T1 or Business DSL

scottnguyen

I have three offices that will need to be connected and I would like to use pfSense for this. Largest office has 20 users, office #2 has about 10, and office 3 has about 5.

Question:

1. Is T1 a better choice than business dsl or even cable?
2. Can pfSense be created to handle a full-time static or even dynamic connection between sites; how in dynamic?
3. IPSEC okay as the constant vpn connection between office?

The T1 vs Business DSL question is more about adequate bandwidth and not pure reliability. T1 = 1.544 both ways vs Business DSL = depends (vendor considering - http://www.embarq.com/Business/InternetAndIP/HighSpeedInternet)

This is a medical facility, any thoughts?

chpalmer

What are your cable options?

How close are the facilities to each other? Line of site from the rooftops?

vito

I think you need to look at the kind of traffic you are going to push/pull across the pipe….

Will you have DC's at the other locations handling local file shares or replication?
Terminal Server for any host apps?
Printing?
Can you give a bit more info?

cmb

I'd get cable and DSL both if that's an option and the available speeds suffice. Generally both will be cheaper than a single T1, and in combination will provide significantly better availability.

jimp

@cmb:

I'd get cable and DSL both if that's an option and the available speeds suffice. Generally both will be cheaper than a single T1, and in combination will provide significantly better availability.

Generally, the big selling point of the T1 is the mean time to respond of about 4 hours, and 24x7 support backed by an SLA. I agree, though, they are still inordinately expensive (even for ISPs).

If DSL or Cable go down, they could be down for days. Granted, they're not both likely to go down at the same time unless there is some kind of natural disaster, but in that case a T1 would probably be out too.

thekurgan

I may be wrong, but with DSL/cable, aren't the upload speeds much lower than the download speeds? Just something to consider if you're pushing as much data as you're pulling.

jimp

@thekurgan:

I may be wrong, but with DSL/cable, aren't the upload speeds much lower than the download speeds? Just something to consider if you're pushing as much data as you're pulling.

That is usually the case, but in some areas the upload speeds of DSL/Cable exceed that of a T1.

It doesn't do that around where I am (yet?) but it really depends on your available providers and the products they offer in the area.