Ethernet as a T1 Alternative
At the time when our business (that processes a lot of large medical images) was growing fast, it became self-evident that we required more bandwidth.Our T1 line just wasn’t cutting it any longer (T1 bandwidth is only 1.5 mb). We had no choice but to upgrade to a circuit with more bandwidth.
As in charge of IT, I was the one renegotiating our current contract. Fortunately our company’s 1 year contract was almost over, so we were in the position to shop around for different alternatives.
The most apparent answer would have been to change from a single t1 to a bonded T1. Nevertheless it would not take long before that also would not be sufficient.
My sales rep with our current carrier (who will remain unidentified here) of course was happy to point me to a bigger and far more costly solution: a DS3 (T3 line) which has a capacity of 45 mb. Obviously that would be bandwidth enough taking our projected growth rate into consideration, it was possibly even a bit of an overkill. And monthly recurring cost was in the higher 4 digit figures.
With due diligence I did some more research until I found something that sounded too good to be true. A new technology (or at least new to me) that can deliver bandwidth via an Ethernet port over phone lines, Ethernet over Copper. The pricing was excellent; we were able to get 10Mbps for less than a bonded t1!
Another major benefit of is that it is very scalable. We can just add bandwidth by simply ordering more, in incremental steps of a few megabit, even all the way up to a gigabit Ethernet circuit.
Be sure to shop around with several carriers and make sure you are aware of new technologies (or use a telecommunications consultant that is).
