T3 Internet Connection

T3 is also known as DS3.

A T3 connection is a point-to-point dedicated line that provides six-hundred-seventy-two 64 kbit/s voice or data channels or in other words 28 T1 lines. A T3 is used to transmit digital signals at 44.736 megabits/s and has enough bandwidth to transmit full-motion real-time video, and very large databases over a busy network.

Who Needs a T3 Internet Connection?

Likely buyers of T3 Internet connections consist of enterprise size business with high data demands such as large scale VPN, video conferencing, and corporately hosted application servers. Software development firms will often require throughput above and beyond the capability of a T1 to handle client upload and download traffic as buyers log onto FTP servers to access patches and newer versions of their product. The print industry is a voracious consumer of bandwidth also as they pass large graphics files to and fro. Local and regional ISP themselves will use T3 circuits as the backbone of their consumer oriented broadband delivery and just about any user of tier-one, carrier grade bandwidth that has outgrown T1 and NxT1 options is a likely candidate for T3 service.

Today's primary T3 users are high-traffic web sites, medium to large web hosting companies, medical centers, call centers, universities and government offices.

T3 Price

T3 lines are not cheap. Their high capacity makes them sought-after as the backbone of today’s Internet. Also, T3 lines are more complex than T1 - technically, they run 28 T1 lines alongside one another, and that takes extra equipment and software to work properly.

Now there are services that allow you to get free real-time T3 quotes, for example ShopforT3.

Can I share the cost of T3 service?

Yes. Businesses that don’t need constant T3-level bandwidth should consider a “burstable” connection, which involves sharing T3 access with another company or companies through the T3 provider. This gives access to extremely high transmission rates for much less than the cost of a full T3 set-up.