T1 vs frame relay

Frame relay is less expensive, very easy to setup, and one of the most common line type options all over the world.
It's very easy to expand and reliable.
The most tricky issue is about the cir. It's number, in %, indicates the line bandwith availability, thus a 64kb line with a 50% cir, means that under the worst conditions of the FR network, you will have al least 32Kb, and usually at night, when nobody is using the line, you may have the 64Kb BW.
Is much expensive to have a T1 og 64KB than a 128 FR with a 50% cir. T1 has allways 100%

Check your CIR (committed information rate) on your frame relay spec sheet and make sure you're talking apples to apples on bandwidth. A T-1 will always provide 1.54 Mbps. Frame relay links are oversubscribed because the carriers recognize that most data traffic is bursty in nature. Your frame relay offering may have an MBR (maximum burst rate) of T-1, but its CIR may only be 512 or 786 Kbps. If so, should you try and transmit when the link is crowded, any of your data over the CIR will be discarded.

Take a look at your needs. You may find you can be able to "grow" into a T-1 over frame. Or, you may have the need for a full T-1 now due to lots of delay-sensitive traffic like video-conferencing or huge data transfers like backupsacross the network.

Both technologies are mature and your carrier should be predicting 99.99% availability (if not more). Best wishes.
- ck

Connecting point to point from NJ to NY, I would definatly go with the Frame Relay. You might end up with a slower connection since the Frame Relay is a shared connection, but it's the best and most reliable way to connect from distances over 5 miles. Frames have a CIR (commited information rate) which is usually only 50%, but most of them can burst to 200% if the traffic on the telco is low, so it ends up being a pretty good deal in most cases. Before making your final decision I would recommend visiting boardwatch.internet.com and read up about some ISP's. And make some phone calls to your prospective ISP's and ask them what kind of saturation their network experiences, and what their CIR rate is for frame relay's. Hope this helps.

Go to www.itpapers.com and get an id and password to set yourself up for reading white papers. Frame Relay can be found under "Remote Access".

I've used both. I recommend that you go with the T1 if you can. Frame relay wasn't exactly reliable in the area I was working with it... but i do not know if it was the area or the fact that it was frame-relay.

Frame relay uses PVC (permanent virtual circuits)... these went down whenever winds took them down. It was an extremely windy area inparts of our WAN and we'd have to reprogram the routers each time. (Of course there were also power problems -- surges, brownouts, etc. up there too), which didn't help. It also was slower at the outlaying sites.

Changing the PVCs are possible,even uping the fractional or full t1 is possible to do. I won't say it is easy.

I recommend that you do further reasearch into it. See if you can find companies or people in your area using frame relay and ask them about how it has been. Look at the area you are trying to communicate across (does it cross multiple telephone companies?).

Well, you have gotton some pretty good answers above, however, I would like to mention that you can purchase your CIR just as you can purchase your bandwidth. Forexample you could have a frame relay 128, and most providers will sell the cir in 4k increments. You say the price comes out about the same for both, but with FRame relay you can purchase the bandwidth you need in smaller blocks. Both options are very reliable, however as mentioned many providers oversell their frame relay lines, so itreally depends on the area you are in and the provider you choose. I hate to say this but although some compapanies sell you CIR they can not always quantee you get this, I know because I had this problem with sprint and they only way the could resolve it was to put us on a less conjested backbone.
If possible, for what purposes do you need this? The reason I am asking is that I would consider using fast interent connections between offices as I think this would be a much cheaper alternative.It will not be as reliable for bandwidth, 100% of the time, but I just used this solution between a branch and head office in 2 different cities and it is working fine. (you will need to set up a vpn)
Good luck

Frame relay is definitely more flexible. More importantly, it is more reliable. If a dedicated T1 circuit is broken at any point in the line between your two sites, you lose the circuit. The only dedicated circuit involved in a frame relay network is the one that connects your site to the local switching office. From there, the frame relay uses a packet switching network. It can take multiple routes to the same destination. Therefore, if one route is inaccesible, the data is transferred via another route.

The dedicated T1 is definately more reliable and you'll see better performance. If the costs are really the same, go with the T1. The caveat being, if you forsee connecting other sites that are farther away (like CA or somewhere). T1 pricing is going to be distance sensitive where as Frame-Relay connections will not.

HTH

All of the tech discussions about the difference between frame an T1 are a moot point. The bigger issue is the carrier between your 2 sites. It would be wise to find a carrier that has their own network including local loop. Alot of the newer ISP's are just re-salers. If a problem arises (and it will) in many cases the finger pointing begins. If you can afford it a private T1 from a faclities based carrier it would be the best deal. You may be able to get fraq T1 with bandwidth on demand if you don't need the full T1 speed now. Check around and talk to some of the other IT managers in your buildings, then do your homework and check out your short list. Demand on a good SLA. Get the real scoop from the sales rep and make sure you know who all the players are if no one carrier can provide you with point to point connectivity. Good luck

What I find most interesting is that no one has mentioned yet the validity of the originally question. "What is the difference between a T1 and Frame Relay"? To anyone who knows anything about WAN technologies immediately see's a problem with this question. It's the equivalent of me asking "What's the difference between a SONY Cordless phone and AT&T"?. The two have absolutely nothing to do with each other yet they rely on one another to make a phone call. Make sense? All a T1 is, whether it bededicated, fractional or whatever, is the physical (layer 1) means upon how your Data gets from point A to point B. Frame Relay is an encapsulation (operates at both Layer 1 and Layer 2 of the OSI). That's all. Nothing more. You can run Frame Relay over just about any media type (ie: T1, ISDN, DSL, etc..). Hope this clarifies things a bit better.

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