Is Managed WiFi Right for You?

By: John Shepler

Broadband is everywhere now. In fact, its become an expectation. For consumers, it’s their way to stay connected when there isn’t a wire to plug into. For businesses, it’s a way to offer the benefit of connectivity to their customers and to unchain their employees from the cable tether.

What about 3G and 4G cellular?
Isn’t cellular the true way to go mobile? Over wide areas, yes. It’s hard to beat cellular broadband on your smartphone. That is, until you reach your monthly usage limit. Then it gets expensive fast. Also, many computers, tablets and other devices don’t have the radios built-in to work on cellular, even if you wanted to pay to add them to your account. The one thing most every device does have is WiFi connectivity.

Enabling WiFi
At the most basic level, you can create a WiFi “hotspot” by simply connecting a wireless access point or WiFi router to your network or broadband connection. This is how it’s done at home and in smaller businesses. As the number of users increases and the area to be covered expands, suddenly managing a WiFi network isn’t so simple anymore. You can either grin and bear the extra effort involved or you can consider moving to a managed WiFi solution.

Managed WiFi in the Cloud
Managed WiFi simply means that a service provider, rather than you, does the heavy lifting of making the larger WiFi network work. A new wrinkle is cloud managed WiFi. This allows a service provider to deploy software updates and generate reports for you behind the scenes. A comprehensive system for cloud managed wireless is the Cisco Meraki system.

What Cisco Offers
The Cisco Meraki access point features high power radios for solid coverage with enhanced receive sensitivity compared to the garden variety WiFi AP. It includes MIMO and beamforming technology to met enterprise-class 802.11ac and 802.11n standards on the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands. The MR34 AP also has a dedicated security radio that scans and protects against security threats, adapts to interference and automatically configures the RF settings for maximum performance.

Security Features
BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) has become a user demand and a major headache for the IT department. If anyone can bring anything onto the network, security goes out the window. Who knows what’s going on?

The Cisco Meraki wireless solution feature set accommodates BYOD by identifying clients and automatically applying access policies by device or user groups. The system automatically assigns firewall and traffic shaping rules, VLAN tags and bandwidth limits to enforce policies by user class. Critical apps are prioritized and recreational apps can be limited for management control.

The cloud based analytics generate extensive metrics such as user visit time, repeat visits, apps used. You can manage WAN, LAN , wireless LAN and mobile devices on your control panel. That includes everything from a single location to a campus wide solution. There’s even an iOS and Android mobile app for network management on the go.

Acquiring Managed WiFi
An excellent approach that works well for both large and small installations is to get your managed wireless solution from a bandwidth provider such as MegaPath. This way you have one supplier for all of your connections, including MAN, WAN and WiFi. MegaPath’s network operations center will continuously monitor, configure and troubleshoot your wireless network on your behalf. They also have the most up to date security features the meet the requirements of the PCI (Payment Card Industry) data security standards.

If you are considering a major wireless expansion or installing WiFi access for the first time, get the details on cloud managed WiFi now.

Gigabit WiFi For Video Streaming

WiFi hotspots, routers and access points have been deployed to such an extent that WiFi really is the default wireless connection. Bluetooth range is way too short. WiMax never deployed far enough, wide enough or fast enough. Cellular 3G and 4G are only valuable when you are away from WiFi access, since bandwidth is limited and overages are painful. Recent reports show that most tablets never use the built-in 3G wireless. WiFi is a replacement for cellular broadband, but it’s also becoming a replacement for wires.

Think about it. How much trouble and how expensive is it to string Ethernet cables through a home or office? Most people don’t have the skill or determination to snake wires through the walls of their two story home and don’t dare to try to wire an apartment. That means you are stuck with being in the same room as your DSL or Cable modem. Inexpensive WiFi routers got rid of that cable limitation. Now many PCs and printers come with WiFi access so that you can place them anywhere you want.

The other big tether is the television coax or HDMI cable. If you want to connect video, you have to string wires. The standard means for that has been RG-6 or RG-59 coax. But HD outputs are now HDMI, so your old coax is limited to SD video. That’s assuming you were able to get coax installed in every room you wanted.

Complicating matters now is that traditional video sources, such as satellite and DVD, are merging with the Internet. Many TVs, Blu-ray players and games now come with Ethernet jacks. You still need an Ethernet cable, but now it’s for video broadband not just web browsing. Or... do you?

Video is a need screaming for a wireless solution. The legacy WiFi 802.11b&g versions clearly are not up to the task. WiFi 802.11n does much better, but has trouble finding a clear path through the crowded 2.4 GHz ISM band. It's also pressed for enough bandwidth to support all things video. The solution? It’s an enhancement to WiFi-N called WiFi 802.11ac.

What’s better about WiFi-AC compared to WiFi-N? Most importantly, it pushes wireless bandwidth above the Gbps level. Total capacity of an 8 antenna system will reach almost 7 Gbps when this technology is fully developed. That should be enough to keep up with the rapid advancement of HD and 3D streaming video devices and become the way to eliminate Ethernet, HDMI and coaxial cabling in the home and office.

How does 802.11ac achieve this performance? First of all, it completely abandons the crowded 2.4 GHz band and uses the lesser populated 5 GHz band exclusively. That cuts out a lot of interference. Next, the transmission channels are widened to achieve more data carrying capacity. Channels are 40 MHz maximum in 802.11n. These are expanded to 80 MHz minimum and 160 MHz optional for the new standard.

WiFi-N introduced MIMO or Multiple Input Multiple Output antenna technology. MIMO is a way for transmitters and receivers to deal with scattering radio waves and interference by intelligently analyzing the received signals to determine which ones are valid. It’s a little like being able to tell which direction a sound originates by using two ears rather than one. Beamforming compensates for phase shift of multiple received signals to increase the total signal level. This allows higher bandwidth over a longer range.

A more complex modulation scheme is being introduced in 802.11ac called 256 QAM. The term QAM refers to Quadrature Amplitude Modulation. It uses both amplitude and phase shift to send data over two combined carriers differing by 90 degrees, called quadrature. Each combination of phase and amplitude represents one digital number. 802.11n used 64 QAM to send 6 bits per symbol. 256 QAM sends 8 bits per symbol, a third more efficient in use of the spectrum.

When will be see 802.11ac equipment on the market? Probably near the end of this year or the beginning of next. Broadcom recently announced the first chipset to support the protocol. They are dubbing it “5G WiFi” to emphasize the considerably higher performance from previous wireless standards, similar to how cellular carriers use 2G, 3G and 4G to describe their generations of technology.

The Next Decade of Bandwidth - Part V

Wireless is the bandwidth service that gets most of the press these days, but there are big developments afoot in the wired world as well. We’ll wrap up our look into the next decade of bandwidth with what’s going on with copper and fiber optic services.

It’s no surprise that fiber optic networks are expanding. Some of this expansion is prompted by American Reinvestment and Recovery Act that appropriated $7.2 billion to expand broadband access across the country. Rural areas that have been largely ignored by commercial interests are especially targeted. With funds available for middle-mile fiber runs, competitive carriers are taking advantage of the opportunity to expand their networks.

While fiber is being trenched through the countryside to provide broadband delivery to Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs) that serve sparsely populated areas, even more fiber is being routed through metropolitan areas to hookup businesses of all sizes. Government incentives aren’t needed here. Businesses hungry for increased bandwidth either foot the bill for hookups to metropolitan fiber networks or commit to service levels that justify carriers to “light” their buildings for fiber service.

Why the interest in fiber optic connections? It’s not just mobile bandwidth that’s straining at the limits. T1 lines may have been all the bandwidth a small or even medium size business needed to handle email, general web browsing and communication with its website servers hosted elsewhere. Now, 1.5 Mbps seems a bit quaint and inadequate for all the smallest operations. What drives business now is cloud connections, Software as a Service, video conferencing, hosted VoIP and other bandwidth demanding applications.

The transition from 3G to 4G wireless also means that cellular carriers themselves are strained for fast enough backhaul connections. T1 lines works great to connect towers that handled voice calls. When users expect 10 or 15 Mbps of broadband service, fiber optics look like the ideal solution. The cost of construction, once a show stopper, becomes another part of the upgrade investment that’s paid once and offers almost unlimited upgrades for future needs.

Cloud computing is a major attraction for many businesses who find that pay-as-you-go is much easier to justify than requisitions for million dollar data center improvements. No need for racks and racks of servers, the environmentally controlled building to house them, the backup power generators, or the round-the-clock technical staff to keep everything running smoothly. Outsourcing that to a cloud service provider gets rid of those headaches, but adds a new one. How to you connect to the cloud? Low bandwidth, high latency connections will bring your operations to a grinding halt. What you need now is high bandwidth along with low latency, jitter and packet loss as a backbone to your virtual servers on the other side of the country. That means fiber optic lines and probably two of them for redundancy.

Fiber technology hasn’t been static during this expansion. Until recently you had a choice of SONET services from OC3 to OC12 and perhaps OC48. That was it. Now, Ethernet over Fiber is coming on strong as a direct competitor. Carrier Ethernet more closely matches the LAN networks that feed it. It is more scalable to meet changing business needs. Best of all, Ethernet services tend to cost less, often considerably less, than equivalent SONET fiber optic services.

But, wait! The era of copper is far from over. Just when carriers were thinking about decommissioning their twisted pair copper to let it corrode in the ground or be sold for scrap, Bonded T1 and Ethernet over Copper gain favor as business bandwidth options. While a single T1 line may be too constrained for many uses, multiple T1 lines can be bonded into a single larger bandwidth service up to 10 or 12 Mbps. Ethernet over Copper (EoC) technology uses the same twisted pair bundles as bonded T1, but a more advanced modulation scheme. EoC bandwidth is distance sensitive, but can easily deliver 10 or 20 Mbps to most businesses and 30, 50 or even 100 Mbps for short runs. Continuing development incorporating wireless techniques such as MIMO (Multiple Input, Multiple Output) for crosstalk cancelation is pushing the limits of copper into the hundreds of Mbps and even to a fiber-like Gigabit per second bandwidth.

The next decade of bandwidth is likely to be dominated by massive fiber optic build-outs for fixed locations, such as office and industrial parks, along with copper solutions to bridge the gaps where fiber doesn’t yet connect. Wireless is clearly headed for a common 4G LTE nationwide infrastructure. Compatibility will be built into portable and mobile devices, perhaps as prolifically as WiFi is now. There may be some surprises in store, such long range and interconnected WiFi hotspots or whitespace transmitters as wireless competitors, high bandwidth satellites covering rural areas better than spotty fiber and cable construction, and the development of much higher microwave frequencies (60 GHz and above) and even infrared mesh networks as new service options.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this speculative look into what’s likely to happen in the next 10 years or so, as our appetite for higher bandwidth Internet and private network connections demand satisfaction. There are many good options available right now to support your current business needs. You may not even be aware of how much development has been going on in your area to increase service levels and reduce costs. This would be an excellent time to get competitive options and quotes for business bandwidth services.

See what's available now in the way of T-carrier and Ethernet copper, SONET and Ethernet fiber, fixed wireless and Hybrid Fiber Cable (HFC). Get instant bandwidth pricing up to 1 Gbps and fast quotes on other services.



This has been a 5 part series on bandwidth. If you’ve missed any part of it, you can access Part I, Part II, Part III, or Part IV to catch up at any time.

Copper Bandwidth Connections Push 1 Gbps

Just when you think they’ve wrung all of the speed possible on ordinary twisted pair telephone wire, clever engineering demonstrates that we haven’t hit a bandwidth ceiling yet. Would you believe 1 Gbps copper business service?

It’s not available in your office park yet, but it’s on the way. Chinese networking and telecommunications company, Huawei, has a prototype Giga DSL system that can deliver a combined rate of 1 Gbps line speed within 100 meters of a remote terminal (RT) cabinet. It scales down to 500 Mbps if you can connect within 200 meters of the cabinet.

This follows another Huawei project called SuperMIMO that uses four twisted copper pairs to deliver 700 Mbps over 400 meters. You might recognize MIMO as the WiFi 802.3n antenna technology used to extend range using multiple antennas for both transmitter and receiver. MIMO stands for Multiple Input Multiple Output. The ideas is that radio waves bounce around and interfere with each other and themselves in an effect called multipath distortion. With more than one antenna and some intelligence in the system, you can sort out the wave patterns and recreate a clean signal.

So what does wireless transmission have to do with copper wires buried in the ground? For business telecommunications, such as multi-line telephone, T1 and Ethernet over Copper, the twisted pair lines are not installed individually. Instead, collections of them run together in binder cables with 50 pair or more. The twisted conductors cancel out most electromagnetic interference for low speed transmission, such as analog phone and dial-up Internet access. Higher speed signals, such as EoC or T1, can transfer to other pairs in the cable creating crosstalk interference. This is where MIMO can reduce that interference between wired paths in the cable just like dealing with multiple paths through the air.

Other telecom equipment vendors have been active in this field as well. Alcatel-Lucent has their own approach called DSL Phantom Mode that delivers 300 Mbps over two copper pairs. Over longer distances up to 1 km, it can deliver 100 Mbps. With 1 km spans, this system would work well for Ethernet over Copper in business districts and industrial parks.

Alcatel-Lucent’s breakthrough is something called a phantom circuit. These circuits were used in the early days of wired communications to transmit more telegraph signals or telephone calls. The principle is that two phone lines, consisting of one twisted pair each, will carry two separate telephone calls. But if you connect a circuit between them, that can be used as to carry a third telephone call or telegraph signal. Interference is eliminated by using transformers on each end of the lines and connecting the third circuit between center taps on the transformers. Since the lines are balanced, they don’t notice this third or phantom circuit riding along on the same copper.

Alcatel-Lucent also uses bonded copper pair to increase bandwidth carrying capacity and VDSL2 vectoring to cancel the cross talk between multiple lines in the same bundle. Like MIMO, vectoring employs digital signal processing to analyze the effect of interference on signals among copper pairs on a symbol by symbol basis. This is something that was out of the question before high speed DSP became affordable. By throwing enough mathematics at the signal waveforms, it is now possible to make finer and finer corrections to maximize throughput of any wired or wireless transmission system.

What’s driving such a fury of investigative work into leveraging century old copper connected to telephone company central offices? Bandwidth demand is ramping up exponentially right along with the processing and storage needs of big data. The move from local data centers to the cloud also means that faster network lines are needed for WAN as well as LAN connections. Fiber speeds are increasing, too. But fiber only reaches 75% of business locations, at most, and is expensive and time consuming to install. If existing copper can be made to meet the increasing bandwidth demand, businesses can rapidly increase their MAN and WAN network speeds using connections they have now.

Are you feeling pressed for speed on your network connections? Both copper and fiber solutions are available now that weren’t in place even a short time ago. Check Ethernet over Copper and Fiber bandwidth prices now and see what’s available for your business location.

Increasing Bandwidth By Pair Bonding

If you have a bandwidth service, say a T1 line, and are starting to run out of bandwidth, then what is your next logical move? You could bring in a higher level service such as DS3, but that could prove tricky. Your T1 line is delivered over twisted pair copper. DS3 is generally brought in using fiber optic cable. Also, there is a tremendous jump in bandwidth and expense from a T1 line at 1.5 Mbps to a DS3 connection at 45 Mbps. Are there other options?

Perhaps the easiest move up is to simply add another T1 line if all you need is incrementally larger bandwidth. If you get both your lines from one carrier, they can do what is called “pair bonding” to make the two lines act like they are one larger line. For instance, two bonded T1 lines give you 3 Mbps. That goes to 4.5 Mbps with 3 lines and 6 Mbps with 4 lines. A practical limit to bonding for T1 is somewhere around 10 to 12 Mbps.

There is also another form of pair bonding you should be aware of. Instead of bonding T1 lines with their DS1 signals, dry copper pair can be leased with no signals of any type. They’re just plain copper wires running from a central office to a business location. Using multiple copper pair with special terminal equipment installed at each end, Ethernet over Copper or EoC can be provided by competitive carriers.

Ethernet over Copper uses a completely different form of modulation to transport the digital signals from provider to customer. Advanced techniques such as MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) may be employed to reduce interference between signals on pairs bundled in the same cable. This allows more bandwidth to be transmitted using fewer wires than would otherwise be required.

The result is that Ethernet over Copper can transport higher bandwidth services using pair bonding. You can typically get 3 Mbps to 10 Mbps from EoC services. In some cases, that can be increased to as much as 50 Mbps. The higher the bandwidth, the closer you have to be located to the telco office. That’s because the techniques used to increase bandwidth are affected by distance. The signal fades as you get farther away from the source.

T1 lines don’t have this distance restriction, as the technology was designed to incorporate regenerators every mile or so to boost the signal. If you are located too far from the carrier’s point of presence to get Ethernet over Copper, you may qualify for Ethernet over DS1. That’s a technique that uses the T1 line protocol to transport Ethernet. You are essentially getting an Ethernet signal delivered using one or more T1 lines. In this case T1 pair bonding can be used to increase bandwidth.

Will some form of pair bonding get you the business bandwidth you need at a reasonable price? Find out what business bandwidth services are available for your location now.

Tripping the LTE Fantastic

While a lot of attention is being lavished on fiber optic build-outs and mobile WiMAX, the next dominant technology in broadband communications could be LTE. Would you believe gigabit wireless communications?

For everyone frustrated with sluggish 1G connections or the poky first generation iPhone, the idea of 1,000 Mbps at their fingertips while on the go seems fanciful. After all, there's just so much bandwidth coming off one of those cell towers. Or is there? Apparently, new technical approaches can boost wireless bandwidth a lot more than we ever suspected.

Nokia Siemens Networks recently demonstrated something they call LTE-Advanced. By combining a 2x2 MIMO (Multiple Input, Multiple Output) antenna system and an in-band relay station, Nokia claims to have boosted the bandwidth available over LTE to 1 Gbps. And who knows what the real limit will be?

LTE stands for Long Term Evolution. It's a technology being specified by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), a collaboration between various telecommunications associations. The group's name may be the most limiting aspect of this work, as LTE is seen as a 4G or 4th generation technology and LTE-Advanced should probably be called 5G.

These "G's" are coming at us faster than CPU upgrades a generation ago. Most cellular broadband is now at the 3G level, using EV-DO (EVolution Data Optimized) and HSDPA (High Speed Download Packet Access) with DSL-like speeds typically around 700 Kbps. EV-DO is a CDMA cellular network technology used by Verizon and Sprint. HSDPA is for GSM networks such as AT&T.

LTE was developed as a GSM technology for use worldwide. But, Verizon has already announced it is defecting from its evolutionary path with EV-DO and moving over to LTE for its future build-outs. So eager are they to get a piece of that 4G action that Verizon is expected to deploy LTE on their network as early as the coming year. LTE promises download speeds exceeding 100 Mbps and could be ramped up to several times that without having to wait for LTE-Advanced development. Those are fiber optic speeds or better at today's technology levels.

Why the big rush to switch protocols? Mobile video for one thing. Video is quickly replacing voice and even data as the "kill ap" for digital. Another is the possibility of providing speedy Internet service, also with video in mind, to fixed location business and residential users, as well as mobile. Clearwire is deploying WiMAX with that in mind, so now's the time to capture that market before they get too invested in WiMAX technology.

Both WiMAX and LTE are in the early ramp-up phase of their deployments. For users who want mobile broadband now, there is wide availability of 3G cellular broadband services for smartphones and aircards from AT&T, Sprint, Verizon.

Mobile Broadband Faster Than Optical?

The holy grail of broadband is fiber optic transmission, with it's potentially limitless bandwidth. In practical applications such as FTTH, that backbone bandwidth is divvied up as it is delivered to homes and businesses on passive optical networks. Verizon FiOS, the leader in FTTH, now offers up to 50 Mbps download with 20 Mbps upload in selected areas. That's nearly an order of magnitude above most Cable broadband and DSL, and way beyond the capability of mobile broadband. Or is it?

According to a recent report, cell phone manufacturer Ericsson has tested LTE mobile broadband technology to peak speeds of 130 Mbps with growth possibilities to 260 Mbps. Wow! Wireless broadband in the hundreds of Megabits per second. Where do I sign up?

Well, not so fast. When they say that LTE stands for Long Term Evolution, they mean it. LTE is the 4G or fourth generation wireless data standard intended to replace current technologies such as EDGE or HSDPA on GSM cellular networks. AT&T is a prime candidate and T-Mobile is likely to follow.

Ericsson's proof of concept testing used the maximum of 4 transmit streams received by 4 MIMO antennas over 10 MHz channels. MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) antenna technology improves wireless performance when there is interference present, as there will be in any mobile situation, especially in metro areas. By doubling the channel bandwidth to 20 Mbps, the transmission rate could peak near 300 Mbps.

So what would you do with 130 Mbps, much less 260 Mbps? It seems unlikely that you'll need this capability for text messaging or even Web browsing. Think high definition TV or HDTV video conferencing. Business users will be able to download massive files while on the road and easily run applications remotely. Plus, who knows what the future will bring? So far, technology development has shown that we can quickly find uses for any amount of processor speed, memory, hard drive capability or bandwidth that is offered. It isn't necessarily what you're doing now, but what you might do tomorrow that counts.

Tomorrow is where LTE is targeted. Remember that AT&T has just started offering the 3G iPhone running on its HSDPA network. They're going to need some breathing time before getting their tower sites upgraded to LTE. But not too much breathing time. Sprint's WiMAX is out to capture the early lead in 4G with its Xohm WiMAX network that has just started operations in Baltimore. Ericsson expects LTE to start becoming available in the latter part of next year.

Even so, it will be some time before the 4G networks will be offering 100 Mbps bandwidth to their customers. Right now, affordable 3G technology is available in the 1 to 3 Mbps range using plug-in aircards for laptop computers and built into selected mobile phones. Check out the complete selection of current offerings at Cell Phone Plans Finder now.

DS3 Over Copper Avoids Fiber Installation

Fiber optic connections are the high bandwidth solution that every business wants. That is, until they get the bill for trenching new fiber from the carrier POP (Point of Presence) to their location. Depending on how far out you need to go, the construction costs alone can be in the tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Maybe more. Don't assume that you're stuck with high fiber costs or low speed lines until you look into DS3 over Copper.

But, wait a second. DS3 is a fiber optic line service. Right? Yes it is. But before that it was delivered on T3 coaxial copper lines, waveguides or microwave transmissions. DS3 or Data Service level 3 is simply a specification for a 45 Mbps TDM protocol that can ride on whatever carrier is available. The newest approach is to go back to tried and true copper wiring with new modulation schemes.

Why go back to copper after all the technology advancements that have given us Gigabit bandwidths on fiber strands? The answer gets back to price and availability. In fact, price is usually driven by availability. For all the high-tech ballyhoo and industry concerns about overbuilt and unlit fiber, just the opposite is true in most areas. Sure, the high traffic corridors between major metropolitan areas are flush with dark fiber. The undersea routes were the same way for years. Recently a lot of that fiber is being pressed into service, as video and other high bandwidth applications sop up all the packets they can get. Most smaller population and rural areas have no fiber access at all. The only glass in the ground is on its way somewhere else.

Copper, on the other hand, is everywhere you look. Thanks to over a hundred years of telephone system build-out, there is hardly a building anywhere that isn't already wired for at least a couple of pairs of copper. Most business locations already have multi-pair binders to support their telephone systems.

This copper that is so desirable is ordinary twisted pair copper wiring that you find underground or overhead. Conventional thinking was that these "phone wires" are only good for audio frequencies. But DSL services showed that it's possible to transmit multiple Mbps of data over those simple unshielded cables. T1 lines are provisioned on two pair of standard telephone line copper. T1 can be extended almost indefinitely with signal regenerators every mile or so.

But T1 lines are spec'd at 1.5 Mbps. How do you get DS3 over copper? Fractional DS3 bandwidths can be obtained by simply bonding multiple T1 lines together, which gives you the sum of their bandwidths. In other words, 4x T1 bonding gives you 6 Mbps. You can often get up to 10 - 12 Mbps with this technique. If you have a T1 line now, you can probably get bonded T1 service to increase your WAN bandwidth.

The demand for high bandwidths in areas not served by fiber optic carriers has given an impetus to developing new approaches to squeeze more Mbps from each copper pair. Aktino's AK3000 platform gives carriers the option to offer DS3 over copper using multiple pairs. The technical approach uses DMT (Discrete Multi-Tone) modulation and MIMO. If MIMO sounds familiar, its because Multiple Input Multiple Output is the antenna technology used to speed up WiFi networks in 802.11n access points. Aktino has applied a similar approach over wireline to counter the problem of interference between pairs in a binder group.

Pulse Communications, Inc. has a product called DS3 Express that will convey full rate DS3 connections over 4 pair of copper up to about a half-mile, or a mile with a repeater. A standard type 400 circuit-pack module is used at each end of the circuit to make installation easy.

DS3 over Copper and Ethernet over Copper are two high bandwidth services currently available for business locations not currently lit for fiber. Could your business benefit from an increase in dedicated Internet, high capacity telephone, or private data line bandwidth? See what high bandwidth wireless and wireline service options are available for your location. You may be pleasantly surprised by how little you'll have to spend.