Verizon Fractional T1 question [fractional t1] [kbps internet]
Q: My dad just ordered a fractional T1 for his office, Verizon (10 telephone lines and 768 kbps Internet), and I have a question. I am a n00b when it comes to T1s, so bear with me. Is a T1 connection using PPPoE as Verizon DSL (which we)? And authentication is required, such as Verizon DSL? I need to know because Im building a server for them, and Im going to be managing their network. Any help is appreciated.
Re:So…you're wasting a whole Class C?
Northpoint's death was both a blessing and a curse for my company. We got those customers when we bought out someone else, then a year later had to pretty much wash our hands of many of them. They were getting services for like, less than 100 bucks a month for high speeds.
Re:SAVVIS is my provider; we used to have SDSL with them until Northpoint went kaput. Since then, they offered us a T1 for $550 a month (service + local loop) if we signed for three years. And we did… It's been nice, but quite a bit of money to pay for two homes. But they give us as many IPs as we need, which is nice. We've got a Class C right now.
Re:I'm talking about non-direct Verizon customer monitoring. Verizon was just dark fiber between us and our customers. No monitoring of the T1 lines, but monitoring of the frame relay because it was on the public cloud.
Once Verizon had an entire piece of equipment called a LightSpan die. They didn't think they'd need to replace it, or that there was any rush to get a repair done, despite the fact that it carried a lot of circuits, just because they only seemed to have a couple of reports on the failure.
Keep in mind that in my area, "Verizon" techs and personnel are former Bell Atlantic people, who hate customers.
Re:Heh tell me about copper problems. One of our offices has some old old lines running into it and the T1s there keep going down. SBC keeps tracking further back and replacing more copper so hopefully it will be fixed soon. Last time they found a segment with bad insulation that had water in it…….
Re:Verizon does monitor dedicated Internet access customers from 56k on up. I do it at least once a week. We monitor point-to-point T1 and above via SNMP and ICMP. Frame relay has to wait for the monitoring system to drop ICMP pings, because there are no sub-interfaces on the edge routers for the thousands of frame relay internet access customers we have. Not sure why you had so much trouble before, because it should never be a problem to monitor either public frame/ATM or Internet P2P, frame, and ATM circuits.
Re:Well, yes a frame-relay would have to connect to the public network, that's sort of the point of the design.
But they aren't monitoring the IP network, just the frame network, and they still caught unresponsive FR lines. You'd think there'd be an automatic monitor that would see when a full T1 or any point to point line has lost all protocol and signal. Sure they aren't actually watching the traffic, but physical loss of signal should set off an alarm at least.
Really, all T1 lines are point to point, it just happens that one endpoint is Verizon's own IP network.
The way we monitored was both via ICMP and SNMP traps from the router interface. It was a nasty system though, cobbled together from old systems and a brand new quarter billion dollar system that didn't even work properly.
Re:There is no monitoring for Verizon point-to-point 56k or T1 unless they connect to the Internet or the public network (frame, ATM, SMDS). Lovely, eh?
The way the Verizon hierarchy is set up, there is almost no way to monitor a flexgrow T1 on a physical level. The only way the ISP side can check the circuit is via SNMP from the edge router or ICMP from the monitoring system. The only other thing seen is an SNMP trap showing line protocol down at the edge.
Re:A point-to-point T1 (especially in the same area) is nearly always gonna be cheaper than a T1 to the Internet. Point-to-point doesn't have the services (DNS, MAIL, etc); it's basically just a connection between to offices.
FWIW
Scott
Re:That description of how the T1 and routing works is…the way all routed services work…for the most part.
Of course, you don't HAVE to let the pings return from the WAN interface…if you don't want them monitoring your line. That's not the right way to monitor a connection anyway, at least not by itself.
Verizon was an absolute bitch to my company about monitoring T1 lines. We leased lines from them, for our customers with us as the ISP. Within a couple of minutes of a frame-relay going down, even ones as low as 56k, Verizon would be calling us to check on it and would already have a ticket opened. But if a full T1 went down, they'd never know about it. They didn't have any monitoring of T1 loops, since they didn't provide the IP service on it. Even though they didn't provide the IP service on the frame relay lines though, they monitored them. Always nice to have a 300 dollar a month customer monitored so well but a 1000 buck customer not.
If you have problems, be prepared to never actually know a tech has arrived, tested, and left the site, regardless of whether the service was fixed or not.
Re:That's a "Flexgrow" line and it's a relatively new service. There have been some troubles now and then with the actual infrastructure, but it's been a good start so far. You simply static-route your LAN space to the WAN IP, and that's it. Verizon picks it up from there. No authentication, no fuss. Make sure you allow the monitoring system to ping your serial interface. Access lists that deny all ICMP will set off an alarm for the monitoring guys.
If you outgrow your service again, then you will need two T1s. One would be all voice and the other would be all data. That starts to get expensive, but if you need 24 phone lines, you could probably afford it.
Chronic problems occur on bad cable pairs. Repairs are best handled by calling the support number and making sure someone is available to meet a tech if the trouble is in the Smartjack or HTU-R. There is no way to guarantee a dispatch time, but the MTTR is usually only a few hours. There is a lot of stuff that can break on a T1, and only 2 things will require a dispatch to your site.
This is for Internet access, right?
JamesM
Re:I don't know what it is about Colorado, but our T1 lines are *WAY* cheaper than what you guys are quoting. At HPI (my work), our rate is $375/mo for 1 year contracts (bandwidth only) … our premier partner is ICG, and they give us awesome deals on copper — usually anything less than 10 miles is right around $220. Put those together, and you're getting full T-1, to your door for a total monthly fee of $600. If you're closer than 4 miles, it gets a lot cheaper — especially if you go with three year contracts.
We're a tiny ISP, so we do oversubscribe. However, big boys like AT&T, UUNet and Qwest are pounding down our door all the time — $500/mo for Teir 1 T1 connects (no loop) … AT&T has a sick promo going on right now that we're really looking into: $599/mo to the door, includes loop, no install fee.
I guess the coasts just suck for bandwidth pricing 
guy
Re:Just a quick search I found this: http://www.lmi.net/services/nen-t1/
Full T1 for 600 dollars. It does use NAT by default, but IPs are a cheap add-on.
The price difference I would expect is more along the lines of 1000 for the T1, or 500 dollars for 6-channel fractional, something like that.
Re:Originally posted by: guy
Whoops, missed the first post pointing out the combined number of voice lines.
I saw 5 lines plus 10 more in the later one. T1 reliability is great if you get a reliable line and there aren't any issues at the central office. But if you start having problems once, look forward to having them a lot. Doing support for T1s the last few years, we saw more 2, 3, 4, 10 times repeat customers than we saw single-incident customers. Even having entire new lines run wasn't always a permanent fix, and pinning it on Verizon wasn't always possible because during all the troubleshooting they'd be swapping out all of their equipment as well. Make sure on the pricing issue. 600 to 700 dollars a month is a price I've seen for a full T1 line from other providers (using leased lines from the telco), but that's not including ISP service. If they're getting it all for 700 a month, then it's not too bad, but it still may be overpaying considering it's only 2 more channels.
It's all for that price. Either 600 or 700. I will check on Monday when we go back to work.
Re:Whoops, missed the first post pointing out the combined number of voice lines.
I saw 5 lines plus 10 more in the later one.
T1 reliability is great if you get a reliable line and there aren't any issues at the central office. But if you start having problems once, look forward to having them a lot. Doing support for T1s the last few years, we saw more 2, 3, 4, 10 times repeat customers than we saw single-incident customers. Even having entire new lines run wasn't always a permanent fix, and pinning it on Verizon wasn't always possible because during all the troubleshooting they'd be swapping out all of their equipment as well.
Make sure on the pricing issue. 600 to 700 dollars a month is a price I've seen for a full T1 line from other providers (using leased lines from the telco), but that's not including ISP service. If they're getting it all for 700 a month, then it's not too bad, but it still may be overpaying considering it's only 2 more channels.
Re:Originally posted by: guy
768/64kbps per channel = 12 channels … + 10 phone line channels is 22. Why they're not going for all 24, I don't know (maybe they don't want 892kbps?) As for the uptime on your connection, it should be infinite — barring backhoes, line cuts and billing issues. We have one T1 that has been up *checks router* A little over 59 weeks, with zero downtime. *ZERO* downtime. Sure, DSL is cheaper than a T1, but T1s rock the house when it comes to stability, robustness and performance. guy
This is one of the reasons why we are switching from DSL. Too much downtime and the stability isn't great. The speeds on it fluctuate drmatically. The main reason though is because we needed the 10 phone lines. We would have had them just put in, but we decided to have the fractional T1 instead so we could get a stable connection, plus the phone lines.
Re:Originally posted by: guy
So you're getting a total of 15 channels of a T1? Wouldn't it be cheaper to get an entire T1?
Apparently no. Supposedly we got a great deal on the fractional T1. I think under 600 or 700 (can't remember right now) a month. I didn't handle the purchase, but supposedly it is a really good deal. The company my father owns (a rigging/machinery moving company) does a lot of work for Verizon. Somehow, I think they were able to get a nice deal on the Fractional T1, over a full T1.
Re:768/64kbps per channel = 12 channels … + 10 phone line channels is 22. Why they're not going for all 24, I don't know (maybe they don't want 892kbps?)
As for the uptime on your connection, it should be infinite — barring backhoes, line cuts and billing issues. We have one T1 that has been up *checks router* A little over 59 weeks, with zero downtime. *ZERO* downtime. Sure, DSL is cheaper than a T1, but T1s rock the house when it comes to stability, robustness and performance.
guy
Re:So you're getting a total of 15 channels of a T1? Wouldn't it be cheaper to get an entire T1?
Re:Originally posted by: guy
No, there is no PPPoE or authentication or anything. You'll need a dsu/csu and a router for the data side of things and presumably a phone switch to handle all of the phone stuff. How a T1 Line Works (http://www.howstuffworks.com/question372.htm) guy
Thank you. I was really worried about the authentication, that just bothers me. But yeah, we should be getting all the hardware from Verizon soon. We already have 5 phone lines from Verizon, but that's not enough. With the fractional T1 we have 10 more lines, plus a (hopefully) longer uptime connection.
Re:No, there is no PPPoE or authentication or anything. You'll need a dsu/csu and a router for the data side of things and presumably a phone switch to handle all of the phone stuff.
Everything you ever wanted to know about T1 (http://www.dcbnet.com/notes/9611t1.html)
guy
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Tags: fractional t1, kbps internet