In today’s environment, companies in Arlington Heights depend on reliable access to The web as the lifeblood of their business. All companies, large and small, need fast and reliable access to The web.
We’ll become increasingly dependent on Internet access as the months and years progress.
The Internet is ubiquitous. From email to data sharing, archiving to commerce and VOIP to video conferencing, the net is everywhere. What is the right solution to meet your requirements? Will a cable modem be adequate? Is Metro Ethernet necessary? Gigabit Internet may be required. What is best for your company in Arlington Heights, Illinois? Will your business needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg Internet access or 100 Meg access to The Internet point?
Before selecting an appropriate service for your company, you must first determine what needs you are trying to satisfy. Is Internet use limited to website surfing or emailing only? Is it used for real-time data connection with cloud servers? Do remote sites depend on you hosting the data in Arlington Heights, Illinois?
Have you thought about what happens to your business if your high-speed Internet is interrupted by an outage? How will the downtime affect your business? Does your organization require uptime? Before you buy anything, you must answer these questions.
Speaking broadly, all companies need high-speed access to the web. Deciding on the right broadband is not easy. It requires a thorough cost-benefit analysis. Don’t be distracted by terminology. While you may hear service providers throw out words and phrases like:
… be sure not to forget what capability and technical solutions meet your business’s specific needs.
For most companies in Arlington Heights, Illinois, some or all of the employees need access to the web. It may be needed for organization research, to order office supplies or other reasons.
Perhaps the size of your work force may determine the solution that best fits your needs. A 5 or 10 megabyte Internet circuit may be perfect if you only have a few employees. You may need more if you have more workers and those workers all need to be on the internet during the same hours.
High-speed Internet may become less important if the majority of your employees primarily use an intranet system with limited graphics and video. When employees are often downloading images, videos and documents, however, the need for speed increases significantly.
Are you performing routine backups? It is recommended that you do remote backups from every desk. If you are, you will need to support simultaneous connections out to the web to synchronize the backup data to collect.
Are you using Google drive, DropBox or another file sharing service? As a file is saved, it is pushed to the cloud and then synced back to other people’s computers. Enough bandwidth is required to support this function along with every other service.
High-speed organization Internet access like Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options for you depending on your location. These are typically found in “lit buildings” in Arlington Heights. Providers have already wired these buildings. You may be surprised by how easy and affordable it is to add high-speed Internet to your business.
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. Also, securing high-speed Internet access using gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet often takes less than 30 days, depending on its availability.
Does your company host its own servers? Does your company use the hosted servers to run data feeds, APIs or websites for offices or businesses located elsewhere? Do your headquarters have a hosted Internet application that must be accessed regularly by 40 or 50 branch offices? Are you a retail company hosting the POS system for thousands of chain stores? Do you run a law office that hosts the data for satellite offices in different cities or states?
Granting access to outsiders is necessary when you host data and programs at a central location. People can’t work if you have no Internet connection. When deciding on the right intranet solution for your organization, ask yourself: Is the solution going to adequately support simultaneous and multiple connections from my different sites?
If you have one office using the web, you may get by with a cable modem or a low- cost 10-megabyte circuit. High-speed dedicated circuits, Metro Ethernet or gigabit Ethernet are advisable for company headquarters. While fast access to The web is and important, they must also have the capability to handle assorted simultaneous connections. A cable modem would probably not be enough.
Bringing in a less-expensive circuit like a cable modem often comes with a price. Oftentimes, a lower monthly rate comes with the realization that you are sharing bandwidth with many different tenants and offices. It is possible that you have a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection but cannot reach proper speeds during peak hours. Cable operators are only permitted to establish a certain amount of bandwidth within communities. 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. Do you care if you only get 6 when you were set up to expect 30?
Guaranteed bandwidth and dedicated bandwidth are solutions that some providers offer. In this case, your company receives full allocation of bandwidth. There is no sharing with any outsiders. Notwithstanding the existence of tenants, offices or buildings in the area, you should have the full capability of your circuits at all times.
For example, with Metro Ethernet, you can receive a guaranteed bandwidth in increments of five Meg circuits, 10 Meg circuits, 50 Meg circuits and 100 Meg circuits. In your office out to the web 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.
Circuits can go down in Arlington Heights even though certain carriers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. You must ask yourself: “how do I lessen the chance of an outage? ”
You may be a candidate for redundant circuits.
We are primarily talking about two kinds 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. It is possible for both circuits to go down. If your carrier has a regional problem like a widespread outage, or there is a broken line outside your building, even your redundant circuits may fail. This is not foolproof, but does offer some protection.
In the second type of redundancy, you bring in circuits from two different carriers. By using IP address allocations and certain routers, you can bind your connections. By doing this, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. However, despite appearances, they are actually very much separate and are redundant to each other. You will get more substantial protection from this diversity redundancy. In the event that one carrier goes down, the other will still be alive.
If you want to maximize redundancy in Arlington Heights please consider the following question: Do the carriers I am considering use the same physical geographic pathways? If at all possible, you want to obtain circuits entering the premises on different sides. They would be on outside phone poles or underground conduits in different directions and leading to different places. 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.
While access to The net is not free, it pales in comparison with the cost of not having reliable access to The net. Consider the following:
Is your organization on a cable modem? How many other tenants is your carrier servicing in your building? Are 14 other offices getting circuits? During the course of a regular work day, any or all of these other businesses might be performing massive file downloads. Tenants might be taking a large volume of calls or be regularly streaming video. How will less available bandwidth affect your telephone calls? What about the quality of your calls? Will calls be arbitrarily dropped? Will the calls be choppy?
Whether you are a law firm doing file sharing, an accounting practice sharing databases or a retailer operating a distributed point-of-sale system, your office is the hub for your enterprise. Your primary Internet connection is solely responsible for smoothly granting access and sending data to all of your places whether you have two or two thousand. Your circuit goes down, now what happens? Would it annoy you or destroy you? Can your satellite offices perform any work at all? What will happen to new orders? Can they be taken or processed? Disseminate needed information and data? Choosing the right solution depends largely on assessing and understanding the specific needs of your business. Maybe you are a corporation that designs and sells software and you run a hosted solution that is used by hundreds and hundreds of customers. Is an API utilized in your business so that your customers can access and communicate with your system? You may find that they are unable to reach or connect with your business servers. Customers will only take so many repeated outages. How long with they remain with your company?
Your organization is entirely Internet based. Should your circuits go down, your representatives cannot make outbound calls. In addition, they will be unable to answer incoming calls. Your company is basically done with. While most reputable call centers are already aware and using redundancy, is it enough? Make sure your providers are as reliable as possible. Is the quality of your calls consistently and reliably clear?
Obviously, there are a variety of choices. Your business needs and budgets will drive your decisions. As a high-level summary:
If you are a small company, with just one location and not concerned about redundancy, a single five meg, 10 meg or 50 meg Internet access circuit may be adequate. Is your building lit? If so, find out about gigabit or Metro Ethernet services. They may be reasonably priced options. The availability of circuits and your location determine prices; speak with one of our engineers to learn what your best options are.
Mid sized companies with a single office in Arlington Heights, need higher speed access to The Internet. You may choose between gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. You may also look into other higher-speed Internet circuits. Using different circuits and different carriers will, if you choose, provide you with redundancy. But can you do this without doubling costs? Sometimes, yes. For example, one 100-megabyte circuit may cost more than two smaller 50-megabyte circuits. 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.
If your organization has several sites or offices, you are at great risk for failure. Redundancy is extremely essential to them. Varied providers are optimal. Also, redundant equipment such as switches and routers in your facility can minimize the risk of downtime. Here too, take a careful look and choose the right Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed access to The Internet circuit providers. Finding the best combination of services, providers and equipment can go a long way toward helping your organization run as efficiently as possible.
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 absolutely need redundant circuits from different providers as well as redundant hardware. This is important to ensuring uptime. You need enough bandwidth. The bandwidth must be adequate to handle spikes in usage with no slowdowns or interruptions. It is crucial that not only your circuits have the ability to support a vast number of multiple and simultaneous connects, but your hardware must have the ability to support them as well.
Do you understand how great the risk of failing circuits and insufficient bandwidth really is? The circuit or circuits you have must stay within the parameters of your budget while still meeting your business needs. Selecting the appropriate mix of circuits and hardware can overwhelm you.
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’ll formulate a design or plan based partly on your current usage and demand levels. We will create something cost effective that gives you the resources your organization needs, while keeping it running smoothly.
You can complete the contact form on the right side of this page by clicking here. If you would prefer, please call our office to set up an appointment for an assessment. It can take less than 48 hours to complete your assessment.