T1 line?

[Letterbox Mike]

Anybody here on a T1 line? We're considering switching to one from our current DSL. I don't know much about them or how they work, but I understand comparing them or their speed to DSl isn't really a fair comparison. We're looking at a 1.5mbps up/down speed, which concerns me because we're currently seeing about 2-3mbps down on DSL and we're wanting to ditch it because it's too slow. We don't upload much so the up speed isn't a concern, but we download many many files a day, often very large files, so a slow download speed will be crippling.

So the T1 rep says it will be fine for us and because it's a direct connection it'll be faster than anything else even though it's rated speed is slower on paper. Is this correct?

And, we tried cable, the connection was intermittent at best, sometimes it worked, sometimes we had no signal and they had to send a line technician out to make changes/repairs, so while it was plenty fast when it worked, it didn't work all that often...

 

[tcorn1965]

Anybody here on a T1 line? We're considering switching to one from our current DSL. I don't know much about them or how they work, but I understand comparing them or their speed to DSl isn't really a fair comparison. We're looking at a 1.5mbps up/down speed, which concerns me because we're currently seeing about 2-3mbps down on DSL and we're wanting to ditch it because it's too slow. We don't upload much so the up speed isn't a concern, but we download many many files a day, often very large files, so a slow download speed will be crippling.

So the T1 rep says it will be fine for us and because it's a direct connection it'll be faster than anything else even though it's rated speed is slower on paper. Is this correct?

And, we tried cable, the connection was intermittent at best, sometimes it worked, sometimes we had no signal and they had to send a line technician out to make changes/repairs, so while it was plenty fast when it worked, it didn't work all that often...

T-1 is dedicated for you only. 1.5 up and down constant speeds. Another thing that you could do...(we do) we have fibre connection from the Cable company, 3 up and down dedicated. This is cheaper than a T-1 and is as reliable. We do use a T-1 for our voip phone system and that goes down occasionally-about once every three months. Fibre has never gone down.

Terry

 

[cgsigns_jamie]

I just went through this same thing.

We had 6mbs down / 256kps up DSL for about 7 years. I was looking at switching to T1 because I needed a faster upload speed.

I work from home from time to time and use our VPN to access files in the office. You can't imagine how slow it is trying to copy a 2Gb PSD file when you're capped at 256kbs... especially since the fastest speed I could actually obtain was about 20kbs

The issue I had with T1 was the $1,200 a month bill that came with it. I believe it was a 6mbs/6mbs line.

So I started looking at cable. Our local cable company has a 22/5 service in our area and we were able to bundle that with our 6 phone lines and still be about $100 less then our old DSL/Phone bill.

We switched 2 weeks ago and so far I'm very happy with the service. Speed tests generally show 21/6 so I'm getting what I paid for. Lucky for me, there aren't very many cable customers near me since it's a relatively new service for our area so I don't have to share the connection with a bunch of people. That's the only issue I ever had with cable, if you had a bunch of people on the same connection it would slow way down real fast.

 

[HulkSmash]

T1 is completely unnecessary unless you are running a university.

 

[Letterbox Mike]

Well, hehe, here's the deal with the cable/DSL thing. Right now we have both. We originally had DSL from the phone company, getting about 2.5 down and 512 up, but as time goes on the connection is slowing down. Now at best we get about 1.5-2 down, in the afternoons we see below 1mbps down, which is horrible. I don't need a fast upload speed as much as a fast download speed since we're not sending many files, just receiving a lot.

So we ordered cable from the cable company, it's been installed for two weeks and has worked for exactly 13 hours. When it worked we saw about 5-6 down and 600-800 up, so much better, But it's been totally unreliable. Fortunately we still have the DSL connected too so I'm just waiting for Time Warner to come get their junk.

We've got a local company offering a 1.5 up/down T1 with 6 phone lines for $299/month, but I'm really worried if the T1 speed can be compared apples-to-apples with a cable or DSL speed, it'll be way too slow. The reliability is nice, but It's useless at that speed.

I did just find out I can get AT&T Uverse 18 down 3 up for $85 per month so I think that's where I'm going to go.

 

[TheSnowman]

We have cable from comcast, and we get 27 down and 5 up. It does go down for a few minutes every once in a while, but NO WAY would I ever consider going to a T1 or DSL after having it. I think we pay like $65/mo for it. Had it 3+ years.

 

[Jet Fast Printing]

I did just find out I can get AT&T Uverse 18 down 3 up for $85 per month so I think that's where I'm going to go.

I use Uverse at home, ROCK solid. I was unaware it was a business product tho. I thought it was home only. Use Comcast at the shop