For years, T1 service has been used by many businesses for internet. But by today's speed standards of FiOS and cable, it seems to me T1 speed is bringing up the rear at 1.544 MB. A recent repair call I had to a local Marriott where guest room internet was slow (or dead) at times didn't turn up any specific internal problem (which I didn't think I'd find anyhow), but I began to suspect that their T1 just couldn't handle today's traffic if most of their guests were online at night. Isn't T1 getting to be like yesterday's ISDN and (soon) DSL? Why should it cost so much for speeds that are now far exceeded for less money?
Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!
Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!
-
Congratulations gkittelson on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!
T1--big deal?
- Thread starter exverizon
- Start date
T1 is dedicated bandwidth for the connection, you can use it for anything, and the speed is the same both ways.
Cable gives good speed out of the box, but there are a number of factors that can change a good cable experience to a bad one. Because all of the users on a segment have a shared pool of bandwidth, a large number of people streaming video, downloading music or other bandwidth intensive tasks can drop the bandwidth/speed for everyone on the segment. Cable companies have also been sniffing around with censorship, speed penalties for some things, and ratting people out to the RIAA.
DSL is slower uploading than downloading, but you are back to a dedicated connection, so whatever speed your account is set up for is what you get - but it can vary with line quality.
FIOS is a cool technology, but it's going to be years before it's rolled out to the non-major metropolitan areas, so I don't think the others will be disappearing anytime soon.
Cable gives good speed out of the box, but there are a number of factors that can change a good cable experience to a bad one. Because all of the users on a segment have a shared pool of bandwidth, a large number of people streaming video, downloading music or other bandwidth intensive tasks can drop the bandwidth/speed for everyone on the segment. Cable companies have also been sniffing around with censorship, speed penalties for some things, and ratting people out to the RIAA.
DSL is slower uploading than downloading, but you are back to a dedicated connection, so whatever speed your account is set up for is what you get - but it can vary with line quality.
FIOS is a cool technology, but it's going to be years before it's rolled out to the non-major metropolitan areas, so I don't think the others will be disappearing anytime soon.
The cost of DS1 is a goldmine for providers. That's why the cost stays high, it's revenue!
If you need more bandwidth add another DS1 or get a DS3. Some providers offer Metropolitan Ethernet with Internet connectivity, but there is a cost for that too...
....JIM....
If you need more bandwidth add another DS1 or get a DS3. Some providers offer Metropolitan Ethernet with Internet connectivity, but there is a cost for that too...
....JIM....
- Thread starter
- #4
But I guess I'm asking, in this case, would a T1 reliably support a decent sized motel's guests (say 400 rooms), many of whom are online at the same time? I couldn't think of any reason service would be fine during the day when usage is light and partially crash at night when usage spikes. Service outage was in random rooms; then it's OK; then another floor goes down, then it comes back. I figured the T1 was taxed and not able to deliver when everyone jumped online. 1.544 MB isn't so fast anymore, especially with such content heavy sites these days.
400 rooms might be a stretch for a single T1 if they're doing anything intensive - you may need 2 and load balance them. I work in a healthcare network with 1400 employees (not all here at once) and we ran for a long time with just a single T1, but we have added a 2nd one in the last year or so because we are requiring more employees to use online education resources and the like.
If I ran the zoo, and I did once on a smaller network, I would block any of the data intensive ports on my firewall so my users could not be using bearshare, kazaa, limewire, etc to download music, and block youtube and other more popular services that stream video (probably leave the news services alone). There is really no need for those kinds of activities on a couple day hotel stay, and longer term (business?) tenants will likely have outside resources they can use for those things.
If I ran the zoo, and I did once on a smaller network, I would block any of the data intensive ports on my firewall so my users could not be using bearshare, kazaa, limewire, etc to download music, and block youtube and other more popular services that stream video (probably leave the news services alone). There is really no need for those kinds of activities on a couple day hotel stay, and longer term (business?) tenants will likely have outside resources they can use for those things.
Depends on it's use. T1 (or E1 in europe) is, as stated two way and on the whole pretty reliable.
Yes it may be loosing favour, but for telephone calling, the likes of VoIP still have a long way to go.
We extensively use PRI's into our buildings then VoIP it around, but we are in no hurry for external VoIP.
In the UK BT are rolling out 21CN which is upgrading the creaking infrastructure, so VoIP may be a beater option in a few years time.
Most people spend their time on the "urgent" rather than on the "important."
Yes it may be loosing favour, but for telephone calling, the likes of VoIP still have a long way to go.
We extensively use PRI's into our buildings then VoIP it around, but we are in no hurry for external VoIP.
In the UK BT are rolling out 21CN which is upgrading the creaking infrastructure, so VoIP may be a beater option in a few years time.
Most people spend their time on the "urgent" rather than on the "important."
If your outages are "one floor at a time" then the T1 is NOT your trouble... If the T1 were overburdened, it would simply be slow - it wouldn't actually fail. Take a good look at your access points - I suspect that THEY may fail if overtaxed.
Mike
Mike
I agree with mforrence, sounds more like infrastructure issues, whether your using wireless or hardwire to switches, the T1 wouldn't just fail, it would simply be slow like he mentioned.
On another note, something that you might look into is having both T1 service and cable/dsl/FIOS or whatever. Have both go into some load balancing/firewall appliance where you could have policies defined like use the higher bandwidth/cheaper cable connection as your primary connection to the Internet and have the T1 provide failover/backup in case cable is down. Put your most important/maximum uptime services pointing to the T1 and your everyday general browsing/downloading to your higher bandwidth cable/dsl/fios or whatever.
Also, make sure you are using commercial grade equipment and not SOHO level stuff. Even 10% of your total room capacity would easily overburden SOHO level equipment.
Just a thought.
On another note, something that you might look into is having both T1 service and cable/dsl/FIOS or whatever. Have both go into some load balancing/firewall appliance where you could have policies defined like use the higher bandwidth/cheaper cable connection as your primary connection to the Internet and have the T1 provide failover/backup in case cable is down. Put your most important/maximum uptime services pointing to the T1 and your everyday general browsing/downloading to your higher bandwidth cable/dsl/fios or whatever.
Also, make sure you are using commercial grade equipment and not SOHO level stuff. Even 10% of your total room capacity would easily overburden SOHO level equipment.
Just a thought.
- Status
Similar threads
- Locked
- Question