Evaluating Bandwidth ChoicesFractional T1 vs T1

Looking for bandwidth? That can be a daunting and frustrating task even in the best of situations. There's lots to consider in order to make the right decision for your needs. Below you'll find some help when evaluating Fractional T1 vs T1. Factors covered include Technology, Speed, Description, Application, Pros, Cons, and Cost.

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Technology: Fractional T1

Speed: 128 Kbps - 1.544 Mbps

Description: Same service as a full T-1 provisioned in increments of 64 Kbps. A full T-1 is 1.544 Mbps or 24 channels, Fractional T-1s start at 128 Kbps or 2 channels.

Application: Used to connect a company to the Internet when less than a full T-1 is required. Circuit runs from the location into the Internet.

Pros: Provides access straight into the carrier's backbone. Unlike DSL and Cable Modem, there is no aggregation. Fractional T-1s have unused channels which can be turned up on demand.

Cons: Setup and monthly costs can be prohibitive.

Costs: Fractional T1 cost starts at around $100-200 for a stable, reliable system (e.g. from a Tier 1 provider). A required router is additional unless provided as a freebie incentive by the vendor. Price climbs as distance from the providers Central Office (CO) increases. However....the pricing for these connections varies widely depending on the carrier, location of service and the application for which the connection is being used.

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Technology: T1

Speed: 1.544 Mbps

Description: A 24 channel cirucit that can be used for Frame Realy, Private Line, VPN or, most commonly, Internet access.

Application: Connects a company's LAN into the Internet or carrier's Frame Realy network.

Pros: Provides access straight into the carrier?s backbone. Only slightly more expensive than a Fractional T-1. 99% availability in U.S. Very reliable.

Cons: Setup and monthly costs can be prohibitive.

Costs: A full T1 obviously will cost more than a Fractional T1. Expect cost to start at around a $400 for a stable, reliable system (e.g. from a Tier 1 provder). A required router is additional unless provided as a freebie incentive by the vendor. Price climbs as distance from the providers Central Office (CO) increases. However....the pricing for these connections varies widely depending on the carrier, location of service and the application for which the connection is being used. For example...Tier 1 providers may cost more than local/regional Tier2 and Tier 3 providers but are much more stable and reliable. Also, expect to pay more if you are in a rural area or need integrated (voice and data combined) or bonded (multiple T1s bound in 1 network....option vs full DS3) T1 service.

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Technology: E1 (Europe)

Speed: 2.048 Mbps

Description: The European equilivent of the T-1.

Application: Connects a company's LAN into the Internet or carrier's Frame Realy network.

Pros: Provides access straight into the carrier?s backbone. Very reliable.

Cons: Setup and monthly costs can be prohibitive.

Costs: A full E1 usually costs more than it's North American counterpart. Expect cost to start at around a $800-1000 for a stable, reliable system (e.g. from an equivalent Tier 1 provder). A required router is additional unless provided as a freebie incentive by the vendor (not common in Europe). Price climbs as distance from the providers Central Office (CO) increases. However....just as with the North American version the pricing for these connections varies widely depending on the carrier, location of service and the application for which the connection is being used.

Michael is the owner of FreedomFire Communications....including DS3-Bandwidth.com and Business-VoIP-Solution.com. Michael also authors Broadband Nation where you're always welcome to drop in and catch up on the latest BroadBand news, tips, insights, and ramblings for the masses.

Cable Broadband Wireless Routers Overview

Cable broadband connections are provided by ISPs who will install a separate cable through which phone, television, and broadband services can be provided. Not all homes and businesses will be eligible for receiving cable, as opposed to fixed line telephony which is more widely available.

Cable broadband ISPs provide users with a USB/Ethernet cable modem set-top box with their service, which allows a single network device to access the Internet as well as any other cable services that form part of the package.

If the user wishes to connect more than one device to the Internet simultaneously through the cable broadband connection, they will require a cable broadband router.

A broadband router is a device that connects two or more networks together. In this case the router is used to connect the home or office network to the largest network in the world - the Internet. The home or office network is referred to as a Local-Area Network (LAN) while the Internet, or any other outside network, is referred to as a Wide-Area Network (WAN).

Therefore, a broadband router allows for the connection of multiple devices within a LAN to a single Internet connection.

Furthermore, a broadband wireless router can further enhance the LAN by allowing for the devices to be connected together without the use of wires and cables running between the devices. The wireless devices connect to the local network using radio waves broadband wireless routers have access points built into them, as well as a switch and a router.

The switch function connects allows for the connection of the devices in the network by way of wires. As previously stated, the access point connects wireless devices, and the router function connects the LAN to the Internet. Therefore a broadband wireless router allows for local networks that are either entirely wireless, entirely wired, or a mixture of both.

Devices that connect to the router through wires will require network cards. Devices that utilise the wireless capabilities will require a wireless card in order to send and receive radio signals to the router via the access point.

If a wireless broadband router is installed on a cable broadband connection, the set-top box is still required.

Broadband-is-cheap contains information and deals on ADSL Wireless Routers in the UK.

Choosing an ISP Plan

When deciding on which ISP plan is right for you, there are two main factors to consider: your needs and your budget. You want to purchase the most affordable plan that can handle everything you want to accomplish on the internet.

There are three main types of ISP plans to choose from: Dial-Up, DSL and Cable. Each of these three plan types download internet pages and files at different speeds. The fastest is a Cable (around 1000 kilobits per second) connection followed by DSL (around 300 kilobits per second) and Dial-Up (around 30 kilobits per second), respectively. If you are planning on only using the internet for email and surfing web pages, a Dial-Up plan would be perfect for you. Dial-Up is also the cheapest of the three followed by DSL and Cable, respectively. However, if you are planning on purchasing a membership at a movie or music download website that lets you download unlimited movies or music per month, you will want a DSL or Cable connection so you can take advantage of the offer.

In summary, when choosing an ISP plan first decide on what you want to accomplish and second how much you are willing to spend.

Find an ISP at ISPShakedown.com - directory of affordable internet service providers.

The History of High Speed Internet Access

High speed internet access, also known as broadband internet, is a high data-transmission rate internet connection. High speed internet has revolutionized the way that people utilize the internet. Before broadband internet, people spent more time downloading content than enjoying it.

The fastest that dial-up internet access can deliver downloaded files is at the rate of 56 kilobits per second. High speed internet, on the other hand, typically transmits at nine times the speed of a conventional dial-up modem. There are also broadband service packages that can transmit up to 20 Megabits per second.

Broadband internet access refers to DSL (digital subscriber line) and cable modem access. DSL is the most commonly used high speed internet, with cable running a close second in terms of popularity. There is also satellite internet access, but there is a high latency problem caused by the distance the signal must travel to and from the satellite. Currently there is also a new service called power-line internet that is being tested. This internet service may eventually allow high speed internet data to travel along standard high-voltage power lines. However, this data transmission system has several issues that will need to be resolved before the feasibility of power-line internet is determined.

High speed internet access became an extremely rapidly developing market in many regions in 2000. Studies found that broadband internet usage in the United States grew more than 24% between 2000 and 2003. One of the challenges of this age of broadband is the ability to provide high speed service to customers located in rural areas. This is because in urban areas service providers are easily able to recover the cost the new equipment required to offer broadband. For this reason, many rural inhabitants still use dial-up or ISDN, which typically delivers data at up to 128 kilobits per second.

In some markets, especially those outside of the United States, there are some internet service providers that are taking advantage of the current lack of industry definition as to what constitutes as broadband internet. Currently, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has defined high speed internet access as 256 kilobits per second in at least one direction (upload or download), though average consumer broadband speeds far exceed this rate of data transfer. Thus, some internet service providers take advantage of lacking industry standards and market lower bitrate connections as high speed.

With the innovation of high speed internet it has become possible for users to download and watch videos and music files in just minutes, if not immediately. Anyone that?s used dial-up to download these larger types of files knows the frustration of waiting hours for a download that may never even complete. Without broadband internet access, the popularity and convenience of peer-to-peer file sharing would not have been possible.

As the rate of data transmission increases, the market expects that streaming video and streaming audio services will become increasingly popular. Interestingly, video encoding formats such as MPEG-4 are making top quality video streams accessible at even lower bandwidth rates. Innovations in video formats are converging with the increasing end user bandwidth speeds to provide unprecedented video access over the internet.

As data formatting innovations combine with increasing access of high speed internet to users around the world, we will continue to see improvement in the delivery of various media types as well as improved connectivity and communication, in general, between people all around the world.

To find out more information about this topic, please visit High Speed Internet

Charlotte Alice represents UK Dropshipper and Online Web Publisher

Port Scanning the Good Bad & Ugly

What is port scanning you might ask? Well port scanning can be describe many ways but basically is the act of sending packets to a destination of group of hosts to try to get a response. Why do I need to port scan and do others port scan me? You might want to port scan your broadband connection to see what your network has open to the internet and others may port scan you to find a way into your network. Port scanning can be done for good reasons and malicious purposes. Other real good reasons for port scanning is to see what ports your software might be using this can help you trouble shoot network issues. There are too many reasons to list here on the pros of ports scans and port scan software but you must first understand what a port is and how it affects you computer and network.

What is a port and how dose it work?

Ports are similar to addresses for example if you send a package to a friend you will have to put many entries on the shipping label for it to get to him. You would need a name, street number, city, State, zip code, and sometimes a country. Without this information your package would not get the recipient. Ports work in a similar way. Ports are part of the address for internet traffic. Ports also have to have other data to be used like an IP address, Protocol, and transport media.

Who controls port numbers?

Ports numbers are standardized though the ?Internet Assigned Numbers Authority? or IANA. The port numbers are divided into three ranges: The Well Known Ports, Registered Ports, and the Dynamic and/or Private Ports.

The Well Known Ports are those from 0 through 1023. DCCP Well Known ports SHOULD NOT be used without IANA registration. The registration procedure is defined in [RFC4340, Section 19.9.

The Registered Ports are those from 1024 through 49151 DCCP Registered ports SHOULD NOT be used without IANA registration. The registration procedure is defined in [RFC4340, Section 19.9.

The Dynamic and/or Private Ports are those from 49152 through 65535.

Port Scanning Software.

Let?s now take a look at software that is used for port scanning. A lot of the software out there for port scanning also has other futures for vulnerability scanning. One of the most well known port scanning tools is NMAP.

Nmap (Network Mapper) is a free open source utility for network exploration or security auditing. It was designed to rapidly scan large networks, although it works fine against single hosts. Nmap uses raw IP packets in novel ways to determine what hosts are available on the network, what services (application name and version) those hosts are offering, what operating systems (and OS versions) they are running, what type of packet filters/firewalls are in use, and dozens of other characteristics. Nmap runs on most types of computers and both console and graphical versions are available. Nmap is free and open source (description from NMAP?s website).

Angry IP scanner is a very fast IP scanner and port scanner. It can scan IP addresses in any range as well as any their ports. Its binary file size is very small compared to other IP or port scanners. Angry IP scanner simply pings each IP address to check if it's alive, then optionally it is resolving its hostname, determines the MAC address, scans ports, etc. The amount of gathered data about each host can be extended with the available plugin's (description from angryziber.com).

SuperScan 4 is a Powerful TCP port scanner, pinger, and resolver. Here are some of the futures; Superior scanning speed, Support for unlimited IP ranges, Improved host detection using multiple ICMP methods, TCP SYN scanning, UDP scanning (two methods), IP address import supporting ranges and CIDR formats, Simple HTML report generation, Source port scanning, Fast hostname resolving, Extensive banner grabbing, Massive built-in port list description database, IP and port scan order randomization, A selection of useful tools (ping, trace route, Whois etc). SuperScan is from foundstone.com and this description was gathered from there website.

Online Scanners

There are also websites that offer free port scans to help you secure your network. Here is a list of a few scanning sites.

Sygate Online Scan (scan.sygate.com) extended security check (Stealth Scan, Trojan Scan.

Planet Security Firewall-Check (planet-security.net) Fast, extended check, checks currently high-endangered ports.

Crucialtests (crucialtests.com) concise, incl. advisor.

ShieldsUP (grc.com) Quick Scanner, clearly laid out.

How to block all the scanning

Now that you have seen what ports scanning is and the uses for it you might want to know how to protect you network from scans. The best thing to do is have a firewall and use up-to-date Anti-virus & Anti-Spyware programs. You will not be able to stop the scans on your network but with a good firewall the person scanning you will not see any traffic back and hopefully assume your connection is not on or no assemble. To find more information on port scanning and the tools used try to Google it.

Brian Wilson
CCNA, CSE, CCAI, MCP, Network+
http://www.middlegeorgia.org http://www.slimjim100.com

Unraveling the Mysteries of Broadband Internet Service Providers

Broadband internet service providers are widely varied and offer several different connection forms. Broadband can be separated into several different categories, such as cable, DSL, and satellite.

The major benefit of broadband service over dial up service is the website uploading speed. The speed increases exponentially when changing from dial up to broadband service, which saves you time and energy. Broadband is also always on, so you do not need to connect to it each time you want to use the internet.

One broadband internet service provider is your local cable company. They have unsurpassed speed and ease of use. Each time you turn on your computer your internet connection is ready and waiting on you and you do not need to take the time to connect to it as it is already connected. The cost is sometimes a stumbling block for internet users, but these broadband internet service providers sometimes offer package deals with your cable TV service or a slower access speed for a reduced price. You need to ask if there are any deals when choosing this service. All they can tell you is no.

DSL has better speed than dial up service also. Several broadband internet service providers offer DSL service. One of the drawbacks of this service is that it is distance sensitive and only works well within three miles of the central office. It is very dependent on the phone lines and any static or disruption will cause disruptions of your service also. Ask neighbors if they have DSL and if they do, what their experience has been with DSL. Word of mouth is the best way to find out the pros and cons of any broadband internet service provider.

Satellite broadband service internet providers offers a service that many rural or out of the way areas are not offered from their cable company or other providers. This is a plus to many customers who would not have internet service without the satellite providers.

Broadband internet service providers offer a service that millions of customers use everyday. The key is to research the type of service that you want to use-whether cable, DSL, or satellite and find the right choice for you and your family. Compare the web speed, features and cost in your decision and enjoy surfing the web with the speed and convenience that you will love! What more could you want?

Learn the essential information for picking the right Internet Service Provider at Net Zero

What is Broadband?

Defining broadband can get complicated

There are many different takes on how to actually define the word: broadband. The first and most obvious way to define it is a transmission medium that allows for multiple pathways and types of data, far exceeding simple voice communication devices. Simply, put it is the ability to access a variety of data through one connection at a reasonable speed.

Where a phone line severely limits the amount of information it can transmit, a broadband line, which has bandwidth greater than 2 mbps, unlike a standard dial-up connection which will only have 56kbps, can allow for a variety of different frequencies and channels to travel down its wide pathway. This makes it optimal for those who play video games on the Internet or are involved in heavy graphics work that they need to import, send and receive along the information superhighway.

The minimum width of a broadband line has become a matter of debate. While initially, the broadband definition was a line that was greater than 2 mbps in width, other experts began asserting that it should be at least 3 mbps wide. Still others complain that at least 20 would be appropriate. But now, broadband services start as low as 1 mbps, for those who are trying out broadband for the first time. So who really knows what the minimum level of bandwidth is needed in order for it to be called broadband? One thing is certain though. DSL service which an range from 256 kbps capacity on the downstream and upstream side up to 1.5mbps, or even higher, is considered a broadband service as well. So are cable television modems, which have similar speeds. So, in reality anything with greater capacity than a narrow line, like a telephone line, which can only hold up to 64 kbps, is technically considered a broadband service.

Broadband services have become all the craze in the past few years. When the Internet started to become more mainstream in the 1990s people were content with simple dial-up Internet services, which used only narrow lines. But as the need for speed became important, especially as files and Web pages became more elaborate, requiring more computer storage space and memory, the need for larger bulks of information being able to be sent and received at a quicker pace became essential. Hence, we have the broadband revolution. Today, hardly anyone uses narrow band service, or dial-up. Broadband Internet access is the name of the game. And if you work in an office it is absolutely essential, as larger chunks of information are frequently sent to and from businesses on a regular basis. Simply put, if you don?t have broadband today, you are probably a person who does not need the Internet for a living. With the number of telecommuting jobs available today, the need for broadband services is only likely to expand greatly.

About The Author:

Neil Shevlin is the owner of UK Cheap Broadband which is a great place to find broadband links, resources and articles.

For more information go to: UK Cheap Broadband

http://www.ukcheapbroadband ? Copyright 2005

Please feel free to copy and paste this article and it's resource information.

Broadband Internet and Information Problems During Hurricanes

Imagine if you will sitting in Florida and watching some 400 channels on your Direct TV and listening to the Hurricane News as one approaches, but it is still too early to tell where it will actually hit. Then one of the outer bands comes over and disrupts your signal, nothing? Bummer indeed, but you still have broadband Direct PC by satellite and it seems to make it through those clouds and so you can surf the NOAA website and get the latest results or watch video streams of the local TV station right?

Sure until all of a sudden that goes out too because the next rain band is much thicker, more precipitation and thus denser clouds and well you cannot get thru. Meanwhile the wind is picking up and it is getting to be Gale Force or Tropical Stormish, but heck you antenna is good for 55 mph and even the occasional gust of 70 probably will not break it, it is pretty tough and you know this from past experience there. Unfortunately the wind gets even more fierce and you are having trouble with your local radio stations, you now have no TV or Internet and have no clue what to do. But you decide to get on the roof and take down that antenna, knowing once you do, then you are really SOL?

Broadband Internet will have signal and information problems during Hurricanes, but then again once the power goes out, you probably cannot watch TV anyway. Safest thing to do is have some extra batteries, as you will be communication blind for a while during these storms you see. Consider all this in 2006.

Lance Winslow

CNN Partner Hotel Specials

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