Question : WAN connection

Hi! there,

I am not a WAN engineer but I get this very often. What are the options available to connect a rural small office to a branch office? lets assume there is an internet access and also no internet access?

Thanks,

Zak

Answer : WAN connection

Using the Internet is easy, use VPN like jgmontgo suggested.  You can use software or hardware devices for this. Just one "watch out for", you will not get guaranteed throughput between the offices.  Your performance will be based on many factors beyond your control.

With the Internet, you have few options.  They are all based on distances between the two sites.  You can use Wireless, microwave, satellite, leased point-to-point circuits, dial-up analog circuits, dial-up ISDN, or managed network over a frame relay cloud.  Now  with all of these you will get fairly predictable performance, it may be very slow (dial-up analog), but it will be predictable.  I am also not sure where you would be located where you could get satellite, leased point-to-point, ISDN, or managed network without getting Internet.  But I am sure that it could be possible.