Business Gigabit Ethernet Bandwidth Advantage

By: John Shepler

It’s time for a bandwidth upgrade. You’ve been getting by with bonded T1, DS3, OC3 or OC12 fiber service and it’s not getting the job done anymore. What about a move up to Gigabit service? Is that practical? Can it be done without destroying the budget? Yes, if you are savvy about what to pick for your next bandwidth service. Let’s take a quick look at something that may have only become available since you signed your last line lease. It’s Gigabit Ethernet.


In case you’re still wondering why you shouldn’t just upgrade with classical switched circuit line services instead of moving into Gigabit Ethernet, there are several points to consider.

T1, DS3 and SONET have been around for decades and are highly reliable telecom services. But did you know that all of these are designed around telephone company needs in transporting large numbers of simultaneous calls. This technology long predates the rise of packet switched networks.

As such, you are dealing with a protocol conversion when you go from your network to the WAN connection and back again. That works, but it’s less efficient, harder to scale and pricier than just keeping everything Ethernet from end to end.

Let’s talk about scaling for a second. Any service can be rate limited by the carrier so that you only get a portion of the available bandwidth. This is called fractional service. The reason to do this is that you don’t need the full bandwidth the line can provide and may be offered a cost savings if you take just a fraction. That cost savings hasn’t traditionally been anywhere near proportional to the speed reduction.

The bigger problem comes when you run out of bandwidth. Bonded T1 tops out about 10 Mbps or so, DS3 is 45 Mbps, OC3 runs 155 Mbps and OC12 delivers 622 Mbps. If you want to move up from one of these services to another, you need the provider to come in can change out equipment. Each interface is unique to that service level. The result is a step change in price level and delays of weeks or more to get the changes made.

Carrier Ethernet was designed from the get-go to be more scalable. Your interface is an Ethernet connection regardless of the service level. What varies is the maximum speed of the installed port. That can be 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, 1000 Mbps or 10,000 Mbps. Carriers typically install 100 Mbps or 1000 Mbps ports for most businesses to be sure there is more than enough bandwidth available.

You can have a Gigabit Ethernet port installed at your location and then elect to start off with 100 Mbps or 400 Mbps or the full 1000 Mbps. Later, you can scale up or down with just a phone call to your provider. There are no equipment changes needed unless you need to move up to, say, 10 Gigabit Ethernet.

Don’t forget that Ethernet gives you a choice of services. You can opt for E-Line, a simple dedicated point to point connection. But, you can also choose E-LAN, a fully meshed any to any connection that is perfect for linking multiple business locations on the same network. This is a layer 2 service, so you’re able to create one large bridged network. This beats trying to do the same by ordering multiple line services and switching or routing them at your headquarters.

High levels of bandwidth that didn’t make sense a few years ago are now easily affordable by medium size businesses, school districts, medical centers, banks, and other organizations. Get a quick quote on business Gigabit Ethernet bandwidth for your location or locations and see if it doesn’t make sense for you to upgrade now.

Voice and Data Bandwidth for Hospitals

Hospitals and medical centers need massive amounts of electronic communications infrastructure to operate efficiently, so to speak. With advances in imaging technology and the move to electronic records, this need could grow perhaps exponentially. Is there any way to keep the rising cost of health care in check with this kind of demand for every increasing telecom needs?

You bet there is. First let's take a look at what types of capability are required. Along the way, we'll see what we can do about the costs.

The most basic need of any organization is telephone voice communications. In any facility with more than a few phones that most likely means a PBX phone system. The Private Branch Exchange has come a long way over the years and may now sit on a shelf or in a rack rather than occupying an entire room. Even with legacy equipment, there is major cost savings to be had in consolidating a dozen or two analog phone lines into an ISDN PRI digital trunk running on a T1 line. If more than 23 outside lines are needed, additional T1 lines can be installed, usually by plugging them into an interface card in the PBX.

It should be noted that ISDN PRI trunk line prices have plunged in recent years and that competitive service providers may be able to provide the same level of T1 service that is currently being used at a lower price. Or for the same budget amount, telephone capability can be expanded to meet a growing need.

For greenfield installations or retrofits, IP PBX systems are popular. They perform the same function as the traditional PBX in being an in-house telephone exchange. The big advantage is that the IP PBX supports VoIP handsets. T1 lines carrying ISDN PRI digital telephone service work just as well for an IP PBX. But you also have the option to employ the newer SIP trunking to keep everything in the VoIP realm. That can translate into potentially large additional cost savings.

The other high demand technology within hospitals and medical centers today is data communications. The combined requirements of high definition imaging equipment, such as XRAY, CAT and PET scanners along with medical records access and normal purchasing activity means that getting information into or out of any facility requires a fairly large "pipe." A T1 line may be adequate for smaller satellite offices or a doctor's office. But larger organizations are needing DS3 bandwidth at 45 Mbps or fiber optic connections starting at OC3 or 155 Mbps.

Like digital voice lines, data communication lines have come down in price the last few years. Competitive service providers may be able to offer a considerable cost savings by simply replacing high cost line services with equivalent services from lower cost providers. But the real excitement comes from the new Carrier Ethernet networks. Carrier Ethernet is a technology that is now competing directly with SONET fiber optic service with savings as high as 50% or more in some cases. Carrier Ethernet, also known as Metro Ethernet, offers bandwidths starting at 5 Mbps and easily going up to 100 Mbps, 1 Gbps and even 10 Gbps. The higher the bandwidth, the greater the savings per Mbps over traditional fiber optic services.

If you are responsible for hospital, medical center, or doctor's office telecommunication expenses and would like to see how much you could be saving on your monthly voice and data line bills, find out quickly and easily with our GigaPackets bandwidth evaluation service. You may be astounded at the results.