In today’s environment, companies in Pawtucket depend on reliable access to The web as the lifeblood of their organization. Fast and reliable access to The Internet is needed for companies to function properly; large corporations and small companies alike.
In the coming months and years, we will become increasingly dependent on our access to the internet.
The Internet is ubiquitous. From email to data sharing, archiving to commerce and VOIP to video conferencing, the net is everywhere. What can best meet your needs? Is a cable modem sufficient? Maybe you need Metro Ethernet. Your needs may be met with Gigabit Internet. What is best for your organization in Pawtucket? Will your company needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg Internet access or 100 Meg Internet access point?
Before choosing an adequate or appropriate service, you must decide what your organization really needs. Is Internet use limited to website surfing or emailing only? Is it used to network with cloud servers? Do remote sites count on you hosting the data in Pawtucket, Rhode Island?
What happens if you have an outage in your high-speed Internet? How might the downtime cause problems for your organization? Is uptime required? You must answer questions like these so you can make a purchase that actually meets your needs
In the broadest of terms, companies need high-speed Internet access. Choosing the correct broadband internet for your company requires a cost benefit analysis. While many providers throw around terminologies such as:
… the actual issue is knowing what technology and capability can satisfy your needs.
For most companies in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, some or all of the employees need access to the web. There are countless reasons to need access to the web. Perhaps it is to order materials, to conduct business research or talk to clients.
Your best course of action may be determined by the size of your work force. An Internet circuit of 5 -10 megabytes might be enough for your organization 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 internet 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 perform backups at your company? 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.
Do you use a file-sharing service? Perhaps you use Google drive, DropBox or a different service? 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.
Depending on your location, high-speed organization Internet access, including Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options. These can usually be found in Pawtucket in “lit buildings” that have already been wired. Installing high-speed Internet may not be as difficult and expensive as you think.
Introducing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be expensive. Bringing a connection to a suite within the building is not. 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.
Does your company host its own servers to run information feeds, websites or application program interfaces (APIs) with companies or offices located outside of your four walls? Is your main business office with a hosted application accessed by 40 or even 50 branch office sites? Are you hosting the point of sale (POS) system for 15, 000 retail chain stores? Are you a law firm? Do you host data for three or more external places?
Access to data and programs by people outside of your main location becomes necessary when you host information centrally. For those people, no Internet connection means no work gets done. When deciding on the right intranet solution for your business, ask yourself: Is the solution going to adequately support simultaneous and multiple connections from my different sites?
For one office or a small organization with just one or two people surfing the web, a less expensive 10 Meg circuit or a cable modem may meet your needs. It is advisable that high-speed access to The net be available at the central company office or headquarters, including gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuits. All offer quick speed but they must also be able to support diverse and multiple connections. This could probably not be accomplished with a cable modem.
Bringing in a cable modem, which seems to save money, may actually come at a price. While the monthly rate is lower, the bandwidth is generally shared among other tenants. It is possible that you have a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection but cannot reach proper speeds during peak hours. Many cable operators can only deliver a certain amount of bandwidth in a community. The bandwidth branches off to the multiple buildings, offices and tenants within them. You might be capped at 30-megabyte speed, but may never be able to actually reach that speed during the important hours of your organization day. Is it a problem if you get a quarter or even half of the speed you expected?
There are carriers who offer dedicated and even guaranteed bandwidth. In this scenario, the bandwidth is fully allocated to you and your company or company. No one else uses it. The full capacity of your circuit should be attainable during all hours regardless of neighboring buildings, people or offices.
Metro Ethernet provides guaranteed bandwidth in increments as follows: 5, 10, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. Gigabit speeds from your office to the internet can be reached if you use a gigabit Internet provider.
In these situations, each tenant receives their contracted high-speed. The carrier delivers enough so they can split their circuit and provide enough to each tenant.
Realistically, while some carriers in Pawtucket, Rhode Island offer excellent Internet bandwidth products, it is possible for a circuit to go down. In what way can you diminish the risk of an outage?
Try using redundant circuits.
Essentially, there are two different ways to look at redundancy.
With the first kind, you receive several circuits but they all come from the same carrier. In this situation, the redundancy helps protect you from port issues or physical line issues. If your carrier experiences a regional outage or you have a line broken outside of your building, you may lose the use of all of your circuits. This offers some protection and assurance but does not eliminate all threats.
Utilizing circuits from two different providers is the second kind of redundancy. Using advanced routers and IP address allocations, you can bind these connections together so that, to your users and to the public, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. However, despite appearances, they are actually very much separate and are redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy offers far greater protection. If one carrier has a problem, the other likely will not.
The carriers you choose for your redundant circuits should have different physical pathways in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. This is an important consideration when trying to obtain 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 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.
Although Internet access comes at a price, the price of unreliable Internet access is tremendous. Think about the following situations:
If your business utilizes a cable modem, consider whether your carrier is providing circuits for multiple other tenants within the building. Between 9 and 5, any of those other offices could be downloading huge files, streaming video or taking large volume of phone calls and more. As the amount of available bandwidth diminishes, what will happen to your phone calls? What will happen to the strength and quality of that call? Are the calls going to be dropped? Will you sound muffled?
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 sites, you may have 2, you may have 500, you may have 4, 000, rely on your main Internet connection to access and receive data. What happens if your circuit goes down? Will it cause disastrous results of just annoy you a little bit? Can your satellite offices perform any work at all? Can they take or process any orders at all? Disseminate needed information and data? Be sure you understand your requirements fully before choosing a solution. Maybe your software company runs a hosted solution. Maybe that hosted solution is used by hundreds of your customers. Is an API utilized in your company so that your customers can access and communicate with your system? What happens when they are unable to connect to your servers? How long will your customers tolerate repeated outages?
Maybe your organization depends entirely on the web. No calls can go out if your circuits fail. No calls could be answered either. You are now, essentially, out of company. Even for the most reputable call centers that already know of and use redundancy, is it sufficient? Are your current carriers as dependable as you would like? Is the quality of service sufficient? Are your calls clear and reliable?
You have several different options to pick from. Your company budget and needs will play a large part in your decision-making. Essentially:
Sometimes redundancy is not crucial to you. For example, If you are a small business, 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. Metro Ethernet service or gigabit service may also be a reasonably priced option if you are in a lit building. Because prices can vary based on the location of your organization and the availability of circuits, speak with our engineers to learn your options.
Having a medium or mid-sized company in Pawtucket, Rhode Island requires that you have higher-speed access to the net. You have several choices. Consider the following: Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet or higher-speed access to The Internet circuits. Ideally, multiple circuits from multiple providers will provide you with the greatest redundancy. Achieving this may cost extra but it won’t double your costs. For example, you may use 2 fifty meg circuits instead of 1 one hundred meg circuit. Do not forget that you will find variations in price and availability. Speaking with one of our experts will help you determine the options available in your specific location.
Companies with multiple places are most at risk for failure. Redundant circuits must be an essential part of their systems. Different providers are desirable. Additionally, you should consider redundant equipment (routers and switches) in your facility to minimize the risk of downtime. Have you looked at Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed access to The Internet circuit providers? You should do so before making a decision. Your company can benefit from finding the right mix of services and providers.
To run efficiently and effectively, corporations and businesses that fall into this category must use point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits, gigabit Internet circuits and Metro Ethernet circuits. You will want to have the greatest protection of your uptime. To accomplish this you must have redundancy: redundant circuits from multiple providers and redundant hardware for your system. You do not want any slowdowns or interruptions that often occur during spikes in usage. Avoid this by having sufficient bandwidth. Your circuits and hardware must be able to support a large number of fast and simultaneous connections.
The danger and risk of failing circuits is tremendous. So is the risk of having less bandwidth than you need. The right circuits must meet your demand while keeping you within your budget. Choosing the right combination of hardware and circuits can be complicated and confusing.
Our engineers can help. We will analyze your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. 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 company up and running at a reasonable cost.
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. We do assessments quickly. It can take as little as 48 hours to complete your analysis.