New Carrier Broadband Technology
At the time when our company was growing fast, it became evident that we needed a larger pipe.Our T1 line just wasnt cutting it anymore (T1 bandwidth is only 1.5 Mbps). We had no choice but to upgrade to a circuit with more bandwidth.
Being the IT guy, I had to start renegotiating our current contract. Our 2 year term was almost over, so our company was in the position to investigate different alternatives.
The most apparent solution was to change from a single t1 to a bonded T1. However with our current growth rate, pretty soon that also would not be adequate.
My sales rep at this carrier (who will remain unnamed here) was glad to point me to a bigger and far more costly solution: a DS3 (T3 line) with a capacity of 45 megabits per second. Obviously that would be bandwidth enough taking our envisioned growth rate into consideration, it was perhaps even a bit of an overkill. And monthly cost was in the higher 4 digit figures.
With due diligence I did some more research until I found a new solution though. A new technology (or at least new to me) that can deliver bandwidth via an Ethernet port over POTS lines, also called Ethernet over Copper. The pricing was excellent; we were able to get a 10 meg port for less than a 3mb bonded t1!
And another important advantage of ethernet over copper is that it is very scalable. We can just add bandwidth by simply ordering more, in incremental steps, even all the way up to a gigabit Ethernet circuit.
So when upgrading any services, be sure to shop around with several carriers and make sure you are aware of new technologies (or use a telecommunications consultant that is).
