By Kirk Drake | January 14, 2013

Why Use a T1 vs a DS3?

Perhaps you are in the market for more bandwidth or maybe you are just curious – either way if you want to know the difference between a T1 vs a DS3 read on…

To start – both T1’s and DS3 are legacy telecom products and require proprietary hardware and infrastructure from the telecom providers. The good news is that they are extremely reliable. The bad news is that they are fairly inflexible. Below are the primary differences:

Speed

T1 lines represent a CIR (committed information rate) of 1.5 mbps while a DS3 has a 45 mbps representing 28 times more capacity.

Copper vs Fiber

The good news for both T1s and DS3s is that they both rely on copper. The bad news is they rely on copper. Copper wires and infrastructure pretty much exist in every building making it easily accessible and speedier to install. The bad news is copper has limits in capacity and scalability that fiber doesn’t. So if you think your data needs will be growing quickly then insist on fiber – otherwise copper should be just fine.

Not Ethernet

Along with the general limit in scalability of copper – it is also limited as it won’t be delivered via Ethernet in either T1 or DS3 technology. Ethernet is useful as it is a more fully bundled service delivered using modern Internet technology. This means it is more reliable and resilient. Ethernet is great for Cloud and Disaster Recovery Applications.

Largest Legacy

DS3 are the largest non-fiber telecom product you can purchase. Anything larger and you will need to install fiber which will add time and complexity into the project.

Bonding

Assuming you have the right routers – up to 9 T1’s can be combined together although you won’t be able to use more than 1.5 mbps on a channel. Either way, bonding circuits together is a good way to increase throughput however your costs traditionally are less scalable than on Ethernet products.

Are you looking for a way to calculate your bandwidth needs? Are you concerned about the impact a community cloud will have on your bandwidth infrastructure? If you have these or other questions, email us at info@ongoingoperations.com.

Or fill out the short form below and an OGO expert will contact you shortly: