sundance-communications.com/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services T1's, CSU's and DSU's fiber optic circuit and T1

What does a fiber optic circuit from ATT give you? From a customer standpoint how would it differ from a T-1?

If a business gets a T1 from someone besides ATT , is the T1 really just leased from ATT then resold?

I would really appreciate any answers, Thanks!

It doesn't differ at all except for the fact that the transport cost to deliver the circuit is lower for at&t. Fiber offers much more bandwidth than copper, so many more circuits can be accommodated by a few strands of fiber. A pair of copper wires provides only one circuit while a pair of fiber strands can provide dozens or even more.

Reliability will probably be better since fiber is non-metallic and not susceptible to lightning damage. This lowered risk also makes it the preferred transport medium for at&t. If fiber fails, there will be a lot more customers affected, so repair/restoration will be at a much higher priority level.

If you are referring to "at&t" as the former Bell South, then yes, the circuit is being leased from them in 99% of the cases and being resold. At&t is just the provider of the pipe between the customer and the competitive service provider and they have absolutely no responsibility for it otherwise. Only in major metropolitan areas will you see CLECs using their own private fiber facilities. In general, the LEC (at&t, Verizon, etc.) leases circuits out to their competitors at a dramatically reduced rate to allow them to mark up the cost and make a profit. In exchange, the CLEC has to handle all of the billing and troubleshooting issues.

Regardless of how the LEC transports the circuits, all T1 circuits are converted to copper prior to delivery to the end-user via a standard network interface jack. This conversion can be done within the building itself or in a nearby remote terminal. If they want to deliver via fiber and the cost is the same, there's no reason to object whatsoever.

Binbrain -

Fiber Optic is a medium that can handle almost unlimited bandwidth.

T-1 is a circuit with a maximum bandwidth of 1.544 MBS.

T-1 is usually delivered on copper wire. Not fiber. I guess they could deliver you a high speed (155MBS or better) fiber optically transported circuit and step it down, but it's not likely - unless there are other customers (real or potential) in your area.

There are many, many, suppliers of high speed circuits. AT&T is not the only one by a long shot. Your local phone company, cable company or any of a number of alternative carriers could supply you with (their own) service.

I'm not sure where you are in Florida. It would depend where as to the range of suppliers.

Sam

thanks I looked up CLEC it stands for competitive local exchange carrier for anyone else following this thread.

If fiber costs less and is more reliable then why wouldn't every business call up AT&T and order fiber to the demarc?

Because they don't have fiber optic cable installed to every address in their service territory. For example, it would be cost-justified to bring fiber into a high rise building or office complex where there is high density circuit demand in a small geographic footprint. Running five miles of dedicated fiber to an auto parts store on the outskirts of town would be a losing proposition.

It is important to remember that until about 20 years ago, LECs relied heavily upon their embedded copper facilities as much as they could. It wasn't until demand increased for higher bandwidth that they started investing in rebuilding their distribution networks from the ground-up with fiber.

In smaller areas, such as strip malls or townhouse office complexes, there is lower demand for multiple circuits and they can carry these customers via existing copper. Even with copper, they can still accomplish quite a bit of capacity support.

We also have to remember that BellSouth (at&t) covers a huge region with much of it being rural. In order to keep their service offerings fair and balanced to all customers, it sometimes takes longer for their fiber deployment to reach all areas.

LECs have to follow strict service guidelines on a per-city, per-county and per-state basis. This comes in addition to the mandates handed down by the FCC on a national level. Smaller independent telcos in rural areas are also regulated by guidelines set forth by RUS (formerly REA) in order to obtain loans to finance network expansion. They do the best that they can to uphold these requirements within reason. They have to maintain a careful balance of providing the maximum level of equal service levels to their customers while making a reasonable profit. Anything else would be bad business practice. In the United States, LECs are private businesses with reasonable income expectations.

All LECs also have to take the gamble that they may spend a fortune to upgrade facilities for a particular customer or even town with no guarantee of commitment. A small town called Gore, Virginia was a classic case of a town that fired GTE from being their incumbent LEC. Back in the 1980's, they awarded their service territory to Bell Atlantic. Telcos have to be careful about how much they invest in facilities since there is no loyalty or commitment from their customers.

thank you so much Ed!