Are T1 Lines Still Used?

By: John Shepler

In these days of gigabit fiber optic connections and cable broadband, it may seem quaint to talk about twisted copper pair lines for WAN networking service or Internet access. Yet, the venerable T1 line is still in use today. OK, but why would anyone choose this legacy technology option?

Who Needs a T1 Line?
In an ideal world, we’d be swimming in choices when it comes to networking offerings. Some people actually are, but you’ll find them in the commercial districts of major U.S. cities. Every networking provider wants to serve New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles. How about out where the cows moo, well beyond the incorporated limits of podunk towns that dot the countryside? Any takers?

No, not so much. The problem is that we, as a country, haven’t accepted Internet access as a basic utility yet. Time was when electricity was in the same category. It was considered a luxury item. By 1936 it was obvious that standard AC electrical power was of strategic importance to the country and should be distributed everywhere. Thus, the Rural Electrification Act brought power lines into every farm, ranch and rural homestead. Everybody got the same quality of electrical service regardless of where they were located.

Fast forward to today. Broadband Internet access is still widely considered to be an optional service for businesses and home use despite the fact that you can hardly access a government service, take a school course or run any sort of business without getting online. So, you either pony up for whatever service is available in your area, do everything on your phone, or settle for shared options like the public library or free WiFi hotspots.

How T1 Fits In
T1 lines are no screaming broadband service by any stretch of the imagination. But they work and work well, often in places where even wireless service is unavailable.

How’s that possible? it’s by design. The original purpose of the T1 Carrier System was to transport multiple telephone conversations on a single digital line. That’s right. It’s a phone company invention that was intended for phone company office use. What T1 did was replace up to 24 telephone wires strung on poles between offices with a pair of lines that carried all 24 calls at once without them interfering with each other.

As a telephone company standard, T1 was designed to use ordinary twisted pair wiring just like plain old telephone service. it was also designed with repeaters spaced every mile or so to boost the signal so it could reach as far as needed.

When the Internet came along decades later, T1 was already heavily in use for phone service. The local phone companies began to offer it to businesses as an upgrade to the dial-up Internet access of the time. T1 was considered broadband in the ’90’s. Instead of carrying multiple phone calls, a T1 line provides 1.5 Mbps of always-on and dedicated bandwidth. There’s no competition with other users and no busy signals.

T1 Lines Today
Just as you can still get landline telephone, you can still get a T1 line installed for your business in many locations. Some businesses have multiple phone lines coming into a local PBX phone system on a T1 line set up as ISDN PRI. At the same time, they may have another T1 line for Internet access or a T1 private point to point connection between two locations.

A few things have changed over the years. T1 is no longer the broadband of choice for most business users with other options simply because the bandwidth is so limited. Prices have come down dramatically from eye popping levels to something much more reasonable, although that is starting to reverse in areas that are phasing out T1. Indeed, this legacy service still works great but is slowly being replaced by fiber optic lines and microwave fixed wireless.

What you do get for your monthly T1 lease is a rock solid line at 1.5 Mbps in both the up and down directions. These lines are highly reliable and quickly repaired if something goes wrong. That may not sound like much bandwidth, but it can easily work for modest retail or office operations that need credit card verification, email, updates to simple websites, inventory updates, ordering, and casual web browsing.

Note that Point to Point T1 lines offer an interconnection that avoids the public Internet and the congestion and security issues that come with that giant network. You get a private, dedicated, symmetrical link between your locations that's like extending your own network over long distances.

Where can you get a T1 line installed? Do you have a landline phone? Can you get one? Chances are the same location can still have T1 line service installed.

Alternatives to T1 Lines
These days, cable broadband is pushing farther and farther out of town to serve industrial parks and residential subdivisions. Fiber optic providers are also expanding their service areas as they extend their cable to more remote cell towers. Fiber prices have come down dramatically, as service areas have increased.

Speaking of cellular towers, most areas have at least some cell service and 4G LTE broadband, if not 5G. You can get a specialized cellular modem designed to connect to your computers or WiFI router at a reasonable price. The companies that offer this service have plans with generous usage limits available.

Some rural areas have what are called WISPs or Wireless Internet Service Providers that serve the underserved locations that are too few and far apart to attract wired connections. A WISP is like a very large WIFI hotspot and some use the same frequencies. Most often, you’ll need to install an outside antenna and point it at the WISP tower to get connected. When you do, you’ll get fairly high speed broadband.

In business districts, fixed microwave wireless offers bandwidths and latency similar to fiber but without the fiber. Instead, a small dish on your roof points at the service provier's tower to deliver a highly reliable high speed connection. This is similar to WISPs but can deliver dedicated rather than shared bandwidth.

Satellite broadband is also widely available just about anywhere with a clear view of the southern sky and some electrical power. This is true broadband service, with plans that can accommodate most business users. It’s a shared service, so your bandwidth will depend on how many others are accessing the same “bird”. There’s also the matter of a half-second delay or latency because the satellite is in geostationary orbit far above the Earth. Many business users think satellite broadband works just fine for their needs, especially with the newer higher power and higher throughput satellites that have become available recently.

So, is a T1 line still the right solution for your network access needs? Or is one of the fiber or wireless solutions a better choice? Before you decide, find out just what bandwidth service options and pricing are available for your particular business location.

Why Wireless Is The New Copper… But Not The New Fiber

By: John Shepler

Part of the world went incommunicado a couple of weeks ago. No, this had nothing to do with repressive regimes or criminal hacking. It’s a condition that is all too frequent and all too overpowering. Nature strikes and part of the planet goes dark… at least for awhile. It could be earthquake, volcano, hurricane, wildfire, tornado or flood. This one was named Haiyan and it was a massive typhoon that descended on the Philippines. Thousands dead, millions homeless and communications gone.

A characteristic of natural disasters is that they demolish infrastructure. That’s buildings and roads, certainly. It’s also radio towers, power lines and telephone wires. This infrastructure took months and years to install and it will take months and years to restore.

So, what happens in the meantime? It’s emergency communications and it’s almost always wireless. The nice thing about wireless is that, in its simplest forms, it can be deployed on a moment’s notice. Two way radio is a good example. The first communications to be re-established between Tacloban in the Philippines was ham radio. You can hear the story on Sunday’s Weekend Edition on NPR.

Hams, or amateur radio operators, have a long tradition of being first responders when electronic communications is needed. Each year they have a practice session called “Field Day” to test their ability for quickly establish working voice and data facilities in the middle of nowhere. Hams are also invaluable as storm spotters to keep taps on rapidly developing tornadoes.

What allows hams to step in when nothing else works is that they are self-contained. A fully functioning transceiver can be held in your hand and run on batteries, yet communicate for hundreds and even thousands of miles. The infrastructure is small, portable and easily deployed.

Cell phones are even smaller, more portable and self-contained. Plus, everybody’s got one. You don’t need any special training or licensing. It wireless communications for the masses that theoretically has no distance limit. Indeed, text messages and tweets have made it out of the world’s political hot spots when nothing else can.

The Achilles heel of cellular is the network of towers and switching centers that make the system work. A good strong blow from mother nature will level these and stop all communications indefinitely. Well, not indefinitely. These weaknesses have been recognized and workarounds created. One is satellite phones that don’t need local facilities. Another is a portable cell tower called a COW or Cell On Wheels. It a complete base station and antenna that can be towed in quickly to bring up phone service within a small service area.

How about traditional landlines? They go down for the count. There are just too many thin plastic coated copper wires stretched over too many miles to replace quickly. Some are buried, some were on utility poles shattered in the storm. Landlines got the jump on wireless because they were low tech, cheap and dependable compared to anything else in the first century of electronic communications. But now wireless has the advantage. It’s much quicker, easier and less expensive to install in developing nations that don’t have an existing landline infrastructure. They never will.

How about fiber? That’s a different story. Fiber optics span the globe and provide an especially important link under the seas. They co-exist with LEO (Low Earth Orbit) and geosynchronous satellites that also carry electronic communications. Despite the cost of deploying thousands of miles of fiber and built-in amplifiers from reels on specialized ships, fiber optic installations are increasing rather than decreasing. This is happening at the same time that satellite and other wireless systems are also growing. Why?

The answer is bandwidth. Nothing has bandwidth like fiber. Wireless capacity is limited by the extent of the electromagnetic spectrum and how clever we are at modulating it. Fiber is also electromagnetic in the sense that light waves carry the data bits. What’s different is that if you run out of capacity in a fiber strand you simply light up another strand. Common fiber cables have dozens if not hundreds of separate fiber strands. Each carries an electromagnetic spectrum of its own. Moreover, fiber can span hundreds or thousands of miles with the same carrying capacity. Wireless is limited to local cells interconnected by… you guessed it… fiber optic trunk cables.

The reason that landlines aren’t all fiber rather than copper is historical. Copper got there first. It’s all been paid for so the costs are strictly for maintenance plus upgrades in the terminal equipment that squeeze more bandwidth out of those copper pair. That will keep copper in business for decades to come, but it’s surely going away. In fact, much of the copper plant that was destroyed in New Jersey’s Hurricane Sandy won’t be replaced. Fiber and wireless will take over the job. Once it’s gone, it is no more likely that copper lines will return than will new steam engines.

Business network connections in the form of copper lines, fixed wireless and fiber optic cabling are readily available and less expensive than ever before. If you could use a bandwidth upgrade or simply more capacity for the same or less expense, get pricing and availability on voice and data circuits, plus cloud services now. For immediate service, you can call toll free (888)848-8749 for today’s best deals.


Note: Photo of Typhoon Haiyan as viewed by the International Space Station courtesy of NASA on Wikimedia Commons.

$8.33/mo Small Business & Residential VoIP

What’s the best deal in VoIP phone service for residential and small business users? No, it’s not the ones you see advertised on TV. In fact, you’ve probably never heard of this phone company. It’s something of a best kept secret that needs to be shared.

I’m going to tell you how you can get unlimited “free” calls to the US and Canada, plus an hour of free international calling every month, plus a free 2nd line for the astounding price of $8.33 per month. No, you don’t have to plug your phone into your computer to make this work. This is a broadband phone system that works with your router or modem and shares your Internet connection with your computers. The phones will receive calls or let you call out regardless of whether your computer is on or off.

The company you want to know is Phone Power. Their expertise is in Voice over Internet Protocol or VoIP communications. They can handle all size businesses, but this special offer is targeted at the vast majority of telephone users. Those are homes, home offices and small businesses that need only a couple of phone lines.

The way this works is by using an ATA or Analog Telephone Adaptor. This is a small box about the size of a wireless router or cable modem that Phone Power leases you for free while you maintain your service. There are two network connections on the back. One you plug into your broadband modem. That’s the WAN connection that hooks to the Internet. From now on, the Internet will do double duty as your phone line as well as your computer line. The second network jack is for your computer or router. In other words the ATA sits between your modem and computer equipment so it can maintain voice quality with both phones and computers are being used.

There are two regular phone jacks on the back of the ATA. Two? Yes, you can plug two phones into the box and use both of them at the same time. This is a feature you don’t generally get with any phone service. It’s always one line or you pay double for two lines. Phone power gives you two “cloned” lines for the same price. The reason they are called cloned is because both these lines share the same phone number. Both phones will ring with a call comes in. But, you can call out separately and make two independent calls through the magic of VoIP line cloning. Pretty handy in a business office or at home with loquacious teenagers.

By the way, no special phones are need. Use a standard desk phone or cordless phones with multiple handsets and one base station. They all work just fine.

This is unlimited service, right? You bet. You pay a very modest monthly fee for VoIP service and you can call all the numbers in the U.S. or Canada that you like. That’s right, Canada too. Most phone services charge you extra long distance fees for calls across the border. Phone Power also gives you 60 minutes of free international calling per month and has very low international rates for countries not included or if you want to talk more.

Oh, there is one caveat. This is for typical residential and small business users. Call centers are NOT included. If you are running a call center and need an enormous call volume, EnterpriseVoIP.com will take care of your needs. Anything over 5,000 minutes per month will trigger an overage charge of 2 cents per minute by Phone Power.

So how do you get all this for a measly $8.33 per month? It’s a current special offer (may not last) that costs $199.95 per year with a second year included free as a new customer promo. Do the math and you’ll see that you are paying just $8.33/mo for unlimited phone service. Don’t want to prepay for 2 years? OK, there are other plans where you can just pay by the month for a higher, but still bargain, rate.

Does this sound like the right price and the right phone service for you? There are a tremendous number of calling features bundled-in that you would otherwise have to pay extra for with other companies. No contract, no activation fee, no equipment charge, no per minute charges. Plus a 30 day satisfaction guarantee so you can be sure the service works for you with your particular broadband provider. Learn more and order Phone Power Small Business and Residential VoIP service now, while you can get such a fantastic deal.

866 Toll Free Numbers

We’re all familiar with 800 numbers. They were the first numbers we recognized as toll free. But did you know that there are other toll free numbers, too? What about 866? Is that really a toll free prefix?

Indeed it is. But is there a difference between 800 and 866 as far as toll free operation is considered? No, they work exactly the same. Just as 202 and 302 are toll number prefixes assigned to different locations, 800 and 866 are toll free numbers used nationwide.

That’s one difference between toll prefixes and toll free prefixes. Toll prefixes are used to designed numbers in a particular area. That’s why they are called area codes. Area code 202 is assigned to Washington, DC. Area code 302 is assigned to the entire state of Delaware.

The toll free number prefixes 800 and 866 do not have a geographical assignment. You can call an 800 or 866 number from anywhere in the country and you’ll reach your destination. You just may not know where, geographically, the number is being answered.

It should be noted that the idea of associating area codes with the physical location of the assigned telephone is going away with landlines being replaced by cell phones and VoIP or broadband phone. Neither wireless or broadband users are tethered to a particular location by a copper wire. In fact, some VoIP providers let you pick your desired area code regardless of where you happen to reside. That’s especially valuable when most of your calls come from a particular regional area. Calls from an area code to the same area code don’t pay interstate long distance charges. If your phone has a New York City area code, it will work like any other NYC local phone, even if you pick up the calls in San Francisco.

Toll free numbers take this concept to the next level. When someone dials a toll free number, they don’t pay for the toll charges regardless of where they are calling from or where the call is picked up. Please note that most toll free numbers are US only. You have make special arrangements to get an International toll free number.

Now let’s look at what happens on the receiving end of the call. If you are the owner of the toll free number, you’ll pay the cost of any calls you receive. Fortunately, with an inexpensive toll free service that cost will be minimal. What you get in return is a caller who is much more likely to dial your number than if they knew they had to pay long distance charges. This is a powerful incentive for call-in orders and customer service. In fact, customers have come to expect a toll free number and may balk at dealing with companies that don’t offer one.

Are toll free numbers really affordable by smaller businesses? Absolutely. You can get an 866 number assigned to you for just $2 and pay just $2 a month to maintain service. That service includes your exclusive use of the number, forwarding to any working phone including a cell phone, voice mail, plus FAX reception that forwards to your email. The cost of the calls is just 6.9 cents per minute for the continuous 48 US states. Calls from Alaska and Hawaii cost a bit extra.

For the same price as an 866 toll free number, you can also get one with the prefix 877 or 888. They work just the same as 866. You can also get an 800 number for the slightly higher fee of $5 plus $5 per month service fee and the same 6.9 cents per minute rate.

Add International Capability To Your Cell Phone

The move from landlines to wireless phones is picking up steam. That offers an opportunity for mobile professionals to always be able to connect with prospects, customers and suppliers. One limitation, though, is that cell phone plans tend to exclude international calls or impose rates that make international long distance service impractical. Is there a solution?

There is a terrific solution in the form of a third party add-on service that integrates seamlessly with whatever cellular service you have now. Technically, it’s called international dial-around. You are not changing providers. Instead, you use the dial-around service to literally “dial around” your current cellular service when you need to make overseas calls from the US and Canada.

TEL3Advantage is a leader in the international dial-around space. Take one look at the per minute rates to the destination of your choice and you’ll see why. Let’s just choose to call China, for instance. The Flex Plan rate is 1.32 cents per minute. You read that correctly. It’s cheaper to call your contacts in China using Tel3Advantage than it is to call another city with most landline long distance services. Actually, this service will work just as well from a landline as a cell phone, so it makes sense to get Tel3Advantage and use it from all your phones.

By the way, you can call China for 30 days at just a penny a minute using the special Promo Plan when you sign up for Tel3Advantage service. Compare quality and service with your current long distance service or the calling cards you get at the convenience store. You’ll be so impressed by the calling rates, connection quality and customer service that you’ll gladly continue after the 30 day introductory period is over.

Give it a fair test. The stated rates are impressive enough. But note that there are no hidden fees involved like you run into with prepaid calling cards. Did you know that you almost never get the stated rate from a calling card? There are connection fees, inactivity fees and so on that reduce the number of actual minutes you get for your dollar. The true rate is often several times what’s printed on the face of the card when you actually start making calls. With Tel3Advantage you’ll pay the stated per-minute rates. You only get charged extra for calls from a payphone, if you can even find one anymore, or if you call from Alaska, Hawaii or US territories beyond the 48 continuous states.

Also note that your cellular provider will probably charge you minutes for the time spent calling through Tel3Advantage unless you are making calls during the free nights or weekends provision of your plan. That’s probably not important for most users, since you are paying for a bundle of minutes per month anyway. It can be a consideration for pre-paid cellular plans. Even so, just where are you going to get cheaper international rates even including the per minute charges of a pre-paid cell plan?

So, how does this service actually work? It’s pretty easy. You dial a local or toll free access number to reach the Tel3Advantage platform. Then you dial the international number you want to reach. There are no long PIN numbers to remember. You register your phone numbers with Tel3 and the system recognizes your phone when you call. You can avoid even dialing the access number yourself by downloading a TEL3App for your iPhone or smartphone. Then it’s no harder to make an international call than to place a call to a business across town.

Landlines Flourish in Business

Consumers may be abandoning landlines right and left, but they are still alive and well in the business world. In fact, landlines are absolutely flourishing in businesses large and small. What sense does this make?

The wireless-only craze has not infected businesses the same way as consumers for a number of good reasons. One difference is that most businesses involve more than one person. More often than not, businesses have a business location where most of the business activity takes place or is controlled. Fixed locations with multiple users who all need to interact is a realm dominated by PBX telephone systems. PBX systems use landlines to connect with the outside world.

Now there are some caveats to this. You may think of landlines as being only twisted pair copper analog phone wires that connect a business location to the phone company central office. This century-old technology no longer dominates the business world. A landline now might be a T1 telephone trunk line that consolidates multiple business lines into a single digital cable. Up to 24 phone lines can be carried by a single T1 line.

An even newer landline technology is the SIP trunk. This is a packet rather than channel based technology that serves IP based telephone systems such as enterprise VoIP systems, including IP PBX phone systems.

Digital landlines can be used for both voice and data. SIP trunk lines often carry both telephone and broadband Internet traffic. So do Integrated T1 lines. Carrier Ethernet service over copper or fiber landlines can provide point to point network connections or multipoint LAN services over extended distances.

So, does this mean that wireless use is insignificant in business settings? Just the opposite. The BlackBerry device is almost part of the corporate dress code... even when there is no dress code. BlackBerry devices and other smartphones are integrated into the enterprise voice and data systems using something called fixed/mobile convergence. There is some thought that this may eventually evolve into all-wireless business networks, but that seems unlikely. Every time there is an incremental improvement to wireless technology, such as HSDPA or EVDO Rev A, there seems to be an even greater demand for higher enterprise network bandwidths. It seems that the solution is a system that will incorporate more wireless access points, cellular and IP wireless telephony, and Gigabit Ethernet connections.

The one exception may be the independent technical or sales professional who spends more time out of the home office than in it. These people have needs more like individuals than collocated teams. A cell phone or smartphone, perhaps with a cellular broadband enabled notebook computer and a stand alone toll free number, can provide all the electronic communications needed.

How Many POTS Lines in a Trunk?

If your business started very small, your first business phone may have been your only one. It was no doubt a single line desk set or perhaps one with a wireless handset and a speakerphone. You plugged it into an RJ11 wall outlet, lifted the receiver and there was dial tone. You probably didn't refer to it as POTS, but that's what it was.

POTS is a telecom industry acronym for Plain Old Telephone Service. POTS runs on the PSTN or Public Switched Telephone Network. POTS connections are twisted pair copper wires that run all the way from your phone jack back to the telephone company's central office. These are also called analog lines because they operate on analog voltages and currents according to standards that go all the way back to Alexander Graham Bell himself. Nowadays they may be called landlines to distinguish them from wireless phones that operate on the cellular phone networks.

POTS is solid, reliable telephone service. Voice quality is excellent. It has been enhanced over the years to include options such as call waiting, call forwarding, three way calling, and Caller ID. You can buy a nice business phone for POTS service at any office supply store. If one line isn't enough, you can get a phone that handles two POTS lines.

But what if your business has grown to the point where you need more than two outside lines? Many small to medium size businesses move up from individual phones to phone systems by adding a Key Telephone System. The key is the name for the line selector push button. Every phone set has two to six line keys along with a dial pad and other buttons. It's up to you to decide whether you'll join a conversation on one of the busy lines or select an open line to make a call.

Key Systems are also POTS based. So is the entry level PBX or Private Branch Exchange phone system. The PBX manages outside lines, so you don't have to worry about finding an open one to make a call. It also allows you to directly dial from one phone to another within the business using just a few digits. These calls never use an outside line. They are handled through the PBX system directly.

PBX systems have the ability to grow either by adding on to them or buying larger replacement systems. As your business grows you may barely notice the number of POTS lines creeping up from 4 to 6 to 10 to 20. Users generally have no idea how many lines there are. Management may also not have taken much note of the incrementally growing cost of telephone line service. POTS lines have little economy of scale. It's so much per line depending on the feature set. Saving money is where the idea of the trunk line comes in.

A trunk is a phone line that carries multiple telephone conversations. Modern trunks long ago switched from analog to digital technology. The most popular trunks are T1 telephone lines. T1 is a digital telephone standard that creates 24 individual channels in a strictly timed digital bitstream. Each channel can carry one telephone call. T1 voice lines can do the work of up to 24 POTS lines. The T1 line will plug into a T1 interface card in your PBX system or can be connected to a channel bank that will give you the 24 individual line connections.

Why go to all this trouble? It's no trouble when it results in a cost savings. That's what T1 lines offer. If you are paying for more than half a dozen individual POTS lines, T1 service will likely cost less per month for the same phone service. Once you get to 10 or 12 lines it is almost certain that you can save money by switching to a T1 line.

So, that means there are 24 POTS lines in a trunk, right? Yes...and no. T1 telephone lines can carry 24 phone lines. But many businesses prefer ISDN PRI or Primary Rate Interface service. This is another format of T1 line that gives you up to 23 phone lines. The other channel is reserved for switching and data, so you can have Caller ID capability on your PBX system. There's also something called Integrated T1 that gives you up to 12 phone lines and broadband Internet on one trunk line.

The newest wrinkle is the SIP trunk. SIP is the VoIP signaling protocol. A SIP trunk also carries multiple phone lines and perhaps Internet service. You can trade off voice quality for bandwidth, so a SIP trunk might carry even more than 24 phone conversations simultaneously.

How many POTS lines in a trunk? How many do you need? The trunk can be sized accordingly to give you the lowest cost for the quantity and quality of phone line service you require. Just remember that the purpose of going to trunked telephone service is to save money. How much? Check out the cost savings on telephone trunk lines now.