Ethernet In The First Mile Advantages

Metropolitan and Wide Area Networks can transport your packets anywhere you wish them to go. Regardless of what type of network you are connecting to, there’s one more thing you are going to need. It’s a way to get to the nearest on-ramp. This is often called first or last mile connectivity. Ethernet offers some real advantages to that first mile link that you should know about.

There are a number of technologies that work well for first mile connections. These include T1 lines, DSL, SONET fiber optic services and even microwave or 3G/4G wireless. The idea is to connect your building to your service provider, or at least a portal to your service provider. In many cases, you can’t connect directly to your preferred network service provider because they don’t have any resources close enough. In other cases, it’s more cost effective to do it in a couple of hops.

A very typical case is the venerable T1 line. These are almost universally used by businesses as first mile links. Why? Because they are highly reliable, reasonably priced and almost always available. That availability is based on using telco twisted pair copper wire bundles that run from the business directly to the nearest Central Office (CO). That CO is owned by the incumbent local phone company, but copper pairs and rack space for equipment are leased to other service providers. This is where you connect to your provider’s network.

In many areas you now have the option of connecting via T1 lines or Ethernet over Copper (EoC). They both use exactly the same bundled twisted pairs but have different interfacing equipment at each end. This may not make any difference to you if your provider is installing a managed router as part of the service. You’ll connect to the router with a standard Ethernet LAN cable. What will make a difference is the lease price you’ll pay each month and the bandwidth options available.

Ethernet over Copper is less expensive per Mbps in most areas. You can typically get 2 Mbps or even 3 Mbps EoC for the same price as a 1.5 Mbps T1 line. It’s an even better deal as you go up in bandwidth. T1 lines can be bonded to double, triple or quadruple line speed or even more. You can stretch this technology up to 10 or 12 Mbps, but it starts to get pricey at the high end. Ethernet over Copper scales much less expensively and to higher bandwidths. While 3 Mbps EoC is a popular replacement for T1 service, many companies order 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 or even 45 Mbps Ethernet over Copper bandwidth. You can even get increments between these levels so that you don’t have to pay for any more connectivity than you actually need.

In addition to cost savings and increased bandwidth, there’s another reason that you may want to opt for Ethernet rather than T1 in the first mile. Standardized Carrier Ethernet services are now widely available. These include Ethernet Line (E-Line), Ethernet LAN (E-LAN) and VPLS (Virtual Private LAN Service). What they have in common is layer 2 connectivity that gives you the option to bridge your company LANs regardless of how far apart they may be separated. You need to keep everything in the Ethernet protocol to make this work. EoC will do that, T1 won’t. However, there is a service called EoDS1 that uses T1 lines to transport Ethernet where EoC isn’t available.

If you need higher speeds than Ethernet over Copper affords, you should take look at Ethernet over Fiber (EoF). It’s a replacement for SONET fiber optic services that include OC-3, OC-12, OC-48 and so on. Like EoC, EoF has both scalability and cost advantages. If you order a 1 Gbps port, as many companies do, you can have your provider deliver any bandwidth up to 1,000 Mbps and pay only for what you need. When your requirements increase, a simple phone call to your provider will get you higher bandwidth quickly. Ethernet over Fiber has the same Carrier Ethernet services available as Ethernet over Copper.

Are you thinking that Ethernet may be a better solution to your connectivity needs that what you have now? If so, get prices, bandwidths and availability of First Mile Ethernet services for your business locations.

MegaPath Pushes EoC to 400 Mbps

The bandwidth of Ethernet over Copper services has been setting new standards on a regular basis. It’s now at the point where you have to think seriously whether you really need to invest in fiber optic construction to light your building or if EoC will get the job done. MegaPath has just upped the ante for those doing copper/fiber tradeoffs. The new upper limit is 400 Mbps.

Many companies that are using Ethernet over Copper are doing so as T1 line replacements to get twice the bandwidth for the same cost. The 2x2 Mbps and 3x3 Mbps options are especially popular for this application. Other companies are moving to mid-band Ethernet where even bonded T1 cannot go. These are bandwidths in the 10 to 20 Mbps range, suitable for many mid-size operations. It’s the companies that have hundred or thousands of employees to support or are engaged in high bandwidth requirement applications that have been stuck with fiber as their only option.

That’s all changed within the last year. More sophisticated modulation schemes and bonding to 8 copper pairs have pushed the bandwidth limit past 50 Mbps to 100 Mbps and even 200 Mbps. Now, MegaPath is offering a new service that can exceed 400 Mbps. This could be a strong option for companies that have specified OC-3 SONET fiber optic service at 155 Mbps and even OC-12 at 622 Mbps.

To be fair, the 400 Mbps speed is only specified on the download path. Upload speeds could be a fraction of that. Does asymmetrical service make sense in a business environment? It could, depending on what you are doing with it. Internet access is typically asymmetrical in nature, with download speeds 10x what you use for upload. That’s because most internet usage at the desktop consists of sending keyboard requests for Web pages or files and then viewing the results or making other use of the data in applications. The principal is that the huge files are almost always coming to the user rather than being sent.

That’s especially true for video, now the number one source of traffic on the Internet. It takes relative little upload activity to request the video files, even streaming, and a considerable amount of download bandwidth over extended periods of time.

Some cloud applications also fall into this category. If you routinely send huge files to the cloud and expect little back, then the asymmetry is wrong for you. However, if most of your bandwidth activity is using large information packages delivered from the cloud, then an asymmetric bandwidth connection could work in your favor.

MegaPath is also offering symmetrical Ethernet bandwidth up to 100 Mbps x 100 Mbps for point to point, point to multipoint and dedicated Internet access. Other options include Ethernet over DS1 and Ethernet over DS3 to address the inherent distance limitations of Ethernet over Copper service. As part of rolling out the new higher bandwidth services, MegaPath is increasing the number of central offices with EoC equipment from 200 to over 680 within a year.

Are your bandwidth requirements increasing, perhaps because of a current or planned move to cloud-based services? If so, you should know that fiber optic connections are only one option to get the line speeds you need for efficient operation. Get competitive quotes now for low, mid-level, and high bandwidth Ethernet over Copper line services for your business location. Sorry, no residential service available.

3x3 Mbps Ethernet Doubles Your Bandwidth

Who couldn’t use a little extra bandwidth these days? The size of files, applications and web pages has been steadily increasing. Unfortunately, IT budgets haven’t. What would you say if I told you that you could double your bandwidth and not have to pay any more than you do now? Would you go for a deal like that?

It may seem odd to think that you can get twice the bandwidth for the same line cost that you are paying now. After all, network service providers aren’t in the business of giving away something for nothing. Of course not. The cost savings doesn’t come from simply replacing what you have with an identical service from another vendor. It comes from switching to a newer technology that has lower costs.

You could double your bandwidth with your current vendor or a competitive one if you want to stay with T1 line service. What you do is call up and order another T1 line to be bonded with the one you are running now. Bonding is a process of making two lines work as if they were one larger line. A T1 line has a bandwidth of 1.5 Mbps. Bond in a second T1 line and you have 3 Mbps. 

There are a few limitations to this process. First, you need to get both of your T1 lines from the same vendor. That’s either the carrier you have now or a new one for both lines. Second, your monthly bill is going to double. After all, two lines equals 2x the cost. You may well be able to pay less than twice your current line charges by going with another vendor that charges less for the same service. But this alone it isn’t likely to get you 3 Mbps for the price of 1.5 Mbps. 

Instead, consider changing from T1 line service to Ethernet over Copper. Both are highly reliable WAN services with dedicated bandwidth for business applications. Both services are available as managed services with the service provider taking care of any customer premises equipment needed to interface to the lines and to your network. 

The other similarity between bonded T1 lines and Ethernet over Copper is that they are both delivered over multiple twisted pair copper wires. These are the same copper wires that already come into your facility to provide multi-line telephone service. There is a technology difference between the signals on a T1 line and those on an Ethernet line, but from a users perspective they operate the same. 

What isn’t the same is the cost. Ethernet over Copper is a newer technology that makes more efficient use of the potential bandwidth available from copper landlines. Ethernet over Copper or EoC pricing is very aggressive and is currently running at about half the cost of double bonded T1 lines. In other words, you pay the same for a 3 Mbps EoC service as your pay for a 1.5 Mbps T1 service. 

There are a couple of other differences, too. T1 only scales up by increments of 1.5 Mbps. Every time you bond another T1 line you add 1.5 Mbps of bandwidth. Ethernet is far more granular. You can find Ethernet bandwidth services from 1 Mbps on up to 10 Gbps, although the higher line speeds require fiber optic cabling. But unlike T1 lines, Ethernet over Copper has a limited service footprint. You are most likely to find it in major cities and suburbs, not out in rural areas.

Would you like to double your bandwidth for the same money you spend now? Get pricing and availability for 3 x 3 Mbps Ethernet over Copper or other Ethernet bandwidth services to see how much savings is available at your location.

Fixed Wireless Broadband Includes Canada & Puerto Rico

We tend to think of broadband as a wireline service. T1 lines are popular for small to medium size businesses. Ethernet is rapidly gaining ground because it can offer a larger range of bandwidths and lower prices than conventional telco technologies. Many chain retail outlets depend on two-way satellite access. But there is another service that can offer reliable broadband service with little or no construction cost and low monthly rates. That’s fixed wireless broadband, now available for the US, Canada and Puerto Rico.

A top provider of fixed wireless broadband solutions is Accel Networks. They offer service in all of the major 2.5G, 3G, 3.5G and 4G coverage areas. If that sounds a lot like cellular broadband, it is. But this goes way beyond consumer-grade cellular data service. What Accel has done is to aggregate the wireless data services of a number of cellular carriers to create a service footprint that is larger than any of them individually. It covers over 99% of all retail locations in the US, Canada and Puerto Rico.

What kind of speeds can you expect on this wireless broadband service? The 3G service area is the largest, with average download speeds of 768 Kbps and bursts up to 1.4 Mbps. Upload speeds average 384 Kbps with bursts to 512 Kbps. In lesser populated areas, 2.5G service offers speeds of 140 Kbps for both uploads and downloads.

Accel has the engineering expertise to identify the strongest network connection for your particular business location and then configure the equipment they send you so that it is ready to go. Since there are no wires, other than what you connect for your own network, you can be up and running in a a matter of days, not weeks or months. That can be critical for new location openings, temporary construction sites, special events, or when a natural disaster occurs.

What applications are right for fixed wireless 3G broadband? Point of sale is a natural. If you’ve been struggling with dial-up verifications, you’ll be amazed how fast your transactions take place on wireless. Cashless transactions are typically completed in 2 to 4 seconds. Best of all, they don’t tie up your phone line. This is a highly secure network, offering PCI/Visa compliance to protect your customer data.

Some users of Accel fixed wireless service include general retail locations, retail petroleum sales (gas stations), quick service and table service restaurants, banks, hospitality, convenience stores and monitoring for pipelines and fuel tanks. Any location that needs a broadband connection to conduct business or transmit data is a natural for 3G wireless.

Another perfect application for Accel wireless service is network continuity. With any wireline service, there is always the danger of what is called “backhoe fade.” That’s an industry term that basically means someone was digging and cut through the telecom cables. Some of those bundles contain dozens or hundreds of wires. A fiber optic break can require over a 100 fiber strands to be spliced. Once the outage has been identified and the required service personnel are on-site, it can still be hours, days or longer to get service restored. Meanwhile, all users unlucky enough to be on that cable go without service.

How long can your business go without data service before it starts to hurt? An hour’s loss of business might cost you more than fixed wireless service for a month. So even if you depend totally on your T1 line, DSL service, or fiber optic connection, having a 3G wireless backup makes a lot of sense. Since there are no wires, there are no wires to cut. Wireless uniquely offers the diversity of service to reliably back up wireline connections.

Could your business benefit from low cost wireless broadband with fast installation that you can do yourself? It’s cheaper than you think. Go ahead, check out Fixed Wireless Broadband services for your business location.