T1 Vs Cable reliability.

[CorruptedLogic]

SO, first off, forgive me if this is the wrong forum (feel free to move if needs be!). My question is this..i currently have a client who is paying ~$600/month for a full T1 which they use for internet access (~20 users), OWA, RWW and a VPN tunnel for 3 users on the other side of the country. Naturally, they have performance issues as the 1.5Mb gets all choked up when more than one VPN tunnel is active and several people are browsing the web. The CFO of the company has posed the question that if they went over to an 8Mb cable connection (which would be a fraction of the monthly cost), would they still have the reliability of the T1 (they have had it for 7 years and it has NEVER gone down!). Obviously, there would be abunch of reconfiguring to do on all sides, but the hassle would be worth the monetary and productivity benefits if it were reliable. Anyone have any experience or ideas?

TIA

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[vipergg]

Think you would have to talk to the cable company to see what there SLA's are . They have business class connections so that could be a good option . Generally cable is a shared medium but im not sure about business class offerings so security could be a considreation.

 

[JOAMON]

Cable is a shared medium unlike T1. If they oversell your area you could experience severe performance problems and VPN drops. We have two T1 lines to the internet bonded together for one 3meg pipe and it does well for our 80 users. If anything I would keep the T1...at least for a while and keep my VPN's on it and use the Cable for all other access and check for performance. If it does well then change VPN over to cable and cancel T1. The other problem will be in service request response time. T1 service is usually very quick were consumer grade service is somewhat lacking in priority. Do a baseline measurement and see what your current bandwidth useage is and how often you max out.

 

[vipergg]

One other option might be if they offer business class DSL in your area which is not a shared connection , depends on how far you are from a CO with DSL .

 

[JOAMON]

Still hard to beat the reliability and class of service or repair you get with T1.

 

[bigjerms]

I'd never take a cable connection over a T1 unless the cable company will bring fiber into your building. Some of them will do this.

T1 is much more robust and the technology behind it is much more mature than the Cable modem technologies.

I worked for a cable company as the network admin. Cable has a lot more pieces that can go wrong.

We actually saw a netgear router create a strange broadcast storm that took out a whole node on the cable system. Grantite they were using an older dmts that worked as bridge and not a router. Just remember one is true business class service, one is not. If they will run fiber directly to you that's another story.

 

[CorruptedLogic]

Thanks folks, so that begs the next question..has anyone ever had success getting fiber into their building?..and was it a ridiculous amount of money?

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[gwildfire]

Dark Fibre Is seriously costly (in the UK anyway) It would be cheaper to get a managed service such as POS (packet over Sonet). One other thing you T1 will offer you is QOS from the Service provider, Cable will offer you nothing like that even business class Cable is still a shared medium.

Another option would be keep the VPNs on the T1 and send all internet browsing via the Cable connection. Also look at implementing some QOS and Queing methods to make the VPNs top dog.

You will also find with your T1 you have a good SLA (or should do) with a Cable again the provider will put you and the bottom of their fault pile! Trust me I worked for an ISP so I know lol!



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[CorruptedLogic]

Thanks people, you came through in fine style once again. You all basically confirmed te concerns i had and had expressed to the client..now i just have to make his head overcome his desire to save moolah!

CCNA, CCDP, Net+, A+
Work Smarter, Not Harder....