At the time when our business was growing fast, it became self-evident that we needed additional bandwidth.Our T1 line just wasnt cutting it anymore. We had no choice but to upgrade to something bigger and more expensive.

Since I am in charge of IT, I had to start renegotiating our current contract. Fortunately our company’s 1 year contract was almost over, so I was in the position to shop around for different options.

The most apparent answer was to go from a single t1 to a bonded T1. Yet with our current growth rate, it would not take long before that also would not be sufficient.

Our sales rep with our current carrier (who will remain unnamed here) was glad to recommend a bigger and far more expensive solution: a ds3 line (T3 line) with a capacity of 45 Mbps. Obviously that would be bandwidth enough taking our projected growth into consideration, it was perhaps even way too much. And monthly cost was in the higher 4 digit figures.

I found something that sounded too good to be true. A new technology (or at least new to me) that can deliver bandwidth via an Ethernet port over POTS lines, also called Ethernet over Copper. The pricing was excellent; we were able to get 10Mbps for less than a bonded t1!

Another main benefit of carrier ethernet bandwidth is that it is very scalable. It is possible to add bandwidth by simply ordering more, in small incremental steps of a few megabit, even all the way up to a gigabit Ethernet circuit.

Be sure to shop around with several carriers and make sure you are aware of new technologies (or use a telecom consultant that is).