These days, companies in Jacksonville, Florida depend on reliable access to The Internet as the lifeblood of their company. All companies rely on reliable and quick access to The net. This is true no matter how large or small the company.
We’ll, in the months and years ahead, become more and more reliant on our Internet access.
From email messaging to information sharing, e-commerce to archiving data, and voice over IP to video conferencing, the web is omnipresent. What is the best solution for you? Is a cable modem enough? Do you need Metro Ethernet? Is Gigabit Internet right for you? Does your business in Jacksonville, Florida need one of these: 10 Meg Internet access, a 100 Meg access to The net point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?
Before selecting an appropriate service for your organization, you must first determine what needs you are trying to satisfy. Is Internet use limited to website surfing or emailing only? Is it used to network with cloud servers? There may be remote locations that rely on you and you are hosting the data in Jacksonville.
What happens if you have an outage in your high-speed Internet? Can your business afford the downtime? Is the absence of uptime detrimental? Before you buy anything, you must answer these questions.
High-speed access to the net is something all companies need. Choosing the correct broadband internet for your company requires a cost benefit analysis. You will hear service providers use terms like:
… be sure not to forget what capability and technical solutions meet your business’s specific needs.
For most companies in Jacksonville, Florida, some or all of the employees need access to the web. The web is required for so many things, whether to order items, look up organization information communicate with third parties.
The number of workers you employ, may be the most important factor in your decision making process. 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 your company has nearly 50 people, however, and they all need to use the net at the same time, you may find that more is better.
If your employees are merely accessing an intranet system with limited graphics and video, your need for high-speed Internet may be reduced. On the other hand, if your company requires that its employees download many documents or images and videos, Internet speed becomes more important.
Are you regularly performing backups? It is recommended that you do remote backups from every desk. If you are, you will need to support simultaneous connections out to the web to synchronize the backup data to collect.
Does your business use a file sharing service? DropBox? Google drive? After a file is saved, it goes to the cloud and then to someone else’s computer. You must have sufficient bandwidth if you are to successfully support every service including file sharing.
You may consider high-speed organization access to The web if you location warrants it. Gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet may be viable options for you. They are usually contained in “lit buildings” in Jacksonville, Florida that have already been wired by a carrier. The ease and affordability of adding high-speed Internet to your office may surprise you.
While bringing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be an expensive proposition, bringing that connection to a suite within the building is not. You can actually get high-speed access with gigabit Internet or even Metro Ethernet quickly. It often takes only 30 days or less, depending on availability.
Your company may host its own servers. Do they run websites APIs or data feeds for external offices? Do fifty or so branch offices need access to a hosted application at your company headquarters? Are you hosting the point of sale (POS) system for 15, 000 retail chain stores? You may be a law firm hosting data for three or four different offices.
When things are hosted at a central point, parties outside the office must somehow gain access. If the internet connection is interrupted or fails, those people are unable to accomplish any work. If you need multiple connections to function at the same time from many different locations, make sure that your intranet solution can reliably support it.
If you have one office using the web, you may get by with a cable modem or a low- cost 10-megabyte circuit. High-speed dedicated circuits, Metro Ethernet or gigabit Ethernet are advisable for company headquarters. Multiple diverse connections require support, in addition to high speed. A cable modem would likely not provide the necessary support.
In many scenarios, bringing in an inexpensive circuit, such as a cable modem, comes at a price. Oftentimes, a lower monthly rate comes with the realization that you are sharing bandwidth with many different tenants and offices. It is possible that you have a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection but cannot reach proper speeds during peak hours. Only a certain amount of bandwidth may be available in a community. Many cable companies have limits on the amount they can deliver. The bandwidth branches off to the multiple buildings, offices and tenants within them. The 30-meg speed you are capped out sounds good but it is possible that you will never reach that speed during organization hours. Will there be trouble if your expectation is set at 30 but you only get 8 or 10?
There are providers who offer dedicated and even guaranteed bandwidth. If you want your very own bandwidth that is not used by anyone else, you should consider this. Regardless of neighbors, or other tenants, you should have the full capacity of your circuit at all times.
As an example, look at Metro Ethernet. They provide guaranteed bandwidth in various increments. You can receive guaranteed bandwidth in increments of 100, 50, 10 and 5 megabytes. Gigabit Internet providers offer gigabit speeds from your office to the internet.
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.
Jacksonville has some providers that offer exceptional Internet bandwidth products and services. However, circuits can still go down and cause disruption. Ask this question: “what can I do to decrease the likelihood of an outage?
You may be a candidate for redundant circuits.
There are, in essence, two types of redundancy.
The first type exists when the same carrier gives you multiple circuits. Redundant circuits help protect you from certain failures including physical line issues, port issues within routers, and others. It is possible for both circuits to go down. If your carrier has a regional problem like a widespread outage, or there is a broken line outside your building, even your redundant circuits may fail. This offers some protection and assurance but does not eliminate all threats.
You can also achieve redundancy by utilizing different carriers to bring in and establish your circuits. By using IP address allocations and certain routers, you can bind your connections. By doing this, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. Though they may appear as one, you know that they are each individual circuits and redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy offers far greater protection. If one carrier has a problem, the other likely will not.
You should look for redundant circuits from carriers in Jacksonville that do not have the same physical geographic pathways, in order to get the most redundancy. Basically this means that you want your circuits to enter your building on different sides or paths. The circuits would be attached to telephone poles (or underground conduits) in different directions leading to different data centers or central offices. 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 these scenarios:
The carrier you use for your cable modem also provides circuits for a dozen or more tenants in the office building. Any of these tenants may be taking many calls, conducting huge downloads or streaming video during your regular office hours. As available bandwidth shrinks, what will happen to your calls? How will the quality of that phone call be affected? Are calls dropped? Will they be full of static?
Whether you are a law firm doing file sharing, an accounting practice sharing databases or a retailer operating a distributed point-of-sale system, your office is the hub for your enterprise. All of your sites, you may have 2, you may have 500, you may have 4, 000, count on your main Internet connection to access and receive data. If your circuit goes done, what happens next? Would you merely be annoyed? Would there be catastrophic consequences? Can meaningful work be conducted at your remote offices? Process or take new orders? Dispense and receive data? Picking the right a solution can be difficult. Before doing so, be sure you fully understand your requirements. Perhaps you have hundreds of clients or customers that use a hosted solution that your software business is running. Maybe you operate a service that allows other systems to talk to yours via API. This may be to collect miscellaneous data, calculate prices or shipping prices or other information. It is possible they will not be able to connect to your servers. How will repeated outages affect your customers? Will they remain customers?
Does your organization completely rely on the web? If your circuits go down, you cannot make calls. No calls could be answered either. Looks like you are now out of organization. Is redundancy enough? Many of the finest call centers with the best reputations already understand and use redundancy. They should consider if they have sufficient protection. Make sure your carriers are as reliable as possible. Is the quality of service sufficient? Are your calls clear and reliable?
You clearly have many options. Your decision will be based on different factors including your company needs and your budget. In summary:
If your company is small, with one location or office, you are likely not concerned about redundancy. For you, a single 5, 10 or 50 megabyte Internet access circuit may suffice. Is your building lit? If so, find out about gigabit or Metro Ethernet services. They may be reasonably priced options. Prices will vary. They are based on your location and circuit availability; speak with our engineers to learn your best options.
If you have a midsized organization in Jacksonville, Florida, you will need higher-speed Internet access. Your options are Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and higher speed circuits. Ideally, you want to have the greatest redundancy. You can achieve this by using multiple circuits from different providers. Achieving this may not be as costly as you first thought. For example, one 100-megabyte circuit may cost more than two smaller 50-megabyte circuits. Again, costs vary. Availability also varies. Learn your options by speaking with one of our knowledgeable experts. We can help you determine what is available in your specific location.
Any company with more than one location suffers the greatest risk of problems. They require redundant circuits. Having several providers would afford extra protection. You can minimize the risk of downtime at if you also have redundant equipment like routers or switches. Look at all of your options: Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet providers, Metro Ethernet providers and other high-speed circuit providers. Finding the best combination of services, providers and equipment can go a long way toward helping your organization run 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. In order to maximize and protect your uptime, you must have redundancy. You should have redundant circuits from multiple providers in addition to redundant hardware. The last thing you want is interruptions or slowdowns affecting your business. You must provide enough bandwidth to avoid these pitfalls that sometimes occur during sudden usage spikes. Your goal is to have hardware and circuits that are more than capable of providing support to a significant number of fast and simultaneous connections.
The risk of insufficient bandwidth or failing circuits is tremendous. The circuit or circuits you have must stay within the parameters of your budget while still meeting your company needs. Choosing the right mix of circuits and hardware is a daunting task.
We have engineers that will analyze your needs, look at your business requirements and develop an action plan for you… for free!You want your business to run smoothly. We will look at your current usage levels and demand levels and design a plan that meets your needs at a cost that makes sense for you.
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