T1 Price Trends
Even though the price of T1 service has declined steadily since the mid-1980s, there still are few companies, which can use enough of the 1.544-Mb/s bandwidth to justify the expense of a full T1 link. Fractional T1 also provides a strong incentive for analog users to switch to digital networks. AT&T's 64-kb/s ASDS offering upgrades analog private-line services to digital transmission quality at a savings of up to 17% on intercity links.
Current users of multipoint analog voice-grade private-line service will be converted automatically to the lower-priced ASDS multipoint circuits as their locations are converted to the new digital capabilities. The sub rate data multiplexing option uses equipment in AT&T serving offices to combine up to five 9.6-kb/s access line to be carried in one ASDS circuit across the network, and to disaggregate the circuit into its components at the far end.
Web surfers who want a blistering Internet connection, but only when they need it, are the target market for a new service: pay-as-you-go T1. The high-speed access setup is the brainchild of Epoch Internet, a nationwide Internet service provider in Irvine, California.
Just as a local power company monitors usage in kilowatt-hours, Epoch measures how much data flows through a customer's account in megabits and then charges for the total. But like a cellular phone service provider, Epoch also offers a selection of pricing plans to appeal to customers who anticipate different levels of usage.
A T1 connection shuttles data to and from a computer at a speed of 1.5 megabits per second (Mbps), which is at least 26.5 times faster than a 56Kbps connection. A traditional T1 lease costs about $1,600 per month--a prohibitive amount for many. With a start-up Web company, your traffic is initially low, but as you begin to advertise and get press coverage, you get bulges of hits.
