The lifeblood of Antioch, California companies doing company in the current environment relies on reliable access to The web. All companies, big and small, need fast and reliable access to The Internet.
We will, in the months and years ahead, become more and more dependent on our access to The web.
From email messaging to information sharing, e-commerce to archiving data, and voice over IP to video conferencing, the net is omnipresent. How can your needs be met? Will a cable modem be adequate? Metro Ethernet may be the thing you need. Is Gigabit Internet right for you? What is best for your company in Antioch, California? Will your organization needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg access to The Internet or 100 Meg access to The web point?
Your company must assess its real needs. This must be done before an appropriate service can be chosen. Perhaps the web 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 web? There may be remote locations that rely on you and you are hosting the data in Antioch, California.
What if you have a disruption in your high-speed Internet? Can your company afford a long pause or lull in productivity? Does your company require uptime? Before you buy anything, you must answer these questions.
It is no secret that all companies need high-speed access to the net. Choosing the correct broadband internet for your organization requires a cost benefit analysis. While many providers like to spout technical terminologies such as:
… you must not lose sight of the real issue, which is understanding what technical solutions best meet your needs.
For many, if not all, companies in Antioch, access to The net is needed for at least some employees. Whether it is to talk to shippers, do research or place orders, Internet access is required.
The number of workers you have may be the factor that drives your decision. If you have a handful of employees, a 5 or 10 Meg Internet circuit may be adequate. If you have more than that, you may need more.
Perhaps most workers at your company use an intranet system with limited features. High- speed Internet may not be a priority in this case. When employees are often downloading images, videos and documents, however, the need for speed increases significantly.
Do you perform backups at your company? Simultaneous connections to the web, which you need in order to sync your backup data, require support. If you conduct remote backups from every workstation, which you definitely should, this will be important.
Do you use a file-sharing service? Perhaps you use Google drive, DropBox or a different service? The saved files go to the cloud and are then synchronized or “shared” with other people’s computers. Supporting file sharing, while supporting every other service, requires sufficient bandwidth.
Organization high-speed access to The web may interest you. Depending on your location, you may have options such as gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. Usually, you can find these in “lit buildings” in Antioch, California that have been previously wired by a carrier. If you’d like to install high-speed Internet in your office, you should know that it might be more affordable than you realize.
Unless you are bringing Metro Ethernet into a new building, it does not have to be an expensive proposition to connect it to a suite within a building. 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 to run information feeds, websites or application program interfaces (APIs) with companies or offices located outside of your four walls? Do your headquarters have a hosted Internet application that must be accessed regularly by 40 or 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 hosting data for multiple office places?
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. If the internet connection is interrupted, those people cannot get their work done. Make sure that when you choose your intranet solution it is reliable enough to support your need for multiple and simultaneous connections for many different places.
For a single office surfing the web, a cable modem or inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be sufficient. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable for the headquarters where high-speed Internet access is important. While fast access to The net is and important, they must also have the capability to handle assorted simultaneous connections. A cable modem would not be able to accomplish this.
In many cases, installing an inexpensive cable modem comes at a price. Even though you pay less money per month you must consider that the bandwidth you receive may be shared and used by multiple parties in the building. During peak use hours, you may not be able to reach proper speeds. Cable operators differ but many have prescribed limits on the bandwidth amount that they can deliver within a set community. Different buildings and tenants housed or working within those buildings all share that set amount of bandwidth. During crucial working hours, you may not get to the 30-meg speed you have been capped at. Is getting 7 when you expect 30 a problem?
You can find a carrier who can provide dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. With these options, bandwidth is yours. It is not shared with anyone outside of your business. Regardless of other tenants in your building or neighboring buildings, you should receive the full capacity of your circuit.
Five Meg, ten Meg, fifty Meg and 100 Meg circuits of guaranteed bandwidth are available with Metro Ethernet. In your office out to the internet you can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit providers
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.
Despite outstanding Internet bandwidth products offered by carriers in Antioch, circuits do go down. How can you decrease the chance of an outage?
Consider redundant circuits.
There are, in essence, two types of redundancy.
With the first kind, you receive several circuits but they all come from the same carrier. Redundant circuits can help protect against certain problems. They can mitigate the inconveniences when there is a failure of a physical line or a problem with the port into your router. 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 offers some protection and assurance but does not eliminate all threats.
Circuit redundancy can also be achieved in the following way: Import circuits using two different and distinct 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. But, you know that they are actually separate and redundant. This is called diversity redundancy and offers more protection that the first. 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.
If you want to maximize redundancy in Antioch, California please consider the following question: Do the providers I am considering use the same physical geographic pathways? Alternatively stated, try to have your circuits enter the building on different sides from one another. Ideally, the circuits will be going in different directions and toward various central organization spaces or data centers. Having redundancy in different physical directions can protect you if there is a serious incident at a data center or some accident that causes a regional circuit issue.
The cost of dependable Internet access pales in comparison to the cost of unreliable access. Consider these scenarios:
The carrier you use for your cable modem also provides circuits for a dozen or more tenants in the office building. Any of these tenants may be taking many calls, conducting huge downloads or streaming video during your regular office hours. How will your telephone calls be affected as the amount of available bandwidth decreases? What will happen to the strength and quality of that call? Maybe calls will randomly drop? Will you sound muffled?
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 sites, whether 2 or 2000, count on your primary Internet connection to access and retrieve data. What will happen in the event of a circuit failure? Is it a mere annoyance or a catastrophic failure? Can meaningful work be conducted at your remote offices? 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 might have hundreds and hundreds of loyal customers. Perhaps you are a software company running a hosted solution they all depend on. Perhaps you operate a service where other systems communicate with yours via an API to calculate freight prices, commodity prices, collect current weather data or receive any other information that you serve up. What if these other systems have difficulty connecting your servers? Will your customers remain loyal to you if they have to withstand multiple outages?
Is the net integral to the proper function of your business? Do you depend on it entirely? No calls can go out if your circuits fail. Your representatives would also be unable to answer calls. You are now officially out of company. Is redundancy enough? Are your current providers as dependable as you would like? Are you getting quality service so that your calls are clear and consistent?
It should be clear by now that you have many different options to select from. The needs and budget of your organization will both affect your choices. As a wrap-up:
Sometimes redundancy is not essential to you. For example, If you are a small organization, with just one office location, a single access to The Internet circuit may be sufficient. You may get by with one 50, 10 or even 5 megabyte circuit. Find out if you are in a lit building. If so, the price of Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be affordable. 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 Antioch, you will need higher-speed Internet access. You have several choices. Consider the following: Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet or higher-speed access to The Internet circuits. In a perfect scenario, multiple circuits from different providers will give you the most redundancy. This may be attainable without doubling your costs. Two smaller circuits may be cheaper than one. For instance, you may use two 50 meg circuits instead of a single 100 meg circuit. To repeat, availability and prices 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.
The greatest risk of failure belongs to companies that have multiple places of company or offices. Redundant circuits are essential. Multiple providers are highly desirable. You can increase redundancy with switches or routers. Having redundant equipment can also minimize risk. Have you looked at Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed Internet access circuit providers? You should do so before making a decision. The right combination of services and carriers can positively impact the efficiency of your organization.
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. You must have redundant circuits for multiple providers as well as redundant hardware in your office to ensure your uptime. You do not want any slowdowns or interruptions that often occur during spikes in usage. Avoid this by having sufficient bandwidth. Both your hardware and circuits must be capable of supporting a vast number of simultaneous and fast connections.
Do you understand how great the risk of failing circuits and insufficient bandwidth really is? It is imperative that the circuit or circuits you choose meet your needs but also keep you within your allowable budget. Choosing the right combination of hardware and circuits can be complicated and confusing.
We have engineers that will analyze your needs, look at your business requirements and develop an action plan for you… for free!We are going to 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 business needs, while keeping it running smoothly.
Please click here if you wish to complete the contact form on the side of this page. Alternatively, call our office to schedule an assessment. It can take as little as 48 hours to provide a complete assessment.