Depending on your area, DS3 isn't necessarily cheaper than 8 T1s. I know in some markets, I have to buy 16 T1s from Bell before it matches their DS3 cost. It just depends on the tariffs. I've never used MLF before, just MLPPP, but in my experience, MLPPP works for my customers better than load-sharing. The only problems I've seen, and I'm working one this morning, is that Cisco has its usual bug issues. I had one customer on 12.3(6) and there's about 19 known bugs between 12.3(6) and MLPPP, a lot of which aren't resolved yet. One even made you reboot if you added or deleted a T1 from the bundle or the MLPPP bundle wouldn't come back up. Diane Turley Network Engineer Xspedius Communications Co. 636-625-7178 -----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu] On Behalf Of Scott McGrath Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2004 8:12 PM To: Bryce Enevoldson Cc: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: Multi-link Frame Relay OR Load Balancing In my experience the breakeven point for a Frame Relay DS3 is 6 DS1 circuits. DS3's tend to be more reliable than DS1's as the ILEC usually installs a MUX at your site instead of running to the nearest channel bank and running the T1's over copper with a few repeaters thrown in for good measure. Another nice thing about DS3's is that it is easy to scale bandwidth in the future by modifying the CIR on your link. Another feature is that since the link is faster the serialization delay is lower which will give you better latency and last but not least PA3+ for Cisco 7[2|5]xx routers are inexpensive and give you one call for service not a separate call for the CSU/DSU's and the serial line card you need to support a multilink solution. Scott C. McGrath On Thu, 16 Sep 2004, Bryce Enevoldson wrote:

We are in the process of updating our internet connection to 8 t1's bound together. Due to price, our options have been narrowed to AT&T and MCI. I have two questions: 1. Which technology is better for binding t1's: multi link frame relay (mci's) or load balancing (att's) 2. Which company has a better pop in Atlanta: mci or att?

We are in the Chattanooga TN area and our current connection is 6 t1's

through att but they will only bond 4 so they are split 4 and 2.

Bryce Enevoldson Information Processing Southern Adventist University