High Speed Internet Access in Alpharetta

Alpharetta High Speed Internet access: Company Broadband, Metro Ethernet Access and Gigabit Internet

Today’s environment demands that companies in Alpharetta, Georgia have reliable Internet service in order to run their business. All companies, from Fortune 500 to small businesses, have functions that rely on easy, dependable and quick access to The web.

We will become increasingly dependent on access to The Internet as the months and years progress.

The use of the web is pervasive. We use it for email and data sharing, video chat and VOIP, archiving and commerce. What can best meet your needs? Is a cable modem enough? Maybe you need Metro Ethernet. Gigabit Internet may satisfy your needs. Does your Alpharetta company need a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg Internet access, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The Internet point?

Determining your Company Need for Internet Access

Before selecting an appropriate service for your organization, you must first determine what needs you are trying to satisfy. Will web surfing and email be your primary use of the internet? Is it used to network with cloud servers? Perhaps you, in Alpharetta, are hosting the data and remote sites rely on this.

What if your high-speed Internet is disrupted by an outage? What will happen to your business? Can your company afford a long pause or lull in productivity? Is uptime essential to the success of your company? Ask yourself these questions before making any purchases. The answers will help you determine what is right for you.

High-Speed Internet Solutions in Alpharetta: Evaluating Differences

Plainly stated, companies require high-speed Internet access. 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 company. While you are likely to hear some providers toss around terms such as:

• High-speed access to the Internet
• Provider of Internet for Businesses
• Broadband cable modem services
• Metro Ethernet
• Gigabit Internet services
• MPLS services
• Services related to point-to-point circuits
• Five megabyte access to The net circuit
• We provide 10 Meg Internet access circuits
• We provide access to The web circuits-50 Meg
• Internet access circuits- One hundred megabytes
• Session Initiation Protocol/ Sip trunk
• Internet access dedicated to you and only you
• … plus others

… the real issue is understanding what capability and technical solutions best meet your needs.

Business Internet access for Website Surfing

Companies in Alpharetta 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. The net is required for so many things, whether to order items, look up company information communicate with third parties.

Your best course of action may be determined by the size of your work force. If you have a handful of employees, a 5 or 10 Meg Internet circuit may be adequate. 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.

High-speed Internet may become less important if the majority of your employees primarily use an intranet system with limited graphics and video. On the other hand, when they are frequently downloading documents, images and videos, that need for speed increases drastically.

Do you perform backups at your company? If, as recommended, you conduct remote backups from every single desk, you will need to support simultaneous connections out to the web. This will allow you to sync your backup data.

Does your company require employees to share files using a service like Google drive or DropBox? When people save a file, it gets pushed to the cloud. The file is then synched with other people’s computers. Running all your services properly, including sharing files, requires that you have the right amount of bandwidth.

Depending on your location, high-speed organization Internet access, including Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options. These are typically found in “lit buildings” in Alpharetta, Georgia. Providers have already wired these buildings. You may be surprised by how easy and affordable it is to add high-speed Internet to your organization.

While bringing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be an expensive proposition, bringing that 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.

Online Applications Need High-Speed access to The net

Consider whether your organization hosts its own servers that run APIs, websites and/or data to outside buildings, offices or companies. Do fifty or so branch offices need access to a hosted application at your company headquarters? Are you hosting the point of sale (POS) system for 15, 000 retail chain stores? Are you a law firm hosting data for multiple office locations?

When things are hosted at a central point, parties outside the office must somehow gain access. Those people are not able to work without a solid Internet connection. When deciding on the right intranet solution for your company, ask yourself: Is the solution going to adequately support simultaneous and multiple connections from my different 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. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable for the headquarters where high-speed Internet access is important. All offer quick speed but they must also be able to support diverse and multiple connections. Do you think a cable modem is sufficient? It is probably not.

Which is Better for You in Alpharetta? Dedicated Internet Bandwidth or Shared Cable Circuits?

Utilizing a cable modem or other less expensive circuit may seem like a good option but can result in unexpected cost. Your low monthly bill may mean that the bandwidth is shared among multiple tenants. 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. Cable operators are only permitted to establish a certain amount of bandwidth within communities. That bandwidth branches off to different buildings and then to various tenants within those buildings. While you may be capped at a 30 Meg speed, you may never be able to reach that speed during organization hours. Is this a problem for you if you expect 30 and get 6?

Some providers offer customers dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. With these, bandwidth belongs to you and your company only; no sharing. The presence of numerous buildings and tenants should have no effect on your speed. You should receive full capacity of your circuits no matter what the time of day.

For example, Metro Ethernet guarantees bandwidth in 5 met circuits, 10 Meg circuits, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. If you want to reach gigabit speeds from your business out to the net, you can by using a gigabit Internet provider.

Providers in these situations deliver enough to cover everyone’s needs. The providers divide their circuit to various tenants while guaranteeing that everyone gets their contracted speed.

High Speed Company Internet Circuits in Alpharetta: How About Redundancy?

Alpharetta has some providers that offer exceptional Internet bandwidth products and services. However, circuits can still go down and cause disruption. What can you do to minimize the chance that you will experience an outage of some kind?

Try using redundant circuits.

Redundancy basically comes in two forms.

A single carrier, providing multiple circuits, to one customer, characterizes one form of redundancy. These redundant circuits help protect from certain failures, for example, router port issues or physical line trouble. Damage to an external wire or part can cause the failure of all of your circuits. A regional outage experienced by your carrier can have the same result. While there is some protection, there is also some risk.

The other type of redundancy requires you to utilize circuits from different carriers. 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. Though they may appear as one, you know that they are each individual circuits and redundant to each other. This redundancy, referred to as diversity redundancy, offers much greater protection. 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 carriers with different physical geographic pathways in Alpharetta, Georgia. In other words, try to obtain circuits entering the building from different sides of the building. The circuits would be established either underground or on telephone poles and would be set up in different directions and lead to different 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.

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

While access to The net is not free, it pales in comparison with the cost of not having reliable Internet access. Please consider these situations:

Does your business rely on Voice-over Internet Protocol for telephone service?

Your office uses a cable modem and, in addition to you, the carrier provides 10-15 additional tenants with circuits. 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 available bandwidth shrinks, what will happen to your calls? How will the quality of that phone call be affected? Are calls dropped? Will they be full of static?

Your company functions as the primary data center for multiple external locations

Your office is the hub of your enterprise: You might be a law practice that shares files, a retail operation that utilizes POS systems or a large accounting firm that needs to share databases. All of your places, you may have 2, you may have 500, you may have 4, 000, depend on your main Internet connection to access and receive data. What happens if your circuit goes down? Is it just irritating? Is it going to cause tremendous problems? Are your other offices able to do any work? What about new orders? Dispense and receive data? Make sure you completely understand your needs before you pick a solution. Perhaps you are a software company, running a hosted solution used by hundreds of customers. Is an API utilized in your business so that your customers can access and speak with your system? What if other systems can’t connect to your office servers? If you have repeated outages, how long will they remain a customer?

You are call center dependent on VoIP

Does your business completely rely on the internet? No calls can go out if your circuits fail. Calls coming in would be unanswerable. You might not even know people are trying to reach your office. Basically, you are 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?

Picking the Right High-Speed Business Access Circuits for Your Company in Alpharetta, Georgia

It should be clear by now that you have many different options to select from. Your organization needs and your budget will have to come into consideration when deciding on your solutions. As a high-level summary:

Internet Access Needs for Small Business

If you have one location or office and do not feel the need to consider redundancy for your system, a smaller Internet access circuit may be all you need. A single fifty, ten or five megabyte circuit might be enough. Metro Ethernet service or gigabit service may also be a reasonably priced option if you are in a lit building. The availability of circuits and your location determine prices; speak with one of our engineers to learn what your best options are.

Mid-Sized Company Internet access: One Location

Having a medium or mid-sized company in Alpharetta, Georgia requires that you have higher-speed access to the internet. Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet and other higher speed Internet circuits are options to consider. In a perfect world, you will achieve maximum redundancy by utilizing multiple carriers to provide and service different circuits. It is sometimes possible to reach this without adding ridiculous costs. Two 50-megabyte circuits may be more cost effective than a single 100 circuit. As a reminder; availability and costs may vary. Learn your options by speaking with one of our knowledgeable experts. We can help you determine what is available in your specific location.

Mid-Sized Businesses access to The Internet – Multiple Locations

The greatest risk of failure belongs to companies that have multiple places of business or offices. Redundant circuits must be an essential part of their systems. Having several providers would afford extra protection. In addition, consider redundant equipment. Redundant routers and switches can minimize risk also. 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 right mix of carriers and services will help keep your company up and running as efficiently as possible.

Clients who provide services delivered via Internet, large corporate and enterprise clientele

If you fall into this group, you must have Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet circuits and point-to-point High-speed Internet circuits. You absolutely need redundant circuits from different providers as well as redundant hardware. This is crucial to ensuring uptime. You must have the bandwidth to withstand sharp increases in usage. Doing so will help protect you from slowdowns or interruptions. The hardware and circuits you choose must both be able to support the following: a great number of concurrent, speedy connections.

You May Receive an Internet Need and Internet Demand Analysis for Free

Do not risk having failing circuits or not enough bandwidth. The right circuits must meet your demand while keeping you within your budget. You have to select the optimal combination of hardware and circuits, which is a daunting task.

We have engineers that will analyze your needs, look at your business requirements and develop an action plan for you… for free!We’ll formulate a design or plan based partly on your current usage and demand levels. We are going to create something cost effective that gives you the resources your company needs, while keeping it running smoothly.

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.