How Fast is a T1 Connection?

Many people now have at least some way ofonly the option to choose which of the 24
connecting to the internet, whether it's thechannels is dedicated to voice (phone) calls and
age-old dial-up or the more modern fiber opticwhat is remaining for data transfer.
that's available. It comes in a variety of differentFractional T1 Service: Using only a portion of the
manners; through a modem, a router, somebandwidth available, this makes for a percentage
people even use satellite to connect to theof the full rate.
internet. Whatever the method, it's only suitableBurstable T1s: Paying for what you need, you are
for small amounts of users, as the hardware andgiven a set amount of bandwidth, however, you
the connection itself would grow unstable if itcan also use a higher bandwidth should there be
were to hold anymore than several at a time.traffic spikes.
This is where business connections come in. TheBonded T1 Connections: Combining several T1
T1 connection is a bidirectional data stream with alines into one, this allows for much higher
transfer speed of 1.544mbps and is comprised ofperformance and capacity.
24 digitalized phone line voice channels. It is veryBy bonding T1 lines, it can easily scale with the
stable and can support many more users at anycompany. From simply one connection, you can
one time than a simple dial up or even broadbandincrease to ten offering a very scalable option for
router connection could. As for the reason homea thousand users at once. Other connection
owners don't use this; it costs hundreds of dollarsspeeds such as an OC192 goes up to 10 gigabits
for a simple T1 connection, which is the basicper second, which is suitable for vast
option.organizations.
T1 connections are built out of copper or fiberThe argument for using a T1 line, or any of its
optic cables which are innately capable ofbigger brothers, is that the potential losses in
transferring data at much fast velocity thandowntime can be averted with a
phone lines. It was created by Bell Labs for Japanhigh-performance, highly stable internet
and North America. Businesses are now offered aconnection, keeping users and customers
series of different T1 connection options to fitconnected to each other at all times. The savings
their budgets or business size.easily justify the costs for many companies.
Integrated T1 Lines: This is the basic T1 line with