Full T1 And Practical T1
If you are looking for fast internet and a good t1 connection, it is important that you know the difference between fractional t1 and full t1 connections. Fractional T1 is a private, dedicated leased line that goes directly from your office to your Internet Service Provider (ISP), providing a guaranteed transmission speed.Leased lines provide guaranteed bandwidth, since they are not shared with other users.Fractional T1 lines are cheaper than at full T1 (1.544Mbps). The most common fractional T1 speeds are256 Kbps & 384 Kbps.
A T-1, or DS1 line, is a private dedicated line that goes directly from your office or business to your Internet Service Provider (ISP), providing transmission at 1.544Mbps, roughly 60 times more data than a normal residential modem. It is also extremely reliable, much more reliable than an analog modem. Depending on what they are doing, a T1 line can generally handle quite a few people. In terms of general browsing, hundreds of users are easily able to share a T1 line comfortably.
The difference between a fractional T1 and a full T1 is that a fractional T1 offers less bandwidth than a full T1 and comes with the same quality and performance guarantees as a full 1.54 Mbps T1 but costs slightly less. How much less bandwidth vs. the cost savings is the question. Although the price reduction is not what you might expect it to be, this may put a T1 in your budget and be a great way to get dedicated service into your building. Once you have fractional service upgrading to full service is easy. The reason it is easy is due to the install. Same amount of overhead, crews, time, and connections. A fractional T is a full T1 capable circuit it is throttled back to deliver only a portion. Contact your broker or provider and you can increase bandwidth within 7 to 10 business days.
Fractional service usually comes in 256Kbps increments from 256Kbps all the way to a full T1 at 1.5Mbps. Find the service that is right for you, but if you are supporting critical services think reliability. Reliability becomes critical when customers or employees depend on your connection for immediate responses. If your customers use your connection to access, your databases or your server or the internet then reliability of your connection is critical. If your employees depend on your connections because you host the e-mail server in house or host web servers or ASP type products, your connections is considered critical.
In the late 1990's, the cost for a fractional T1 might have been about 35% - 40% less than the full 1.54 Mbps T1. Today, there is hardly any difference in price, maybe 10% to 15% at best. The cost of a Full T1 has come down considerably in recent years. A fractional T1 has a 50% - 75% bandwidth decrease but only a 5% to 15% price decrease. Fractional DS-3 (T3) on the other hand is a very cost effective solution since pricing is based on a portion of a 45 Mbps circuit. While it does not hurt to check fractional T1 pricing since every locations' cost do vary, the majority of T1 line users opt for the full T1.
