You should consider a business T1 line if your business could benefit from a highly reliable phone and Internet service that very well may reduce your total telecom expenses. If your business has at least 7 individual phone lines and your employees use the Internet, your business is a good candidate to save money with a business T1 line.
What Exactly 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 think of as being divided into 24 channels.
When a business T1 line is devoted to phone service, it can handle 24 simultaneous external phone calls. Each call is transmitted on a discrete "channel" or portion of the data stream. Your T1 line and your internal phone lines connect to a PBX device that is your private branch exchange--like 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 handles 24 external calls simultaneously. For many businesses this will handle the external calling needs of a hundred or more employees.
An alternate adaptation of T1 is T1 PRI which is often found 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 can be attached to a server. When a customer calls, the caller ID information is passed to the server and the server can pull up and display the customer record on the computer screen of the customer rep as they are answering the incoming call.
Your business T1 line may be devoted to Internet access. You could plug the T1 line into a card in your LAN server to provide a bandwidth of 1.544 Mbps to the Internet. This bandwidth is equivalent to 30 to 60 dialup connections (depending on the dialup line quality). Since the T1 line is digital, there will be no degradation caused by crosstalk or line noise.
Alternately, your T1 line can integrate both phone and Internet services. You will 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 many small and medium sized businesses.
How Will You Cut Costs With a Business T1 Line?
Consider a business that desires to swap out 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 costs 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. The cost to you for a T1 line chiefly depends on the distance between your business and the phone company's customer office. Additionally, there will be one time charges for the PBX device and other interface devices and cabling that your physical plant requires. There will also be continuing maintenance fees associated with the PBX and other devices.
Numerous small and medium businesses have discovered a T1 line to be an effective means to reduce expenses as well as give higher quality and dependability to their customers and employees. You ought to get a business T1 line quote to see if this is the right choice for your business.
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