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.

Is Metro Ethernet Available?

You’re looking to initiate or expand bandwidth for your company. What type of service should you go with? Metro Ethernet is in the news these days. You may have heard that it offers more bandwidth for less money than traditional telecom solutions. But, is Metro Ethernet even available?

There’s a quick way to find out. Use an Ethernet service finder to get a map of the lit buildings near you. What’s a lit building? No, that doesn’t refer to how many lights are on in the offices. It refers to the presence of fiber optic service to that building. Lit means that the service is turned up and active with laser light shining through the fiber. There’s also such a thing as dark fiber, which is just the fiber optic cabling installed but not connected to anything.

Why are lit buildings important? Because those are places where you can get fiber optic service quickly and easily. All the hard work of digging trenches or attaching new fiber cables to utility poles has already been done. It’s just a matter of connecting to an almost limitless supply of bandwidth available through the fiber.

If you are in or can readily move to a lit building you can almost certainly get Metro Ethernet service at an attractive price. You might even decide to share a high bandwidth connection with other tenants to get an even lower price that comes with high volume usage. But what if your building has no fiber optic service yet? Is there any chance you can get Metro E?

There certainly is. If the building next door has fiber coming in, chances are high that you can get the same service. Most of the hard work has been done already in getting fiber strung from the carrier POP (Point of Presence) to the telecom room in the facility. It’s not that big a deal to extend fiber next door. In fact, you may pay little or nothing to get your building lit if you require a reasonable level of bandwidth.

What if there is no fiber anywhere nearby? That’s a little more tricky. It depends on where you are and how much bandwidth you require. You may not realize it, but Ethernet can be delivered on twisted pair copper telco cables as well as fiber. Not every business requires Gbps data pipes. In fact, two of the most popular Metro Ethernet services are 3 Mbps and 10 Mbps. Both of those easily qualify to be brought in on existing copper cable. You can be several miles from the nearest point of presence and still get Ethernet over Copper. Speeds up to 45 Mbps are available, but you’ll need to have a carrier POP much closer for those higher bandwidths.

Is Metro Ethernet available out in the boonies? Probably not. That’s what the “Metro” part implies. Even so, you may be able to get something called EoDS1 or Ethernet over DS1. That services uses T1 lines to bring in Ethernet service. Alternatively, you could simply order a T1 line or multiple bonded T1 lines to meet your bandwidth needs no matter where you are located.

Ready to see if Metro Ethernet is available for you? Simply enter your business address (not for residential locations) in to the Shop For Ethernet WAN Search box and have a look at the map results. You’ll see just how close you are to a lit building. Then get availability and pricing for Ethernet and other telecom services from our Telarus consultants. Your location probably qualifies for more services at lower prices than you expect.

What is Metro E?

Metro E is short for Metro Ethernet, a popular and rapidly expanding network connection service.

Metro E is Ethernet like the protocol you run on your Local Area Network (LAN). But it has been standardized and adapted to also run on a Metropolitan Area Network (MAN). The organization behind this standardization is the MEF or Metro Ethernet Forum. It’s an industry standards organization dedicated to Carrier Ethernet.

Here’s why you should you know about Metro E and seriously consider using it for your business connectivity. Metro Ethernet services are better suited to today’s packet switched networks than the legacy telecom services such as T1. Connectivity is almost trivial. Ethernet is what nearly all networks are running as a protocol. The connection from your service provider is an Ethernet jack. That’s it. No need for special conversion equipment to connect to your switches and routers.

Metro E is supported by a number of incumbent telecom carriers, plus many new competitive service providers that have no connection to legacy telephone services. Nearly all of these new competitors have built their networks on fiber optic lines and IP or MPLS core networks. Metro Ethernet services are easily transported on these networks. The result of all this competition is that Metro E prices are often considerably lower per Mbps than T1, DS3, or OCx bandwidth. It is not uncommon to get 3 Mbps Ethernet service for the same price as 1.5 Mbps T1 and similarly reduced costs at higher bandwidths.

Like other telecom services, Metro Ethernet can be set up to provide point to point connectivity between two business locations. Unlike older technologies, Ethernet Line Service can be configured as a layer 2 connection between two LANs, effectively connecting them to make one larger LAN. Ethernet LAN Service, or ELAN, can do the same thing for multiple locations. It’s a high performance and cost effective way for businesses to tie-together branch offices, factories, headquarters and warehouses. It works just as well for hospitals and their related medical centers in the area.

Another use for Metro E is as an access network connection. Metro E links are used as last mile connections to larger MPLS networks for national or worldwide service. They are also used as dedicated broadband Internet connections for small, medium and large organizations.

Metro E bandwidth tends to be easily scalable. Service at 3 Mbps is a popular entry level bandwidth. Many companies move up to 10 Mbps, a standard LAN speed. Fast Ethernet at 100 Mbps, 1000 Mbps and 10 Gigabit Ethernet are other standard LAN speeds that are also supported by Metro E providers. While these speeds are popular, most providers offer incremental bandwidths between each of these levels. You can order any bandwidth up to the limit of your installed Ethernet port. Start with what you need now and easily upgrade as the need arises.

One thing you should know is that the Metro in Metro E generally means just that. This service is available in most metropolitan areas, but rarely in rural areas. It may be possible to get Ethernet connectivity over T1 lines, called EoDS1. This is a way to extend service to include remote business locations.

If Metro E the right service for your business situation? A quick way to find out is to request a list of Metro E service levels and prices for your business location or locations.

How Growing Companies Buy Bandwidth

As business enters the recovery cycle and starts to expand again, it won’t be long until resources start to become stretched. But just how much of a commitment are you willing to make with so much uncertainty still hanging over the economy? Doesn’t it make more sense to step up incrementally? Oh, wait, can you even do that with bandwidth?

You can now. Traditional telecom contracts are sold on a 1 to 3 year basis for a particular level of telecom service. For instance, you buy a T1 line and you have a certain monthly lease price for 1.5 Mbps of bandwidth. You can double that by buying an additional T1 line to get another 1.5 Mbps. You can even have your lines bonded if you get them from the same provider or use an appliance such as the Mushroom Networks “Truffle” to combine the bandwidth yourself.

Bonding or combining bandwidth from multiple network connections is one way to manage your bandwidth needs without over-committing. But there’s another way to accomplish this that makes increasing bandwidth much easier than ordering additional lines and waiting to have them installed. You can have bandwidth virtually on demand with scalable Ethernet services.

Metro Ethernet services differ from traditional telecom services in that they are readily scalable by design. Your original order is for a certain bandwidth, say 10 Mbps. But you want to make sure that you have the ability to upgrade to higher bandwidth levels when business activity justifies it. That’s done by installing a high bandwidth port at your location. This could be a 50 or 100 Mbps port, or something really fast like a Gigabit Ethernet port. You aren’t committed to buy that much bandwidth at first. You may start out with 10 Mbps. In six months or a year you find that you really need 20 Mbps to keep up with expanded business needs. No problem. You pick up the phone and call your provider. They increase your speed to 20 Mbps and adjust your monthly bill accordingly.

Scalable bandwidth changes are fast, because the hardware port is already installed. The service provider only has to adjust the speed of the service at your request. They can do that remotely, without a truck roll to install anything at your building. That gives you the flexibility to adjust to changing business conditions and not have to purchase the bandwidth you need far in advance.

Do you have a growing company or expect your business to be picking up over the next few years? If so, scalable bandwidth could be the best tool you’ll have to control expenses. You’ll also be delighted to learn that Metro Ethernet service prices are not only affordable but can cost considerably less per Mbps than traditional telecom services, such as T1, DS3 or OCx. How much less? Find out by checking Metro Ethernet prices and availability for your business location.