The lifeblood of Albuquerque companies doing business in the current environment depends on reliable Internet access. All companies depend on reliable and quick Internet access. This is true regardless how large or small the organization.
We are going to become increasingly reliant on access to The Internet as the months and years progress.
The Internet is ubiquitous. From email to data sharing, archiving to commerce and VOIP to video conferencing, the web is everywhere. How can your needs be met? Is a cable modem enough? Is Metro Ethernet necessary? Gigabit Internet may satisfy your needs. What is best for your organization in Albuquerque, New Mexico? Will your business needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg Internet access or 100 Meg access to The Internet point?
Your organization must assess its real needs. This must be done before an appropriate service can be chosen. Is the internet primarily used for emailing or web surfing? Is real time data connection with cloud servers crucial to your organization? Do remote sites rely on you hosting the data in Albuquerque?
What happens if you have an outage in your high-speed Internet? How might the downtime cause problems for your organization? Is uptime required? Before buying, these are several of the questions that you need to answer.
Speaking broadly, all companies need high-speed access to the internet. Choosing the correct broadband for your company requires a cost benefit analysis. While many providers like to spout technical terminologies such as:
… do not stray from the real issues. Focus on what your company’s needs are and what capabilities and technical solutions will help satisfy them.
At most businesses including those in Albuquerque, New Mexico, some or all employees need access to The net. Third party applications, business research or development and e-commerce are just several of the ways the net may be needed.
The number of employees you have may determine your best solution. If you have a smaller workforce, you may do fine with a smaller Internet circuit. For example, if you only employ a handful of people, a 5 or 10 Meg circuit may meet your needs. If your organization has nearly 50 people, however, and they all need to use the web at the same time, you may find that more is better.
Perhaps most workers at your company use an intranet system with limited features. High- speed Internet may not be a priority in this case. When employees are often downloading images, videos and documents, however, the need for speed increases significantly.
Does your business regularly conduct backups? Simultaneous connections to the web, which you need in order to sync your backup data, require support. If you conduct remote backups from every workstation, which you definitely should, this will be important.
Do you use a file sharing service like Google drive or DropBox? This is how a file sharing service works: You save a file. Then the file is pushed to the cloud, and is then synchronized with other people’s computers. Supporting file sharing, while supporting every other service, requires sufficient bandwidth.
Depending on where you are, you may want to look into high-speed company access to The Internet such as Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet. These are typically found in “lit buildings” in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Carriers have already wired these buildings. It may be shock you to know that installing high-speed Internet access may not be particularly expensive or inconvenient.
While bringing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be an expensive proposition, bringing that connection to a suite within the building is not. Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet may provide you with high-speed access to The Internet in thirty days or less, depending on availability.
Does your company host its own servers? Does your company use the hosted servers to run data feeds, APIs or websites for offices or businesses located elsewhere? Is your main company 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? Does your legal practice host all of the data for 3, 4 or 5 offices in different places?
If your company hosts its programs and information at a central location, people outside of that location need to have access in order to conduct business. Those people are not able to do their work if the net connection fails or is unreliable. 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?
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. High speed is important but they also must be able to support multiple distinct connections. A cable modem would probably not be enough.
There is a price that comes along with choosing a cable modem or other lower cost circuit. You may have to share bandwidth in order to secure that low monthly rate. During peak use hours, you may not be able to reach proper speeds. Many cable operators can only deliver a certain amount of bandwidth in a community. That bandwidth reaches out like branches to every building in the community and the people living and working in those buildings. While you may be capped at a 30 Meg speed, you may never be able to reach that speed during company hours. What will the consequences be if you expect 30 but only get half that? What if you get even less?
Some providers are available who offer dedicated bandwidth and guaranteed bandwidth. If you want your very own bandwidth that is not used by anyone else, you should consider this. Regardless of other tenants in your building or neighboring buildings, you should receive the full capacity of your circuit.
For example, Metro Ethernet guarantees bandwidth in 5 met circuits, 10 Meg circuits, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. With gigabit Internet providers, you can reach gigabit speeds in your office out to the net.
Carriers in these situations deliver enough to cover everyone’s needs. The carriers divide their circuit to various tenants while guaranteeing that everyone gets their contracted speed.
Despite outstanding Internet bandwidth products offered by providers in Albuquerque, New Mexico, circuits do go down. The question then becomes, “how do I minimize my chance of an outage? ”
The answer is redundant circuits.
There are, in reality, two kinds of redundancy.
With the first type of redundancy, you receive multiple circuits from the same carrier. These redundant circuits help protect from certain failures, for example, router port issues or physical line trouble. 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. While there is some security in this, you are still vulnerable under some circumstances.
The other type of redundancy requires you to utilize circuits from different carriers. 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. Truthfully, they are entirely separate. They are redundant and exist in case one of them fails. This is called diversity redundancy and offers more protection that the first. Should one carrier have some trouble that extends to a greater area and is out of your control, you are backed up with a different carrier.
When considering redundant circuits and carriers, try to be sure that the carriers you look at in Albuquerque have different physical geographic routes or pathways. Doing so will maximize redundancy. This means that you should try to have the circuits come into you building from 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 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.
Although Internet access comes at a price, the price of unreliable Internet access is tremendous. Contemplate these 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 company that perform large file downloads or stream many videos? As they use more bandwidth, there is less for available for your needs. What happens to your phone calls? What about the quality of your calls? Will calls be arbitrarily dropped? Will your voice be inaudible? Will you have difficulty hearing the other end?
Your office may be the working center of an entire business enterprise. The kind of company does not necessarily matter. You may be a law firm doing file sharing, an accounting practice sharing databases or a retailer operating a distributed point-of-sale system. All of your places, whether 2 or 2000, depend on your primary Internet connection to access and retrieve data. What happens if your circuit crashes? Would you merely be annoyed? Would there be catastrophic consequences? Are your other offices able to do any work? Process or take new orders? Circulate essential files and data? Before choosing a solution, be sure to assess and really understand what your business requires. Maybe your software company runs a hosted solution. Maybe that hosted solution is used by hundreds of your customers. Maybe you offer a service that allows other systems use an application program interface (API) to talk to you to collect information and data. You may find that they are unable to reach or connect with your organization servers. Customers do not enjoy repeated outages. How long with they put up with them before looking to take their company elsewhere?
What if your company could not function at all without the net? Maybe your company relies on it completely. Should your circuits stop working, imagine your people being unable to make any outbound phone calls. Your representatives would also be unable to answer calls. Your business is basically done with. Is redundancy enough? Are the providers that you are using reliable enough? Is the quality of your calls consistently and reliably clear?
You have several different options to pick from. Your budget, as well as the needs of your company, will help drive your decisions. In review:
If your business 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. You may find that if your building is “lit”, gigabit service and Metro Ethernet service may be reasonably cost-effective choices for you. 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 company.
You will need higher speed Internet access if you have a medium sized company in Albuquerque. Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet and other higher speed Internet circuits are options to consider. In a perfect scenario, multiple circuits from different providers will give you the most redundancy. 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 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 sites. Redundant circuits are essential. Multiple providers or providers are recommended. Also, redundant equipment such as switches and routers in your facility can minimize the risk of downtime. Here too, take a careful look and choose the right Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed Internet access circuit providers. Finding the best combination of services, providers and equipment can go a long way toward helping your business run as efficiently as possible.
If you fall into this group, you must have Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet circuits and point-to-point High-speed Internet circuits. Having redundant hardware as well as redundant circuits from different providers will ensure your needed uptime. You need enough bandwidth. The bandwidth must be sufficient to handle spikes in usage with no slowdowns or interruptions. Your circuits and hardware must be able to support a large number of fast and simultaneous connections.
Insufficient bandwidth and failing circuits are present tremendous risk to your organization. The right circuits must meet your demand while keeping you within your budget. Choosing the right mix of circuits and hardware is a daunting task.
Our engineers can analyze your needs and create a free action plan for you. We are going to examine your current usage and demand levels then create a design that provides you with the resources you need to keep your organization running smoothly at a reasonable cost.
Please call our office for an assessment appointment or click here to complete the contact form on the right side of the page. We do assessments quickly. It can take as little as 48 hours to complete your analysis.