T1 - Is It Right for You?
Is now the time to upgrade to a T1 in Westby? There are a number of considerations when examining your existing DSL connection as well as the likelihood of upgrading it. For many people, the largest issue is dependability and if dependability is critical to the applications you run over your connection, you ought to really take a look at swapping out your DSL link with a T1. DSL is a swift and cost efficient means of acquiring high speed bandwidth, however it is not intended to support commercial use or large numbers of end users that a T1 line can handle.
Reliability becomes critical when customers or employees depend on your connection for immediate responses. If your customers use your connection to access your databases or your server or the internet, then reliability of your connection is critical. If your employees depend on your connections because you host the e-mail server in house or host web servers, your connections is considered critical. A critical connection can be viewed much like a life line, without which your business would be negatively impacted. Your monthly savings of having a sub-par connections will not make up for the loss in productivity of your employees or loss of customers when your DSL connections gets bogged down or cut off. To reiterate, crucial connections should be supported with a T1 internet service.
Many customers are extremely price sensitive and cannot afford the cost of a T1 line 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 circuit unless they have a business reason to pay for such a circuit and cannot access DSL service. Most people don't realize that a DSL connection can be just as fast as a T1 at 1.5Mbps. The shortcoming of DSL is that it is oversubscribed. This means there is a limited amount of bandwidth available and a customer's speed can plummet if other customers in the neighborhood decide to use their service. SDSL (Synchronous DSL) is a business class DSL and is ranked as a higher priority than residential DSL or ADSL (Asynchronous DSL). This means it is not oversubscribed to the extent than ADSL and is subject to fewer bandwidth limitations. In short, if price is your critical factor, go with DSL. If reliability is the critical factor, buy a dedicated T1 and don't be afraid of the T1 line cost.
