Office to Office Networking...

I am trying to figure out the correct terminology for the type of service i am trying to get setup for a company my sister works for. Basically they have 2 office and the ideal solution would involve them being networked together and one of the 2 having a T1 line. Back when I worked for an ISP they used things called a local loop to get a T1 installed but those same lines could also be used without an internet connection and would allow you to connect to offices together.

The two offices are a good hour and a half apart so wireless is out of the question. Does anyone know anymore info about what I am trying to do? I called bellsouth small business and they had no idea what a T1 even was. Obviously i reached the wrong department. Any help is much appriciated.

YOu can just set up a VPN server or somethign. If they have money get a Cisco VPN Concentrator they are the best fastest and most secure. I have had my VPN tunnel open for over a month...

I'd get a business class cable or dsl connection and then setup a VPN server on the T1 side. You'd tunnel in via VPN from the remote side. You could also get a T-1 on that side and VPN as well though it would obviously be a much more expensive solution.

Thanks for the replies guys. Actually VPN is secondary, i totally forgot about the main problem here. DSL and/or cable is not available in the area. The suggustions you guys are giving is great but vpn is only doable once a connection has been established. I use a m0n0wall at home to connect myself and a friend who has dsl as well and we have a little vpn tunnel going so that is what I would do once I have a connection setup. Basically a local loop is nothing more than a pair of copper wires (like a phone line) that is rated for high speed. In theory what is happening is a super long network cable is being run but its all trunked through bellsouth (or whatever carrier has the lines in that area) so there is no line degragation over the miles that its run. Does anyone have experience with networks of this sort?

Depending on the budget of this company, you can either go with a very simple solution or a moderate solution that will cost more money but will be more efficient down the road...

First, you have to look at your bandwidth requirments. What are they?

Second, yes, you can do VPN through Cable/DSL.

Also consider a fractional DS1, possible 512/512 or if they have a cheesy network, something like 256/256.

What you are refering to is a Point to Point DS1 link, a telco will provide you with a dry pair between the two locations, all you have to do is put proper equipment on both ends.



I would suggest going with Cisco 2610 routers with DS1 WICs.

Yes, what pluslabs said.

Round these parts it's often called a point to point T1, it is often a clear channel circuit so you put a router at each end and use them in bridge mode.

The routers would have an ethernet conenction on the back in addition to the port for the T1, then you just plug in your networks and it's a transparent connection.

You can also do other cool things with the T1 line, like channelise it and use some of the channels as voice lines.

Awesome now we are talking. As for funds, I do want to try and keep it on the low end, the idea would be to use this Point to Point setup and then have a T1 installed at either location, or i suppose a DSL connection would suffice. You say 512/512, is that using the DS1 point to point? I figured if it was just a curcuit i could get much better speeds than that... unless thats not kbps. Who would i call for such a service? And what if the two phone lines are through different companies? It looks like one line is through Alltel and another is through some other company i've never heard of that gives them a good deal. As for the routers, I am sure I can pick those up for a reasonable price.

Thanks guys for the help.

Valve1138....

where I used to work we had these PRI lines that were 24 channels each and were used to connect up people to our acend boxes, that was for 56k dialup at the time. I remember we used a few of those channels for voice and the rest for dialup customers, how much bandwidth can you get out of a 24 channel line? (assuming thats a T1 or whatever) I would think that the telco would be much more willing to give up bandwidth between to office at a low cost than to the internet, I remember back in the day (probably still now) you had to pay for a local loop on top of the T1 but I think a lot of places are combining the cost, i got a quote for a T1 into my apartment and they said something like $300 inc. local loop. and yeah for that price i didnt expect a 99.9% SLA