T1 service for internet and intranet access has been one of the most relied upon services for professionals and some home business users for a number of years now. The fact is that many growing small businesses are denied the bandwidth they need to grow by slow, inefficient and unreliable Cable or DSL services. Now that many organizations are realizing the need to create an expanded internet presence, the use of T1 lines has increased significantly. However, many skeptics counter the T1 internet service is still expensive, and, if that weren’t enough, the T1 router and hardware required for such a network can be a high upfront capital investment for a small business to make.

For such skeptics, T1 service providers have been updating and re-pricing their T1 prices in order to stay competitive. Go back a few years, and you would see bandwidth providers charging close to a thousand dollars for T1 connections and several thousand dollars a month for T3 connections. In recent times, typical T1 services cost around $300 to $800 a month, depending on the distance the location is from the local POP (point of presence). With the increased costs of a T1 pricing, comes a noticeable jump in reliable upstream bandwidth: a T1 line can service up to 1.544 megabytes per second both upstream and downstream, making it a large step ahead of DSL and Cable services.

In addition, T1 service providers have gone above and beyond the norm of internet service and hosting – many T1 providers now offer promotional deals that give customers a free leased T1 router with a term commitment and the install is waived. This can cut the cost considerably, and can be the deciding factor in many small businesses switching over.

There are also other important factors to choosing T1 services besides cost. A T1 connection can be set up to connect various locations together on a private network through MPLS or Multi-Protocol Label Switching service, and is offered by different bandwidth service providers at an additional fee which varies depending on bandwidth needs and number of locations. This is set up on a fully meshed network where all sites can interact with each other. With the older technology, the www.shopforbandwidth.com. It provides access to all the specific bandwidth services you need, assisting you in your search for the best deal on T1, T3, Frame Relay and MPLS services all in your own local area.