How to Test Your T1?

lawpoop asks: "We have a T1 line for our building with a local ISP. Right now, we're looking for competitive bids from different companies. The local guy is offering a good price, but the larger guys are saying he may be overselling the T1 service through a DS-3. He swears he's not. So, how do I tell? The sales guys say 'There's bandwidth meters on the web,' but they fail to mention exactly how I can tell if I have a true T1. I've tried a half-dozen bandwith meters on various websites, and the results are highly variable. We've gotten 300-900 Kbps. Each site has disclaimers as to internet traffic, time of day, etc. Furthermore, we split the T1 out over a hub with two other tenants in the building. I'm coming through from behind that hub. How can I tell for certain that I'm getting a full T1? A service tech with a line tester? Any dead-on bandwith meters? What would an oversold T1 read out to be as compared to a true T1? If the larger guys are trying to scare me to their service with stories of oversold T1s, I need to know that they aren't doing it also!"

Comments

A Full T1 is ...

[Cytlid]

24 channels of 64 kbits apiece. We sell T1s to customers, and if one of them wanted a util to test their bandwidth (the full 1.544 mbit) they could download a file from an ftp right at our pop. Or, have them ping flood you... use something like mrtg to graph the results, etc.

ISP built in Bandwidth meter.

[josquint]

I've noticed with a few of our local smaller broadband companies that they will have a diagnostic bandwidth meter on their website.

The advantage to that is there is no 'internet traffic' delay to speak of because its basically a direct connection from one end of the line to the other. They've found it to be an invaluable diagnostic tool for tech support.

I'm guessing not to many larger companies are going to do this, that and "fixing" the meter to their advantage is always a possibility :)