Is a T1 Connection Better than DSL?

Written by: Patrick Oborn - August 27, 2008

Is a T1 connection better than a DSL connection? A more appropriate question might be "Is a T1 connection MORE APPROPRIATE than a DSL connections. A T1 connection and DSL connection both offer bandwidth at high speed but have two factors that greatly differentiate them from one another. Those factors are price and reliability. A DSL connection has a low price and is less reliable than a T1 connection. A T1 is much more expensive than a DSL connection but is also much more reliable.

So are you looking for reliability or price? Reliability becomes critical when customers or employees depend on your connection for immediate responses. If your customers use your connection to access your databases or your server or the internet then reliability of your connection is critical. If your employees depend on your connections because you host the e-mail server in house or host web servers, your connections is considered critical. A critical connection can be viewed much like a life line, without which your business would be negatively impacted. Your monthly savings of having a sub-par connections will not make up for the loss in productivity of your employees or loss of customers when your DSL connections gets bogged down or cut off. To reiterate, critical connections should be supported with a T1 connection.

Many customers are extremely price sensitive and cannot afford the cost of a T1 which can be as much as 20 times more expensive than a full T1 connection. Residential customers who are most sensitive to price should not consider a T1 connection unless then have a business reason to pay for such a circuit and cannot access DSL service. You may get lucky and find a T1 connection that is low cost which would give you both price and reliability but be careful. Many T1's sold for less than $600 are not truly dedicated circuits and are oversubscribed. In short, if price is your critical factor go with DSL. If reliability is the critical factor purchase a dedicated T1.