Anyone still using T1 circuits for data? How do you make the most of them?

We have a lingering problem where these circuits get saturated. At present, upgrading ALL of them is out of the question. We plan to upgrade maybe 40% of them next year. What backup circuits and whatnot could you all recommend? We are considering a backup DSL line that will be used for some of the traffic all the time.

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Comments

networker050184

Definitely plenty people out there still using T1s. If you can't upgrade look into QoS. Make sure your important traffic never has to wait for people surfing facebook.

Pretty much any backup connection will be faster than the T1 these days unless you get dial up... Probably won't have the same SLAs though so keep that in mind if up time is important to you.

CodeBlox

We've got QoS in place now but as they say... You can't squeeze blood from a turnip. We might be talking about a possible DSL/VPN setup for our remote sites. I actually mentioned to them when this topic came up that the backup connection would be faster than the T1 LOL! Not sure how complicated things get when doing it for many many branches. We do currently have backup at some locations but it's 256k ISDN that uses Dialers and is hideously expensive.

--chris--

We (or they, it was just removed before I got here) did use T1 very recently. They were having similar problems, and with a very large expansion underway it was time to move up to a few dedicated pipes.

I wish you the best! This wont be easy lol.

networker050184

Depending on your provider they might be willing to move you to a higher bandwidth solution for a very similar price. I'd give them a call and see what they have to offer. Ethernet to the edge is pretty prevalent these days.

RouteMyPacket

Wow, maybe as a last resort backup. I would make sure I did my due diligence in writing up the current circuit utilization and QoS in place. Then when it hits the fan, have a record of all the times you brought it to their attention

darkerz

219 T1's with Verizon Business, nxT1 or solo.

It's impossible to explain to management how badly our end users need more than 1.5 Mbps, a 20 MB spreadsheet will saturate a link FFS.

JasonIT

I work for an ISP. We still have many T1's in service. We still have people request new ones added. Even if we offer a better service for a similar price, they want the T1. We can offer 4x the speed with DSL cheaper, but they want T1?

J

QHalo

Do you provide the same SLA on the DSL line as you do the T1? That's generally the deal sealer.

CodeBlox

darkerz wrote: »

219 T1's with Verizon Business, nxT1 or solo.

It's impossible to explain to management how badly our end users need more than 1.5 Mbps, a 20 MB spreadsheet will saturate a link FFS.

Wow, I thought 44 or so was bad. How often do you folks have them peg out?

N2IT

We need some additional bandwidth as well. Ugh

ptilsen

I have to suffer with remote sites having T1s on a daily basis. Throttling and QoS make it so the business can work despite IT operations, but operations are pretty much crippled. If I need to distribute even a smallish package, it will usually take a day to get it out to smaller sites. Even for users, it's not great. A pair of bonded T1s are barely suitable for RDP traffic, these days, and certainly not for web. We have some video problems as well. The end of T1s can't come fast enough. Luckily, most sites are getting Ethernet availability, and there are often decent backup alternatives, if nothing the the class of service and SLA of a T1.