When I had a T1 in my business I was constantly caught in the finger pointing game between the supplier the last mile manager and anybody else who they could blame. Often the problem came down to Verizon’s local loop but I was not able to call them directly I had to go through channels. With an outage lasting from an hour to a few days every few months I needed a better way.

Since switching to Nitix I have not had a single outage where both cable and FIOS were out at the same time. Dynamic DNS and several other tools like “NetInteligence” allow me to sleep at night. What’s better it the whole solution with the purchase of a $4000 server cost me less than a year of T1.

Monthly T1 in my area 600 * 12 = 7200
Server, Router, etc $???

Nitix Server *1 4000
Monthly Cable 85 * 12 = 1020
Monthly FIOS 60 * 12 = 720
Complete Package 5740

* = Nitix Server is available as a software only purchase for about $600 runs on most hardware.

However, T1s still have a considerable price premium over many other broadband options, even after the recent drops in T1 prices. For example, I can get a 10meg/768k DSL connection + a phone line for less than $100/month for the bundle. Compare that with a few hundred for a T1 (which is only 1.5meg/1.5meg, and doesn’t include a phone line) and you see that you pay a lot more for the T1 (which actually has noticeably WORSE performance, in all areas except the upload speed and total uptime). Yes, the upload for the T1 is twice that of my DSL line, and the T1 might be a little more reliable, but you really pay a lot for those marginal T1 benefits.

And as others have pointed out already, you even have cheaper options that nibble away at the few advantages the T1 actually has (such as upload speed, and reliability). For example, many areas have more than one broadband ISP option. When multiple ISPs are in the area, there is nothing preventing you from signing up for multiple accounts/services with multiple ISPs. Yes, you have to pay for each ISP/account, but in many cases those multiple accounts/ISPs are still cheaper per month total (for all the accounts) than a single T1 costs (for just a single account). And with the proper customer router/equipment (which isn’t that costly to buy these days), you can (for many purposes) combine the speeds of the two ISPs (to get more speed than a single ISP, when all of them are up), and also use each ISP as a “backup” of the other (so you don’t totally lose internet, until all your ISPs go down). In many cases, this approach will be noticeably cheaper than a T1, give the small (home) business user considerably more download speed than the T1, give them almost as much upload speed as the T1, and be almost as reliable (as it’s unusual for independent ISPs to all go down at the same time).

Of course, this is all about “running the numbers”. If T1 prices were to fall even further, to say only twice the price of a “business DSL line”, than the cost/benefit analysis for “reliable internet” (with decent “upload”) might shift back to the T1 in some cases. However, with the current economic situation (where you can actually hook up 2 or more broadband ISPs for still less than 1/2 of the cost of a single T1), the T1 comes accross as the expensive way to do things. There are still situations where the T1 is the better solution (especially if you just “have to have” the intrinsic reliability and assured bandwidth of the T1), but for many (home) small businesses the T1 is just the more costly way of doing things.

The idea is to get two (or more) “independent” Internet access connections – say one DSL and one cable. The probability of both failing at the same time is very very small. When both connections are up, you get “double” the bandwidth – combined bandwidth of both connections. If one fails, it automatically switches over the entire traffic to the other.

“Multi-WAN routers combine Internet connections, such as DSL/Cable/Wi-Fi, from multiple ISPs easily.

The addition of a multi-WAN router to your network will instantly increase bandwidth, uptime, reliability, and accelerate speed while reducing the cost of having a T1 – and protect business continuity.”

Their marketing pitch is an alternative to T1 with more bandwidth and higher availability and is directed squarely at SOHO/SMBs. What’s more, these routers come with some business class features such load balancing, automatic failover, and QoS for VoIP.

The math is simple. Say DSL for $50 and cable for $50 will cost you $100 per month. That is at least $200 per month less compared to the lowest cost T1 at $300 month. So, even if you pay $300 for such a Dual-WAN router, your payback is less than 2 months. PepLink has simple “ROI calucaltor” on their website:
http://www.peplink.com/solutions/internet-load-balancing/