The Drawbacks of Repeatered T1
The physical qualities of copper wire make high-speed signal transmission difficult. But as necessity is the mother of invention, engineers designed a way to move signals at relatively high speeds over copper. The system that was devised is based on repeaters, and today much of the industry refers to the local loop T1/E1 as repeatered T1/E1.
Inherently, copper wire distorts signal quality, so repeaters or amplifiers are used, tapping into copper cable at prescribed intervals to restore signal quality. And therein lies the problem. In and of themselves, repeaters are rather unsophisticated electronics devices, and in today's T1/E1 operating schemes, they need to be installed every 3,000 or 4,000 feet or 1 km . It's a time- and labor-intensive process.
Repeatered T1/E1 has a number of significant drawbacks.
- The cost to install a repeatered T1/E1 line can reach several thousand dollars.
- Installation is an arduous task, requiring a significant amount of labor; due to required circuit design and line conditioning. The process can take several weeks for one line.
- Typically, repeatered T1/E1 yields poor signal quality when compared to fiber optics and HDSL.
- Each segment of the line has to be checked between pairs of repeaters; wire pairs must be selected carefully to avoid crosstalk; service records must be searched; bridged taps need to be removed; if suitable pairs can't be found new cable routes need to be engineered and constructed.
- Installation of repeaters may require re-engineering.
- Repeaters may be numerous, and upon failure, troubleshooting and maintenance is costly.
- To reconfigure repeatered T1/E1 lines for additional services, repeaters have to be physically removed at an additional cost.
- All of this labor comes at a time when public and private organizations are reducing workforces
All of these drawbacks pointed to the need for a better way of delivering advanced digital services to end users.
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