[lug] Business VOIP Advice...

[Sean Reifschneider]

On 09/02/2009 09:30 PM, Nate Duehr wrote:
> much more money to hang a DS-3 into a building than it does to hang  
> multiple copper T1's.

The number I've heard is that the break-even point is around 6 T1s, but it
really depends on whether you already have a DS3 or OC3 coming into your
building.  If you don't, and you order a DS3, you will probably get an OC3,
with a whatever splitter to turn it into up to 3 DS3s.

Though if you can just get Ethernet over fiber, that's a great way to go.
Forget all this telco signaling unless you really need POTS service.

3 or 4 years ago I was arguing with one of the guys trying to sell us
Internet access, he was trying to sell a DS3 or OC3, I was telling him that
we were looking for Ethernet hand-offs.  "But everything is delivered over
a telco line, like an OC3."  We ended up getting a 100mbps copper Ethernet
link to facilities in the same building, where this telco had services.
Now we're running over dark fiber directly to our providers router in
downtown Denver.

Our end of the connection didn't require some Cisco with an OC-12 port,
it's a ~$100 SFP fiber module that plugs into our switch, with something
like 20km range.

Now, to be fair, a T1 is rather fast in terms of latency.  I don't remember
exactly what it was, it's been that long, but DSL is ~35ms for the first
hop, cable is ~8ms, and I think a T1 was either comparable to cable, but I
really think it was more around 1ms.

> He's saying, relatively these days... a T1 is bloody slow.

The thing is that even a fairly small office can barely survive with a T1.

> SHOULD, but it's also the preferred way to transport audio (seems back- 
> assward, doesn't it)

Actually, that always made sense, particularly with interactive voice
audio.  You don't want reliable transport, if your network gets saturated
you want it to drop out, not develop a padding where you're now hearing
something that the person said a while ago -- getting worse with each set
of loss.

> No one was expecting that.  I think Sean was just saying "Bandwidth is  
> a LOT cheaper than when I started, and it doesn't make sense to ONLY  
> buy a T1 in many cases, nowadays."  I hope I'm not putting words in  

No, that's about right.  I really was trying to say that T1s are still
often considered *THE* line for a small business to get, but often I find
that they really aren't the solution that some people think they are.  "We'll
just pull in a T1 and all our problems will be solved!"

Sean
-- 
Sean Reifschneider, Member of Technical Staff <jafo at tummy.com>
tummy.com, ltd. - Linux Consulting since 1995: Ask me about High Availability

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