WEB HOST SISP S CONNECTIVITY

WEB HOST’S/ISP’S CONNECTIVITY

You also need to consider the size of the pipe of your web host/ISP. When searching for the best ISP for your self-hosted web server or a web-hosting service to host your web server, ask pointed questions about their connectivity strength. If you expect your website to receive say, a million hits a month, then find a service that can provide you with sufficient data feed, that means the provider must have T-3 and/or optical carrier lines.

Here is a quick tutorial to help you understand what these different data feeds provide.

T-3/E-3

A T-3/E-3’s (also known as DS3) data carrying capacity is about 45 Mbps with 672 channels, each channel having a 64 Kbps transfer capacity. This type of service is very expensive and overkill for all but the largest, most popular websites (and websites offering multiple video streams). Many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) use T-3/E-3 lines as their connection to the Internet backbone.

Even if you feel that your website might need a T-3/E-3 data stream, first consider using inverse multiplexing (the reverse of ordinary multiplexing, which combines multiple signals into a single signal). Generally, inverse multiplexing across even eight T-1/E-1 lines is less expensive than going the T-3/E-3 route.

Inverse multiplexing speeds up data transmission by dividing a data stream into multiple concurrent streams. Those streams are transmitted at the same time across separate T-1/E-1 channels and are then reconstructed at the other end back into the original data stream. It is a technique commonly used where data in a high-speed local area network (LAN) flows back and forth into a wide area network (WAN) across the “bottleneck” of a slower line such as a T-1/E-1. By using multiple T-1/E-1 lines, the data stream can be load-balanced across all of the lines at the same time.

Optical Carrier (OC)

The term “Optical Carrier” describes fiber optic networks that conform to the Synchronous Optical Network standard for connecting fiber-optic transmission systems (commonly known as the “SONET standard”). Fiber optics is a technology that uses gloss or plastic fibers or threads to transmit data. A fiber optic cable consists of a bundle of fibers or threads, each of which is capable of transmitting messages modulated onto light waves.

The SONET standard also defines a hierarchy of interface rates that allow data streams at different rates to be multiplexed. SONET establishes OC leaves from 51.85 Mbps to 2.488 Gbps. The standard OC levels include:

• Optical Carrier Level 1 (OC-1) offers data speeds up to 51.85 Mbps.
• Optical Carrier Level 3 (OC-3) is actually an optical carrier with three 51.84 Mbps multiplexed OC-1 circuit streams on an underlying SONET/SDH circuit and thus offers data speeds of up to 155.52 Mbps.
• Optical Carrier Level 3-c (OC-3c) is actually an OC-3 circuit with the three OC-1 lines concatenated into a 155.52 Mbps circuit (used in ATM transmission).
• Optical Carrier Level 12 (OC-12) offers data speeds of up to 622.08 Mbps. An OC12 line can handle over 400 times more data than a T-1/E-1 line. Some Internet Service Providers, especially those that also offer web-hosting services, often provide OC-12 connectivity to the Internet backbone.
• Optical Carrier Level 24 (OC-24) offers data speeds of up to 1244 Mbps or 1.244 Gbps. Canada is at the forefront in deployment of OC-24 service. Both Le Groupe Videotron Ltee (the second largest cable service provider in Canada) and Videotron operate and own more than 2484 miles of installed fiber-optic cable and fiber-optic infrastructure throughout the province of Quebec. Among Videotron’s product mix is transmission of its multiplexed signals using OC-24 service.
• Optical Carrier Level 48 (OC-48) offers data speeds of up to 2488 Mbps or 2.488 Gbps. The Abilene, which connects regional gigaPops to form the Internet2 network, runs over a OC-48 fiber optic cable.
• Optical Carrier Level 192 (OC-192) is the newest SONET interface rate. It offers data speeds of up to 9.952 Gbps.