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I just started with a company and I've been asked to resolve a problem. I'm a jack of all trades and master of none so I'm looking for some help.

We have a remote site (8 PC's and 6 printers) with cable modem business class service (10MG download and 1MG upload) with a VPN connection back to the main headquarters. The users are using terminal services and establishing their own printer sessions. We are also using VoIP although I don't know how much voice traffic is going back and forth. I don't think it's significant.

I already think I need to upgrade the circuit, but am mulling over a T1 versus upgrading the business class service to 35MG down/5MG up. I also wonder if it would help to stop creating separate printer sessions for each user? Not sure of the pros and cons. The users primarily use Outlook and our distribution software which uses sQL as the DB. Any thoughts or comments are welcome. Thanks

Bill Weiss
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jim s
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    What is a `prts`? By `MG` do you mean MB or perhaps Mb even? Why are you mulling a T1? If you're having permformance problems with 10Mb down 1Mb up (assuming here that you mean Mb by MG) then a T1 isn't going to help. A T1 is 1.544Mb bidirectional. You'll get 50% more upload with a T1 but you'll be reduced to 15% of your current download speed. – MDMarra Oct 04 '13 at 20:12
  • Setup monitoring of your circuit. What is your latency when people say things are slow? How much bandwidth is the circuit using, and are you hitting your caps, which cap are you hitting? – Zoredache Oct 04 '13 at 20:12
  • Please clarify the problem and the question, is this about troubleshooting slow WAN, monitoring bandwidth usage, T1 vs 35/5 cable? Why would you consider going from 10/1 to 1.5/1.5 if bandwidth is a concern, are there reliability issues? – Ed Fries Oct 04 '13 at 20:13
  • I can tell you that 1Mbps for 8 TS sessions with printer redirection and VOIP and all the rest of the internet traffic at the remote office is woefully inadequate. – joeqwerty Oct 04 '13 at 20:23

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but am mulling over a T1

Before "mulling over a T1 as an upgrade to a 10/1 link" i suggest you read up on what a T1 IS.,

https://superuser.com/questions/53944/how-much-bandwidth-does-a-t1-typically-give

T1 is 1.544 mbit - it is ancient and OLD. it goes back to the ISDN standard, 30 phone channels combined.

Measure where you loose the bandwidth - PRINTER can be a SERIOUS issue, when all printer traffic goes down to your local place. Printer traffic is normally NOT optimized for remote links - i.e. it is QUITE uncompressed.

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TomTom
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  • Thanks for the feedback everyone. By "prts", I meant printers and yes I meant MB. The reason I mentioned a T1 is that it would dedicated to us and if I understand the cable modem connection, we are sharing with others? Unfortunately we don't have the means to monitor or measure what we have. All we have to go on is what the users are telling us. and we all know how users like to exaggerate. – jim s Oct 07 '13 at 19:39
  • Cable modem - yes, shared, but the bandwidth is a LOT higher. Depends how oversold it is..... but generally a T1 is a very very very low target to beat these days. – TomTom Oct 07 '13 at 20:08