In today’s environment, companies in Hurst, Texas depend on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their organization. All companies depend on reliable and quick Internet access. This is true no matter how large or small the business.
In the months and years ahead, people and businesses will become more reliant on internet access.
From email messaging to information sharing, e-commerce to archiving data, and voice over IP to video chat, the net is omnipresent. What is the best fix to meet your requirements? Can a cable modem suffice? Your needs may point to Metro Ethernet as a solution. Is Gigabit Internet right for you? Does your company in Hurst need one of these: 10 Meg access to The Internet, a 100 Meg access to The web point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?
Your organization must assess its real needs. This must be done before an appropriate service can be chosen. Is Internet use limited to website surfing or emailing only? Is the net used for real-time data connection with servers in the cloud? You may be hosting the data in Hurst and remote locations rely on this.
How would an outage to your high-speed Internet affect your organization? Can your company afford the downtime? Does your company require uptime? Prior to making any purchases, you must determine the answers to these questions.
It is no secret that all companies need high-speed access to the net. Deciding on the right broadband internet is not easy. It requires a thorough cost-benefit analysis. You will hear providers use terms like:
… be sure not to forget what capability and technical solutions meet your business’s specific needs.
Companies in Hurst need access to the net for their employees. Some companies may need it only for a few people and others may need it for the entire workforce. Whether it is to speak with shippers, do research or place orders, access to The net is required.
Perhaps the size of your work force may determine the solution that best fits your needs. A smaller Internet circuit may be enough if you only have a handful of workers. Perhaps a 5 or 10 megabyte is all you need. If you have more than that, you may need more.
Do your employees primarily use an intranet system? If so, you may not need much high-speed Internet service. On the other hand, Internet speed becomes dramatically more important when they are required to regularly download things like documents or videos.
Are you performing backups? You may need to support simultaneous connections to the web in order to sync your backup data. If you conduct remote backups from every workstation, which is advisable, this will be important.
Does your company require employees to share files using a service like Google drive or DropBox? When people save a file, it gets pushed to the cloud. The file is then synched with other people’s computers. You need to have sufficient bandwidth to support this function while also supporting every other service.
Your company location may cause you to think about high-speed organization access to The net such as Metro Ethernet and/or gigabit Internet. They are usually contained in “lit buildings” in Hurst that have already been wired by a carrier. Choosing to add high-speed Internet to your office is a tough decision but it can be less expensive and easier than you think.
While it may be the case that bringing Metro Ethernet into a new building can cause a big dent in your wallet, bringing the connection to a suite or offices within that building does not have to. In fact, obtaining high-speed access to The net with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less depending upon availability.
Ask yourself this: Does we host our own servers to run APIs, websites and data feeds to external offices or organization premises? Is your main business office with a hosted application accessed by 40 or even 50 branch office sites? Are you a retail organization with 10, 000 stores? Do you host the POS system for all of them? Does your legal practice host all of the data for 3, 4 or 5 offices in different locations?
When data, programs, or information is hosted centrally, those outside your office must gain access. Those people are not able to work without a solid Internet connection. When deciding on the right intranet solution for your company, ask yourself: Is the solution going to adequately support simultaneous and multiple connections from my different places?
For a single office surfing the web, a cable modem or inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be sufficient. For headquarters, Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed Internet dedicated circuits is advisable. High-speed alone is not enough. They must also need to be capable of supporting many diverse connections. A cable modem would not be able to accomplish this.
Bringing in a less-expensive circuit like a cable modem often comes with a price. There may be a lower monthly rate, but bandwidth is usually shared with many tenants. During peak use hours, you may not be able to reach proper speeds. Cable operators differ but many have prescribed limits on the bandwidth amount that they can deliver within a set community. Different buildings and tenants housed or working within those buildings all share that set amount of bandwidth. While you may be capped at a 30 Meg speed, you may never be able to reach that speed during organization hours. Will there be trouble if your expectation is set at 30 but you only get 8 or 10?
You can find a carrier who can provide dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. In this scenario, the bandwidth is fully allocated to you and your company or organization. No one else uses it. You should receive full capacity of your circuits during all hours. This is true even though you may have many buildings, businesses and tenants nearby.
Five Meg, ten Meg, fifty Meg and 100 Meg circuits of guaranteed bandwidth are available with Metro Ethernet. You can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit Internet providers.
In these scenarios, providers deliver a large quantity of high-speed to a building. The quantity must be enough so that it can split the circuit and deliver to every tenant. Whatever amount has been guaranteed in each tenant’s contract is the amount they receive.
You can’t control everything. Even with the superior Internet bandwidth products that some carriers offer in Hurst, Texas, problems arise and circuits can fail. In what way can you diminish the risk of an outage?
Try using redundant circuits.
We are primarily talking about two kinds of redundancy.
With the first type of redundancy, you receive multiple circuits from the same carrier. Redundant circuits can help protect against certain problems. They can mitigate the inconveniences when there is a failure of a physical line or a problem with the port into your router. If that carrier has a wide reaching outage or there is a line broken or damaged outside of your building, both circuits may go down. While offering some protection, it is not without risk.
Utilizing circuits from two different providers is the second kind of redundancy. By using IP address allocations and certain routers, you can bind your connections. By doing this, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. In reality, they are completely separate and redundant to each other. While circuit redundancy in general is a good idea, diversity redundancy by using different providers, offers far better protection. If one carrier has a widespread issue, you have a carrier that will still be alive.
You should look for redundant circuits from carriers in Hurst, Texas that do not have the same physical geographic pathways, in order to get the most redundancy. Essentially, this just means that you do not want both of your circuits to enter the building on the same side. They should come in on different sides. The circuits would be attached underground or to telephone poles, in various directions. The circuits would go to different data centers or central offices. If a major accident occurs or there is a fire that impedes the function of circuits in a particular region, you have redundancy in a different direction.
Internet access costs money but the cost of NOT having reliable Internet access is greater. Please think about the following scenarios:
The carrier you use for your cable modem also provides circuits for a dozen or more tenants in the office building. What if any or all of those tenants are huge call centers taking in a massive volume of phone calls, are organization that perform large file downloads or stream many videos? How will your telephone calls be affected as the amount of available bandwidth decreases? What happens to the quality of that phone call? Are the calls going to be dropped? Will the calls be choppy?
Your office is the hub of your company, whether you are a retail business operating a distributed point of sale (POS) system, an accounting firm sharing databases or a law firm engaged in file sharing. All of your locations, whether 2 or 2000, rely on your primary Internet connection to access and retrieve data. Your circuit goes down, now what will happen? Would it annoy you or destroy you? Are your other offices able to do any work? Process or take new orders? Share essential information with anyone? Choosing the right solution depends largely on assessing and understanding the specific needs of your business. You might have hundreds and hundreds of loyal customers. Perhaps you are a software company running a hosted solution they all rely on. Maybe you operate a service that allows other systems to speak with yours via API. This may be to collect miscellaneous data, calculate prices or shipping prices or other information. What if other systems can’t connect to your office servers? If you have repeated outages, how long will they remain a customer?
Maybe your company depends entirely on the internet. Should your circuits go down, your representatives cannot make outbound calls. There would be no way to answer incoming calls of people trying to reach your representatives. Your company is basically done with. While many of the most reputable call centers are already aware and using the advantages of redundancy, is it sufficiently meeting their needs? Are the carriers that you are using reliable enough? Is the quality of service sufficient for your calls to be clear and reliable?
You clearly have many options. Your company needs and your budget will have to come into consideration when deciding on your solutions. As a high-level summary:
Sometimes redundancy is not essential to you. For example, If you are a small company, with just one office location, a single access to The net circuit may be sufficient. You may get by with one 50, 10 or even 5 megabyte circuit. Find out if you are in a lit building. If so, the price of Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be affordable. Prices change based on your location and the availability of circuits. Please speak with our engineers about what options best suit your needs.
You have a mid-sized Hurst, Texas company; higher speed Internet access required. You have several choices. Consider the following: Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet or higher-speed Internet access circuits. Using different circuits and different carriers will, if you choose, provide you with redundancy. You can sometimes achieve this without doubling costs. For example, choosing two 50 meg circuits versus one 100 meg circuit. Again, costs and availability vary. You should speak with our experts to learn the options for your particular location.
What companies have the highest risk for failure; those with multiple locations. Redundancy is crucial. Multiple providers or carriers are recommended. You can increase redundancy with switches or routers. Having redundant equipment can also minimize risk. Here too, take a careful look and choose the right Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed access to The net circuit providers. The right mix of carriers and services will help keep your company up and running as efficiently as possible.
If you can place yourself in this category, it is essential that you have Metro Ethernet, point-to-point circuits and gigabit Internet circuits. Redundant hardware and redundant circuits will, for these businesses, ensure the greatest uptime. Be sure the circuits are from different providers. Spikes or sudden increase in usage can result in Internet slowdowns or disruptions in service. You can decrease the risk of these events by having sufficient bandwidth. The hardware and circuits you choose must both be able to support the following: a great number of concurrent, speedy connections.
The risk of insufficient bandwidth or failing circuits is tremendous. You must select the single circuit or multiple circuits that can meet your demands and stay within your budget. Choosing the right combination of hardware and circuits can be complicated and confusing.
Our engineers will analyze your needs and requirements and develop a free action plan for you. We will formulate a design or plan based partly on your current usage and demand levels. We’ll create something cost effective that gives you the resources your organization needs, while keeping it running smoothly.
An appointment for an assessment can be made by calling our office or clicking here to complete the contact form on the side of this page. It can take less than 48 hours to complete your assessment.