Covad

Covad is one of those stable and efficient companies you can trust; what other company will offer invoice credit if they can’t guarantee a 99.99% monthly uptime for their service? Covad even adheres to sending out repair technicians and experts on weekends and holidays to keep your business running. That, my friend, is immediately a good proposition.

If you order the T1 service from Covad, you can expect a dedicated T1 line from them. Installation is done in as early as two weeks (and not to exceed 30 days from the day you placed your order) and the routers will only cost you the tax of the product price (depending on which router you choose and which state you live in). That being said, they provide service in just about every corner of the United States, and it won’t cost you an arm and a leg (prices roughly reach up to a moderate $519/month).

Their commitments are decent as well. Covad offers the average four hour limit for restoration time should there be a service outage and as stated before, their on-net network availability is at 99.99%; if any of these expectations are not met, you will receive credit on your next invoice.
However, as with any company, there are a few downsides. Covad’s commitment on their service’s latency is slightly poorer than others, set at 110 ms. They also offer no commitment on packet loss or throughput, which may make some wonder.

But even if you are wary, there’s no problem in giving it a try; Covad offers a 30-day guarantee in which you can decide for yourself whether their service is worth it. If it turns out it isn’t the right provider for you, they will refund everything and discontinue your service agreement without further obligation. How’s that for you?

The good: Good price for good service. You can find it almost anywhere in the United States, so you needn’t worry about your business location. The 30-day “test trial” is a definite plus, too.

The bad: Lacking in commitments in a couple of areas, but truth be told, it’s not really a big deal.

The bottom line: If you’re looking for a T1 service, I’d recommend Covad. The many good factors outweigh the few negatives for this company.