10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, 1000 Mbps Internet Upgrades

By: John Shepler

Are you feeling stymied by your company’s low Internet speeds? It’s to be expected. Today’s online applications are far more demanding than the static websites and text based email that were the norm when you got your first T1 line. Today, 10 Mbps can be considered entry level for most businesses. Demands for 100 Mbps and 1000 Mbps are entirely reasonable. So, what’s the best way to upgrade?

Movin’ On Up
You can sometimes get away with incrementally increasing your bandwidth as needs grow slowly. Bonded T1 lines can give you 3 to 12 Mbps in 1.5 Mbps steps. You need to order all your lines from the same provider and there will be equipment changes every time you want to step up. Even so, this can be the best option in rural areas where there isn’t much service available.

A competing approach is to order Ethernet over Copper rather than T1. It’s available in most metro areas, although not so much beyond the city limits. EoC can give you higher bandwidth levels, 3 to 20 Mbps, at lower cost than bonded T1 solutions. It’s distance sensitive, so the closer you are to the office supplying your service, the higher your bandwidth.

The best option today is looking more and more like Ethernet over Fiber. Yes, fiber optic service used to be rarely found and very expensive. The legacy SONET fiber services still are pricey, although they’ve come down dramatically in recent years. Ethernet over Fiber is a newer approach that offers a number of advantages for business users.

What Ethernet over FIber Offers
Ethernet over FIber (EoF) is pretty much like it sounds. It uses the same Ethernet protocol that runs on your company LAN, but adds some features that make it suitable for telecom carrier use. You’ll also hear it called Carrier Ethernet or Metro Ethernet. This is currently a metropolitan service. There isn’t much fiber in the boonies, although more is being installed all the time to boost the capability of cellular towers.

Because it’s Ethernet, EoF is easy to connect to your network. Your handoff from the service provider is a fiber or copper Ethernet connection. Plug it into your edge router and you’re in business

Ethernet over Fiber was designed to be highly scalable. That means upgrades are very easy and probably don’t need equipment changes. Compare that to legacy services that always required the carrier to swap out termination equipment and often took weeks and months to complete. With EoF, you make a phone call and your speed will be increased in a matter of hours or days. The latest offerings let your make changes on-demand. You can increase or decrease your bandwidth right from your computer.

How about bandwidth?
Ethernet over Fiber typically starts at 10 Mbps and goes up to 10 Gbps or more. Popular speeds mirror the standard Ethernet LAN speeds of 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, and 1000 Mbps. Actually, you can get many increments in-between these standards. If you like, start off at 10 Mbps and then upgrade to 20 or 30 Mbps and eventually move on up to 100 Mbps or more.

The one consideration that makes this easy is the port speed you install. That the speed of the connection to the provider’s equipment. You’ll want at least a 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet connection to provide 10 to 100 Mbps. If you expect to go into the hundreds of Mbps, you’ll want at least a Gigabit Ethernet port. Want more than 1 Gbps? Get a 10 Gbps port installed initially so you won’t need equipment changes from running out of port speed.

The Pleasant Cost Surprise
Many traditional and new carriers are now offering Ethernet over Fiber, since it has become so popular. This makes for a highly competitive marketplace and that’s great for you as a buyer. EoF pricing is far more attractive per Mbps than bonded T1, DS3 (T3), or any of the SONET (OC-3, OC-12, OC-48) services. You can easily find yourself paying half or less than you would with other telecom services. You retain highly reliable service with low latency, jitter and packet loss.

Does this sound like just the business Internet access you need now? Check out prices and available of Ethernet over Fiber bandwidth options for your business location 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.

How To Find Better Metro E Service Prices

Metro E or Metro Ethernet services are available in most cities. Businesses with a strong presence in a particular metropolitan area can use Metro E to good advantage in linking their various satellite offices, warehouses, factories, retail outlets and so on. The big issue is how can these companies be sure they are getting the best prices on the Metro Ethernet services they put on contract.

Metro Ethernet is a subset of the MAN or Metropolitan Area Network. Metro networks sprung up to address the needs of local businesses who didn’t necessarily need connections to other cities and states. What they really need is a way to connect from their headquarters location to their remotely located data center or backup data center miles away. Other connections are needed for branch offices and other operational locations.

This need for high performance, but local, network connections led to the rise of MAN operators. Like telcos or ISPs, they provide a set of services. In this case, it is most often access to a fiber optic ring that encircles the city and includes key suburbs, office and industrial parks. Last mile connections are provided from each business subscriber to the fiber ring. These can be fiber optic links or twisted pair copper connections depending on the bandwidth needed.

Most Metro networks were constructed using dual SONET rings with a working ring and a protection ring carrying traffic in opposite directions. Standard SONET ring protection offers an automatic failover within 50 mSec if the main ring fails for any reason. This self-healing capability improves the resiliency of SONET fiber optic networks to survive equipment failures and severed lines called “backhoe fade.”

SONET services include OC3, OC12 and OC48 telecom services. DS3 is also often available multiplexed on OC3 services. One issue with SONET is that the service levels aren’t very granular. There a big step, for instance, between OC3 at 155 Mbps and OC12 and 622 Mbps.

Metro Ethernet, also called Carrier Ethernet, addresses many of the limitations of legacy SONET services. Metro E may be provided as a service on SONET networks called Ethernet over SONET. This way the underlying network can be kept in place avoiding large construction costs. Some newer metropolitan networks are IP based to begin with. They offer Ethernet services by default.

One issue is ease of interfacing with the MAN. Ethernet is the standard protocol of company LANs. With an Ethernet connection to the MAN, you simply plug an Ethernet patch cord, fiber or copper, between your network edge router and the carrier’s demarcation connection. SONET requires a special interface card to do the protocol conversion between Ethernet, a network protocol, and SONET, a telecommunications protocol. SONET interfaces are unique OC3, OC12, OC48 and so on. Ethernet interfaces are ports with maximum speeds. A typical Ethernet port is 100 Mbps, 1000 Mbps or 10 Gbps. These support any network speed up to the maximum the installed port can handle. This make it easy for service providers to offer an almost infinite selection of bandwidths to their customers.

Since everything stays in the Ethernet protocol end to end, Metro E can be used to bridge multiple company LANs in the metro area. This is called Ethernet LAN service or E-LAN. You can also get point to point private line connections called Ethernet Line service or E-Line.

Metro E also addresses another limitation of SONET, which is historically high costs. Ethernet services of similar bandwidth are often half the price of their SONET equivalent. Extensive scalability also means that companies can select a bandwidth level closer to what they actually need instead of being cramped for speed or having to order way more than can be practically put to use.

How can you be sure that you are getting the best Metro Ethernet or even SONET MAN service prices? The best way is to work through a bandwidth broker that represents dozens of top tier service providers. Not only do you save time with one-stop shopping, but it is likely that you’ll get quotes from competitive carriers that you may not even be aware of.

Are you currently using metropolitan area network services or have a new requirement for metro bandwidth? If so, get prices and availability of Metro E and SONET network services from providers that serve your business locations.



Note: Photograph of Pittsburgh skyline part of a panorama courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Metro E Prices Reduced

Metro Ethernet prices have been reduced for business users across the country. Just in time, too, as the economy is poised to start picking up steam in a big way. No need to settle for less bandwidth or lower quality digital services. Metro E is affordable and available the configuration you need.

If you are currently using a limited bandwidth service, you may well benefit from an upgrade to Metro Ethernet. What’s that going cost and what can you get? How about twice the bandwidth for the same money you are spending now?

I don’t blame you for raising an eyebrow. The entire bandwidth game has changed in the last few years. Just as T1 lines became the de-facto digital telecom service for small to medium businesses, Carrier Ethernet was standardized and deployed for metropolitan and long haul networks. Ethernet services are now spreading like wildfire in support of all size businesses.

In a sense, what we have is a changing of the guard. The digital telecom services we’re most familiar with, T1, DS3 and OC3, are actually telephone technologies that have been adapted to carry data packets rather than digitized phone calls. However, what’s deployed on just about every computer network is the Ethernet protocol. It only makes sense to extend that Ethernet protocol into the wide area networks as well.

This is what Metro E is all about. It’s Ethernet that connects your LAN at one location to your LAN at another location across town. If you like, you can set this up for strictly point to point service, called Ethernet Line, or as a multipoint service called Ethernet LAN.

Metro E networks are designed from the ground up for ease of bandwidth provisioning. With T1 lines, for instance, you generally have to settle for increments of 1.5 Mbps and wait for entire new lines to be installed to increase your bandwidth. With Ethernet, you order an Ethernet Port that is capable of a maximum speed. Then you are free to order the level of bandwidth you need for your current applications. If you need to increase your network capacity to meet an increased need, a simple phone call to your service provider is often all you need to have your Ethernet line speed turned up.

Metro Ethernet offers bandwidth options from 1 Mbps on up to 10 Gbps. Popular speeds are 3 Mbps, 10 Mbps, 50 Mbps, 100 Mbps, 1 Gbps and 10 Gbps. Of course, you can order speeds in-between these levels so you only need pay for what you need. The lower bandwidth options up to 45 Mbps are provisioned on twisted copper pair and called Ethernet over Copper or EoC. High speed Ethernet services are provisioned over fiber optic cable. These range from 45 Mbps on up to 10 Gbps.

Metro E is also popular as an access connection to larger networks. Ethernet dedicated Internet access provides rock-solid bandwidth to the public Internet. MPLS networks and Ethernet are highly compatible. Worldwide Ethernet service using Metro E connected to a large MPLS networks is now readily available.

Don’t forget the price savings. In most situations, your least cost per Mbps or Gbps will be an Ethernet service. Currently, 3 Mbps Ethernet is going for about the same price as 1.5 Mbps T1. Even larger savings are available as bandwidths increase. How much can you save? Find out by checking Metro E prices and availability now.



Note: Photo of city lights courtesy of Wikipedia Commons