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The Need
for Speed
Though Connecticut lags some other states in high-speed data lines, more options are emerging (slowly)
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Business New Haven
2/8/1999
By: Susan Banfield
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Most people are too familiar with the frustration of wanting to get an e-mail off and having to wait for their computer to dial up and connect, or of needing to get some information off a Web site and discovering that the site has ultra-complex graphics that take forever to open.
Such frustration is an annoyance in private life. In business, however, it can have more serious consequences. It can discourage employees from telecommuting, slow down key financial transactions, put the vast informational resources of the Web effectively out of reach of your staff. Slowness online can ruin your competitive edge and negatively impact your bottom line.
The availability of high-speed data lines will increasingly come to play an important role in attracting businesses to the state. But just how well is Connecticut doing in this regard? Currently there are a number of types of technology available that can provide businesses with high-speed data transmission, and one more that is on the way. All have their strong points - but all have serious drawbacks as well.
T-1 lines are the granddaddy of high-speed lines. T-1 technology has been around for nearly a quarter-century. They provide what is referred to as a “nailed-up” connection for businesses. That is, they are a special line that is installed for a customer specifically for the transmission of data.
Employing two pairs of wires, one in each direction, a T-1 line can transmit data both coming and going at speeds of 1.5 megabits per second. That is about 50 times faster than the speed achieved on a typical dial-up modem. Setting up a T-1 line is a laborious job, requiring the installation of special equipment to “condition” the line. The service is sold by SNET, or other companies that resell SNET's service.
The most glaring drawback to T-1 lines is cost. The very cheapest T-1 service will run a business customer at least $150 a month, according to SNET Vice President of Network Planning & Architecture Hoshang Mulla. Frequently they cost hundreds more. Still, thousands of larger businesses around the state have T-1 lines, and Mulla says demand for them has been growing rapidly.
A technology related to T-1 lines is frame-relay service, which essentially provides a fraction of the service offered by a T-1 line.
Frame relay is a shared, as opposed to an exclusive, service. A customer's data, rather than remain on a line exclusively his, goes through a cloud of other lines before reaching its destination. Frame relay claims to be able to offer speeds similar to those achieved with T-1 lines.
While it makes only half of T-1 speed available on a consistent basis, there are bursts which effectively make more than one megabit per second available when a customer needs it. Because the high speeds cannot be guaranteed, frame-relay service costs significantly less than a T-1 line. Reliability is traded off for cost.
Yet another type of high-speed transmission is an ISDN (Integrated Service Digital Network) line. It is a technology that has been around for nearly 15 years, although it is only within the last few years than it has been made available by telecom companies and other companies which act as middlemen.
ISDN's claim to fame is that it can simultaneously handle both data and voice transmissions. However, its speed, while faster than a dial-up modem, is downright poky compared to that of a T-1 line - only around 140 kilobits per second. “ISDN was one of the industry's not great successes” says Mulla.
One interesting alternative being offered by one enterprising Internet service provider (ISP) locally is an ISDN line coupled with a router that compresses the data up to four times. Matt LaPlaca, vice president of sales and marketing for Port One Internet, says you can barely distinguish the service from that of a T-1 line in many cases, except that it costs much less. LaPlaca says Port One is currently supplying close to 100 customers with this new version of ISDN.
Since data, as well as television signals, can be transmitted over the same lines that supply consumers with cable TV, cable companies have recently begun to offer their versions of high-speed data transmission.
In order to use a television cable for data transmission, a customer must have what is called a “cable modem” installed. Cable companies can supply a business with an exclusive line, which delivers speeds similar to those of T-1 lines. Or, as is more often the case, they can supply shared service for less money, albeit with slower speeds.
One major difference between cable high-speed transmission and its cousins is that cable service is what is called asymmetrical. This means that the speed at which the lines can deliver data (called the “downstream” speed) is much faster than that at which they can send it (the “upstream” speed). Asymmetrical service is particularly well-suited to residential customers, who are primarily interested in speed for surfing the Net and downloading files and information. It can be less ideal for businesses which also have large volumes of data to send out.
Still, as its price is comparatively modest - starting at about $100 a month for the simplest service - it is an option growing in popularity with small businesses. Mike Bellas, Cox Cable's vice president for commercial business services, says the number of his firm's business customers doubled in the last quarter, and claims his salesmen are so busy following up new leads that they don't even have time to make sales calls.
There is one serious drawback to this type of service, however, at least for New Haven businesses: Comcast has not yet made it available in New Haven (Comcast does say it is looking to introduce it “in the very near future”).
The hottest new technology in the area of high-speed data transmission is what is called Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) service.
DSL enables customers to transmit data at high speeds over regular phone lines. It does this by installing special equipment both on the customer's premises and in the telephone company central office that handles the line.
DSL service can deliver speeds of up to about 1.2 megabits per second - almost as fast as a T-1 line. And because it employs existing phone lines, its price can be modest.
The principal problem with DSL is that SNET has been slow to make the service available. A trial of the service began in Bristol, New Haven and Waterbury January 21, as a condition of the buyout of the company by SBC last year, but SNET spokesmen say they don't expect to be able to make DSL commercially available until 2000.
There have been complaints that SNET is dragging its heels with DSL. Industry sources say it only stands to reason that the telephone company would take its time introducing DSL, as this would cannibalize the more expensive T-1 and ISDN services they currently sell.
To such charges Hoshang Mulla replies that “Nothing could be further from the truth. The reason we're not going to promise to turn on the service overnight is we want to make sure the integrity of the service is preserved. We're going to offer it as fast as we can in a quality way.”
There are, however, smaller companies that are leasing space in telephone company offices in order to install the necessary equipment and offer the service independent of SNET. The first to make DSL available in Connecticut was ICONN, a business-only Internet service provider. ICONN currently supplies DSL service to about 50 businesses in New Haven, Hartford, Stamford, Norwalk and Bridgeport. Says ICONN president and owner Peter Sachs: “It works flawlessly. It hasn't even burped.”
Another problem with the DSL service SNET will provide, at least for some business owners, is that it will be ADSL - asymmetrical. It will have the same limitations as the high-speed data service offered by the cable companies. Mulla points out that research has shown that it is downspeed that is the most important, and
that ADSL will be particularly useful to companies with a large number of workers who want to telecommute (they mainly need to download files from the
central office).
However, it could also be that SNET plans to target primarily residential consumers with its service. Businesses for which a high upstream speed is important should note that some of the smaller companies offering DSL service are offering SDSL - meaning that it is symmetrical.
Yet another limitation to DSL service will be the requirement that anyone using it must be within a certain proximity (say, two or three miles) to a telephone company central office. Beyond that distance, speed drops significantly. Mulla notes that between 75 and 80 percent of the telephone company's lines are within the required distance of one of the 130 SNET Connecticut offices, and it is likely that most businesses would be included in that percentage. Still, it is a limitation to be aware of.
What does all this mean for consumers? Bill Kaliszewski, co-founder of Partner Communications Inc., a local telecom services and consulting company, points out that “What's nice for consumers is there's competition, and it's going to drive pricing down.” He predicts that over the next couple of years “there are going to be even more options available.”
Kaliszewski also notes that, while Connecticut may seem behind the eight ball in the area of high-speed data service when compared to such major metropolitan areas as New York or Boston, we are probably keeping pace with other states that don't include a major metro area.
Good advice at this stage of the game might simply be to keep abreast of the different developments, their costs and pros and cons. High-speed data service looks to be yet another area in which the informed consumer will be the one who will make out best. BNH
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