I conducted this study while searching for office space in New York City. It shows how on a purely cost for bandwidth basis, Verizon FiOS is a better value than all other types of Internet access for small businesses in New York City that need high-bandwidth Internet access.
Bandwidth in megabits per second (mbs) is listed downstream first and upstream second, ex: "50/5 mbs". Comparative value is expressed as $ per mbs per month. Upstream and downstream are averaged for this calculation. If downstream is more of a priority and upstream, then other services are even less cost effective as compared to FiOS.
Verizon FiOS (Fiber Optic)
http://smallbusiness.verizon.com/products/internet/fios/overview.aspx#plans
Bandwidth in megabits per second (mbs) is listed downstream first and upstream second, ex: "50/5 mbs". Comparative value is expressed as $ per mbs per month. Upstream and downstream are averaged for this calculation. If downstream is more of a priority and upstream, then other services are even less cost effective as compared to FiOS.
Verizon FiOS (Fiber Optic)
http://smallbusiness.verizon.com/products/internet/fios/overview.aspx#plans
150/35 mbs $210 per month (with static IP)
$2.3 per mbs per month, absolutely nothing else comes close to this value
TIME WARNER BUSINESS CABLE (Coaxial Cable)
50/5 mbs $290 per month
$10.5 per mbs per month = 4.6 times more expensive than FiOS
TIME WARNER DEDICATED INTERNET ACCESS "DIA" (Fiber Optic)
https://www.twcbc.com/NYC/Products/ProductDetails/dia.ashx
https://www.twcbc.com/NYC/Products/ProductDetails/dia.ashx
10/10 mbs $1500 per month
20/20 mbs $2000 per month
30/30 mbs $3000 per month
50/50 mbs $4000 per month
... up to ...
1000/1000 mbs $30,000 per month (that's a Gigabit up and down)
Prices are negotiable and require 1 to 3 year contracts.
$80–150 per mbs per month = 35 to 65 times more expensive than FiOS
RCN WIDEBAND (Coaxial Cable)
20/5 mbs $70 per month
40/5 mbs $120 per month
60/10 mbs $200 per month
1 year contract required.
$6 per mbs per month = 2.6 times more expensive than FiOS
T1 (Copper Wire)
1.5/1.5 mbs $100-$450 per month depending on provider and the number of lines
$133–300 per mbs per month = 58 to 130 times more expensive than FiOS
T1 service is widely misunderstood. Back in the days of dial-up and ISDN a T1 indeed was, "a lot of bandwidth". This perception persists despite business needs having far outgrown T1 and the availability of better options. It is actually the least bandwidth and least cost effective option. T1 does have a higher level service guarantee, but it provides the merest trickle of bandwidth.
T2
In case you are wondering, there is more or less no such thing as a T2 line.
T3 (Copper Wire)
45/45 mbs $5,343 per month (one year contract)
45/45 mbs $4,723 per month (two year contract)
45/45 mbs $4,343 per month (three year contract)
$96–$119 per mbs per month = 42 to 52 times more expensive than FiOS
ETHERNET OVER COPPER "EoC"
Prices quoted by Transbeam:
10/10 mbs $925 per month
20/20 mbs $2000 per month
45/45 mbs $4500 per month
$100 per mbs per month = 43 times more expensive than FiOS
Prices quoted by Verizon:
10/10 mbs $1,073 per month
$107 per mbs per month = 47 times more expensive than FiOS
WIRELESS
8/8 mbs $795 per month
$99 per mbs per month = 43 times more expensive than FiOS
CONCLUSIONS
Fiber optic cable is immune to most of the reliability problems that affect services delivered over copper wire or coaxial cable. FiOS offers VAST amounts of bandwidth for prices that are often 100 times less expensive than other options. It is not merely better. Nothing else comes close.
Even multiple T1 lines cannot provide the bandwidth small businesses need.
Time Warner Business cable is limited to 5 mbs upstream and therefore is insufficient for many businesses. However, it can be an affordable backup connection for a business. Because FiOS and Time Warner Business Cable are so much less expensive than all other options, a small business fortunate enough to have both available might decide to buy both and never worry about bandwidth or outages again.
Wireless Internet service offers limited bandwidth and comes with reliability concerns.
Availability of RCN Wideband is limited. When it is available, FiOS and Time Warner Business Cable are often not available making it the only cost effective option for businesses in buildings with RCN. It's maximum upstream of 10 mbs is better than it's most direct competitor, Time Warner Business Cable, but still rather limited.
The only service other than FiOS that is fiber optic is Time Warner DIA and it is prohibitively expensive.
A business that cannot get FiOS and needs more upstream than coaxial services can provide should expect to pay thousands of dollars per month for equivalent bandwidth. The spectacularly expensive EoC and T3 services are the only ones that provide bandwidth similar to Fiber, but cost about 100 times more. That's 10,000% more expensive. Both EoC and T3 are delivered over copper wiring and thus have all the potential reliability problems inherent in copper wires.
This analysis assumes a business needs at least 45 mbs downstream bandwidth and at least 30 mbs upstream bandwidth. For businesses with only modest upstream coaxial services are a viable option, but FiOS is always a better value if available.
I hope this analysis has been helpful and welcome your comments below.
NOTES
This is primarily a price study for high-bandwidth options for small business. A number of other options and important considerations have been excluded.
DSL was not considered due to it's upstream limits.
The best DSL options are usually 15/1 mbs or 1.5/1.5 mbs.
Satellite was not considered due to it's unacceptably high latency.
Lower bandwidth FiOS, Time Warner Business Cable and RCN Wideband options are available and were not considered because the cost of their best options is trivial compared to all other options.
It is believed that none of the services included in this study have maximum bandwidth usage caps, but this is not confirmed.
Inclusion and numbers of fixed IP addresses is an important consideration beyond the scope of this study.
This study generally assumes that critical services such as web, email, database and e-commerce hosting are outsourced or co-located and not hosted at the company's primary place of business. T1, T3 and EoC come with uptime service guarantees that FiOS, Time Warner Business Cable and RCN Wideband do not. The later, more affordable options are usually not suitable when 99.9% or better uptime is required. Put another way, it is almost always more cost effective to outsource or co-locate vital systems and buy inexpensive bandwidth for your place of business than it is to bring high-reliability, high-bandwidth connections in the form of T3 or EoC to your office.
Inclusion and numbers of fixed IP addresses is an important consideration beyond the scope of this study.
This study generally assumes that critical services such as web, email, database and e-commerce hosting are outsourced or co-located and not hosted at the company's primary place of business. T1, T3 and EoC come with uptime service guarantees that FiOS, Time Warner Business Cable and RCN Wideband do not. The later, more affordable options are usually not suitable when 99.9% or better uptime is required. Put another way, it is almost always more cost effective to outsource or co-locate vital systems and buy inexpensive bandwidth for your place of business than it is to bring high-reliability, high-bandwidth connections in the form of T3 or EoC to your office.
Fail over from a primary service to a backup service can be manual or automatic. Load sharing between multiple Internet connections is also possible. These are beyond the scope of this study.
Contracts are required for most of the services surveyed, including some where contracts are not mentioned.
