Despite the fast speed of cable and DSL and most recently FIOS from Verizon, they only meet the needs of a home based business or a business with fewer than ten (10) employees. For most businesses with more than ten (10) employees, a T1 line has been the standard solution thanks to their reliability and availability pretty much anywhere in the US. During the last couple of years, more growing businesses are upgrading to a T3 or DS3 connection, which is now more and more the solution of choice.



T1 connections (1.544 Mbps) and T3 connections (45 Mbps) are traditional business-class digital leased lines. The technology is pre-cable and pre-DSL. The main advantage is quality of service: If a T1 line goes down, the phone company has a much faster time of repair (usually within 4 hours) than a DSL line (could take a day or longer). Businesses rely on these broadband connections for their revenues and bottomline. A circuit down can cost thousands of dollars an hour. The T1 and T3 lines also have time-tested monitoring and diagnostic capabilities to keep them up, so they are more reliable.

A T1 line has 24 channels. Each channel can either be used for a phone line or 64 Kbps of Internet. A business can have 8 phone lines and 1024 Kbps of Internet (16 X 64 Kbps) over a T1 circuit for on average of between $300-$700.

A T3 line has 672 channels and costs several thousand dollars a month (from $2,000 to $7,000 depending on the provider and service location). The cost has steadily decreased the last several years making it more cost effective for a growing business to choose the T3 network.

Often a business will optimize capability and cost by choosing a fractional T3 (starting at 10 mbps) rather than a full T3 line. The obvious benefit is reduced cost and yet allow the scalability of a T3 circuit of up to 45 mbps.

There's also the private line T3, also known as point to point T3 or point to point DS3. For example, you could have a private line between two businesses with no Internet security risk. This is a very useful solution for media companies and companies with various locations needing to transfer data between locations and run VOIP.

The T3 service is symmetrical (45 mbps upstream/downstream), unlike most DSL and cable lines; you get the same speed in both directions which is very important for businesses, especially those exchanging data between offices and uploading a lot of files.

Cost mostly depends on distance. This boils down to two simple components; local loop and the port. The local loop cost is the cost the local phone company charges to transport the signal from the end user's central office, otherwise known as a CO, to the point of presence, otherwise known as a POP, of the carrier. The port cost is the cost to access the network or the Internet through the carrier's network. Typically, the port price is based upon access speed and yearly commitment level while the loop is based on location and yearly commitment. The further the CO and POP, the more the loop cost.

If your business is growing and bonded T1's no longer can handle your bandwidth needs, then upgrading to a T3/DS3 line for reliability, scalability, performance, and capacity is most likely the best decision you'll make for meeting your company's growth.

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