Is a T1 Connection Better than DSL?
Is a T1 connection better than a DSL connection? A more appropriate question might be "Is a T1 connection BETTER than a DSL connections". A T1 connection and DSL connection both offer bandwidth at high speed but have two factors that significantly separate them from one another. Those factors are cost and reliability. A DSL connection has a low price and is less reliable than a T1 line. A T1 is much more expensive than a DSL connection but is also much more reliable.
So are you seeking out reliability or price? Reliability becomes critical when customers or employees depend on your connection for instant responses. If your customers make use of your connection to query your databases or your server or the Internet then reliability of your connection is critical. If your employees depend on your connections since you host the e-mail server in-house or host web servers, your connections are considered crucial. A critical connection can be viewed much like a life line, without which your business would be devastatingly impacted. Your monthly savings of having a sub-par connections will not recover for the loss in productivity of your employees or loss of clients when your DSL connections gets slowed down or disconnected. To reiterate, critical connections should be provisioned with a T1 connection.
Many customers are exceptionally price sensitive and cannot afford the cost of a T1 which can be as much as 20 times more expensive than a DSL connection. Residential customers who are most sensitive to price should not consider a T1 connection unless then have a business reason to pay for such a circuit and cannot access DSL service. You may get lucky and find a T1 connection that is low cost which would give you both price and reliability, but be careful. Many T1's sold for less than $600 are not truly dedicated circuits and are oversubscribed. In short, if price is your critical factor go with DSL. If reliability is the critical factor, then purchase a dedicated T1.
