Burstable T1 - Get a T1 line without bursting your wallet

In a few past articles, I’ve described fractional T1 and bonded T1 lines. Another option for those looking for more bandwidth for their business is burstable T1.

First off, burstable T1 gets its name from ‘burstable billing,’ the method of measuring bandwidth based on peak use. This is the most ideal solution for customers requiring very high bandwidth, but in bursts. It involves a full T1 line with all its bandwidth available all the time. The T1 service is sold with a set mount of monthly bandwidth. Measuring technology attached at the ISP’s end measures your bandwidth use, and if you exceed the allotted level of data, you would pay a premium.

The concept developed based on the idea that users use their Internet connections in bursts. When a page loads, bandwidth is sent in a burst and when it’s loaded, the user reads the page and data isn’t being sent or received; hence using the Internet in bursts. Burstable T1 can provide you to ‘burst’ to full T1 speeds of 1.544 Megabits without the cost of an entire T1 connection.

The beauty of a burstable T1 service is that it gives you a cheaper, but full T1 line for your business. Large packets of data can be sent or received quickly, but you don’t need to break the bank to have that availability. Here are some other benefits that a T1 line can give:
Reduced costs for users with fluctuating bandwidth needs or very high bandwidth bursts
Increased sales by improving the interaction time between your customers and your organization via the Internet
A manageable network by enabling usage statistics
Controlled bandwidth costs so you only pay for what you use

This “pay as you go” service can cost about half the price of a full bandwidth T1 line. The major plus of burstable T1 is that the highest 5% of bandwidth usage for each month is “free.” That’s how burstable billing works.

Billing is based on sustained usage levels during the month, as determined by traffic samples taken every five minutes, seven days a week. Your monthly charge is determined by the usage level under which 95% of samples fall. So lets say 95% of the samples taken in a month fall below 6Mbps. Your usage tier would be 0-6 Mbps. That tier would be at a certain rate, but the full bandwidth is still available should you need to use it. Burstable T1 connections are technically more complicated but are very cost effective and give high performance.