How a Business T1 Line Can Reduce Your Expenses

By: Article Expert

You may want to consider a business T1 line if you are interested a highly reliable phone and Internet service that may decrease your overall 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 save money with a business T1 line.

What Precisely is a T1 Line?

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

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

An alternate version of T1 is T1 PRI which is used in customer service centers where customer reps review customer records with your customers. With T1 PRI, there are 23 voice channels and a data channel that would be attached to a server. When a customer calls, the caller ID information is passed to the server which pulls up and displays the customer record on the computer screen of the customer representative as they are answering the incoming call.

Your business T1 line can be dedicated to Internet access. You could 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). Since the T1 line is digital, there is no reduction in quality caused by crosstalk or line noise.

Alternately, your T1 line can integrate both phone and Internet services. You would dedicate a certain number of "channels" to phone service and the rest 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 Can You Reduce Expenses By Using a Business T1 Line?

Consider a business that wants to exchange their current individual phone lines and their Internet service provider with a T1 line. The chief reduction in costs is due to the elimination of the monthly charges 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. Additionally, there will be one time expenses for the PBX device and other interface devices and cabling that your particular physical layout requires. There will also be ongoing maintenance fees related to the PBX and other devices.

Many small and medium businesses find a T1 line to be an excellent means to cut down on costs as well as provide higher quality and dependability to their customers and employees. You should get a business T1 line quote to see if this is an effective choice for your business.