Shopping for Bandwidth
April 9th, 2009
When our business (that processes a lot of large medical images) was growing fast, it became obvious that we needed a bigger internet connection.Our T1 line that we had installed simply was not large enough to handle our data.
Being the IT guy, I had to start renegotiating our current contract. Fortunately our 2 year contract was almost over, so our company was in the position to look at different options.
The most apparent choice 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.
Our sales rep at our current carrier (who will remain unnamed here) was happy to recommend a bigger and far more expensive solution: a DS3 (T3 line) which has a capacity of 45 mb. This is surely enough taking our projected growth into consideration, it was possibly even a bit of an overkill. And the cost per month was in the higher 4 digit figures.
I found a new solution though. A new technology (or at least new to me) which enables carriers to deliver internet access via an Ethernet port over phone lines, also called Ethernet over Copper. The pricing was super; we were able to get a 10 meg port for less than a bonded t-1!
Another main benefit of carrier ethernet is that it is very scalable. It is possible to add bandwidth by simply ordering more, in small incremental steps, even all the way up to a gigabit Ethernet circuit.
So when upgrading any services, be sure to shop around with several providers and make sure you are aware of new technologies (or use a telecommunications consultant that is).
