Is it time to upgrade to a T1? There are several factors to consider when examining you current DSL connection and the possiblity of replacing it. For many people the biggest factor 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 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 is a T1 connections.

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, your connections is considered critical. A critical connection can be viewed much like a life line, without which your business would be negatively impacted. Your monthly savings of having a sub-par connections will not make up for the loss in productivity of your employees or loss of customers when your DSL connections gets bogged down or cut off. To reiterate, ciritcal connections should be supported with a T1.

Many customers are extremely price sensitive and cannot afford the cost of a T1 which can be as much as 20 times more expensive than a full T1 connection. Residential customers who are most sensitive to price should not consider a T1 circuit unless then have a business reason to pay for such a circuit and cannot access DSL service. Most people don't realize that a DSL connection can be just as fast as a T1 at 1.5Mbps. The shortcoming of DSL is that it is oversubscribed. This means there is a finite amount of bandwidth available and a customers speed can drop if other customers in the neighborhood decide to use their service. SDSL (Synchronous DSL) is a business class DSL and is ranked as a higher priority than residential DSL or ADSL (Asunchronous DSL). This means it is not oversubscribed to the extent than ADSL and is subject to fewer bandwidth restrictions. In short, if price is your critical factor go with DSL. If reliability is the critical factor purchase a dedicated T1.

Why shouldn't shopping for a dedicated internet service be as simple as shopping for a plane trip to Hawaii? In the past the process of getting pricing for dedicated internet service has been anything but simple but that has just changed. Today getting a t1 line price is as simple as entering your information and hitting "enter". With Geoquote software brokers are now offering real-time T1 prices just like you had hoped you could get when you started your search.

Geoquote is a software recently released that allows brokers to give real-time pricing to those seeking service. The software is doing for the telecom industry what Sabre did for the travel industry. In the 60's AMR, the parent company of American Airlines created a software and then began licensing it to the public. This software backed by massive databases was spun off in the form of "Sabre" which owns Travelocity and licenses this software to travel brokers and websites.

If the creators of Geoquote follow the same path as Sabre, this software will be the industry standard and brokers will have to use this software to enable their customer to get quotes in real time. While some brokers are able to run a profitable business without giving out real-time informaion these brokers will soon see their profitability reduce as they spend more time gathering information than actually dealing with customers. If you're currently searching for service, make sure you find a broker that uses Geoquote software.