Use of bandwidth has increased radically in the last five years. Greater reliance on the Internet, faster processors, and more online transactions, have fundamentally changed commercial organizations’ use of high-speed services. T-1 circuits, at 1.54 Mbps (million bits per second), and 24 voice channels are no longer adequate for many small and medium sized organizations.

Video and remote access
Increases in video, which consumes enormous amounts of bandwidth, legal requirements to backup electronic documents, and remote access from home, hotspots, branch offices, and hotels have driven much of the up tick in data circuits. In addition, newer, robust internal networks can now support video conferencing at lower costs than sending them over the public switched telephone network. They also adequately support video from the Internet.

How much is enough?
Finding the correct balance between adequate capacity and costly excess bandwidth is important. Many organizations focus on saving money on equipment, but neglect to manage their network expenses. The first step in managing the network is determining the busy hour load on existing links. For example, if only 25% of a link is used, there may be too much bandwidth, while 85% in the busy hour may indicate a need in the near future for more capacity. Most carriers make these types of reports available on line.

Protecting mission critical connections
For many organizations, data connections are more important than voice lines. Reliance on the Internet, email and links between sites makes dependable data connectivity critical. Furthermore, failures in high-capacity links can bring organizations to their knees.

Protection from failures
Data communications connections fail for a number of reasons:

1. Malfunctions of electronics connected to the outside fiber cabling
2. Copper or fiber line cuts
3. Central office failures
4.  Natural disasters such as hurricanes, fires, floods, and lightening strikes
5. Breakdowns in internal routers and switches

Failure protection options

1. DSL because it is based on copper, not fiber for a portion of the outside cabling protects customers from many failures in fiber’s electronics.
2. Back-up wireless Internet access such as that provided by TowerStream and Pipeline Wireless because they are operational if copper and fiber lines are cut anywhere near customers’ sites and when central offices fail.
3. In addition, wireless services can be restored faster than wireline services after natural disasters because it is less labor intensive to repair a tower than to lay new cabling.
4. Customers often make arrangements for back-up data centers for more protection during natural disasters such as floods.
5. Second routers, and dual Internet connections in the event of a router failure.
6. Duplicate power supplies, to protect against the main cause of switch failures.

The most important ingredient in planning for protection from failures, and proper network configuration is knowing traffic levels, points of vulnerability, and determining the business case for paying for back-up services.