T1 Basics And General Answers
If you're in an office you might want to consider T1 as the next update to your wide area network. First we'll look at what T1 is and how to find the best price. Believe me, it's a jungle out there. I had companies all excited about their "great price" which was $300 more a month than others.
What exactly is T1, why would you want it, how much will it cost and what will it do for you? All great questions, let's take a look.
T1, or Trunk level 1, isn't something new; it was first rolled out by AT&T back in 1957 as the first step in creating a digital network out of the telephone analog system. T1 has a maximum signaling speed of 1.544 Mbps and it can be split into a total of 24 channels or delivered not channeled.
T1 can be obtained in fractional units; 386kbps, 512kbps or 768kbps but given the cost of installation you'll probably be better off just going for the full T1, it won't cost much more.
Each channel can be used to run both voice and data. For instance you could have four channels dedicated to four different voice numbers with the remainder allocated to data. Virtually any permutation is available. The voice channels simply plug into the phone company's jacks into the channel bank where the voice service is located (the install guy will know what to do) and that's it. Many carriers will be able to offer long distance at a very reasonable price as well.
At the end you won't need much if you're already running a network; a router and firewall that connects right to your hub and probably a few changes to your networking configuration in terms of gateway and IP addresses.
This is different from cable and DSL because a T1 line is amplified as need it can be put in anywhere, you don't need to be located within a certain area.
If you do have access to "business class" cable service why T1 instead of cable? Most likely it will be in the "service level agreement" (SLA). Even with "business" cable most likely they won't guarantee a specific level of service (outages, speed, etc.) or offer something that's not suitable for your needs, for instance repair within four hours. Just think if your mail server, internet and web server are out of service for four hours. Ouch, that could be a lot of lost business or employee down time.
Different providers will offer different service levels. Make sure you include this in your deliberations.
When I was looking I ran into an internet website which allowed me to enter some info an get a quote from multiple providers and I mean multiple providers. There were eight providers available with prices all over the board so I was able to narrow down my selection quickly. After that it was pretty automatic, a few forms, setting up appointments for install and that was it.
