These days, companies in West Valley City count on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their organization. Fast and reliable Internet access is needed for businesses to function properly; large corporations and small companies alike.
We’ll, in the months and years ahead, become more and more dependent on our access to The Internet.
The use of the web is pervasive. We use it for email and data sharing, video chat and VOIP, archiving and commerce. What is the right solution for your needs? Is a cable modem sufficient? It could be that you need Metro Ethernet. Would Gigabit Internet suffice? A 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The net, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The Internet point: what is right for your company in West Valley City?
You must, before selecting a service, assess the actual needs of your business. Is the internet only used for web surfing and email? Will Internet usage mainly involve cloud servers and real time data connection? There may be remote sites that rely on you and you are hosting the data in West Valley City.
How would an outage to your high-speed Internet affect your company? Will your business suffer from the lull? Is uptime required? Before you buy anything, you must answer these questions.
Plainly stated, companies require high-speed access to The Internet. When choosing the right broadband internet for business, you need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits. While many providers like to spout technical terminologies such as:
… you must not lose sight of the real issue, which is understanding what technical solutions best meet your needs.
For most companies in West Valley City, Utah, some or all of the employees need access to the net. There are countless reasons to need access to the web. Perhaps it is to order materials, to conduct organization research or talk to clients.
Perhaps the size of your work force may determine the solution that best fits your needs. An Internet circuit of 5 -10 megabytes might be enough for your business if you only have a few people working for you. If your business has nearly 50 people, however, and they all need to use the net at the same time, you may find that more is better.
Do your employees primarily use an intranet system? If so, you may not need much high-speed Internet service. If your company functions demand the downloading of documents and images or videos on a regular basis, speed becomes a must more important issue.
Do you routinely backup? If, as recommended, you conduct remote backups from every single desk, you will need to support simultaneous connections out to the web. This will allow you to sync your backup data.
Are you using a service such as DropBox or Google drive to share files? The saved files go to the cloud and are then synchronized or “shared” with other people’s computers. Supporting file sharing, while supporting every other service, requires sufficient bandwidth.
You may consider high-speed business access to The web if you location warrants it. Gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet may be viable options for you. These are typically found in “lit buildings” in West Valley City, Utah. Carriers have already wired these buildings. The ease and affordability of adding high-speed Internet to your office may surprise you.
Absent the need to introduce Metro Ethernet into a new building, it is not particularly costly to connect Metro Ethernet to a suite or office within that building. Also, securing high-speed access to The net using gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet often takes less than 30 days, depending on its availability.
Does your organization host its own servers running websites, APIs or data feeds for other offices or companies outside of your own four walls? Do your headquarters have a hosted Internet application that must be accessed regularly by 40 or 50 branch offices? Are you a retail company hosting the POS system for thousands of chain stores? Are you an attorney with offices multiple cities or states? Do you have one office hosting data for several locations?
When data, programs, or information is hosted centrally, those outside your office must gain access. Those people are not able to do their work if the internet connection fails or is unreliable. Make sure that when you choose your intranet solution it is reliable enough to support your need for multiple and simultaneous connections for many different places.
An inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be enough if you have one office that needs to surf the internet. A cable modem may also be adequate in this situation. For the headquarters, high-speed Internet access including Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable. High speed is important but they also must be able to support multiple distinct connections. A cable modem would not be able to accomplish this.
In some situations, there is a high price to pay for bringing in an inexpensive circuit or cable modem. Your low monthly bill may mean that the bandwidth is shared among multiple tenants. During peak hours, your connection may slow down, even though you subscribe to a cable modem with a thirty-megabyte connection. Cable companies are known to limit or predetermine the amount of bandwidth available for delivery in any particular community. Whatever that amount of bandwidth is, it branches into all buildings in the community and to all tenants in those buildings. While you may be capped at thirty-megabyte speed, will you ever reach that speed during company hours? Do you care if you only get 6 when you were set up to expect 30?
Some providers offer customers dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. With these options, bandwidth is yours. It is not shared with anyone outside of your organization. No matter who is in the building or what buildings surround you, you should always run at full speed.
For example, with Metro Ethernet, you can receive a guaranteed bandwidth in increments of five Meg circuits, 10 Meg circuits, 50 Meg circuits and 100 Meg circuits. With gigabit Internet providers, you can reach gigabit speeds in your office out to the net.
The providers in this situation deliver high-speed to a particular building in sufficient quantity to split their circuit among various tenants. Of course, they must ensure that they each get the specific amount of their contracted speed.
West Valley City has some providers that offer exceptional Internet bandwidth products and services. However, circuits can still go down and cause disruption. How can you lower the chances that you will experience some kind of outage?
Consider redundant circuits.
Essentially, there are two different ways to look at redundancy.
The first type is when one single carrier provides you with multiple circuits. This provides some protection when there are certain failures. Multiple circuits can help for example, when there is a physical line issue or a problem with a router port. Damage to an external wire or part can cause the failure of all of your circuits. A regional outage experienced by your carrier can have the same result. This is not foolproof, but does offer some protection.
Utilizing circuits from two different providers is the second kind of redundancy. These connections can be bound together so they act and appear to the public as a single circuit. Using particular routers and IP address allocations, no one would be able to tell that you have multiple providers or circuits. However, despite appearances, they are actually very much separate and are redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy provides greater assurance, comfort and protection. You will still have a live, fully functioning carrier if one fails.
To maximize the benefit of redundancy, consider looking for redundant circuits from different carriers that have different pathway in West Valley City, Utah. If at all possible, you want to obtain circuits entering the premises on different sides. The circuits would attached to the proper outside source whether a subterranean conduit or a telephone pole. They would be set up in different directions and would lead to different data centers or main office spaces. If you can accomplish this, you are protected from a major catastrophe. For example, if a there is a fire or some other accident that negatively affects circuits in a region, you have redundancy in a physically different direction.
The cost of dependable Internet access pales in comparison to the cost of unreliable access. Consider the following:
Your office uses a cable modem and, in addition to you, the carrier provides 10-15 additional tenants with circuits. It is possible that during normal organization hours, those tenants might be downloading large files or watching continuous videos. They might be getting a lot of phone calls. How will your telephone calls be affected as the amount of available bandwidth decreases? What happens to the strength and quality of that call? Will calls be cut-off? Inaudible (choppy) to your customers?
Your office is the center of your business. You may be a law firm that does file sharing or a retailer operating a POS system. Your primary Internet connection is solely responsible for smoothly granting access and sending data to all of your locations whether you have two or two thousand. Your circuit goes down, now what happens? Would it annoy you or destroy you? Are remote offices able to work at all? Can they take or process any orders at all? Share information? Choosing the right solution depends largely on assessing and understanding the specific needs of your organization. Maybe you are a corporation that designs and sells software and you run a hosted solution that is used by hundreds and hundreds of customers. Perhaps you operate a service where other systems communicate with yours via an API to calculate freight rates, commodity prices, collect current weather data or receive any other information that you serve up. What if other systems can’t connect to your office servers? How will repeated outages affect your customers? Will they remain customers?
Does your company completely rely on the web? If your circuits go down, you cannot make calls. Calls coming in would be unanswerable. You might not even know people are trying to reach your office. You are now officially out of company. While many of the most reputable call centers are already aware and using the advantages of redundancy, is it sufficiently meeting their needs? Make sure your providers are as reliable as possible. Is the quality of your calls consistently and reliably clear?
You clearly have many options. Your choices will largely depend on your budget, in addition to the other requirements of your company. Essentially:
You are probably not thinking about redundancy if you have a small company with a single location. In this case, you can probably get by with a single access to The Internet circuit of 5, 10 or 50 meg. Gigabit service and Metro Ethernet options seem expensive. If you are in a lit building, however, they can be less than you think. Look into it. Costs vary with location and the availability of circuits so speak with our engineers. Together, we can find the best option for you and your business.
If you have a midsized company in West Valley City, Utah, you will need higher-speed Internet access. Your choices include: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or other high-speed circuits. In a perfect world, you will achieve maximum redundancy by utilizing multiple providers to provide and service different circuits. It is sometimes possible to reach this without adding ridiculous costs. Two smaller circuits may be cheaper than one. For instance, you may use two 50 meg circuits instead of a single 100 meg circuit. Again, costs and availability vary. Speaking with one of our experts will help you determine the options available in your specific location.
What companies have the highest risk for failure; those with multiple locations. They need redundant circuits. Having several providers would afford extra protection. In addition, consider redundant equipment. Redundant routers and switches can minimize risk also. Here also, examine the Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet providers. Take a careful look at other high-speed access to The Internet circuit providers before choosing the right one. The right combination of services and carriers can positively impact the efficiency of your organization.
If you can place yourself in this category, it is essential that you have Metro Ethernet, point-to-point circuits and gigabit Internet circuits. You absolutely need redundant circuits from different providers as well as redundant hardware. This is important to ensuring uptime. 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 danger and risk of failing circuits is tremendous. So is the risk of having less bandwidth than you need. The circuit or circuits you have must stay within the parameters of your budget while still meeting your company needs. It is vital to choose the correct mix of hardware and circuits. Figuring out exactly what to put in the mix, can be a daunting task.
Our engineers will take the pressure off and develop a free action plan for you by analyzing your needs. Our experts will examine your current usage and demand. We’ll then generate a design that gives you the resources you need while keeping your business up and running at a reasonable cost.
Please click here if you wish to complete the contact form on the side of this page. Alternatively, call our office to schedule an assessment. We do assessments quickly. It can take as little as 48 hours to complete your analysis.