Reliable Internet access is the lifeblood of Alhambra companies and their business. All companies, from Fortune 500 to small companies, have functions that rely on easy, dependable and quick access to The Internet.
We are going to, in the months and years ahead, become more and more reliant on our Internet access.
The Internet is ubiquitous. From email to data sharing, archiving to commerce and VOIP to video chat, the web is everywhere. What can best meet your needs? Will a cable modem be sufficient? Metro Ethernet? Would Gigabit Internet suffice? Does your business in Alhambra, California need one of these: 10 Meg Internet access, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?
Before choosing an adequate or appropriate service, you must decide what your company really needs. Perhaps the internet is only used for a few things such as email communication or surfing the web. Is connecting with cloud servers and sharing real time data the main use of the internet? Are you hosting data in Alhambra? Do remote sites rely upon you?
What happens if you have an outage in your high-speed Internet? How much downtime can your organization withstand? Is uptime required? You must answer questions like these so you can make a purchase that actually meets your needs
In all-encompassing terms, businesses need high-speed access to The net. Deciding on the right broadband is not easy. It requires a thorough cost-benefit analysis. While many providers throw around terminologies such as:
… the actual issue is knowing what technology and capability can satisfy your needs.
At any company in Alhambra, California some employees, if not all employees, need some type of access to the net if they are to properly perform their job duties. The net is required for so many things, whether to order items, look up organization information speak with third parties.
The solution you choose may be based on the number of employees you have or expect to have. If you have a handful of employees, a 5 or 10 Meg Internet circuit may be sufficient. If your company has nearly 50 people, however, and they all need to use the web at the same time, you may find that more is better.
Your need for high-speed Internet may be lessened if your workers are just accessing an intranet systemWhen employees are often downloading images, videos and documents, however, the need for speed increases significantly.
Does your company regularly conduct backups? If you are doing remote backups from every desk, which is advisable, you will need to be able to support simultaneous connections out to the web to synchronize your backup data.
Are you using a service such as DropBox or Google drive to share files? As people save files, those files are pushed to the cloud and then synchronized back to other people’s computers. Enough bandwidth is required to support this function along with every other service.
Depending on where you are, you may want to look into high-speed business access to The web such as Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet. They are usually contained in “lit buildings” in Alhambra that have already been wired by a carrier. It may be shock you to know that installing high-speed access to The Internet may not be particularly expensive or inconvenient.
If you have to bring Metro Ethernet into a new building, it can be expensive but bringing that connection to an office or suite within the building is usually 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.
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 fifty or so branch offices need access to a hosted application at your company headquarters? Are you a retail company hosting the POS system for thousands of chain stores? Are you a law firm hosting data for multiple office sites?
When data and programs are hosted centrally at one main site, people outside that location must gain access. For those people, no Internet connection means no work gets done. Can your intranet solution support your needs? Can it support multiple simultaneous connections? Is it stable enough to handle this when they are from various places?
The needs of an office with one employee web surfing may not need more than a cable modem or an inexpensive 5-10 megabyte circuit. It is advisable that high-speed access to The Internet be available at the central company office or headquarters, including gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuits. While high speed is great, you also need support for your multiple diverse connections. A cable modem would not be able to accomplish this.
Bringing in a less-expensive circuit like a cable modem often comes with a price. You may have to share bandwidth in order to secure that low monthly rate. If you subscribe to a cable modem with a 30-megabyte connection, you would expect to always be able to reach that high speed. However, it is possible that during peak hours, you won’t. Only a certain amount of bandwidth may be available in a community. Many cable companies have limits on the amount they can deliver. That bandwidth branches off to different buildings and then to various tenants within those buildings. With a 30-megabyte connection, you may not get to that speed during the working day. Will there be trouble if your expectation is set at 30 but you only get 8 or 10?
Some providers offer customers dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. With these, bandwidth belongs to you and your business only; no sharing. The full capacity of your circuit should be attainable during all hours regardless of neighboring buildings, people or offices.
You can receive guaranteed bandwidth with Metro Ethernet. You can receive it in increments of five, 10, 50 or one hundred megabyte circuits. Gigabit Internet providers offer gigabit speeds from your office to the net.
In these cases, the carriers deliver high-speed to the building in sufficient quantity that they can then split their circuit to various tenants while guaranteeing each tenant is receiving their contracted speeds.
Realistically, while some providers in Alhambra offer excellent Internet bandwidth products, it is possible for a circuit to go down. The question then becomes, “how do I minimize my chance of an outage? ”
Try using redundant circuits.
Essentially, there are two different ways to look at redundancy.
The first kind of redundancy exists when one carrier provides one customer with many circuits. These redundant circuits help protect from certain failures, for example, router port issues or physical line trouble. If that carrier has a wide reaching outage or there is a line broken or damaged outside of your building, both circuits may go down. You get some protection, but also some risk.
Utilizing circuits from two different carriers is the second kind of redundancy. For users and the public, you can make it look like you have one cohesive circuit. You can also make the connections act as a single circuit. You can do this with various advanced routers and IP address allocations. However, despite appearances, they are actually very much separate and are redundant to each other. While circuit redundancy in general is a good idea, diversity redundancy by using different carriers, offers far better protection. If one carrier has a problem, the other likely will not.
You want maximum redundancy. In order to achieve this, look for redundant circuits from different carriers with different physical geographic pathways in Alhambra. If at all possible, you want to obtain circuits entering the premises on different sides. The circuits would be attached underground or to telephone poles, in various directions. The circuits would go to different data centers or central offices. By doing this, if there is a significant problem such as a fire at a data center, you have redundancy in an alternative physical direction.
While Internet access is not free, it pales in comparison with the cost of not having reliable Internet access. Consider the following:
You are on a cable modem with the carrier providing circuits to 14 other tenants in your 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. How will less available bandwidth affect your telephone calls? What about phone call quality? Will calls be arbitrarily dropped? Will they be full of static?
Your office may be the working center of an entire company enterprise. The kind of business 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, rely on your primary Internet connection to access and retrieve data. What will happen if your circuit crashes? Would it cause mere annoyance or utter disaster? Are your other offices able to do any work? Can they take or process any orders at all? Share information? Before choosing a solution, be sure to assess and really understand what your organization requires. You might have hundreds and hundreds of loyal customers. Perhaps you are a software company running a hosted solution they all count on. Perhaps you operate a service where other systems talk to yours via an API to calculate freight prices, commodity prices, collect current weather data or receive any other information that you serve up. What happens when there is a problem connecting to your servers? Customers will only take so many repeated outages. How long with they remain with your company?
Your organization is completely reliant on the web. No calls can go out if your circuits fail. No calls could be answered either. You are now, essentially, out of organization. Is redundancy enough? Are the carriers you currently use as reliable as they should be? Are they as reliable as you need them to be? Is the quality of service sufficient? Are your calls clear and reliable?
It should be clear by now that you have many different options to select from. Your budget, as well as the needs of your company, will help drive your decisions. Essentially:
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. You may find that if your building is “lit”, gigabit service and Metro Ethernet service may be reasonably cost-effective choices for you. Prices will vary. They are based on your location and circuit availability; speak with our engineers to learn your best options.
Mid sized companies with a single office in Alhambra, California, need higher speed Internet access. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and other higher-speed Internet circuits are your options. In a perfect scenario, multiple circuits from different providers will give you the most redundancy. This may be attainable without doubling your costs. Using one 100-megabyte circuit instead of two 50-megabyte circuits, is one example. Again, costs and availability vary. You need to speak with one of our experts to determine your options in your specific location.
If your company has several sites or offices, you are at great risk for failure. Redundancy is crucial. Different carriers are desirable. You can decrease risk during downtime by having redundant equipment as well. Look at all of your options: Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet providers, Metro Ethernet providers and other high-speed circuit providers. The right mix can help. If you can figure out the best combination of carriers and services for your organization, you will benefit.
Gigabit Internet circuits, point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits are essential and Metro Ethernet Internet circuits must be utilized by companies in any of these categories. 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. You need to provide sufficient bandwidth to handle usage spikes without slowdowns or interruptions. Your circuits and hardware must be able to support a large number of fast and simultaneous connections.
Do not risk having failing circuits or not enough bandwidth. The right circuits must meet your demand while keeping you within your budget. The pressure involved in selecting the proper mix of hardware and circuits can be overwhelming.
Our engineers will analyze your needs and requirements and develop a free action plan for you. We are going to formulate a design or plan based partly on your current usage and demand levels. We’ll create something cost effective that gives you the resources your company needs, while keeping it running smoothly.
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. Assessments are completed in as little as 48 hours.