Business solutions, especially the ones that lie in the telecommunications domain, will be popular when they offer:

• Scalability
• Fast deployment
• Reliability
• Support services and
• Cost effectiveness.

When one talks about Ethernet, T1 solutions then all the above aspects and more come into play. There are plenty of service providers that give you the opportunity to compare Ethernet and T1 when making a decision. Here are a few important aspects of these choices. SLA SLA or service level agreement is a key differentiator when it comes to connectivity and technology. The more robust the solution, the better the service level agreement is. Ethernet and T1 solutions are almost the same when it comes to service level agreements. Thanks to their redundancy and robustness, a service provider can offer you very attractive technical and customer support and availability of the network. In both Ethernet and T1 solutions, a service provider can even go up to 100% guarantee of uptime if a business organization chooses to go with failover and proactive monitoring.  

Speed

Another way in which you can compare Ethernet, T1 and maybe even other technologies is to look at the speeds of data transmission that they can offer. T1 typically offers you 1.5 megabits per second. Ethernet, especially business Ethernet can start from 2 megabits per second. Bonded T1 lines are also an option, presently you can bond up to 8 T1’s together which provides 12Mbps.  

Scalability

T1 lines are scalable and so is Ethernet. But if you want to scale up your T1 connectivity, then you will need to upgrade the equipment. More often than not, Ethernet scalability does not necessitate additional equipment. Ethernet can also be deployed over existing infrastructure and the router that is required for an Ethernet solution is far less costly when compared to T1 hardware.  

In a direct comparison

There is no doubt whatsoever that T1 lines are widely used. But in some cases, Internet demand has grown at an extremely rapid rate. And at times, T1 is unable to keep up with this kind of demand. This is where an Ethernet connection can come into play. Traditionally, Ethernet solutions are sought where a business organization needs an extremely high level of bandwidth and wants to rationalize costs. For instance, if a business organization needs the speed of around 10 Mbps and is also concerned about budgets, then an Ethernet solution may help.   This is because Ethernet cables and its various equipment are relatively low-priced. T1 lines are extremely popular with business organizations which need dedicated Internet access. In fact, even a small or medium-sized business organization can avail a T1 line. The costs of T1 line and its features will be the perfect balance for such a medium or small scale business owner.

Thus, when you look at Ethernet and T1 solutions, there are very specific differences between the both of them but in terms of important things such as service level agreement, scalability and cost effectiveness, there are specific advantages to each of these technologies as well.