T1??ISDN??

[Ace Nova]

I have no clue what T1 or ISDN connections are.

Could someone tell me:

What they are?
How They Work?
What is the upside to having them?
What is the downside?

[Aidan Bahta]

A T1 (or T3) is used in businesses and schools, its a really fast connection to the internet as long as few people are using it.

ISDN is for home use, and it has been around for a long time. it is faster than a 56k connection, but slower than DSL or Cable access.

[Ace Nova]

i need someone to go into greater depth, plz

[PeterW]

i cant remember exactly but i think t1 is 26 64k lines giving approx 1.5 Mbps... ISDN (what i have) is two 64k lines (max speed of 128kbs).

[mjames]

I'm glad someone brought this up. I am currently on a 56K modem and I want something quicker. Cable and DSL aren't available in my area yet, and DirectPC is too expensive.

How do I get ISDN?

[Ace Nova]

Check with your internet provider and shop around, some provide ISDN.

[mjames]

Alright, will do.

[jumpthru]

What is faster a t1 or t3?

[Aidan Bahta]

T3.

I have never used a T3 myself.

A T1 isn't the fastest method of connecting to the Internet. The Backbone is much faster (OC**) but I don't know anything about it, really.

[alexming]

Beware when using ISDN if you surf longer than 200 hours per month (100 if you use both channels at 64k). Basically when you use ISDN you pay the phone company for the lines and then you pay extra for the ISP to connect you to the net (even if the ISP is the phone company). ISDN has federal mandated time restrictions (200hrs per month before you start paying extra by the hour) Once that happens then your bill can jump into the hundreds of dollars depending on how much time you spent online.

If you are looking for a cheaper way to connect than a regular 56k connection there is another alternative if your ISP supports it. Most ISP's that provide ISDN will also provide a DUAL ANALOG connection (with no hour restrictions like ISDN) at an inexpensive price ($39 per month here in South Florida). Now for $39 you get to surf at a top speed of 106k ANALOG (federal restrictions limit line speed to 53k per line otherwise you could get 112k).

If you decide to go this way here are some things to look for in your ISP:

1) Make sure that they offer a BONDED connection. In other words, when your 2 modems (yes that's right 2 modems multilinked in DUN (DIAL UP NETWORKING)in Windows 95b or98 and no they don't have to be the same brand) call to the ISP the ISP MUST bond the calls to the same modem rack at their location. If not, you will only get 56k.

2) Obviously you will need 2 phone lines installed in the house (3 if you want to surf and receive calls unless you want to drop 1 of the modems when there is an inbound call).

Things to be aware of:

-A 64k ISDN connection will generally seem and actually have a higher throughput than lets say a 90k analog connection (ISDN is a digital line so there is no error correction

-An ISDN connection is no easy task for the phone company to accomplish... Analog is as easy as your regular connection right now. (I had to walk the tech down here on how to test the connection and then and only then did they find that the trouble with the install was that I was too far from their central office and needed a repeater outside of the house)


Hope this helps and I am sorry if I rambled on too long

[mjames]

Good point, alexming. I was never aware of that.

[qslack]

Unfortunately unless you're a successful business you're not going to be able to get a T1 or T3. A T1 line starts at $1000 a month (usually) and a T3 costs even more than that.

There are however much more steady than any dialup, cable, or DSL connection.

[James]

T3 is approximately 45 Mbps, which comes down to about 5.6 mb per second download speed, as long as the site you are downloading from supports it.
I'm still on a dialup connection, but I will be getting Cable/DSL pretty soon.

[Daniel]

What you really want is a huge 20 foot aerial in your backyard... Yes, this is what my brother just got installed in work (he owns 50% of the business). I haven't had the chance to use it yet, but I'm told it delivers 155 mb/s. Nice.

[jumpthru]

Why can a 45mps line only download at 5 mps? same as how a 56kps can only download at about 3-5kps? Whats the difference between downloading stuff and browsing speed?

[PeterW]

Kilobits ... kilobytes
8bits to a byte, traditionally inclduing error correct bits but on some lines they dont bother

[Karl]

OC** connections are generally backbone connections and are extremly fast, the fastest I have seen is OC192 and they go as follows:

OC-1 = 51.85 Mbps
OC-3 = 155.52 Mbps
OC-12 = 622.08 Mbps
OC-24 = 1.24 Gbps
OC-48 = 2.49 Gbps
OC-192 = 9.95 Gbps

I know which I would prefer

[Edited by Karl on 09-04-2000 at 05:22 PM]