Businesses who use the Internet with a dial-up modem should examine
a range of options when looking for more bandwidth to get the right
level of service at the right price
If you are looking for an Internet connection over the 56Kbit/s
offered by most current modems, you are probably hoping for a
completely different experience than the dial-up world you are
trying to leave ( and speed may not be the prime
differentiation.
Money, and lots of it, is the most noticeable difference between
the dial-up riff raff and the elite world beyond 64Kbit per second
( but it doesn't always have to be the case. There are some
connection options that don't cost the Earth and can deliver the
required bandwidth well beyond the 56K line in the sand. Buying a
bigger Internet pipe takes careful deliberation. Businesses
exploring high speed Internet options tend to scrutinise the
security and reliability in an Internet service provider (ISP),
while legions of dial-up users tend towards low price
subscriptions. The focus on the quality of the Internet services is
a lot harder to quantify than the pounds-per-month formula that
dial-up users use to make their selection. The choice is much less
clear cut further up the bandwidth scale.And while you are
shopping, if you are of a nervous disposition, don't pick just one!
Net veterans that are really in it for the money want guaranteed
access ( and one way to get that is for access to be via several
connections. Multiple ISPs and modes of connection are common now,
reflecting the need for redundancy in light of the mission-critical
role that Internet-based commerce and other applications play
today. For instance, many leased line customers also have an ISDN
connection as a backup. It can also be used to add bandwidth on
demand.Choosing the right ISP Users in the dial-up world risk
little more than a few pounds per month should an ISP fold. If you
are staking your business image on a Web site or use email as time
critical business communications, you want not only speed, but also
a measure of business security. Finding the right bandwidth for
your increasing Internet traffic is complicated by the hit or miss
search criteria for the right ISP to provide it.This may be one
instance where size may be everything. An ISP's size and financial
track record are more important to high-speed access customers than
to dial-up customers. Dial-up businesses have not usually invested
in Internet-based applications that are mission-critical so they
worry less about being left in the lurch if their ISP goes out of
business. Shoppers for big bandwidth need to be good risk managers.
Leased line connection fettling takes a significant period of time
( often weeks or months ( to order, install, set up and debug,
making dedicated access customers far more reluctant to change
service providers. This contrasts with the habits of the disk
dancer dial-up users that will follow the free offer of the moment
glued to the cover of a news stand magazine.Leased line customers
aren't usually Net novices that are still wet behind the ears. The
longer customers have been connected to the Internet, the more
likely they are to have high-speed dedicated access rather than a
dial-up connection. There are a couple of reasons for this trend.
As a company's use of the Net grows, more individual connections
are required and this rapidly reaches the point of diminishing
returns for putting modems on desks. A flock of independent Net
users in an organisation is also a bigger management headache and
expense than single point access managed via a LAN. Whereas an
office full of self appointed Net gurus can ride herd on a bunch of
modems, you may have to hire professional expertise to manage your
network and pricey Internet connection.ISDN deluxeBetween your
LAN's router and an ISP there can be a variety of connection types.
In the not too distant past, you might have installed a 64Kbit/s
leased line. ISDN technology is now capable of upgradeable
bandwidth that make it especially useful for sites where there is
no established metric for bandwidth requirements ( and no permanent
connection is required.ISDN connections in the UK can be aggregated
in some instances to 128Kbit/s (and higher with multiple lines) to
suit the right application. Beyond 64Kbit/s, ISDN, satellite
downlinks and leased lines are available to suit your
bandwidth-craving applications. Each connection mode has
distinctive merits.ISDN comes in two flavours: basic rate, with
bundles two 64Kbit/sps B channels plus a lower bandwidth D channel,
and primary rate ISDN which can bundle a much larger number of
channels to suit higher bandwidth demands.Unlike leased lines, ISDN
lines aren't hard-wired point-to-point connections. ISDN lines can,
with a few keystrokes, be connected to any other ISDN number ( a
branch office LAN or an ISP. If you're unhappy with your ISP or
decide to move from a straight LAN interconnect to a Virtual
Private Network via an ISP, you simply pay your money and take your
choice.Even basic rate ISDN now gives you elbow room for bandwidth
growth. By combining or aggregating the two B channels, you get an
aggregate bandwidth of almost 128Kbit/s (some bandwidth is lost in
managing the bonding of the channels). The simplest way and perhaps
the cheapest way of striking out to the Promised Land above
64Kbit/s is to find an ISP that does channel aggregation.You can do
the same trick with Primary rate ISDN but the stakes are higher for
installation, line rental and the equipment that you have to attach
to your end of the connection. This isn't a significant barrier,
usually because ISDN can be used to provide POTS (plain old
telephone service) as well as digital data links. Even ISDN routers
for a small home or small office, usually have two analogue ports
that you can use for a normal phone or fax ( the selection of PBX
equipment that can handle ISDN is very broad as well.However, one
downside of ISDN is that not all ISPs support it. And fewer still
can bundle the B channels. This is subject to change over time.ISDN
can get expensive for intensive users. Like phone calls, ISDN
connections are billed by usage. And if you perform the channel
aggregation trick, it can cost twice as much. And then you have to
consider the antics of some software and how it impacts your ISDN
bill. One rule of thumb is if you are on an ISDN line for much more
than three hours a day, you should consider a leased line. This is,
of course, dependent on your location as leased lines are charged
according to the distance between the customer and the ISP. Your
software needs to be optimised for ISDN access. Each time you make
a request to the router, such as a DNS request, the router connects
to your ISP's router. If the ISDN line isn't already up, it will
make a call. And the line will stay up until the timeout set is
passed once there is no longer any activity. This means that a
brief DNS lookup can be charged as a three or five-minute call,
depending on your router settings.Beware the Client for Microsoft
Networks under Windows 95 and early versions of NT that attempt to
resolve NetBIOS addresses using a DNS lookup. The next quarter's
bill can be a big shock if you haven't kept an eagle eye on the
service statistics generated by your router. If this is an issue,
check your router's docs for configuration settings to blunt this
needless cost.There are ISDN connections and routed ISDN
connections from ISPs. The cheaper ISDN connections are just like
fast dial-up accounts and are intended for single users. IP
addresses are dynamically assigned by the ISP with every
connection. ISDN services for multiple users to access the same
connection from a LAN are referred to as routed ISDN services.
These often come bundled with SMTP mail accounts and fixed IP
addresses to suit the more sophisticated management issues
associate with this kind of Internet set up. They cost a lot more.X
marks the spot ( some day soonA new high-speed connection
technology soon to make its debut is xDSL ( Digital Subscriber
Lines of an Asymmetric or other sort (necessitating an initial X).
ADSL is a technology for transmitting digital information at high
bandwidth on existing phone lines to homes and businesses. ADSL is
asymmetric in that it uses most of the channel to transmit
downstream to the user and only a small part to receive information
from the user. ADSL simultaneously accommodates analogue (voice)
information on the same line. ADSL is generally offered at
downstream data rates from 512 to about 6 Mbit/s. A form of ADSL,
known as Universal ADSL or G.Lite, has been initially approved as a
standard by the ITU.ADSL was specifically designed to cater to
asymmetric nature of most multimedia communication in which large
amounts of information flow toward the user and only a small amount
of interactive control information is transmitted. This is like the
earlier Prestel standard, which used 1200 baud in the direction to
the user but 75 baud back.Several experiments with providing ADSL
to real users began in 1996 and had progress to customer
installations in several parts of the US in 1998. BT began its
customer experiments in the UK at the end of 1998. ADSL and other
forms of DSL are expected to become more widely available in 1999
and 2000. With ADSL (and other forms of DSL), telephone companies
are competing with cable companies offering cable modem
multi-megabit per second connections ( both are less attractive to
business because they are limited to only specific areas initially.
The info skyway?You may find that you need greater speed and even
channel aggregated ISDN can provide. If your traffic is mostly be
in one direction ( from the Internet to you, the answer may be
orbiting over your head!High-speed communications from the heavens
isn't science fiction. It's already with us, though, with the
Internet and broadcast services from EUTELsat and Hughes Olivetti
Telecom (HOT) delivered in the UK by Easat Antennas. EasyNet, BT
and EUTELsat are also in this game with Convergence1.The DirecPC
service has five aspects, all of which pour information into your
PC at remarkable speed from geo-stationary orbit 23,000 miles up.
The first of these is Package Explorer for the rapid on-demand or
scheduled provision of information files ( a service tailored for
multi-site business users.Other DirecPC service components include
the Real Time Data Stream, which enables real-time distribution of
multimedia, video, audio or text. Turbo Internet clobbers
terrestrial dial-up Internet links by a factor of 40, and the File
Broadcast allows users to browse digital objects provided on shared
servers either on-demand, or receive them to schedule. Lastly is
Turbo Webcast, which allows off-line browsing of multimedia
content.EasyNet offers a similar service with its EasySat. There is
extensive information available on their Convergence1 web site at
www.convergence1.com. Future developments will include LAN and
multicast support, enabling customers to broadcast IP-based data
throughout the footprint of EUTELsat's HOT BIRD 4 satellite that
distributes the service. However, any satellite Internet service is
a high-speed one way street ( unless you have the budget for a
two-way VSAT Earth station. For any satellite service, you still
need a standard modem or ISDN dial-up access to the Internet. This
modem (or ISDN channel at 64Kbit/s) is the way that you send your
requests for Web documents, files or other items into the Internet.
If you are a big time uploader, then you won't find a lot of help
from a satellite link. Transmission into the Internet takes place
via a dial-up SLIP or PPP connection to your existing ISP, while
reception from the Net takes place direct from orbit.While your
outgoing channel is loafing along at 14.4-64Kbit/s, your incoming
channel is racing along at 400Kbit/s or better. That satellite
sitting up there is sharing its immense communications bandwidth
with all the service's subscribers - which means at off peak time
you are getting a lot of downlink bandwidth for not much money. The
transponders several services are multiplexed on a single
6-12Mbit/s satellite carrier and shrouded with DES encryption
delivering 400Kbit/s to your desktop or LAN of data, audio or
compressed video.Most of the high technology is in orbit or at the
Earth transmitter station. The user end of the system is a fairly
ordinary 60-80cm dish with a conventional Low Noise Block (LNB),
much like the one used to receive satellite TV. An adapter card
slots into your PC and a length of shielded cable connects the
two.Satellite Internet should be absolutely transparent to the user
once installed but there are difficulties in installing it in some
PCs. The use of satellite connections is still rather new so there
can be support issues that arise and the compatibility issues with
the interface cards have sometimes bedevilled early adopters.Leased
lines Moving up to a leased line from ISDN is a logical step and
may even be prudent financially. Certain charges that BT makes for
the installation of the fibre bearer for some leased lines may be
appreciably cheaper if you already have Primary Rate ISDN on the
premises for voice communications. Ask for the speciality of the
day!Historically, most leased line customers start with a 64Kbit/s
link (known to BT as Kilostream) but that much bandwidth is no more
than what is available a la carte with ISDN. The difference,
however, is that with a permanent dedicated Internet connection you
can host your own Web site. Given the ready availability of cheap
virtual hosts both here and in the US, that would seem to be a
justification that is on the wane for beginners that are
constructing "brochure-ware" sites.If, however, the intent is to
provide your own site for high security commercial transactions,
extensive CGI scripting, database backends or proprietary server
extensions (e.g. Front Page), then a leased line link to your own
server is required.Dial-up accounts and ISDN are really a breeding
ground and many Internet experiments go from there to hosted sites
and finally to their own dedicated link. When they have done their
homework, their focus becomes quality of service and not cost.
Service guarantees are still quite rare in the Internet business
but mainstream business ISPs comfortably provide 99.5 per cent
service level.While the one-year minimum commitment for leased
lines forestalls the churn in the dedicated access market, you can
gauge the customer satisfaction by monitoring your potential ISP's
user newsgroups. You need more than consistency, however. Some ISPs
excel at providing UK or European or Asian interconnections and
there are others that are transatlantic champs. The topology and
bandwidth of an ISP's onward connections can have a great bearing
on the performance at your target customer's end. There is some
merit in finding out who supplies your most frequent contacts on
the other end of the wire because then you can place your Internet
comms in as few hands as possible. Upwards of 64Kbit/s, you are no
longer talking about wire but instead a fibre optic cable that BT
will charge a premium fee or so for unless it has already been
supplied to the premises. Depending on your location and the other
equipment you already have on board, a frame relay connection with
Energis may work out better or cheaper, all in, than a BT
Kilostream or Megastream.Dedicated line dimensions run upwards in
64Kbit/s increments. Relatively few customers move through all of
the graduations. Once you have filled a 512Kbit/s pipeline, most
just go straight to 2 Mbit/s. In the US nomenclature T1 is 1.5
Mbit/s and E1 is 2Mbit/s. It is your application and experience
that determines the optimal stepping.Once you settle on an ISP and
the gauge of pipe required, you can lie back and think of the
Internet in most cases. The details of supplying the connection
from BT another supplier are usually handled by the ISP. Whereas
dial-up access can be successfully "productised", leased lines are
very much a bespoke solution.You have a choice of managed vs.
unmanaged connections depending on your in-house expertise and
budget. "Managed" means that the ISP owns and operates the router,
whereas unmanaged places that responsibility in your hands with
their close advice and consultation. All quality ISPs have a
coterie of systems integrators to help get you set up and running
if you opt for the unmanaged option.It's nearly impossible to
construct a generalised table comparing the charging rates of
various ISPs for main two reasons. Leased lines charges are
comprised of a telco charge and the charge of the ISP. While the
charges of BT and other telecoms carriers are more standardised,
the ISP charges have been found to be highly negotiable. Most can
give a close provisional figures using the customer's postcode. The
only real alternative open to an organisation shopping for a leased
line is to invite on-site evaluations and quotations from those
ISPs that you have scrutinised and found acceptable. Hunting from
the lowest price as the chief determinant is folly. The market for
high speed Internet connection changes rapidly. Today's good deal
in terms of price and service may be overshadowed by events both
technically and in terms of business issues. Prior experience with
Internet use in your business is the best way to prepare for the
jump to higher speeds and more sophisticated methods of attachment.
Good advice from a trusted consultant is invaluable in sorting out
the large number of options available.
Paul Lavin