohibitive unless you are near a carrier POP or are willing to commit to large bandwidth usage.

Which business bandwidth services make the most sense for your organization? Find out which nearby locations are already provisioned for Ethernet service and let our expert consultants help you find the most cost effective services for your needs.