Obtaining High-Speed Internet Access in Alexandria

Alexandria, Louisiana High Speed Access to the World Wide Web: Accessing Metro Ethernet, Business Broadband Internet and Gigabit Internet

These days, companies in Alexandria, Louisiana rely on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their company. Fortune 500 companies to small companies and everything in between, rely on reliable and fast access to The net.

Our dependence on access to The Internet will continue to grow in the coming months and years.

From video conferencing to voice over IP, email to data sharing and data archiving to Internet commerce, the net is everywhere you look. What is the best fix to meet your requirements? Will a cable modem be adequate? Do you need Metro Ethernet? Your needs may be met with Gigabit Internet. Does your business in Alexandria 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?

Access to the net: Determining Your Business’s Needs

Before selecting the appropriate service, your company must assess its needs. Is the internet only used for web surfing and email? Is it used to network with cloud servers? Are you hosting data in Alexandria? Do remote locations depend upon you?

What if your high-speed Internet is disrupted by an outage? What will happen to your company? How will the downtime affect your company? Is uptime essential to the success of your business? You must answer questions like these so you can make a purchase that actually meets your needs

Looking at Different High Speed Internet Solutions: Alexandria

High-speed access to the web is something all companies need. When picking the correct broadband internet, balancing the costs and benefits to your company is imperative. While various providers will throw around terminology like:

• Internet access at high-speeds
• Business Internet or commercial Internet
• What about broadband cable modems?
• Metropolitan-area Ethernet
• GbE services or Gigabit Internet
• MPLS protocol
• point-to-point circuits
• 5-megabyte access circuits
• Ten megabyte Internet access
• We have fifty-megabyte Internet access circuits
• We provide 100-megabyte access to The Internet circuits
• We provide sip trunks
• dedicated Internet access
• … and that is only a few

… the actual issue is knowing what technology and capability can satisfy your needs.

Surfing the Web: Business Internet Access

Companies in Alexandria need access to the web for their employees. Some companies may need it only for a few people and others may need it for the entire workforce. The net is required for so many things, whether to order items, look up business information speak with third parties.

The number of employees you have may determine your best solution. An Internet circuit of 5 -10 megabytes might be enough for your company if you only have a few people working for you. If you have many employees who need to use the net at the same time, you may do better with more.

Your need for high-speed Internet may be lessened if your workers are just accessing an intranet systemHowever, employees who must often download documents, images and videos, need that speed.

Are you performing routine backups? Synchronizing your backup data after doing remote backups from every desk requires you to support simultaneous connections out to the web.

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. You must have sufficient bandwidth if you are to successfully support every service including file sharing.

Company high-speed access to The net may interest you. Depending on your location, you may have options such as gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. These can usually be found in Alexandria, Louisiana in “lit buildings” that have already been wired. If you’d like to install high-speed Internet in your office, you should know that it might be more affordable than you realize.

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. Depending on availability, it is often possible to obtain high-speed access to The Internet with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet in 30 days or less.

Internet-based Applications That Need Access to High-Speed Internet

Ask yourself this: Does we host our own servers to run APIs, websites and data feeds to external offices or business premises? Are your company headquarters with a hosted application connected to fifty or more satellite offices? Is your company retail? Do you have thousands of stores? Do you host the point of sale system for the entire chain? You may be a law firm hosting data for three or four different offices.

Access to data and programs by people outside of your main location becomes necessary when you host information centrally. If the net connection is interrupted, those people cannot get their work done. When deciding on the right intranet solution for your organization, ask yourself: Is the solution going to adequately support simultaneous and multiple connections from my different sites?

A cost friendly 10 Meg circuit or even a cable modem may satisfy the needs of a company with a single office that needs to surf the web. It is advisable that high-speed access to The net be available at the central organization office or headquarters, including gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuits. While fast Internet access is and important, they must also have the capability to handle assorted simultaneous connections. A cable modem would likely be insufficient.

Shared Cable Circuits in Alexandria Versus Dedicated Internet Bandwidth

In many cases, installing an inexpensive cable modem comes at a price. You may save money on your monthly bill but the bandwidth you get must be shared among many people. During peak use hours, you may not be able to reach proper speeds. Many cable companies only deliver a set amount of bandwidth within a community. Different buildings and tenants housed or working within those buildings all share that set amount of bandwidth. The 30-meg speed you are capped out sounds good but it is possible that you will never reach that speed during organization hours. Is getting 7 when you expect 30 a problem?

Guaranteed bandwidth and dedicated bandwidth are solutions that some providers offer. In this scenario, the bandwidth is fully allocated to you and your company or business. No one else uses it. The full capacity of your circuit should be attainable during all hours regardless of neighboring buildings, people or offices.

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. Gigabit Internet providers offer gigabit speeds from your office to the web.

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.

Alexandria High Speed Company Internet Circuits: Redundancy

Circuits can go down in Alexandria, Louisiana even though certain providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. How can you lower the chances that you will experience some kind of outage?

Consider redundant circuits.

There are, in essence, two types of redundancy.

The first is where you get multiple circuits from one carrier. These redundant circuits help protect from certain failures, for example, router port issues or physical line trouble. Even multiple circuits can fail, such as in the event of a large-scale carrier outage or when there damage to an external line. This is not foolproof, but does offer some protection.

Utilizing circuits from two different providers is the second kind of redundancy. You may want your circuits to appear and act as if they are one and come from the same source. If so you can use IP address allocations and advanced routers to do so. You know the truth: that they are individual circuits and are there to back each other up in case one goes down. This is called diversity redundancy and offers more protection that the first. You will still have a live, fully functioning carrier if one fails.

You want maximum redundancy. In order to achieve this, look for redundant circuits from different providers with different physical geographic pathways in Alexandria. Your goal should be to get circuits coming into your building on different sides. You do not want them on the same side. Ideally, the circuits will be going in different directions and toward various central company spaces or data centers. What if there is some kind of catastrophic incident such as a fire or accident that impacts circuits within a region? Now, you have redundancy in an alternative physical direction.

Not Having Adequate Protection for your High-Speed access to The Internet: What is the Cost to Your Business?

It is true that access to The web costs you money. However, the cost does not come close to what you will pay if the access that is not reliable. Think about the following situations:

Your company relies on VoIP for its telephone service

Are you on a cable modem and your carrier is providing circuits to dozens of other office suites in your building? During the course of a regular work day, any or all of these other businesses might be performing massive file downloads. Tenants might be taking a large volume of calls or be regularly streaming video. How will less available bandwidth affect your telephone calls? What happens to the quality of that phone call? Will calls be arbitrarily dropped? Perhaps you will sound choppy or will be inaudible.

Is your company the central data location for multiple offices?

You may be an accounting firm that shares databases, a retail chain company utilizing a point of sale system or a law practice sharing files. Regardless of the specifics, your office is the hub for your enterprise. All of your locations, whether 2 or 2000, count on your primary Internet connection to access and retrieve data. What if your circuit fails? Would it cause mere annoyance or utter disaster? Are remote offices able to work at all? Process or take new orders? Circulate necessary data? Choosing the right solution depends largely on assessing and understanding the specific needs of your business. You have a software company, and are running a hosted solution for dozens, maybe hundreds, of 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. Multiple outages may annoy your customers.

You are a call center and you completely count on VoIP

Maybe your business depends entirely on the net. No calls can go out if your circuits fail. Your reps have no way of answering calls, if they even know they are coming in. 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. Are the carriers that you are using reliable enough? Clear and reliable calls are essential. Does your carrier service consistently provide this?

In Alexandria, Louisiana: Selecting the Proper High-Speed Organization Access Circuits for Your Company

You clearly have several choices. Your decision will be based on different factors including your organization needs and your budget. In review:

Small Organization Internet Access

If you are a small organization, with one location and you do not worry about redundancy, one five meg, ten meg, or fifty meg Internet access circuit may very well be enough to meet your needs. For an office in a lit building, you may find that gigabit service or Metro Ethernet are affordable options for you. Prices change based on your location and the availability of circuits. Please speak with our engineers about what options best suit your needs.

Internet Access for the Mid-Sized Business with One Location

You have a mid-sized Alexandria, Louisiana company; higher speed Internet access required. 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 carriers. Achieving this may cost extra but it won’t double your costs. For instance, it may be cheaper to utilize two 50 meg circuits in place of one 100 meg circuit. Again, costs vary. Availability also varies. You need to speak with one of our experts to determine your options in your specific location.

Access to the net for the Mid-Sized Company with Several Offices

Companies with multiple sites are most at risk for failure. Redundant circuits are essential. Multiple providers or carriers are recommended. 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. The best mix of carriers and services can maximize the productivity and efficiency of your company.

Bigger corporations, enterprise companies and providers of services that are delivered using Internet

For companies falling in this category, gigabit Internet circuits, Metro Ethernet Internet circuits and point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits are essential. If you want to ensure your valuable uptime, have redundant circuits from multiple carriers as well as redundant hardware. You need to provide sufficient bandwidth to handle usage spikes without slowdowns or interruptions. Having both your hardware and your circuits capable of supporting many different, fast, and simultaneous connections is essential. It cannot be one or the other.

Internet Demand and Internet Need: Receive Free Analysis

Do you understand how great the risk of failing circuits and insufficient bandwidth really is? You need to have the right circuit or circuits to meet your demands while staying within your budget. Choosing the right mix of circuits and hardware is a daunting task.

We have engineers that will analyze your needs, look at your organization requirements and develop an action plan for you… for free!We will look at your current usage, demand levels and scope out a design to give you the resources you need while keeping your business up and running at a reasonable cost.

You can complete the contact form on the right side of this page by clicking here. If you would prefer, please call our office to set up an appointment for an assessment. Assessments are completed in as little as 48 hours.