Unified Technology Solutions

Setting up a New Office: Internet Access

UTS has been growing and our current office has become too small for our needs, so for the past month we have been looking for a new office location to meet these needs. While we haven’t made our final decision yet we have a few good locations under consideration. Experience setting up offices for clients has taught us to consider that you have to consider more than time, cost, and location when choosing an office location. An often overlooked consideration is access to available high-speed Internet access, while Internet access is available almost everywhere these days it is not equal everywhere.

DSL speed depends on your distance from the phone company CO (Central Office). In recent years phone companies have started running fiber optic lines to remote connection boxes throughout their service area called DSLAMs (Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer), and this has allowed high speed DSL to be available in many more areas. But the phone company puts DSLAMs in areas of high density to get the best return on their investment, so if you are in a very rural area, or on the edge of a DSLAM area you may not be able to get the maximum speeds available.

Cable Internet has much higher range because of the use of shielded coax cable, but the cable system was very expensive to build out, and many areas without a high density of homes or businesses may not have cable available, or the cable company may put the cost of extending the service to your location onto you (I’ve seen quotes in the $1000′s of dollars).

T1 lines are available most anywhere phone service is, but T1 lines are still relatively expensive ($600 – $1000 a month). While they have many advantages over DSL or Cable they are a much slower download speeds, and for most normal offices the benefits don’t out way the cost for most offices.

Stay tuned for more info on our new office.