The Road Fast Traveled

Entrepreneur, April, 2001 by Ananda C. Kooser

Tired of being in the Information Superhighway's slow lane? Here's how to change gears.

DON'T touch that dial-up. You don't need it. We mean it--hands off. This isn't about sending e-mails to Grandma or stocking up at the Target.com online clearance--you're starting a business. You've probably already figured out that 56Kbps might as well be two cans tied together with a string for all the good it'll do you. When it comes to Internet access for your growing Web business, the parable of the tortoise and the hare just doesn't apply. You want the fastest rabbit you can get your hands on.

Even if you're hosting your Web site on somebody else's servers, where it can benefit from their high-speed connection, your office heeds speed, too. You need to conduct regular checkups on your site, send in updates, upload and download, and handle all that office e-mail. So when it comes to bandwidth, would you rather have a Yugo or a Ferrari? That's right--take the Ferrari.

In this column, we'll look at what's available for your business to connect to and give you a few pointers on picking out your new speed-demon Internet access.

ROUNDUP

* Cable: The same people that bring you Law & Order reruns 24/7 and in-depth coverage of lumberjack contests also supply cable modem connections. If you order cable Internet access, you won't get the Baywatch channel, but you will get speeds of about 1Mbps, up to a theoretically possible 5Mbps. And because access is through the cable line, you don't have to sacrifice a phone line.

Cable modem connections are also available through non-TV companies like Excite@Home (www.excite.com), Road Runner (www.roadrunner.com) and Verizon (www.verizon.com). Visit their Web sites to check availability and find a local dealer, or contact your resident cable provider.

If you're starting up from your living room, you can look into residential rates (beginning at about $50 per month), but if you're wiring up an office, you'll need to deal with the commercial or business department at the provider of your choice. Cable can be connected to your LAN through Ethernet to make it available to your network.

Comcast Commercial Online (www.comcastwork.com), for example, starts at $225 per month for a 256Kbps connection for one to eight users on a LAN. The installation cost will run you $1,295 for a basic install. Higher speeds will add to your monthly costs. Taking advantage of cable's full 1.5Mbps capabilities clocks in at $695 per month. Keep in mind that the listed speeds are burstable, meaning they represent the maximum the connection can achieve. Actual speeds will vary with the number of users and demand, much like a LAN.

* DSL: DSL is cable's main competitor. DSL works through regular phone lines at downstream speeds of up to 1.5Mbps--though, as with cable, actual speeds depend on how much you're willing to spend. DSL allows both voice and data to run simultaneously on the same line, so you don't need an extra voice line. Like cable, DSL is always on. While cable lines are shared, meaning more users can slow down the connection for everyone, DSL is a dedicated, unshared line. DSL speeds are more likely to be limited by your physical distance from your service provider's central office. Past a certain distance, the degradation of your average connection speed is so great that it's not worth using.

DSL is still expanding across the United States, so it's not available everywhere yet. Visit The List (www.thelist.com), an ISP buyer's guide, to search for options and providers in your area. Most major metropolitan areas are covered, but if your business is located somewhere out in the boonies, you might need to look elsewhere for your high-speed Internet access.

DSL can be fairly cost-effective when it comes to business services. Earthlink's Biz DSL (www.earthlink.net), for example, starts at $129 per month for 144Kbps. At the top range, the cost is $349 per month for speedy 1.1Mbps service. Initial equipment costs for installation run $499; a one-year contract is required. Compare this to the cable costs we looked at above. Prices will vary from ISP to ISP, so always shop around. Check with providers and with your local phone company for cost and availability.

* T1: While a T3 Internet connection is the stuff that IT workers dream about, hookup can cost $20,000 or more. So unless you're rolling in heaps of VC dough, a T1 connection is friendlier to your startup budget and still offers speeds of up to 1.5Mbps. It's also ideal if you're hosting your Web site on your own servers at your office instead of outsourcing. As with cable and DSL, connection speed is scalable. You'll pay more for more bandwidth. But if you're hosting and you expect a lot of traffic, you'll want to go with the higher connection speeds to avoid Web site slowdowns.

We visited Zyan Communications (www.zyan.com) to get an idea of what a T1 costs you. Monthly fees for average bandwidth range from $450 (for up to 128Kbps) to $1,450 (for more than 1,024Kbps). The set-up fee will run you $600 with a one-year contract or $1,200 without. Equipment costs must be taken into consideration as well. You can't just plug your modem in to a wall jack and connect to a T1. Budget in another $2,000 to $3,000 for a router and hardware. And don't forget the cost of on-site installation.