Ethernet over Copper Connects Nationwide

Ethernet over Copper (EoC) has quickly made a name for itself as a last mile access connection for dedicated Internet, MPLS networking, and linking two or more company LANs. The flexibility, ease of interface, and cost savings make this a service in demand. What’s held it back to date is lack of availability. Well, that’s about to change.

MegaPath, one of the country’s major competitive carriers, is moving in with Telx, a major network interconnection provider. What does that mean? It means that your Ethernet over Copper connection can go a lot farther than it used to.

MegaPath has been on a major construction effort to roll out EoC equipment to over 680 central offices within the next year. The central office is key because this is where the subscriber copper loops terminate. MegaPath used specialized G.HSDL technology with up to 8 bonded copper pair to deliver line speeds to 100 and even 400 Mbps in selected area. Their standard symmetrical speeds are 2, 3, 5, 8, 10, 12, 15, and 20 Mbps. Both layer 2 and layer 3 services are offered along with QoS/CoS to support business data and real-time voice and video simultaneously.

For its part, Telx operates 15 data centers with direct access to over 950 customers who have chosen to colocate within the Telx facilities. These include major telecom carriers, Internet service providers, content producers and delivery networks and cloud service providers. Telx is a pioneer in Ethernet Exchange, a way for carriers to exchange Ethernet traffic without having to first convert to another protocol like SONET. The E-NNI or Ethernet Network to Network Interface benefits each carrier who participates because now they can directly access customers on other carriers and vice-versa.

Ethernet over Copper along with Ethernet over Fiber form the basis of Carrier Ethernet. This is the familiar Ethernet protocol that runs on your LAN adapted for use on telecommunication networks. The Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) has standardized a number of Carrier Ethernet standards so that they are compatible across network boundaries. These include EPL, EVPL, and ELAN.

EPL stands for Ethernet Private Line. This is equivalent to the point to point private line services familiar with T-Carrier and SONET services. EVPL is Ethernet Virtual Private Line. This is very similar to EPL. The virtual designation means that you can have a number of EPL services running to a single physical Ethernet port. This is particularly useful for companies that want to run private lines from a single headquarters location out to multiple branch locations. Together, EPL and EVPL form what is known as E-Line or Ethernet Line service.

ELAN stands for Ethernet LAN Service. You may also see this written as E-LAN. What differentiates E-LAN from E-Line is that E-LAN is a many to many or mesh network service. You can use it to tie together multiple business locations so that any location can communicate with any other.

Have you been interested in Ethernet over Copper services but concerned that they may not be available to support your particular location or your many locations nationwide? This is a rapidly changing market, with more service being rolled out almost daily. If you haven’t checked lately, you may be pleasantly surprised at how much connectivity is available and how much bandwidth your can get for your telecom budget. Check pricing right now, if you like. Ethernet over Copper prices from 1 to 100 Mbps are available instantly online. Other services for business locations will be promptly quoted by a Telarus bandwidth expert, upon request.

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.

1,000,000 Miles of Metro Ethernet Fiber And Growing

If you’ve been thinking that Metro Ethernet is just some little niche service that probably won’t catch on, here’s an eye opener. XO Communications alone has about a million miles of metro fiber and more than 3,000 fiber-fed buildings on net. That’s not even counting all the Ethernet over Copper delivered to buildings that aren’t yet lit for fiber. Oh, and that’s just one carrier.

Metro Ethernet and its long haul equivalent called Carrier Ethernet are no niche services. This is the future of telecommunications. Why? Because the whole world is transitioning from switched circuit TDM communications to packet switched IP networking. It’s happening faster than you might think or experience in your everyday telecom usage. You may currently be connected to the Internet by a T1 dedicated Internet connection. It’s a telco-based legacy service based on TDM channels. Yet once your packets are transported to the carrier’s point of presence, they are passed to an IP-based Internet backbone. Protocol conversion circuitry makes this process transparent to the end user, so your last mile connection can be just about anything.

This suggests that it would be more efficient to keep everything in the Internet Protocol from the computer on your desk all the way to the servers you are communicating with. That’s a correct assumption. Now that Ethernet in the WAN (Wide Area Network) is becoming as available as Ethernet for your LAN (Local Area Network), it is more efficient and generally less expensive to keep it Ethernet all the way.

How much less expensive? You can find that out with a quick check for Metro Ethernet prices and availability. The Ethernet Buildings site makes that as easy as it could possibly be. You simply enter your building’s address and check the map that comes up.



Even if your building isn’t already lit for fiber optic service, you may still have the options of getting service via Ethernet over Copper or wireless service. XO Communications owns 28-31 GHz spectrum in 75 markets specifically for this purpose. Other carriers also want to compete for your business and they are rapidly deploying their own Ethernet solutions nationwide.

Have you been missing out on the opportunity to save considerably on your monthly telecom lease costs? Well, there’s no time like the present to check your options. It only takes a few minutes and may save you as much as 50%. Can you think of a better way to spend the next few minutes? If not, check Ethernet service availability for your business location right now.

T1 Lines For MPLS Access

Businesses that need to connect multiple locations together are turning more and more to MPLS networks. To get access to the network, they are finding that T1 lines are often the best solution. Here’s why.

An MPLS network, which stands for Multi Protocol Label Switching network, can be thought of as a private version of the Internet. As a privately owned network, the MPLS operator can ensure that your applications will have the bandwidth and quality of service to run reliably. Security is also easier to achieve, since the MPLS network is available only to serious businesses that buy the service.

An MPLS network is designed to be a cloud that is configured to connect only those locations that you specify. Your service is generally set up to be any-to-any connectivity. But you also have the option to limit which locations can directly connect to the others in your operation. This is handled completely by the MPLS provider. What each location needs is a solid and secure connection to the network.

That’s where T1 lines come in. A T1 line is basically a point to point connection. Many business use these to connect two offices together. The T1 bandwidth is available for your exclusive use. It is not shared with anyone else.

True, one end of a T1 line can terminate at an Internet Service Provider to give your organization dedicated access to the public Internet. But that far end of the line can also be connected to an MPLS network. That will give you direct access with reliable bandwidth to the MPLS network cloud.

Each of your business locations needs its own T1 line to connect to the MPLS network. This is often a fairly limited distance and most MPLS networks have POPs or Points of Presence in many major metropolitan areas. The network itself will often span a regional area or the entire country. Some MPLS networks now connect internationally to serve businesses with foreign offices.

You could create your own private network by setting up a router at your main office and running point to point T1 lines from there to each of your remote locations. But you’ll probably find that it is less expensive to make use of an MPLS network with T1 lines for access to the network. Check T1 and MPLS prices and availability to see what is most cost effective for your needs.

Integrated T1 Gives You Phone and Internet

As a small business owner, you want the best quality and performance you can get from your telecom services. But you can't just go out and buy what the major corporation down the street has. Well maybe not exactly the same, but pretty close.

What I mean by that is that you can have clear sounding, reliable phone service and reliable, dependable Internet service scaled for the size of your operation. That big company needs more capacity than you do because they have so many more people trying to use it. They also pay 10x to 100x more than you will.

What you don't have to compromise on is quality of service. To achieve it, you'll be using a T1 line. T1's are the industry standard for voice and data. A medium size company will likely have at least one T1 line for telephone service and one or more for dedicated Internet access. But you don't need all that. You'll do just fine with a single T1 that provides you with both telephone and Internet access.

But, wait. Aren't T1 lines set up to be telephone trunks or data lines as needed? Yes that's the usual setup. But there is another type of service called Integrated T1 that transports both phone and Internet at the same time.

How does it do that? A channelized T1 telephone line has capacity for up to 24 outside phone lines. Do you really need that many? Hardly. Half a dozen to a dozen are plenty for most smaller businesses. If that's all you need, what happens to the unused capacity? In standard T1 telephone service, those extra channels go to waste. Wouldn't it be nice if that unused capacity could be put to good use.

That's what Integrated T1 service does. You assign a certain amount of capacity, say enough for 6 to 12 outside lines, to be used for phone service. The rest is assigned for Internet service. Unlike broadband phone services, you never have to worry about your computer knocking out your phone conversations. Neither function interferes with the other.

How much Internet bandwidth do you get with this arrangement? It's very similar to DSL speeds. A T1 line runs at 1.5 Mbps, so if you use half of it for 12 outside phone lines, there is 750 Kbps available for data. If you only need 6 outside lines, you'll have over 1 Mbps for Internet access. That's more than enough for point of sale transactions, WiFi hotspots, business data transfers, Web browsing and email service.

Even better, some Integrated T1 services use what's called dynamic T1 lines. The dynamic line gives telephone calls priority, but is smart enough to know that any capacity not used for phone calls can be temporarily added to the Internet bandwidth. If no one is on the phone, the entire 1.5 Mbps is assigned to Internet speed.

Is Integrated T1 service right for your business? The cost of the service replaces both your current phone lines and Internet service, so it can be more affordable than you think. Plus you'll enjoy the benefit of having professional grade digital telecommunications service instead of some collection of services that may not work as well. Find out more about Integrated T1 and other voice and data options that are available for your business location with a simple phone or online inquiry at T1 Rex.

Cut Telecom Line Expenses, Not Lines

In this recessionary business climate, keeping the enterprise afloat may mean throwing every non-critical expense overboard. Soon the obvious fat disappears from the budget and managers start questioning line items once thought sacrosanct. Do you really need 10 phone lines or could everybody get by with 5? Take turns calling if you have to. What about that Internet connection? Do we really need that T1 line when those 56K modems are still boxed up in the back room?

Good grief. Cost cutting can easily go from savvy business practice to organizational nightmare when desperation sets in. It's best to start coming up with reasonable reductions before upper management gets a whiff of blood in the water and goes nuts. Think through the justification for each budgetary line item yourself and make changes you can take credit for, or at least have proposals in your back pocket.

Now here's the good news. If you can keep a cool head at least for a little while, you may be able to get the savings your business needs while maintaining the services you need to be at your most productive. The trick isn't just to slash and burn every telecom expense you come across. It's getting the same functionality for less money. You don't necessarily want to cut your lines, and with them your livelihood. You want to cut the expenses associated with those lines.

Most companies have two types of telecom line services: voice and data. Video, such as video conferencing, can fall into either the voice or data category depending on how it's implemented.

Lets start with voice services. Most businesses of any size have a PBX telephone system that manages their telco connections. There may be some room for cost savings here because of the way the system has grown. It usually starts with a few lines, adding another and another as the company need grows. Pretty soon you've got a dozen or two individual lines. Usage reports say you need them all or customers will start getting poor service and some of your employees will be cooling their heels while waiting to place a call. But you aren't necessarily married to the configuration you have today. By consolidating all those individual phone lines into one or two T1 PRI digital trunks, you'll have the same level of service but at a discount.

If you already made the move to T1 lines years ago, you might still be able to save. Competitive prices for T1 voice lines, including long distance rates, have plummeted in the last few years. By running a competitive service check you can find out if a simple change of provider could result in significant cost savings for the very same usage.

The same logic applies to your business Internet service. A T1 dedicated Internet line might now be priced at half what you paid when you signed a multi-year lease years ago.T1 prices are very favorable right now and you can make a good deal getting into a better contract. Once again, you keep the same functionality you have now but simply pay less.

You might also want to consider some newer technologies, such as MPLS networks or Metro Ethernet to interconnect multiple business locations. SIP trunking offers a way to get high quality voice and data service delivered on a single line service. All of these services have become readily available only in the last few years. If they work for your situation, you could find very substantial cost savings available for the asking.

Business Advantage of a T1 Line

If your business is getting to the point where you need highly reliable bandwidth for Internet access, point to point data transfer, VoIP telephony, or audio/video transmission, then it's time to consider the advantage of T1 line service.

You know about broadband lines and telephone lines. But what's a T1 line? It's a professional grade telecom service that's normally delivered only to business locations. A few well-heeled individuals with demanding needs in their home offices, usually business or investment related, have T1 lines installed. Most home users would rather put up with the limitations of shared access services such as DSL or Cable Internet since they can be had for a tenth the cost.

Shared access is a hallmark of the cheapest broadband services. In actuality, the Internet Service Providers themselves have always used T1 lines or larger DS3 or OCx service for their own backbone connections to the Internet. The way they make money is to divvy up the available bandwidth among dozens of users so the cost per subscriber can be kept low. For casual access to browse the Web or send and receive email, DSL and Cable broadband work just fine. Small businesses where Internet access is helpful but not critical to their operations may also find these services satisfactory.

Where T1 shows its true advantages is in mission critical services. What are those? If you depend on your telecom service to make and receive telephone calls, enter orders, manage inventory, transfer files, text or chat with customers, or do research that can't wait for slow or disconnected line services, your need is mission critical.

This is especially true if your connection supports real-time applications such audio or video program feeds, surveillance cameras, or VoIP telephone systems. Text services such as email and Web site browsing are pretty robust when it comes to line vagaries such as jitter, latency and even packet loss. The TCP/IP protocol used for these applications will simply request a retransmission of data that doesn't show up. Real time audio and video don't have that luxury. Anything that is missing can't be made up later. It simply results in a hole in the audio or a drop out in the video.

The advantages of T1 service include a high degree of service availability, often with a service level guarantee. The bandwidth is dedicated solely for you own use. You can depend on a rock solid 1.5 Mbps in both the upload and download directions at all times. If you need more bandwidth than this, you can bond additional T1 lines to easily double or triple your connection bandwidth. Latency, jitter and packet loss are kept to very low levels, making T1 service perfect for real-time applications. In fact, many radio station use T1 lines as studio-to-transmitter links for their program audio.

T1 lines come in various flavors, depending on your business need. T1 Dedicated Internet access gives you professional grade broadband service. Point to Point T1 lines are direct connections between two locations, often a company's main and satellite offices. T1 telephone or ISDN PRI service is used to deliver multiple telephone lines to your PBX phone system. SIP Trunking does the same for IP PBX or enterprise VoIP phone systems. Finally, Integrated T1 service combines telephone and broadband Internet service on a single line to save money for small business users.

Is your business ready for the advantages of T1 line service? Our team of experts are happy to help you decide on the most cost effective type of T1 connection for your business needs.

MegaPath Duet Combines Voice and Data

Small and medium size businesses have a need for both telephone and broadband Internet services. Most often, the telephone side started small with a few phones and outside lines for local and long distance calling. It may still be just a few phones or may have grown over the years to dozens of handsets and half a dozen or more analog phone lines. New ones get added as more capacity is needed.

Internet service may have started as dial-up and moved to DSL for broadband. Then, perhaps, a move to fractional or full T1 dedicated Internet service to improve reliability.

The result of this piecemeal growth is that many local businesses are paying too much for their telecommunication services, compared to what they can get today. You might be paying as much as 50% more than you need to if your systems were optimized.

The secret to the cost savings is in bundling services. Usually when we think of bundling, it's about bundling local and long distance phone service on one or two lines. That a popular option for residential, home office users and very small professional offices. A bundling option with more capacity combines voice and data service on a single T1 line.

Many businesses have T1 lines as telephone trunks for their PBX phone systems or for dedicated business broadband service. Some companies have both. But they are completely separate services with different line configurations. A T1 line can handle up to 24 telephone lines or 1.5 Mbps of data service. Larger companies may have multiple T1 lines and use them to full capacity. Small companies may find that they really don't need all those phone lines or all that bandwidth. If only there was a way to combine voice and data on a single T1 line.

That's exactly what MegaPath has done with its Duet Phone and Internet service. Duet is what is called Integrated T1 service, another way to say bundled. But aren't standard telephone and Internet signals incompatible? They are in their native forms. What you have to do to bundle them is to convert everything to a common protocol. In this case, IP or Internet Protocol. The data connection is already IP. The telephones have to be converted to IP by using VoIP or Voice over Internet Protocol.

That's how Duet works. An interface device at your location connects to the telephones you already have and performs the conversion from analog to VoIP. It also connects to your router to provide the broadband Internet service. The connection to the outside world is a T1 line that goes to MegaPath. Note, I didn't say it connects directly to the Internet. Before it goes anywhere else, it connects you to the MegaPath office.

That's significant because even though Duet uses VoIP, an Internet Protocol, your telephone service travels over a private network. That's done so that MegaPath can assure you of crystal clear voice quality, also known as "toll quality" telephony. The public Internet lacks the controls necessary to ensure high quality voice signals at all times, an absolute necessity for business users. If you've tried Internet based VoIP and been disappointed by garbled voices, echoes, clipped conversations and dropouts, you'll find Integrated T1 service to be far superior.

With MegaPath's Duet, you can have from 2 to 16 telephone lines plus dedicated broadband Internet service. All of this is managed with MegaPath provided customer premises equipment, so you don't have to pay for expensive specialized interface gear or develop the technical expertise to make it work. All that's taken care of for you as long as you have the service.

I should mention that Duet has been rolled out to thousands of locations already but may or may not be available in your area. If it is, you have the option to bundle your telephone and business broadband service on a single T1 line at a price that will likely surprise you. Want to find out? Simply call the toll free number or enter a quick online request for quote at T1 Rex. Our friendly consultants will be happy to help you find the best voice and data service options at the lowest price for your business needs.

T1's for Business Parks

Nearly every business needs reliable voice and data service, regardless of location. Downtown in any major city, options abound. You may easily have your choice of a dozen vendors offering everything from sub-Mbps ISDN connections through Gigabit Ethernet. But many new businesses and industrial firms aren't locating downtown. For cost, zoning, or convenience, they're setting up shop in business and industrial parks. So what's available there?

It's that location, location, location thing again. Your business broadband options depend highly on what's been built-out. Tech savvy developers know that digital communications infrastructure is just as important to business users as electrical power, natural gas, water and sewer connections. In a way, high speed communications is a utility. It's the new electricity.

Unfortunately, many business and industrial parks pre-date the rise of the Internet. While they might not be offering steam for your industrial line shafts or water power for your gristmill, they won't be flaunting their GigE or OC48 network connections either. Being situated on the outskirts of town doesn't mean you're out of luck, though. Highly reliable digital telephone, point to point data links and dedicated Internet connections are available anywhere you'd care to put up an office building, factory or distribution center.

The service you need is the ubiquitous T1 line. T1's were developed by the telephone companies and designed to go wherever phone lines go. In fact, the physical layer specified for T1 service is twisted pair copper. The same copper wires universally used for analog phone service. With signal regeneration, even locations in rural areas can be connected from telco offices dozens of miles away.

You should know that T1's are available in different configurations. A T1 dedicated Internet connection is what it sounds like. It's an always-on full time port to the Internet that runs at a fixed bandwidth of 1.5 Mbps for both upload and download. You connect via a T1 router that has the necessary Channel Service Unit and Data Service Unit circuitry (CSU / DSU) to interface with a T1 line. A router meeting this specification can be provided by most carriers offering dedicated T1 service, often at no cost on a two or three year contract.

Another form of T1 line is the T1 voice or T1 telephone circuit. It comes in two flavors, channelized T1 and T1 PRI. The difference is that that PRI protocol creates a dedicated channel for signaling and Caller ID information. As you probably guessed, a T1 telephone line connects to your PBX telephone system. It gives you anywhere from half a dozen to two dozen telephone lines on a single digital trunk for less cost that maintaining all those separate analog phone lines.

Many businesses have a need to interconnect two or more locations. You can do this with point to point T1 data lines, connections to a private data network or an Internet virtual private network. In these cases, a T1 line provides your access network to other locations.

Need more bandwidth than a single T1 line can provide? Get 3, 4.5, 6, 7.5, 9 or more Mbps by bonding multiple T1 lines together. This gives you the throughput you need for higher bandwidth applications without the often prohibitive construction costs to bring fiber to your business.

Is your business small enough that you could get by with less bandwidth for a lower price? One option is to order a fractional T1 line. Another is to share a single T1 with other businesses in the park. If needs grow, you can always bond-in additional lines to increase bandwidth.

What's available for your business park location? Check to see if your building or a nearby building is lit for fiber optic Ethernet service.

No fiber? No problem. Our expert consultants will find you the best deals on T1 and bonded T1 line service for your voice and data needs.