T1 Service vs. DSL for Business Internet

Online, June 15, 2010 (Newswire.com) - Business owners tasked with providing phone and Internet service to their employees often wonder what's better-T1 Service or DSL? Even though on the surface, DSL appears to provide roughly the same bandwidth as T1 for less money, a dedicated T1 line is preferable to DSL for many reasons.

First and foremost, T1 service is much more reliable than DSL. Most T1 service contracts come with a Service Level Agreement (SLA) that guarantees a certain amount of uptime (usually 99.999%), 24/7 tech support, and fast response times in the event of an outage. DSL comes with no such service guarantees. Any business who cannot afford to risk a significant Internet or email outage (sometimes 48 hours or more) should not rely on DSL for connectivity.

Second, the actual speed of DSL is dependant on how far a business is located from the telco's central office. The farther the office is from the central office, the slower and spottier the connection. T1 connections don't have that limitation. Additionally, DSL's upload speed is usually significantly slower than its download speed. T1 service features equally fast upload and download speeds.

Third, DSL is usually a shared connection, which means that there can be bottlenecks and slowdowns during peak traffic times. The cheaper the DSL, the more likely you are to share the connection with other users, thus increasing the chances of slowdowns and bottlenecks. A T1 connection, on the other hand, is a dedicated connection that provides separate channels for each user, which prevents slowdowns even if all users are on the Internet at once.

Finally, a T1 line can provide both voice and data (phone and Internet) service via one connection, whereas DSL users must buy separate phone service. Utilizing VoIP technology with an integrated voice and data T1 can often produce significant monthly telecommunications savings for small and medium businesses.

For these reasons, DSL is considered primarily a residential technology, while T1 is classified as business-class connectivity. Full T1 lines are available nationwide from $249 a month through Vergent Communications.