In today’s world, Olathe companies need dependable Internet access. It is the lifeblood of their business. Fortune 500 companies to small companies and everything in between, rely on reliable and fast Internet access.
Our reliance on access to the web will become greater in the near and distant future.
Our uses of the web reach far and wide. From data sharing, video calls, and shopping to VOIP and email, the web has a broad presence. What do you need? Maybe a cable modem is a sufficient solution. Is Metro Ethernet necessary? Gigabit Internet? What is best for your business in Olathe, Kansas? Will your business needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg access to The web or 100 Meg access to The web point?
Before selecting an appropriate service for your company, you must first determine what needs you are trying to satisfy. Perhaps the net is only used for a few things such as email communication or surfing the web. Will Internet usage mainly involve cloud servers and real time data connection? Perhaps you, in Olathe, are hosting the data and remote sites depend upon this.
What if there is an outage and your high-speed Internet is interrupted? How much downtime can your organization withstand? Is uptime required? Before you buy anything, you must answer these questions.
Plainly stated, companies require high-speed access to The web. You need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits to your company before choosing the right broadband internet. You will hear providers use terms like:
… focus on what matters: what does your business need and what are the best services and solutions out there to meet those needs?
At any company in Olathe, Kansas some employees, if not all employees, need some type of access to the web if they are to properly perform their job duties. Internet access may be needed to conduct research, use third-party applications or to order supplies.
The number of employees you have may determine your best solution. If you only have a few workers, you may be fine with a smaller Internet circuit such as a 5 or 10 megabyte. If you have more than that, you may need more.
You may not need as much high-speed Internet access if your employees work primarily on 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.
Are you performing routine backups? 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.
Google drive and DropBox are two popular sharing services. Are you using one of these or some other service that allows you to share files? 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. The right amount of capacity or bandwidth is necessary to support this function in conjunction with every other service you have.
Are you interested in high-speed organization Internet? Depending on where you are located, you may want to look into the viability of gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet. They are almost always found in “lit buildings” in Olathe that are already 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.
Absent the need to introduce Metro Ethernet into a new building, it is not particularly costly to connect Metro Ethernet to a suite or office within that building. In fact, in as little as 30 days, you may be able to obtain high-speed access to the web with either gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. It depends upon availability.
Ask yourself this: Does we host our own servers to run APIs, websites and data feeds to external offices or business premises? Do your headquarters have a hosted Internet application that must be accessed regularly by 40 or 50 branch offices? Is your business retail? Do you have thousands of stores? Do you host the point of sale system for the entire chain? Are you a law firm hosting data for multiple office sites?
When data and programs are hosted centrally at one main site, people outside that location must gain access. If your Internet connection goes down, those people are unable to work. Are you picking an intranet solution that provides reliability and stability for your multiple, simultaneous connections from various sites?
A cost friendly 10 Meg circuit or even a cable modem may satisfy the needs of a business with a single office that needs to surf the web. High-speed Internet access is advisable for the headquarters. Gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit is recommended. While all offer high speeds, they also need to be capable of supporting multiple diverse connections. A cable modem would likely be insufficient.
Bringing in a cable modem, which seems to save money, may actually come 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. Cable operators are only permitted to establish a certain amount of bandwidth within communities. Buildings, offices and tenants within the buildings all must share that amount of bandwidth, whatever it may be. You might be capped at 30-megabyte speed, but may never be able to actually reach that speed during the important hours of your organization day. Will there be trouble if your expectation is set at 30 but you only get 8 or 10?
Some providers offer customers dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. With these options, bandwidth is yours. It is not shared with anyone outside of your business. No matter who is in the building or what buildings surround you, you should always run at full speed.
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. With gigabit Internet providers, you can reach gigabit speeds in your office out to the net.
Providers in these situations deliver enough to cover everyone’s needs. The carriers divide their circuit to various tenants while guaranteeing that everyone gets their contracted speed.
You can’t control everything. Even with the superior Internet bandwidth products that some carriers offer in Olathe, problems arise and circuits can fail. How can you lower the chances that you will experience some kind of outage?
Redundant circuits.
There are two types of redundancy to consider.
The first kind of redundancy exists when one carrier provides one customer with many circuits. 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.
Bringing in circuits using two distinct providers is the second form of circuit 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 reality, they are completely separate and redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy, as this is called, offers you more protection that you might realize. You will still have a live, fully functioning carrier if one fails.
You should look for redundant circuits from providers in Olathe that do not have the same physical geographic pathways, in order to get the most redundancy. 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. 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.
The cost of dependable access to The web pales in comparison to the cost of unreliable access. Consider these scenarios:
You are on a cable modem with the carrier providing circuits to 14 other tenants in your building. 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 happens to the strength and quality of that call? Will calls be cut-off? Inaudible (choppy) to your customers?
Your office is the center of your business. You may be a law firm that does file sharing or a retailer operating a POS system. All of your places, whether 2 or 2000, rely on your primary Internet connection to access and retrieve data. If your circuit goes done, what happens next? Would it cause mere annoyance or utter disaster? Are remote offices able to work at all? Process new orders? Share information? Choosing the right solution depends largely on assessing and understanding the specific needs of your organization. Perhaps you have hundreds of clients or customers that use a hosted solution that your software organization is running. Perhaps you operate a service where other systems speak with yours via an API to calculate freight rates, commodity prices, collect current weather data or receive any other information that you serve up. What happens when they are unable to connect to your servers? How will repeated outages affect your customers? Will they remain customers?
Maybe your business depends entirely on the internet. Your employees or representatives will not be able to make outgoing phone calls if your circuits go down. In addition, they will be unable to answer incoming calls. You are essentially out of company. Is redundancy enough? Are your providers sufficiently reliable? Clear and reliable calls are essential. Does your carrier service consistently provide this?
Obviously, there are a variety of choices. Your business needs and your budget will have to come into consideration when deciding on your solutions. To recap:
If your organization is small, with one location or office, you are likely not concerned about redundancy. For you, a single 5, 10 or 50 megabyte Internet access circuit may suffice. You may find that if your building is “lit”, gigabit service and Metro Ethernet service may be reasonably cost-effective choices for you. The availability of circuits and your location determine prices; speak with one of our engineers to learn what your best options are.
Mid-sized businesses in Olathe should be equipped with higher-speed Internet. Higher-speed circuits like Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or others may be your best options. Ideally, you want to have the greatest redundancy. You can achieve this by using multiple circuits from different carriers. Achieving this may cost extra but it won’t double your costs. For instance, it may be cheaper to utilize two 50 meg circuits in place of one 100 meg circuit. To repeat, availability and prices vary. Speaking with one of our experts will help you determine the options available in your specific location.
Any company with more than one location suffers the greatest risk of problems. Redundant circuits are essential. It is helpful if they use multiple providers. You can increase redundancy with switches or routers. Having redundant equipment can also minimize risk. Here too, take a careful look and choose the right Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed Internet access circuit providers. The right mix of carriers and services will help keep your organization up and running as efficiently as possible.
Companies such as these require the following: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and point-to-point (PPP) high-speed Internet circuits. You must have redundant circuits for multiple providers as well as redundant hardware in your office to ensure your uptime. Spikes or sudden increase in usage can result in Internet slowdowns or disruptions in service. You can decrease the risk of these events by having sufficient bandwidth. Having both your hardware and your circuits capable of supporting many different, fast, and simultaneous connections is essential. It cannot be one or the other.
There is great risk of failing circuits or insufficient bandwidth. 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.
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 business running smoothly at a reasonable cost.
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. Your assessment may be finished within as little as 48 hours.