Open Thread → T1

The condo I live in recently replaced the roadrunner business class connection we had here to a T1 hosted by Bellsouth. After being online with it for a few weeks now I notice that it doesn’t seem to be as fast as RR. The user load here is pretty light; I know I use the most bandwidth. I thought at many times the cost of a regular BB connection that it would be much faster. Why does a T1 cost so much?

A T1 can be used for other things besides data. I think it can be split up into 24 voice channels or any combination of voice/ data.

A T1 is dedicated service uptime. Its mainly for buisnesses that can't afford downtime. If the service goes down, its fixed within a tiny time frame. Its dedicated line that can be 24 voice channels, all data channels, or a combination of the two. Or work has a half T for voice and the other half for data. Its about 512kbps/512kbps where I work.

A T1 is 1.5 mb/s up and downstream. Anything less is a fractional T1. It is a true circuit as opposed to packets.

T1 has guarantees on the connection, and is dedicated, not shared (atleast not until it reaches the internet).

T1 was probably a poor choice for a condo/apartment, they could of found a business class from some other ISP and got more speed for less.

I believe I understand a little bit better now. The high cost is associated to the guarantee of constant uptime. Also the technology is different because of the way it handles data. Perhaps we got a good deal after all. Funny it seems that after I posted about the slow speed it seems to be flying now.

You are probably right there. That is what happens when you have people that think they know more then they do running the show. I tried to offer my help but they turned me down.

As Vampire said in the post below, a T1 is not a shared circuit. You get a guaranteed 1.54/1.54 connection all the way out to BellSouth's backbone connection. It isn't as fast as cable, but you also aren't sharing your bandwidth with everyone in the neighborhood.

Still, that's a bit of overkill for a residential building. If they wanted something more reliable than cable, a business-class ADSL or SDSL account would've been a better, and cheaper, choice.

Well, if you would quit hogging the bandwidth, maybe us other users could get higher speeds on this here internet.

Where can I find a packet-less T1?

Any T1 that has 24 - 56 or 64k voice channels on it, for example. Circuit switching was around a long time before packet switching. It is not based on an internet protocol. Dedicated ds0 tributaries.