You ought to consider a business T1 line if your business could benefit from a highly reliable phone and Internet service that may decrease your total telecom expenses. If your business has at least 7 individual phone lines and your employees use the Internet, your business is a great candidate to reduce expenses with a business T1 line.

What Precisely is a T1 Line?

A T1 line is a dedicated line carrying digital data between your location and your phone company's customer office. It has a bandwidth of 1.544 Mbps that you can think of as being divided into 24 channels.

When a business T1 line is dedicated to phone service, it can handle 24 concurrent external phone calls. Each call is carried on a discrete "channel" or slice of the data stream. Your T1 line and your internal phone lines connect to a PBX device that is your private branch exchange--similar to your own phone company. The PBX allows internal calling with a 3 or 4 digit extension, provides functions like voice mail, call waiting, hunt groups, music on hold, and other features. Your PBX also handles 24 external calls concurrently. For a lot of businesses this will handle the external calling needs of 100 or more employees.

Another adaptation of T1 is T1 PRI which is often found in customer service centers where customer agents review customer records with your customers. With T1 PRI, there are 23 voice channels and a data channel that would be hooked up to a server. When a customer calls, the caller ID data is passed to the server which pulls up and displays the customer record on the computer screen of the customer representative as they receive the incoming call.

Your business T1 line may be devoted to Internet access. You can plug the T1 line into a card in your LAN server to provide a throughput of 1.544 Mbps to the Internet. This speed is comparable to 30 to 60 dialup connections (depending on the dialup line quality). Because the T1 line is digital, there will be no reduction in quality caused by crosstalk or line noise.

Alternately, your T1 line may integrate both phone and Internet services. You would dedicate a certain number of "channels" to phone service and the remainder to the Internet. An additional card in the PBX streams the Internet data to an interface card in your LAN server. This is a popular option for numerous small and medium sized businesses.

How Will You Cut Costs By Using a Business T1 Line?

Consider a business that wants to replace their existing individual phone lines and their Internet service provider with a T1 line. The major reduction in costs is due to the elimination of the monthly expenses for the individual phone lines as well as your Internet access charges.

Your ongoing costs will include a monthly lease charge for the T1 line and phone charges which come bundled with the T1 line. Your cost for a T1 line principally depends on the distance between your business and the phone company's customer office. In addition, there will be one time expenses for the PBX device and other interface devices and cabling that your physical plant requires. There will also be ongoing maintenance fees associated with the PBX and other devices.

Many small and medium businesses have discovered a T1 line to be an effective means to cut down on costs as well as give higher quality and reliability to their customers and employees. You ought to get a business T1 line quote to determine if this is the right choice for your business.