There is a wide range of choice for the internet and telephone services that you connect to. Some services are suited to regular home users with smaller budgets. Though these services may provide high-speed, they are lacking the reliability that a business would require. For business users, the T1 connection is more ideally suited.

There are some features which are shared with normal DSL connections, such as high-speed data connection. But it is the unique features that make T1 suited to business.

A home connection is normally asynchronous. The download speed will be high, with the assumption that downloads will be used more than uploads, with the upload speed up to two-thirds slower. For a business, where sending large volumes of emails or conducting voice conferences for instance is important, having limited uploads is undesirable – so a T1 provides a synchronous connection instead. Here the upload and download speeds are the same.

Reliability is the most important feature of a T1 connection. A true T1 is a dedicated connection, meaning that it is only yours – you do not share it with anyone. This means that there is no slow down when too many people come online – performance will be consistent.

An SLA (Service Level Agreement) is also standard. This is a contractual agreement with the service provider that they will guarantee an agreed upon level of service. This may include a maximum amount of downtime over the year, or the speed at which they promise to fix faults that occur. In contrast, a home or ordinary DSL connection is unlikely to have such an agreement, which leaves the users at the mercy of the service provider, who may be slow to fix faults.

A T1 will cost more, but the lack of downtime is likely to provide massive savings in productivity over the course of a contract.

T1 internet access has been available for many years, and remains the best choice for businesses. Although there are now faster internet connections available for residential needs, a T1 connection has benefits beyond speed that make it unsurpassed.

A T1 connection may be delivered over either a copper or a fiber optic line, and runs directly from the service provider to the consumer without passing through any third parties, such as telephone companies. It can carry both data and voice, and in fact will provide twenty-four telephone lines via the twenty-four digital channels that make up the line. You may choose a voice only connection, a data only connection or one that combines the two.

Your T1 is a dedicated service, meaning that you are the only company or person using the line, and it is always on, and always sending and receiving.

The guaranteed data delivery speed of T1 internet access is 1.54mbps both up and down, and because you have a dedicated connection you are guaranteed to get this at any time of day. A high-speed DSL broadband connection by comparison may drop below this when you are sharing your connection with ten other heavy users.

The synchronous connection gives you the same upload speed as download, so that running voice or video conferences is possible without slow downs or hangs in your connection. This is important in any application where latency problems may disrupt communication.

The SLA (service level agreement) you receive may be the company’s standard agreement, stating their guarantee for data speeds, repair times for faults and overall downtime. If you do not agree with it, or with its wording, you can negotiate your own-having a lawyer look it over may be wise.

The cost of a T1 connection may be up to ten times that of a DSL connection, however there can be savings for businesses. Namely, in an office with several phone lines as well as an internet connection, combining them into one connection can mean the reduction from several, to just one monthly bill.

More importantly there are savings to be made in preventing loss of productivity when your connection goes down, and staff cannot work. With the SLA in place you know that things will soon be working again.

Where having permanent access to a reliable, high-speed connection is important, and where the loss of your connection may be damaging to your business, T1 internet access is essential.