These days, companies in Allen rely on reliable access to The net as the lifeblood of their business. All companies, large and small, need fast and reliable Internet access.
In the months and years ahead, people and businesses will become more dependent on access to the net.
Our uses of the internet reach far and wide. From data sharing, video calls, and shopping to VOIP and email, the web has a broad presence. What is the best fix to meet your needs? A cable modem may be satisfactory. Your needs may point to Metro Ethernet as a solution. Is Gigabit Internet right for you? Will your Allen business needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg access to The net or 100 Meg Internet access point?
Before selecting an appropriate service for your company, you must first determine what needs you are trying to satisfy. Is the net only used for web surfing and email? Will real-time data connection with servers in the cloud be the primary use of the internet? Are you hosting the data in Allen, Texas and distant locations or offices rely on you?
How would an outage to your high-speed Internet affect your organization? Will your business suffer from the lull? Is uptime essential to the success of your business? You must answer these questions before you buy.
Speaking broadly, all companies need high-speed access to the net. Before you choose your broadband internet, look at the costs and benefits. Performing this analysis is an important step in picking the right one for your organization. While many service providers throw around terminologies such as:
… be sure not to forget what capability and technical solutions meet your business’s specific needs.
Companies in Allen need access to the net for their employees. Some companies may need it only for a few people and others may need it for the entire workforce. There are countless reasons to need access to the net. Perhaps it is to order materials, to conduct organization research or talk to clients.
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. You should consider more than that if you have more workers. Also keep in mind whether your workers need to access the internet at the same time.
Do your employees primarily use an intranet system? If so, you may not need much high-speed Internet service. If your organization functions demand the downloading of documents and images or videos on a regular basis, speed becomes a must more important issue.
Do you routinely backup? You may need to support simultaneous connections to the web in order to sync your backup data. If you conduct remote backups from every workstation, which is advisable, this will be important.
Does your company require employees to share files using a service like Google drive or DropBox? 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.
Are you interested in high-speed company Internet? Depending on where you are located, you may want to look into the viability of gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet. They are usually contained in “lit buildings” in Allen, Texas that have already been wired by a carrier. Adding this high-speed Internet to your office may be surprisingly affordable and easy.
While it may be the case that bringing Metro Ethernet into a new building can cause a big dent in your wallet, bringing the connection to a suite or offices within that building does not have to. In fact, obtaining high-speed access to The net with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less depending upon availability.
Does your company host its own servers to run information feeds, websites or application program interfaces (APIs) with companies or offices located outside of your four walls? Are your business headquarters with a hosted application connected to fifty or more satellite offices? Are you a retail business with 10, 000 stores? Do you host the POS system for all of them? You may be a law firm hosting data for three or four different offices.
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 organization. Those people are not able to work without a solid Internet connection. 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?
A cable modem or fairly cheap 10-megabyte circuit may be enough in certain scenarios. For example, these may meet the needs of a single office surfing the web. Company headquarters should have high-speed access to The Internet such as gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit. High-speed alone is not enough. They must also need to be capable of supporting many diverse connections. A cable modem would not be able to accomplish this.
In many cases, installing an inexpensive 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. While you may subscribe to a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection, you may be unable to reach those speeds during peak hours. Many cable companies only deliver a set amount of bandwidth within a community. That bandwidth reaches out like branches to every building in the community and the people living and working in those buildings. With a 30-megabyte connection, you may not get to that speed during the working day. Is it a problem if you get a quarter or even half of the speed you expected?
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.
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. Want to reach gigabit speeds? You can by using a gigabit Internet provider.
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.
Realistically, while some providers in Allen, Texas offer excellent Internet bandwidth products, it is possible for a circuit to go down. How can you decrease the chance of an outage?
The answer is redundant circuits.
We are primarily talking about two kinds of redundancy.
With the first type of redundancy, you receive multiple circuits from the same carrier. In this situation, the redundancy helps protect you from port issues or physical line issues. However, if that carrier has a regional outage or physical line 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. Using advanced routers and IP address allocations, you can bind these connections together so that, to your users and to the public, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. In fact, they are totally redundant and separate. This is called diversity redundancy and offers more protection that the first. You will still have a live, fully functioning carrier if one fails.
For maximum redundancy, you should look for redundant circuits from different providers with different physical geographic pathways in Allen, Texas. Your goal should be to get circuits coming into your building on different sides. You do not want them on the same side. The circuits would be established either underground or on telephone poles and would be set up in different directions and lead to different offices. 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.
Even though access to The net comes with a cost, you will save money if you make sure it is dependable. Unreliable access will end up costing you more in the long run. Think about the following situations:
Is your company on a cable modem? How many other tenants is your carrier servicing in your building? Are 14 other offices getting circuits? During business hours, any of those tenants could be streaming video, performing massive file downloads, processing large volumes of phone calls and more. As they use more bandwidth, there is less for available for your requirements. What will happen to your phone calls? What about phone call quality? Maybe calls will randomly drop? Inaudible (choppy) to your customers?
Your office may be the working center of an entire business enterprise. The kind of organization 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. Every single one of your offices, stores and places rely on you and your primary Internet connection to retrieve data. What will happen in the event of a circuit failure? Is it a mere annoyance or a catastrophic failure? Is work even possible at your other places? What happens to new orders? Can they be taken or processed? Circulate essential files and data? Before choosing a solution, be sure to assess and really understand what your company requires. You might have hundreds and hundreds of loyal customers. Perhaps you are a software company running a hosted solution they all count on. You operate a service that utilizes API in order to grant access to other systems. They may use this to collect whatever data you are offering such as commodity prices, weather data or freight calculations. What happens when they are unable to connect to your servers? Customers do not enjoy repeated outages. How long with they put up with them before looking to take their company elsewhere?
Does your organization completely rely on the internet? Should your circuits go down, your representatives cannot make outbound calls. No calls could be answered either. Looks like you are now out of company. 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. Can you truly rely on your carriers? Are they as dependable as they claim? Are you getting quality service so that your calls are clear and consistent?
You have no shortage of options. Your choices will largely rely on your budget, in addition to the other requirements of your organization. In summary:
Sometimes redundancy is not vital to you. For example, If you are a small organization, with just one office location, a single Internet access circuit may be adequate. You may get by with one 50, 10 or even 5 megabyte circuit. Metro Ethernet service or gigabit service may also be a reasonably priced option if you are in a lit building. Prices will vary. They are based on your location and circuit availability; speak with our engineers to learn your best options.
Mid-sized businesses in Allen, Texas should be equipped with higher-speed Internet. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and other higher-speed Internet circuits are your options. Ideally, you want to have the greatest redundancy. You can achieve this by using multiple circuits from different carriers. You can sometimes achieve this without doubling costs. For example, choosing two 50 meg circuits versus one 100 meg circuit. Do not forget that you will find variations in price and availability. Call one of our experts to learn what is available in your specific area.
What companies have the highest risk for failure; those with multiple places. Redundant circuits are a necessity. Multiple providers would be great. Also, redundant equipment such as switches and routers in your facility can 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 net circuit providers also and make an informed decision. The correct combination of providers and services can keep your organization running smoothly and efficiently.
Companies such as these require the following: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and point-to-point (PPP) high-speed Internet circuits. In order to maximize and protect your uptime, you must have redundancy. You should have redundant circuits from multiple carriers in addition to redundant hardware. The last thing you want is interruptions or slowdowns affecting your organization. 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.
Your organization faces great risk of less than adequate bandwidth and failing circuits. Your demand and budget constraints should both be considered when you decide what circuit or combination of circuits you must have. There is tremendous pressure on you to choose the best combination of circuits and hardware.
We have experts to help. Our engineers will do an analysis of your needs and requirements, and develop a free action plan for you based on their findings. We will examine your current usage and demand levels then create a design that provides you with the resources you need to keep your company running smoothly at a reasonable cost.
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 done in as few as two days or within 48 hours.