If a full T1 isn't in your budget, you need to consider a fractional t1 line. Why not get all the advantages of T1 even if your not in a market for a full T1? For many people the biggest factor in their decision is reliability and if reliability is critical to the applications you run over your connection you should seriously consider replacing your DSL connection with a fractional T1. DSL is a quick and cost effective method of acquiring high speed bandwidth however it is not intended to support commercial applications or large numbers of users as are T1 connections.

One drawback to fractional T1 service is the price. Even though you won't have a full T1 you will be paying quite a bit more than you did for your DSL connection. This is due to the structure of T1 pricing. A T1 connections is established by providing a "loop" or wire from the users premesis to the CO where the service provider has equipment. Part of the cost of a T1 is the "loop charge" or the monthly rental fee for the wire that is rented from the local phone company. Once the connection reaches the CO it can access the carriers network and reach any destination. This loop is paid in full whether you use a fraction of the available bandwidth or the full 1.5Mbps and therefore your price for a 768Kbps fractional T1 connection will never be half the price of a 1.5mbps full T1 connection.

Although the price reduction is not what you might expect it to be, this may put a T1 in your budget and be a great way to get dedicated service into your building. Once you have fractional service upgrading to full service is easy. Fractional service typically comes in 256Kbps increments from 256Kbps all the way to a full T1 at 1.5Mbps. Find the service that's right for you, but if you are supporting critical services think reliability. Reliability becomes critical when customers or employees depend on your connection for immediate responses. If your customers use your connection to access your databases or your server or the internet then reliability of your connection is critical. If your employees depend on your connections because you host the e-mail server in house or host web servers or ASP type products, your connections is considered critical. A critical connection can be viewed much like a lifeline, without which your business would be negatively impacted.

ShopForT1.com today announced the grand launch of the long anticipated Real-Time quote engine designed to give the T1 shopper instant feedback, with 95% accurate loop pricing. Real time T1 prices have not existed until now. Many brokers claim to deliver real time information but the closest anyone has come to real time has been a page that you can check back and see vendors fill in prices the following 48 hours from when you entered your request.

"The real-time shopping model works" commented Adam Edwards, CEO of ShopForT1.com. "The travel industry is a perfect example of how the internet can enable everyday people to access very complicated databases. Now, we are pleased to bring instant gratification to those looking to price T1 lines." Apart from allowing people to research rates, ShopForT1.com also has a number of other unique features; most notably the ability to track leads referred by online affiliates and direct them to one of many part-time "closer" agents for personal care. This functionality allows ShopForT1.com to improve the shopping experience, opens the door for online affiliates to earn residual commissions by driving traffic, and manages professional part-time sales agents from all over the counrty.

"Many people have asked how exactly we figure out T1 pricing, since it is so sensitive to the geographic location of each customer with relation to the carriers' physical equipment. Our T1 Quote software is able to calculate the distance from any location in the continental United States to any of our providers' Points of Presence (POPs). From there, we use proprietary pricing algorithms to convert the distance into a price" commented Patrick Oborn, CTO of ShopForT1.com.