What's needed for a leased line (T1) to connect two offices

I have never seen the telco require you to provide you own equipment to provision the T1.  If you are using it for just voice or for just data they usually require you to have your own equipment.  But when you are using both they usually provide a router that give you an RJ45 jack for your data, and then RJ11 jacks for your voice.  Talk to you telco and find out exaclty what they will provide and what the require from you.    

Is this a Point to Point Circuit?

With some of your description it sounds like it is (ie need to have equipment on both sides), but others it doesnt (with the voice particularly).

The easiest thing to do would to order a T1 point to point leased line (or fractional T1 if needed) and purchase routers for each side of the circuit and either and internal (inside the router) or external CSU/DSU. The telco will provide the rest. (you dont need firewalls on both ends if it is a point to point and you are using your primary network gateway as the internet connection.
Then you can order POTS lines for the new office for voice.

If you need to have the new branch on your phone system or something, look into Voice over IP and run it all across the T1.

Are you trying to split out the voice channels from the T1 yourself?  I believe that some adtran products allow you to separate voice channels on a T1.

It is a point to point T1.  Something I forgot to say is all voice call need to come back thorugh the T1 to us,  We do want inter office dialing, so for that we will need to come accross the T1.  

The phone guy we use is saying that we need to seperate the phone lines off of the T1.  I believe that is the ADTRANS role.

As to VOIP, it's a great idea, but it is to costly at this point for us to change to.

IBCIT, I've been looking at the ADTRAN site as well as my Newton's telecom dictionary and, I think the CSU/DSU is what they are refering to.  Will the DSU/CSU allow me to setup voice and data traffic on the T1?  What I'm being told is that there is an RJ45 ( i think) that comes out of the adtrans that plugs into our switch; additionally, there is a connection that would plug into our router.  Then from the adtrans ( which I now believe to be the dsu/csu ) I configure which traffic goes where.  Is this correct?

Based on your comments, it appears that the firewalls are not necessary.


Thanks for the help and contiued dialog.

I do not have experience splitting up a t1 line with adtran equipment, but the DSU/CSU is used to convert the data circuit provided from the telco to your network, it is just one piece that will be needed.

Here is something to look at..
http://www.cisco.com/application/pdf/en/us/guest/products/ps274/c1650/ccmigration_09186a0080091b9c.pdf

This is a WIC card by cisco that is supported by their 2600 series and up routers, this will eliminate the need to purchase an external CSU/DSU and possible the adtran as it appears to be able to seperate the voice/data on the router?

Not 100% sure, there are others here who have experience with this, but it may be a good start.

IBCIT and Pete C, Thank you, things are getting clearer.

Pete, Let me make sure I understand before going forward.  I need a CSU ( Channel Service Unit ) for the phone companyu to terminate into.  Additionally, I need a DSU / CSU ( Digital Switching Unit / Channel Sharing Unit ) On both ends of the point to point T1.  The ADTRANS TSU series is a possiblity as you indicated.  Potentially, we will also need a router at both ends.

Does this sound right?

Thanks again.  I really appreciate the help.

No, the DSU/CSU is all one uinit.  It has the CSU built in.  

Here is an Adtran that should do what you need, it has models for fixed voice ports (4,8,12,16,24) and T1 (DS1) telephone connections and a built in router.  Your PBX person will help you out with which one you need..

http://www.adtran.com/adtranpx/Rooms/DisplayPages/LayoutInitial?ProductCategory=com.webridge.entity.Entity%5BOID%5B95F55165D1E2A0478B831E5C3441DB9B%5D%5D&Product=com.webridge.entity.Entity%5BOID%5BFB578AAC8DEE984A8E10713C9B6AF40D%5D%5D&Container=com.webridge.entity.Entity%5BOID%5BCE66FF0630F752468BB8BF128F4B5779%5D%5D

If you go down the list you will see the different models for analog voice (fxs & fxo type of ports) and digital interfaces (DSX-1).

Pete

Forgot one thing-

You may also have a different unit on each end- One with a DSX-1 interface on it (normally on the HQ end) and the other with analog interfaces on it (remote end).  Everything you see with analog or DSX-1 is refering to the voice portion of the application.

Hope this helps.

Pete, one last queston.  Could we buy say 24 voice channels and provision 4 voice and 20 data?  That way we could grow into the TSU.  Pete the points are yours.

Remember that a T1 is only 24 channels, how you split them up doesn't matter as long as they don't exceed 24.  You can start with a smaller amout but- read on:

You can buy just about any fractional T1 you need starting with 2 channels.  It comes down to cost effectiveness.  If the locations are within the same LATA (new term, I will explain), in the same general area or another way to look at it is if you can make a telep[hone call from one location to another without long distance charges.  If this is the case you will end up buying the entire T1 because the local telephone carrier (Qwest in my case) can only sell you the entire T1- they are dedicated the wires to your businesses.  You can then split it as you want.

If you have to make a long distance call (in most instances), you will end up speaking to a carrier (MCI,AT&T, Sprint) to get your T1 from.  They will allow you to split the T1 into smaller chunks because the only fully dedicated peice of the T1 is the local loop- from the carriers office to your offices.

Alright, now that I have fully confused you-

#1- If the only carrier you use is your local carrier- you will end up buying the entire T1, use it all up .
#2- If you remote site is a long distance call, you should be able to parse the T1 into chuncks you want and grow it.

I know it is confusing- let me know who your carrier is and if the remote location is 'a long distance call' away.  I can tell you exactly what to do.

Thanks
Pete

Pete, Thanks for the explanation.  I understand the difference between interLata and IntraLata.  Used to work at WilTel writing software for the data side of the house.  I carrier is looking like it will be easytel.
They are a local carrier.  We will go into their network cloud and not leave it for the internet but right back out again.  that would make them an intralata provider.  As to parsing up th elines, I'm just thinking about voice growth.  
4 lines may be ok to start with but eventually it won't be.  I can see us going to 2 T1's in a couple of years.  I just want to spend the money wisely.

Thanks for the help.

Thank g-- that you understand lata's, their hard enough to explain in person much less over a chat!

Verify that the T1 will NOT be hittinig the Internet at all.  If it is we will need to add firewalls.

As to the growth- An old rule of thumb for voice lines (non sales or telemarketing personnel) is 1 voice line for every 3-4 people.  But, there are many questiosn to be asked-

1- Faxes over the lines?
2- Are these only for interoffice or for outside dialtone and calls?
3- Does the remote office have a PBX/Hybrid system or a Keyset system, what I am really after here is- can the remote phone switch handle a T1?
4- If the office grows, VOIP may be an option.  The Adtrans will still work we just wouldn't use the voice side of it anymore.
5- Start with the 4 lines, ask your telephone person if the host system can run reports on line usage.  If so, track the usage every month or so.  It will tell you how often the lines are being utilized.  If you are getting to the 60-75% range then you should put in another line.

Once the 1st T1 gets to 12/12 voice/data config or when the users complain about slow data, then I would look at either VOIP/voice compression or adding a second T1.

Good Luck!
 

Pete, Management has taken a U Turn on me.  They've spoken with our phone guy who has convinced them that we can do the same thing with DSL
lines for data.  For voice that want to use POTS lines and not go across the T1 at all.

I'm thinking we can use a couple of SONIC wall appliances.  We're looking at the PRO 2040.  We'd use one on both ends.  I'm guessing I will need a router
to rout the traffic back and further over the VPN.  ANy words of wisdom on how to do this?

I really appreciate your help.

Typical phone guy, many of them don't understand their own phone switches and how to operate them in a WAN.  My guess is that the phone switches you have installed are not capable of handling a T1 connection and the phone guy wants to keep it that way. Also, he probably is an agent for the local telephone provider and would lose you as a client if you went with the new carrier.

But, it doesn't matter if the management wants to go cheap and DSL.  First you should figure out what applications you want to run accross the VPN.  And how many people will be hitting the Internet through the firewalls.  What we have to do here is try to get a measure of where we are at today and what expansion are we going to run into tomorrow!  DSL is not my first choice, it wonderfully cheap but- you get what you pay for.  If you want to 'play' with your telephone guy a little bit tell him you are going to get cable Internet service and not the DSL.  

Seriously, if you can get a commercial grade/static IP addressed service from the cable company I would go that route.  Otherwise you will need static IP's from the service provider.  Also, will you be putting up any email/webservers on the network?  If so, we should get a unit with at least 3 interfaces and the ability to do a DMZ/bastion LAN.

The firewall units themselves should be able to terminate the service through the DSL or cable.  You will need to set up a site-to-site LAN, pretty easy to do if you use the same equipment on both ends.  Any name brand firewall (Sonic/Watchguard/Cisco/Nortel/Symantec will do it.  I would just make sure we size them to allow for expansion.

Sorry about the rambling I too have had management do stupid things lately just in the name of "Save a buck now! Worry about it later" thinking.

Pete, I've discovered the best SBC (God help us) can do for us is 1.2 down 384 up.  This effectivly limits us to 384.  I'm wondering if it is possible to aggregate two dsl lines together to get more bandwidth.
I am checking into cable, however I'm not hopefully.  The reason is we are the first building in a new industrial park, and there no service of any kind yet.  Sometimes it sucks to break new ground.

I sure appreciate your help.

Cable probably won't be available but its worth a shot.  It is going to be difficult to aggregate, you would need to run BGP- not a solution for a small company.  You can bandwidth manage or prioritize traffic based on IP but then you will need a better router- Cisco 17xx/26xx.

Here is what you should do, it will require you to go around the management but you can explain that the DSL will cause more issues and less efficiencies (sp) because of the uplink speed.

Go to SBC and compare the cost of the POTs lines (probably 4-5 @ $30-$50each) plus the DSL (probably business grade at $100-$200/month).  Compare this to a 'blended T1' like we were speaking about.  Check to see if SBC offers the service or you can go to any of the carriers.  Another one I have used is a company called Broadwing (used to be Focal).  Theyt turned up a compressed/multiplexed T1 with 12 voice (local service) and 1.5Mbps of Internet in 10 days.  They supplied all the equipment and were wonderful to work with, stay away from the McCleod's/XO/Eschleon's of the world and try to stay with one you know about.

You still can do the POTs lines, they will just be coming in over the T1.  Does your site have telephone system?  Or are you have indivdual telephone lines coming in and going into a  multiline telephone?

What we arre looking for is a T1 with local business lines- probably 3-6, with 8-12 channels of Internet access  (512-768Kbps).  This will handle you VPN unless you are doing a bunch of DOS or print jobs.  You probably can get the carrier to throw in installation and maybe voicemail for the lines.  Monthly charges should be in the $400-600/month range.

Where are you located at? I can probably recommend a few.

Thanks
Pete

We are in the Tulsa OK area with our 2nd facility in Claremore OK.  Claremore seems to be the bigger problem.

I appreciate your help.  It seems that SBC will be the local loop provider.  There aren't many choices in Claremore.


Thanks
Pat

Try Wiltel, you know about them and their network.  I have always liked their stuff.  And, of course they will be in OK!

They should be able to provide local dial tone also, as least they can give you one of their resellers. If your HQ is also looking at changing, it wouldn't be a bad idea to get everything under 1 carrier.

Let me know if you need help.