I need to to connect two sites into one system. What is the optimal way to do this, i.e., the least expensive way to get a commercial quality connection between the sites?
My client has ordered a private T-1 from one site to the other, but I am thinking this will be prohibitevely expensive. There are about six POTS lines with unlimited long distance plus DSL going into the old site. This is costing $600/mo. In addition we are going to need about ten new lines plus internet access at the new office.
If we add a private T-1 plus some type of integrated access at the new site, I think this will cost somewhere around $2000/mo. total.
What I am thinking of is getting just the integrated access at the new site, and cancelling the private T-1 and the six POTS lines in the old office. I would keep the DSL/fax line in the old office, but the six extensions in the old office could become remote extensions of the system in the new office. This would keep the monthly service down around $600, and we would only need one new system between the two offices.
The problem is that I have read a lot of negative comments about the quality of calls made over the Internet. Is there a way to make this work?
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I sold a client a system about a year ago. They have two locations. I tried to talk them into a P2P circuit, however due to the cost he refused.
Last week he signed a 3 year contract with the LEC for a P2P circuit. He finally realized that going over the public internet, that there is NO WAY to have any quality of service. Another reason was the cost of downtime (data transmission) between the two locations.
Out of curiosity, how far are the two sites you are trying to connect?
They are about ten miles apart as the crow flies and about fifteen miles apart by car.
So if I use a P2P T1 circuit from the main office to the satellite office, can I just have my trunk lines come into the main office and route all my calls from the satellite office over the P2P T1 circuit to the main office and from there out to the phone company? This would save a lot of money on the monthly service.
What you describe is possible. Several places do exactly that. I would keep at least 1-2 pots lines at the smaller office for 911 calls and emergency routing in case the p2p goes down.
I've used a company local here called RS Air which provides you a p2p data link through microwave dishes mounted on cell towers. Works good and reliably until a hurricane/tornado knocks the dishes out of alignment.
All I do then is route calls over the data link to the remote locations and enable QoS.
For 3 years I installed P2P service (Voice and/or Data) over Microwave. The companies supplieng it were ART (Advanced Radio Technologies), Winstar and AT&T. The service was very solid and the only problems were "rain fade" (weather interference) and "crane fade" (when they built a building in the line of sight and the crane knocked out service.) We installed to 99.999% reliability or it didn't go.
A lot of the work we did was 38ghz which had a maximum distance of 1-2 miles but didn't require an FCC license and 23 ghz (maybe 25) which ran longer distances but did require FCC approval. We also installed all the way down to (As I recall) 2 Ghz which had a maximum distance of 30 miles. (Didn't do many of those here in NYC)
We offered 4 basic packages: 4 T-1s, 8 T-1s, a DS-3 and toward the end we started putting in wireless OC-3s. Customer could take the T's direct or we would install Channel banks, Inverse Mux's etc.
I was told that they were very, very competitive with putting in fiber but if all you need is 1 T-1 you might do better with the Phone Company or a CLEC who could deliver a single T-1 on copper.
Sam
"Where are we going and why are we in this hand basket?"
