150 Mbps Ethernet vs OC3 Cost

When DS3 bandwidth at 45 Mbps isn’t enough anymore, it’s time to take a look at higher service levels. So, do you make the jump to OC3 at 155 Mbps or take a look at competing Ethernet services? It can be worth your while to do the comparison. Let’s see why.

Once you start moving into higher bandwidth services, you are looking at fiber optic delivery. Yes, in rare situations you may qualify for 100 Mbps or higher Ethernet over Copper or fixed wireless microwave service. For these to work you need to be very, very close to the provider’s office and, in the case of microwave, have a clear line of site from your building to theirs. For everyone else, it’s fiber optic cabling. Fiber can transport Ethernet or OC3 equally well. So, how do you choose?

One big factor in your decision may be the cost of construction. If there is fiber running nearby, but not yet installed into your building, there is a certain one time cost involved in trenching the fiber and its conduit underground or bringing in the fiber cable overhead. Oddly enough, in densely packed downtown business districts, the cost of fiber construction can be higher than it is out in the burbs. Why? It’s because the available conduits may be all full or hard to obtain and the expense of tunneling under major roadways can be a deal breaker.

Don’t be discouraged by the possibility of high construction costs until you get competitive quotes for fiber optic service to your building. Each situation is unique. The cost for installing similar service to buildings across the street from each other can vary wildly. It’s also possible that you may get your installation for free or at a big discount. Some fiber providers are aggressively building out their networks. If they want your location, they may foot the bill for construction or at least part of it. The more bandwidth you need, the more attractive your situation is. If you are in a multi-tenant building, it could be worth your while to get together with other tenants and offer a much larger bandwidth requirement to lure potential service providers.

Another possibility is that your building is already “lit” for fiber optic service from one or more carriers. Let’s say that someone in your building is already leasing OC3 bandwidth from a telecom carrier. That carrier has already gone to the expense and trouble of bringing in the multi-strand fiber cable and installing termination equipment. They’ve hooked up the other end to their metro fiber network running nearby. How much trouble is it to also provide you with OC3 fiber optic service?

Not much trouble at all. Unlike copper cables, fiber optic bundles can support nearly unlimited bandwidth. It’s a matter of setting their add/drop multiplexers to bring enough bandwidth into the building and demultiplex it into separate services for each subscribing tenant. As you can imagine, the construction costs will be minimal, perhaps even complementary.

The same is true if there is already high bandwidth Ethernet over Fiber service installed in the building. The Ethernet service provider has done all the hard work. They can easily add you to the network rapidly and at minimal cost.

This may be the deciding factor. If one service is already installed and the other is not, the capital cost factor can outweigh other advantages. What if both services are in the building? Then it becomes a more level playing field. In general, Ethernet service is less expensive and easier to scale than SONET services, such as OC3. There is also a service called Ethernet over SONET that uses traditional SONET ring networks to carry the newer Carrier Ethernet protocol. That means a legacy carrier may well be able to offer you either OC3 or 150 Mbps Ethernet at an attractive price over already installed infrastructure.

How much will it cost you to get the high bandwidth business connectivity you require? Each situation needs to be evaluated on its own merit. You can get cost quotes for Ethernet services up to 1 Gbps instantly, with fast response on SONET or Ethernet over SONET services by using the Fiber Network Quotes service for US based locations. US to international destination quotes are also available upon request.

10 Gigabit Bandwidth Options

Metropolitan and wide area network speeds are on the rise. Undersea cables are being upgraded from 10 to 40 and soon 100 Gbps bandwidths, with terrestrial fiber runs moving to 100 Gbps now. Likewise, major corporations, healthcare providers and video content producers are starting to feel the squeeze of too small network connections. Fortunately, there are more options and better pricing available today than ever before.

There are several practical solutions to increasing your MAN or WAN bandwidth above the Gigabit per second level and up to 10 Gbps. Let’s see what we can do with SONET, Ethernet, Wavelength and Dark Fiber.

SONET is the telecom fiber optic standard invented by Bell Labs for the telephone industry. It was originally deployed to transport thousands upon thousands of simultaneous telephone calls between switching centers. SONET has evolved to carry data as well as digitized phone calls. As it turns out, voice traffic is in the minority now.

SONET stands for Synchronous Optical NETwork. That describes how it is designed. This is a tightly synchronized time division multiplexed system intended for switched circuit implementation. There are specific service levels associated with SONET levels. These are designed as OC or Optical Carrier levels. The lowest generally available is OC-3 at 155 Mbps, followed by OC-12 at 622 Mbps.

The next level OC-24 takes you to the Gigabit level at 1.24 Gbps. OC-24 isn’t as commonly deployed as the next level, OC-48 at 2.5 Gbps. OC-48 is becoming the new high bandwidth standard for organizations that need high speed private lines or dedicated Internet connections. OC-192 is the 10 Gigabit service level, running at a line rate of 9.95 Gbps. From there you jump up to OC-768 at 40 Gbps. You’ll recognize that as a backbone network bandwidth for fiber optic carriers. OC-768 isn’t generally required at the corporate level just yet.

Notice that there are fairly wide gaps in the service levels between SONET OC levels. If you need 2 Gbps, OC-48 service at 2.5 Gbps makes sense. However, if you need 3 Gbps, you have to go all the way up to OC-192 at 10 Gbps. In some cases, you can find fractional OC-48 service at a better price. This is simply OC-48 that is throttled to provide only the 3 Gbps or other bandwidth you need. There might not be much cost savings, since OC-48 is a standard service level and fractional SONET services are a special order, if available.

Carrier Ethernet is a far more scalable service than SONET. It does have industry standard service levels, such as 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet, 1 Gbps Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gbps 10 GigE. Most service providers will allow you to scale your service in small increments up to the maximum capacity of the installed port. With a 10 GigE Port, you can easily get 3 Gbps, 9 Gbps or bandwidths in-between. Since Ethernet networks were designed with this scalability in mind from the beginning, service level changes are fairly automated and can be made in a matter of days, if not hours, with no equipment changes needed.

Wavelength services are offered for high performance latency sensitive applications. Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) splits the fiber optic laser beam into dozens of individual wavelengths or colors that act as independent private lines. There is no interconnection between wavelengths. A wavelength is dedicated to your needs and carries your traffic exclusively. Typical speeds available are 1 GigE, 2.5 Gbps, 10 Gbps, 10 GigE and 40 Gbps. Note that both SONET and Ethernet protocols are available over individual wavelengths.

Dark Fiber gives you the ultimate in flexibility. It is simply a glass strand between two of your locations. You can run any protocol you like at any speed you want over as many wavelengths as you care to deploy. Bandwidth is nearly unlimited, but the catch is that you have to buy, install and maintain the transmission equipment that feeds the fiber.

Have your requirements reached the point where 10 Gigabit bandwidth services are a reasonable consideration. The good news is that there are multiple carriers eager to bid for your business between 1 Gbps and 10 Gbps or beyond. Get competitive quotes for Gigabit and 10 Gigabit level fiber optic services now. You may be surprised how affordable these high bandwidth services have become.

Ethernet Over Fiber Needed By Business

We’ve all heard that fiber optic bandwidth is the future, but are you sure it isn’t the right service for the present?

Most business telecom services have traditionally been copper based. It starts with the binder cable that gets installed during building construction. All those twisted copper pair provide the multi-line telephone service that is as standardized in business as the metal file cabinet. Copper pair are also used to bring in ISDN digital trunking for PBX phone systems and T1 lines for broadband Internet and linking business locations point to point.

For many small and medium businesses, this is the telecom infrastructure. It’s been that way for decades. Why should it change?

To get an idea about where network speeds are going, take a look at the broadband services offered to consumers. Both DSL and Cable left the 1-2 Mbps download speed is the dust years ago. Consumers now expect at least 3 to 6 Mbps, and many clamor for 10, 20, 30 or 50 Mbps. Cable is getting to these levels with new DOCSIS 3.0 modems. Verizon is offering double digit broadband as a matter of course over it’s FiOS fiber to the home service.

If consumers are getting used to high bandwidth Internet services, some using fiber optic service, it should be no surprise the pressure on business users to expand their network bandwidth is increasing. It’s not just the businesses generating bandwidth-demanding content for the consumer market. Business applications are getting more sophisticated to improve worker productivity, including audio, video and interactivity. They’re also headed to the cloud. Processes that always put demands on company local networks now put those demands on the outside connections.

Once you get beyond 10 Mbps or so, in becomes increasingly necessary to bring in fiber optic service. Ethernet over Copper can work up to 50 Mbps in special situations, close to carrier points of presence. That’s the limit, and it only works for a minority of business locations. What you want and need is fiber optic service that is almost bandwidth unlimited.

But what about the cost? This is where the newer Ethernet over Fiber services have become the high bandwidth solutions of choice. Ethernet is generally less costly than traditional telecom bandwidth on a per Mbps basis, sometimes dramatically less expensive. Scalable bandwidth options are readily available, once you have the fiber connection. That means you can start off with 10 Mbps Ethernet and easily upgrade to 20, 30, 40 or 50 Mbps as long as terminal equipment will support those port speeds. The fiber itself will take you to Fast Ethernet at 100 Mbps and on up to Gigabit Ethernet or GigE, perhaps even to 10 Gigabit Ethernet or 10 GigE. Don’t roll your eyes. The days of needing those bandwidth levels are not that far off.

Are you frustrated with your WAN network connection speed? if so, it’s time to be looking into fiber optic solutions. It may be much less expensive than you think. The way to find out is to check Ethernet over Fiber prices and availability for your business location.