GreatAccess.com 404-325-2714







Feature T1 DSL
Main Advantage Quality Cost
Target Customer Organizations that require Internet access as part of their daily activities. Examples include on-line purchase order processing, customer or client research, travel booking, electronic banking/bill paying or other financial information, file transfer, etc. Any organization with the potential for 6 or more simultaneous users. Home and small companies wanting a cost-effective alternative for high-speed access that don't require guaranteed quality. Business that only use the Internet casually, and can switch to other work when speed is too slow.
Speed Synchronous 1.5 Mbps 144 kbps to 1.5 Mbps. In most cases the bandwidth varies throughout the day and synchronous transmission is not usually available and not guaranteed.
Price $275/month, plus local loop $135 to $500/month, including local loop
Government Regulation Regulated - State and FCC regulations mandate minimum cost escalation, defined quality levels, and customer service responsiveness. Unregulated - There are no State and FCC regulations in place. Circuit cost escalations, defined quality levels, and customer service responsiveness are at the discretion of BellSouth or other third party DSL providers.
Speed vs. Distance Guaranteed fixed speeds, independent of distance. Speed is dependent on distance from the Central Office (CO) -- the further away, the slower the speed.
Distance Limit No limitations on distance from CO. Limited to 3.5 miles from CO.
Circuit Availability T1 circuits are available in the entire Atlanta metro area. Limited availability -- currently many parts of the Atlanta metro area have poor coverage.
Physical Circuit T1 circuits are engineered for digital data transmission and may be delivered via fiberoptic. DSL connections are made from voice-grade copper telephone circuits where quality of service is lower. Fiber, bridges or coils on the circuit will prohibit DSL.
Application Use Proven in mission dependent situtations. Can reliably support all corporate needs including VPN, high security inter-office collaboration and file sharing. Unproven in mission dependent situations. Businesses should limit their use of DSL to work efforts that can be delayed, postponed or accomplished at lower production rates if bandwidth is depressed.
Reliability Dedicated T1 connections are built for high availability and reliability. The majority of the circuit (most often the entire circuit) is carried on modern high speed redundant fiberoptic networks. DSL is a new technology utilizing an outdated infrastructure. DSL requires that the entire circuit be built using a non-redundant all copper path. In many parts of Atlanta, BellSouth and other telco providers have abandoned the existing copper network in favor of redundant fiberoptics. In order to provide DSL, telcos are forced to use old poorly maintained copper networks. Because of DSL's all copper path it has the tendency to drop frequently and is sensitive to weather conditions.
Connection T1 service offers private point-to-pont dedicated connection between the customer and GreatAccess.com -- there's no middleman. DSL is made via a shared, switched ATM network. A number of customers are aggregated at multiple single connection points (DSLAM in each DSL CO). Each aggregation point is a potential point of failure and congestion.
Monthly T1 circuit installation process is predictable, averaging 14 business days. Once a telco accepts an order for a T1 circuit, it must be delivered. DSL installation is uncertain and can be problematic, ranging from 14 business days to 90 business days or more. Ten percent of all DSL orders will never be installed. Telcos have no regulations to require them to deliver the service even after they accept a customer order.
Circuit Repairs FCC mandates a one-hour repair response from telco providers, once a trouble ticket on a T1 circuit is opened regardless of the time of day, including holidays. DSL connections are treated as voice-grade circuits. This means the telco will not respond to trouble tickets until the next business day. Often the customer is unable to open a ticket outside of "normal weekday business hours." For example an outage that begins after hours on a Friday might not be repaired until Tuesday.

Estimated Savings


The calculator below is designed to determine the true value of installing a T1 versus DSL Internet access service. Because DSL speed is not guaranteed, and is almost always slower than T1 speed, business can suffer lost time. This lost time is the amount of time you and your employees wait for access, refresh and page changes while working on the Internet. As an example lets say you were booking a trip that required an airline flight, hotel and rental car. At T1 speeds the process might require 5 minutes. With DSL that is operating at 65% this same task would require up to 6 minutes and 45 seconds. If you pay the person that is doing this job $11.00 per hour with NO company benefits (you still pay FICA and Medicare which is 7.65% extra) your cost for the lost time is 20 cents extra for this effort.
To see the impact of the business risk of depending on DSL use the calculator below:
  • Enter the total number of employees that use the Internet for part of their workday.
  • Determine the average hourly cost for these employees. (If a person receives a monthly salary divide that amount by 178, if you know their annual salary divide that amount by 2080). Don't forget to add in the cost of taxes and benefits.
  • The most typical Atlanta area DSL and T1 costs are already entered. If your costs are different modify these values.

The table then shows you the savings that you will realize. To read the table: estimate how may hours of slow service per day and the percentage of slow down you might experience, look where these intersect and you can see the additional real cost that you pay for having DSL versus T1 service.
Please note that because of the general limitations of asymmetric DSL, you should anticipate that DSL will always be at least 25% slower than T1 service. This compounds as more and more web sites increase their graphic content.

Number of Employees:
Average employee per hour rate: $
  T1: DSL:
Monthly: $ $
Local Loop: $ $
 
Savings with T1 versus DSL
Based on percentage reduction in access speed or throughput
Hours
of
Slow
Service