Overview

T-1 based

Verizon DSL

Failover

Connectivity Overview

General Steps to Determine Connectivity Needs:

1. Decide how much bandwidth or capacity or speed you need/want.
2. Of the technologies that are available in your area, determine what technologies can provide that bandwidth.
3. Decide if you need dedicated or switched connectivity.

How to determine the "size" of your connection:

This is actually a very hard question. To simplify it, you must decide what services you want to support over this connection. If you're just "surfing the web", then usually the question is financial - how much can you afford? But if you're running a mail or a web server, then the answer is based on how much mail and/or web traffic you expect to have.

The different types of connectivity technologies:

Connectivity technology types include analog modem, ISDN, xDSL, T1, etc. Each of these technologies have their advantages and disadvantages. Some technologies might be available in certain areas, but not in other areas. The different technologies have different bandwidths, capabilities, and characteristics.

Dedicated or switched connections:

Basically, there are 2 forms of connectivity - dedicated connections and switched connections. Connections that are permanently connected to the Internet we call dedicated connections. Connections that are sometimes connected to the Internet we call switched connections. A T1 connection is an example of a dedicated connection. A dialup modem is an example of a switched connection.