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fatmanskinny
Premium Member
join:2004-01-04
Wandering
·AT&T FTTP

2 edits

fatmanskinny

Premium Member

What do I need - T1, T1 scaled up or Cable Biz internet?

Situation: Office of 140 sales reps and managers. They need to use the internet mainly for researching potential customers on-line.

A video service was introduced to our customers. Now, the sales reps would need a fast connection to be able to view the video service that was sold to customers. Also, the office VP stated he is interested in doing video conferencing. However, the main issue is staff internet to perform sales and research.

Occasionally, the reps would need to participate in on-line video training but most training does not contain videos and not all the reps would be viewing these videos simultaneously.

The IT Support team would occasionally download and apply updates to the machines after hours or during hours depending how critical the updates are.

We expect a few people to not adhere to company netiquette and YouTube or stream some music. Unfortunately, our company does not want to look into providing us the tools necessary to correctly police internet usage ... don't ask why but if you know any tools to do this, feel free to let me know.

We do not qualify for a DSL connection because of distance from the Central Office (over 11k feet). However, through various companies, we qualify for T1 and scalable / bonded T1 up to 6MB.

Comcast Business internet is going to do a site survey to see if they can provide a connection in our office of 8MB / 1MB.

We currently have a couple of T1s in place that actually pipe into our main office in California and ride off of their network. In essence, we are getting our internet from California and not locally...yet. The new line(s) would be for internet data only and not private network / internet data like our current T1s.

Advise on how you would proceed. I checked on HowStuffWorks.com and it stated:

***
Depending on what they are doing, a T1 line can generally handle quite a few people. For general browsing, hundreds of users are easily able to share a T1 line comfortably. If they are all downloading MP3 files or video files simultaneously it would be a problem, but that still isn't extremely common.
***

Would this be the case for the above scenario? Please advise. Also, what questions besides costs (install, monthly and hardware) should I ask when pricing? Thank you.

RockyBB
Premium Member
join:2005-01-31
Steamboat Springs, CO

RockyBB

Premium Member

of course, it all depends on traffic. when you say you have a "couple" of T1s to the California office, you don't say how many. And you don't say what percentage of traffic no longer would be using the California connection. and you don't say if you will be increasing staff or internet demand in your office. and you don't say why you're even thinking about getting internet access locally. So with all that necessary info missing, and assuming that you can't calculate in advance how much bandwidth you'll need, I would suggest you get a Tier 1 carrier (AT&T, Qwest, Verizon Business, Savvis, XO, Sprint, Global Crossing; Nuvox is good in Atlanta) T1 circuit (not cable or DSL because you don't want to get yelled at), where the carrier provides the router. If you end up with congestion, you can have the carrier install a 2nd circuit, and bond them together, while supplying the multi-T1 router. Be sure the provider will give you circuit utilization and performance stats and that you have an appropriate firewall.

fatmanskinny
Premium Member
join:2004-01-04
Wandering
·AT&T FTTP

fatmanskinny

Premium Member

1. T1 traffic to CA office would mainly be for internal sites and email. External traffic would route in and out of the new connection. So, in essence, 150 users total (max users in office) would get e-mail via CA T1 connections and then get public internet via new connection.

2. We have 3 T-1s connecting to the CA office.

3. Regarding why we are getting internet locally? The connection from CA is too slow among 150 office users. We see transfer rates of about 10-20kb on average. When very few are using the site, we see 150kb transfer rate.

Also, how does a Tier 1 carrier differentiate from anyone else like a Covad, Megapath, etc?

Thanks for responding.

RockyBB
Premium Member
join:2005-01-31
Steamboat Springs, CO

RockyBB

Premium Member

With that profile you'll be the hero if you put in a double T1, bonded at 3M. Pricing should be in the $700 to $1000 per month range with router.

A Tier 1 provider has its own NOC (network operations center) and typically will have its own intercity fiber routes. All carriers will lease some routes from others, but Tier 1 carriers own their own fiber. Megapath resells Covad and AT&T, and has their own stuff after their merger with Netifice (which used to be called Epoch Internet years ago). Covad has their own NOC, but I'm not aware that they own any of their own fiber, so I'll call them a Tier 2. Many of the larger Tier 2 providers are pretty good, when they are very service oriented they often do a better job than the AT&Ts of the world. The Tier 2 providers you have to be careful of are the local companies that oversell their bandwidth.

fatmanskinny
Premium Member
join:2004-01-04
Wandering
·AT&T FTTP

2 edits

fatmanskinny

Premium Member

Hmm. Since cable is hypothetically faster, why would I not want to go that route? I understand that bandwidth could fluctuate a bit but we mainly need it for downloading.

I am also aware of the SLA issue with business cable, too. Basically non-existent.

I believe I may be incorrect in that the new connection will be the public internet connection only and not the T1s that are in place. This is mainly to provide more bandwidth.

If I am not mistaken with cable, if you are downloading a lot and someone is trying to upload, the download is impacted where as a T1 does not have that issue, correct?


I just tested downloading a large file which started out great. Then, when I uploaded a file via YouSendIt at the same time, my download speeds dropped significantly. I assume that this would be the same issue on Business Class Cable.

Thanks for all of your responses.
nnaarrnn
join:2004-09-30
Charleston, WV

nnaarrnn to fatmanskinny

Member

to fatmanskinny
I have a very similar situation with one of my clients, and ended up with a single full bandwidth T-1 (1.544Mbps) for business things (VPN, web/ftp server, video confrencing, etc...) AND a 6Mb/256kb cable connection for "other" traffic. I used to have a Linksys Rv042 Dual wan VPN router inbetween both ISPs and our network, but ended up scrapping it for a pfsence (»www.pfsense.com/) Live CD router on a P3 machine--1Ghz/512MB with 3 nics. It has a SUPERIOR QoS traffic shaper to the Linksys, and allows me to route the browsing/dowloading through the cable, and everything "business" related through the rock solid T-1. Doing it this way saves the client about 300/month on access charges they'd receive with bonded Ts.

fatmanskinny
Premium Member
join:2004-01-04
Wandering
·AT&T FTTP

1 edit

fatmanskinny

Premium Member

I appreciate the response. However, this is a multi-billion dollar company with their own corporate network support team and I got my hand slapped for running a inventory scanner to pick up PC inventory on the network. I work in one of the bigger field offices but corporate b**ch slaps us around when it comes to the network.

I believe the devil would become an angel in heaven again before they let me go with the setup you described. It makes a lot of sense to me but it would be a cold day in hell before our corporate network team let that pass through.
fatmanskinny

fatmanskinny to nnaarrnn

Premium Member

to nnaarrnn
Cable internet is out of the picture. At this point, we only qualify for T1 or better lines, not any DSL or cable.

Comcast came out and surveyed our building. Basically, it would cost us quite a few thousand for them to perform construction so we could get their service.
imseanbrown
Premium Member
join:2005-12-20
New York, NY

imseanbrown to fatmanskinny

Premium Member

to fatmanskinny
if this is a multi-billion $ company, 4 little letters is all they need

MPLS

put 3.0mb MPLS solution between offices and you're done. Prioritize the important traffic and live happy.