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Bandwidth in Little Rock, AR?
ioctl asks: "My company needs a 45Mb link from mid-town Little Rock, AR (University exit, I-630) to North Little Rock, AR (Wildwood exit, I-167). Our telco doesn't have any glass in the area, and wants about $800K over the next 5 years to build it out. We looked at another local provider who has the buildout already done, but their tech didn't show for the initial meeting (My boss: "He forgot it?!?!"). We've also looked into doing wireless via TCBY Tower (Proxim Tsunami or Aeras Networks Wavelink), but they are > $80K, plus rooftop space. Does bandwidth have to be this expensive? Are there any other possible solutions?"
I'm not familiar with the area, but you can MUX a handful of Ts together I suppose. If your still in the 0-mile area of a provider, that might not be too horribly expensive. I don't know what Ts cost out there tho. If you don't need more'n about 10Mbps, this might work. I think the most I've ever seen MUX'd is 8 Ts.
I'm no expert, but DS3 lines (capable of up to 45Mbps) run over copper just fine. You're probably better off if you can get fibre, but copper will do in a pinch.
my company just recently switched from an OC-12 to a pair of gigabit fiber connections between our Conway and Little Rock offices... no idea how much we pay per month for it, but SBC *was* able to do it.
Have you checked into Time Warner?
They have Metro Area ethernet in a lot of major cities, and pricing is damn good. Here in Minneapolis, I can do gigabit Fibre Channel between offices. Now that's just damn cool. Not sure about little rock, but it may be worth looking into. Time Warner Telecom has the benefit of being able to use Time Warner Cable's right-of-way. Which means that when they run fiber, they don't have to get permits and go through as much hassle because in the early 80's cable companies were granted huge rights which allowed them to pretty much run cable wherever they pleased without having to get permits. And, if your location makes business sense to TW, they will finance the cost of the install (like if there are other large potential customers in your building).
Although, for the recurring monthly cost of a link like this, after 10 to 12 months, you could have just paid for that wireless solution you were looking at. Keep in mind 802.15.3 wireless is coming out soon too, which will drop costs dramatically.
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My company just went with a new isp that apears to also be in Kansas City (dont know if they are in your area or not).
www.cogentco.com
100Mb for $1000/month
Full Fiber Network
http://www.nuvox.com is a CLEC that has a presnece in Little Rock. We have customers in the Little Rock area and have solutions available to customers such as yourself. We have different options available to you regarding this solution and would be happy to speak with you regarding this. I am in Little Rock and I am available for a discussion with you. Shoot me an email to discuss. gphillips@nuvox.com.
We thought about that, but it doesn't provide us with a hot-backup site. Latency would just be a little too high. =)
OK, my bad...
We are trying to do multiple things:
- AD Replication (not much bandwidth)
- SQL Replication (average usage isn't much, but overnight processes generate multiple gigs of changes, and have to be done before 5am)
- File Replication (Big bandwidth; scanned documents & the like)
- Line-of-business Apps (Big SQL bandwidth; they aren't very efficient, but we didn't write them, so... =P )
- VOIP for 24 lines (1.5Mb or so max)
We also need to be able to grow pretty significantly over the next few years.
Something else is that the LR location will be moving within the next 2.5 years, and most local telco's won't touch a short lease for this much bandwidth...
Have you checked to see if there is any unused municipal dark fiber?
In some areas there may be fiber owned by the city/state/county that is not being used.
It might be possible to get the rights to some of that fiber if your company has any relationship with the local govt... If not, a good alternative might be to dedicate a vlan and ports on your switch to have for example a library located at each location interconnected. You essentially would be providing the backbone hardware for the library / local city office...
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Time is on my side
Well, that worked out a lot better than I had anticipated... We called the local guys back, and they have now quoted us about $4650/Month for 100 Mbit/s fiber, and minimal buildout. This is probably just as well, because the rooftop space on TCBY tower would be about $1000/Month (found that out this morning). Anyway, thanks!