In today’s environment, companies in Aliso Viejo, California depend on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their business. Fortune 500 companies to small companies and everything in between, rely on reliable and fast access to The Internet.
Our dependence on Internet access will continue to grow in the coming months and years.
The use of the net is pervasive. We use it for email and data sharing, video chat and VOIP, archiving and commerce. What is the right solution to meet your needs? Perhaps a cable modem is all you need. Metro Ethernet may be what you need. Gigabit Internet may be required. What does your Aliso Viejo organization need? Does it require 10 Meg access to The web, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 Meg circuit or a 5 Meg circuit?
The needs of your particular company must be determined before you can select an appropriate service. Is Internet use limited to website surfing or emailing only? Is connecting with cloud servers and sharing real time data the main use of the web? Perhaps you, in Aliso Viejo, are hosting the data and remote sites rely upon this.
What if there is an outage and your high-speed Internet is interrupted? Can your company afford a long pause or lull in productivity? How much uptime is essential to your organization? Ask yourself these questions before making any purchases. The answers will help you determine what is right for you.
In all-encompassing terms, businesses need high-speed access to The web. When picking the correct broadband internet, balancing the costs and benefits to your organization is imperative. While many service providers throw around terminologies such as:
… focus on what matters: what does your business need and what are the best services and solutions out there to meet those needs?
Workers for most companies in Aliso Viejo have some need to access the web during the course of their job. The net is required for so many things, whether to order items, look up organization information speak with third parties.
The number of workers you have may be the factor that drives your decision. If you only have a few workers, you may be fine with a smaller Internet circuit such as a 5 or 10 megabyte. You should consider more than that if you have more workers. Also keep in mind whether your workers need to access the web at the same time.
If your employees are merely accessing an intranet system with limited graphics and video, your need for high-speed Internet may be reduced. When employees are often downloading images, videos and documents, however, the need for speed increases significantly.
Do you backup information? 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. Enough bandwidth is required to support this function along with every other service.
Are you interested in high-speed business Internet? Depending on where you are located, you may want to look into the viability of gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet. “Lit buildings” that have already been wired by a carrier, are commonly the site for these. If you’d like to install high-speed Internet in your office, you should know that it might be more affordable than you realize.
Introducing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be expensive. Bringing a connection to a suite within the building is not. Depending on availability, it is often possible to obtain high-speed Internet access with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet in 30 days or less.
Consider whether your business hosts its own servers that run APIs, websites and/or data to outside buildings, offices or companies. Are your corporate headquarters with a hosted application utilized by 50 branch offices? Does your office host the point of sale (POS) system for every single store in a large retail chain? Are you a law firm? Do you host data for three or more external locations?
When data and programs are hosted centrally at one main site, people outside that location must gain access. If the net connection is interrupted or fails, those people are unable to accomplish any work. 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 sites?
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. For the headquarters, high-speed Internet access including Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable. While high speed is great, you also need support for your multiple diverse connections. The support you need could not be provided by a cable modem.
In some situations, there is a high price to pay for bringing in an inexpensive circuit or cable modem. You may save money on your monthly bill but the bandwidth you get must be shared among many people. 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. Many cable operators can only deliver a certain amount of bandwidth in a community. That bandwidth branches off to different buildings and then to various tenants within those buildings. While you may be capped at thirty-megabyte speed, will you ever reach that speed during company hours? If you expect 30 but only get 6, will you have problems?
Other providers do offer dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. In this case, your organization receives full allocation of bandwidth. There is no sharing with any outsiders. Regardless of neighbors, or other tenants, you should have the full capacity of your circuit at all times.
Metro Ethernet provides guaranteed bandwidth in increments as follows: 5, 10, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. In your office out to the internet you can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit providers
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 carriers in Aliso Viejo 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? ”
Redundant circuits may be the answer for you.
Redundancy basically comes in two forms.
The first is where you get multiple circuits from one carrier. If there is a problem with a line or a port in your router, circuit redundancy can offer some protection. 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. This is not foolproof, but does offer some protection.
The second way to set up circuit redundancy is by using two different providers to bring in your circuits. If you think it is beneficial, you can bind the connections together in a manner that makes your circuits act and look like a single source. Truthfully, they are entirely separate. They are redundant and exist in case one of them fails. Diversity redundancy provides greater assurance, comfort and protection. In the event a carrier goes down, you will not have to worry. You will have a perfectly live carrier there to keep things moving.
When considering redundant circuits and providers, try to be sure that the carriers you look at in Aliso Viejo, California have different physical geographic routes or pathways. Doing so will maximize redundancy. Alternatively stated, try to have your circuits enter the building on different sides from one another. The circuits would be established either underground or on telephone poles and would be set up in different directions and lead to different offices. 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 access to The Internet comes at a price, the price of unreliable access to The Internet is tremendous. Consider the following:
You are on a cable modem with the carrier providing circuits to 14 other tenants in your 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? How will your telephone calls be affected as the amount of available bandwidth decreases? How will the caliber of the call be affected? Are the calls going to be dropped? Inaudible (choppy) to your customers?
Your office may be the working center of an entire company 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. Whether you have 2 places, 250, or 2000, they all depend on your primary Internet connection to retrieve data and information. If your circuit goes done, what happens next? Will it cause disastrous results of just annoy you a little bit? Can your satellite offices perform any work at all? Process or take new orders? Share essential information with anyone? Before choosing a solution, be sure to assess and really understand what your organization requires. Perhaps you have hundreds of clients or customers that use a hosted solution that your software organization is running. Is an API utilized in your organization so that your customers can access and speak with your system? You may find that they are unable to reach or connect with your organization servers. Customers will only take so many repeated outages. How long with they remain with your company?
Is the net integral to the proper function of your company? Do you rely on it entirely? No outbound calls can be made should your circuits go down. Your representatives would also be unable to answer calls. You are essentially out of organization. Even for the most reputable call centers that already know of and use redundancy, is it sufficient? Are the providers you currently use as reliable as they should be? Are they as reliable as you need them to be? Are you getting quality service so that your calls are clear and consistent?
You clearly have many options. Your decision will be based on different factors including your business needs and your budget. As a wrap-up:
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. You may find that if your building is “lit”, gigabit service and Metro Ethernet service may be reasonably cost-effective choices for you. Prices vary based on your location and availability of circuits; speak with our engineers to find your best option.
If you have a midsized company in Aliso Viejo, you will need higher-speed access to The Internet. Your choices include: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or other high-speed circuits. Multiple circuits utilizing multiple providers would, ideally, provide you with maximum redundancy. This may be attainable without doubling your costs. For example, you may use 2 fifty meg circuits instead of 1 one hundred meg circuit. Again, costs and availability vary. Your specific location will determine what options you have. Please speak with one of our experts to find out what those are and how we can meet your needs.
Companies with different sites, whether 5 or 50, are at the highest risk. They require redundant circuits. It is helpful if they use multiple carriers. Additionally, you should consider redundant equipment (routers and switches) in your facility to minimize the risk of downtime. Take a careful look at Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers and gigabit Internet providers. Research other high-speed access to The web circuit providers also and make an informed decision. The best mix of providers and services can maximize the productivity and efficiency of your company.
Companies such as these require the following: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and point-to-point (PPP) high-speed Internet circuits. You absolutely need redundant circuits from different providers as well as redundant hardware. This is important to ensuring uptime. The last thing you want is interruptions or slowdowns affecting your company. You must provide enough bandwidth to avoid these pitfalls that sometimes occur during sudden usage spikes. Be sure to have the right circuits and hardware. They both must be able to support multiple, fast, concurrent connections.
The danger and risk of failing circuits is tremendous. So is the risk of having less bandwidth than you need. Your demand and budget constraints should both be considered when you decide what circuit or combination of circuits you must have. Choosing the right mix of circuits and hardware is a daunting task.
Our expert engineers will review your requirements and 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. Your assessment may be finished within as little as 48 hours.