internet bandwidth options

What i would suggest before making the move and if you haven't done already is to monitor your routers traffic (type)

You may also, look at something like a Dual wan router (get TWO adsl connections)

If you have alot of mail traffic you can simply create a load balance policy to route that traffic via the specified wan port
Most dual wan routers have QOS as well ;

http://www.draytek.us/enterprise-routers/2950.html

The draytek 2950 offers dual wan support (you would need two adsl MODEMS if you wish to connect to adsl lines to it) it has 5 Gigabit ports so you can uplink it to your GB ethernet ;

it offers a robust content security management, load balance, qos etc

I am sure you can easily get a 2nd adsl line and then you can calculate the cost to see which solution is cheaper.

hope that helps

Hi TxGeekGirl
unfortunately, you have not really answered my questions (btw: I do have a cable secondary line which is used exclusively for our FTP traffic).

The question I still don't understand is how T1 helps at 1.5Mbs versus current ADSL 6Mbs.  To me it means I am getting 1/4 the bandwidth (btw , almost all our traffic is down , not up).
So I am trying to understand why a T1 is considered a step up in network bandwdith when it is considerably slower for more cost (even if dedicated, we have no indiciation that our AdSL itself is not acheving close to 5Mbs throughout the day)

Go along with what mutahir is suggesting then, combine your existing secondary line with your adsl using a draytek 2820 or above and create a load balance rule to send all of your ftp through the cable line but also set it to use the cable line when your adsl gets congested.

Thanks all. I think the solution you are propsing Mutahir is certainly useful for investigation. I am assuming since I have an ADSL connection and a cable modem now, I could simply connect both telco supplied routers into the draytek and then have both connections avaiilable to the internet network as you have described. I'm suggesting this as I am unclear how/if I am able to replace the Telco managed routeres with this device - but by adding this device, it will just add one more hop to the network and shouldn't have any appreciable impact on network performance.

I'll mark the question as answered, but I would certainly still appreciate if ANYONE can answer the real question I asked. Yes, I can do what you are suggesting, but I'm still not sure why the distinction between T1 being the 'business pipe' over ADSL given the slower bandwidth and IF I wanted to move up in bandwidth, what is the next logical, cost effective move?

solution provided for increasing bandwidth using existing services but did not get an answer to next logical connection above ADSL and comparison to T1