What is the Bandwidth of a T1 Line?

T1 Line -  Rates low as $359 with loop

Before you know the bandwidth of a T1 line you must understand a few things. Bandwidth is measured in certain standards. T1 lines are sometimes also called as DS1 lines. T1 lines are Time Division Multiplexed lines, also known as TDM lines. In technical terms DS1 is a building block of data transfer; it is a digital signal level.

The hierarchy of Digital signals starts from DS0 that is the zero level. DS0 can be defined as the bandwidth that we must have to facilitate one telephone call over an analogue telephone line.

In general practice of Pulse code modulation, a digital signal transfer technique, it takes eight channels to transfer 8 kilobits per seconds per channel that makes it 64 kbps. Engineers also refer to this as the gold standard of Toll Quality Voice. If a channel is capable of carrying 64 kbps of voice then it sure can be used for carrying equivalent amount of data. This is the underlying principal behind the T1 lines.

Each T1 line is a combination of 24 lines. Its not a simple bundling together. All the lines are multiplexed together. Therefore a single T1 line can be viewed as an intelligent bundling of 24 DS0 lines.

As told earlier, bandwidth of each DS0 channel is 64kbps, which means 24 times 64 kbps, which is equivalent to 1.544 Mbps. This is the actual bandwidth of a T1 line. But the bandwidth that is provided is 1.536 Mbps. Well the remaining eight kilobits are used for adding frames to the 24 DS0 channels. These framing bits helps the equipments placed at the receiving ends to identify different signals and then isolate them. Framing bits are also needed to keep the sent and received information in synchronization.

If you are a business owner and you host an array of servers like E-Mails, Web Servers and you have to provide Internet access for more than twenty people than you must go for a T1 connection.

It's not only the bandwidth but the reliability associated with it that makes it the perfect choice. A T1 line is never overloaded moreover it has low latency that means no frequent delays.