Ordering T1 service - Question

[brandonb]

Hi all,

I've ordered T1 service from my telephone company using an ISP. The ISP came back with this message:

We have just received word from the local telephone company that there are no facilities available currently for this location. They are designing and building facilities to provide the line as quickly as possible. They are unable to supply an estimated due date at this time.


AP REP: DELAYED ORDERS

REP REMARKS: ORDER IS DELAYED. MNWK: HDSL DOUBLER INSTALLATION (HDSL W CXM) PER ENGR WORKING

Sounds like they have to install some distance repeaters since I'm 6 miles from the CO. Does anybody know how long this takes or if the phone company will actually do it? I tried getting word from the ISP but they have not yet responded to my email (and probably won't, I'm guessing).

Is this a days, weeks, months, or years type thing? Can anybody venture a guess?

 

[drebo]

Weeks if they move quickly, months if they don't.

They could be at capacity on the F1 cable to your local pedestal. Referencing HDSL means that they could be at capacity for T1s at the local CO or RT, wherever you would terminate. T1s are typically delivered over HDSL, as it saves on pairs.

 

[yinan]

Why are you doing this? Is Cable Internet or FIOS not available? Faster and cheaper.

 

[brandonb]

Why are you doing this? Is Cable Internet or FIOS not available? Faster and cheaper.

Ugh! Don't you think if FIOS was available I would get that over T1? Or Cable.... Or DSL....?

I live in a remote area, nothing is available in my area, and nothing will be available within the next 2-3 years... And since I can afford a T1, I'm going that route.

My other 2 options are this: High latency satellite or 3G fixed wireless. My current 3G fixed wireless works less than 50% of the time, and 100% of the time the ping/jitter is so bad you can't game or really do much of anything with it. That's with a Yagi antenna and signal booster.

So sick of spending money on internet when it doesn't come close to meeting my needs. I'd rather just spend more, and get something that works. And if it doesn't work, I get $$$ off my bill. (Service level agreements and all)

 

[JoeMcJoe]

What phone company is the ISP dealing with?

 

[brandonb]

They mentioned Qwest, so I assume they mean CenturyLink.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Ugh! Don't you think if FIOS was available I would get that over T1? Or Cable.... Or DSL....?

I live in a remote area, nothing is available in my area, and nothing will be available within the next 2-3 years... And since I can afford a T1, I'm going that route.

My other 2 options are this: High latency satellite or 3G fixed wireless. My current 3G fixed wireless works less than 50% of the time, and 100% of the time the ping/jitter is so bad you can't game or really do much of anything with it. That's with a Yagi antenna and signal booster.

So sick of spending money on internet when it doesn't come close to meeting my needs. I'd rather just spend more, and get something that works. And if it doesn't work, I get $$$ off my bill. (Service level agreements and all)

Sucks, man. Good luck.

 

[JoeMcJoe]

They mentioned Qwest, so I assume they mean CenturyLink.

Well in that case, their time estimates can be way off.
If they had to run new lines to the nearest DSLAM that feed your home, they hire contractors to do this, so it could depend on who they hire.

The DSLAM could be only fed by a couple of T1s and by running one to your home means that they need to feed the DSLAM with an additional one. This could take time.

 

[brandonb]

Just got word from the ISP. The phone company gave them an estimate of 4/24/2014. So looks to be about a month to get this done according to current info.

Just updating this post in case someone searches for T1 line and wants to know an answer for a question like this.

 

[Genx87]

Took about 8 weeks for them to pull and build out the fiber here at work.

 

[kevnich2]

Took about 8 weeks for them to pull and build out the fiber here at work.

Yeah for a fiber build, our typical times are 60-72 days from order to it being physically installed. Takes time to pull permits, any underground boring, etc.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

I just want to let you know that even on a good day some telcos have issues getting a line installed, around my area its at least a month, sometimes up to 3 for frontier to get anything done. I've had one circuit take 9.5 months....

 

[GeekDrew]

Just because I'm curious... what are you going to be paying for that T1? If this is for home, that's gonna be... spendy.

 

[kevnich2]

My guess $450-$650 but it all depends on local loop charges

But that's why we switch all of our T1's over to metroe fiber. Charges were cheaper for MUCH faster speeds.

 

[brandonb]

Just because I'm curious... what are you going to be paying for that T1? If this is for home, that's gonna be... spendy.

$300 total per month (all inclusive). I believe the loop is $187 but it's included in the price.

 

[kevnich2]

$300 for a T1 including loop charge? That's actually pretty cheap to be honest, especially through century link.

 

[azazel1024]

Also out of curiousity, because I don't know much about this...is this "ye old T1" of yore, that packs around 1.6Mbps? Or is this "T1" meaning generic leased line, but really something like DS2 or DS3 in the 6-40Mbps range?

 

[brandonb]

$300 for a T1 including loop charge? That's actually pretty cheap to be honest, especially through century link.

Yeah, I thought so. I tried Windstream first, but they were asking $700ish. I'm not paying that.


And it's regular T1. 1.5mbs or whatever. Which I'm fine with. My 3G internet that is supposed to be 4.5 mb/s I transfer at about 20K/s-60K/s on average, some days it might go at 200-300k but its about 5% of the time, other days I transfer at 5K downloads (yup dialup speed) and that is about 30% of the time.

So getting 150-200K/s downloads with a T1 will be a huge upgrade (with a low ping/no jitter, constant quality). I also bought a peplink router with dual WAN ports, so I can effectively use both the T1 + 3G (I know it won't add the download speed together - as it won't bond the connection) but I can share 2 WANS across all my computers and have some load balancing, and set up rules to route all my UDP (game traffic) through the T1 and all my TCPIP (web pages) through the 3G. So I hope in the end I'll have a decent setup until something better comes to my neighborhood.

But I may just cancel the 3G since its $45 a month and I can just use that towards the T1 and its mostly useless anyhow, but I haven't made the decision. I'll have to see how it works with the peplink, or if it's just better to use the T1 for everything.

 

[azazel1024]

On the 3G, out of curiousity, any chance of a new antenna for it? Especially if you know what frequency(ies) the modem is operating on, you might be able to get a nice high gain antenna and play around with it till you have it pointed at the cell tower.

Or is it not a signal strength issue, but an overloaded cell issue?

 

[brandonb]

On the 3G, out of curiousity, any chance of a new antenna for it? Especially if you know what frequency(ies) the modem is operating on, you might be able to get a nice high gain antenna and play around with it till you have it pointed at the cell tower.

Or is it not a signal strength issue, but an overloaded cell issue?

I have a high gain antenna pointed at the tower already.

It is an overloaded cell issue. The 3G ISP said that their cell tower is "breathing" due to it being overloaded and oversold.

And since I'm 6 miles away, my service gets dropped first.

 

[azazel1024]

I have a high gain antenna pointed at the tower already.

It is an overloaded cell issue. The 3G ISP said that their cell tower is "breathing" due to it being overloaded and oversold.

And since I'm 6 miles away, my service gets dropped first.

Ouch. I know you'd be limited on traffic and latency would be an issue, but satellite? Or satellite and T1 and balance the load or set priority for latency sensitive traffic to the T1 and bandwidth intensive to satellite?

 

[brandonb]

Just an update:

They came out to install the wiring to the house last Tuesday (the 4/22) which was 2 days ahead of schedule. But they did not activate the line. After calling the ISP repeatedly on Friday (1 day overdue) they finally said "The phone company has indicated a problem with the line. We'll let you know if we hear more."

I have not heard more.

So, still no T1... No due dates, no updates on how long it will take to install. 2 months overdue at this point.

/sigh.

 

[JoeMcJoe]

Keep at it.

 

[brandonb]

Got the T1 installed last Friday.

Seems to work great! But it's a bit slower than I was anticipating. It's 1.54Mbs, but all the speed tests are indicating 1.45Mbs download and 1.39mbs upload.

It almost seems like it's only using 22 out of 24 channels for download, and 21 out of 24 channels for upload. But its rock solid stable. My router has a traffic graph and it stays at its max download and doesn't deviate more than a percent from the max at all times. Almost looks like a solid line across the graph. So I'm good.

50 ping in video games, and no more issues there. So I'm a happy camper.

 

[imagoon]

Got the T1 installed last Friday.

Seems to work great! But it's a bit slower than I was anticipating. It's 1.54Mbs, but all the speed tests are indicating 1.45Mbs download and 1.39mbs upload.

It almost seems like it's only using 22 out of 24 channels for download, and 21 out of 24 channels for upload. But its rock solid stable. My router has a traffic graph and it stays at its max download and doesn't deviate more than a percent from the max at all times. Almost looks like a solid line across the graph. So I'm good.

50 ping in video games, and no more issues there. So I'm a happy camper.

TCP/IP overhead, those numbers look realistic for all the T1s we have out there. 1.54mb/s is the raw speed. TCP/IP adds headers and footers to every packet which take some of the bandwidth to move.