The lifeblood of Avondale companies doing business in the current environment relies on reliable Internet access. Fortune 500 companies to small businesses and everything in between, rely on reliable and fast access to The Internet.
Our reliance on access to the internet will become greater in the near and distant future.
The use of the net is pervasive. We use it for email and data sharing, video conferencing and VOIP, archiving and commerce. What is the best fix to meet your requirements? Will a cable modem be sufficient? Maybe you need Metro Ethernet. Would Gigabit Internet suffice? What does your Avondale, Arizona company need? Does it require 10 Meg access to The web, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 Meg circuit or a 5 Meg circuit?
Prior to selecting a service, your organization must figure out its needs. Is the web primarily used for emailing or web surfing? Will real-time data connection with servers in the cloud be the primary use of the web? Are you hosting the data in Avondale, Arizona that remote sites depend upon?
What happens if you have an outage in your high-speed Internet? Can your company afford a long pause or lull in productivity? Is the absence of uptime detrimental? Before making a purchase, these are some of the questions that you must answer.
In the broadest of terms, companies need high-speed Internet access. 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 providers throw out words and phrases like:
… you must not lose sight of the real issue, which is understanding what technical solutions best meet your needs.
Companies in Avondale need access to the web for their employees. Some companies may need it only for a few people and others may need it for the entire workforce. access to The web may be needed to conduct research, use third-party applications or to order supplies.
Your best course of action may be determined by the size of your work force. A 5 or 10 megabyte Internet circuit may be perfect if you only have a few employees. 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.
Perhaps most workers at your company use an intranet system with limited features. High- speed Internet may not be a priority in this case. If your company functions demand the downloading of documents and images or videos on a regular basis, speed becomes a must more important issue.
Do you perform backups at your company? 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? After a file is saved, it goes to the cloud and then to someone else’s computer. The right amount of capacity or bandwidth is necessary to support this function in conjunction with every other service you have.
Your company location may cause you to think about high-speed business access to The web such as Metro Ethernet and/or gigabit Internet. Usually, you can find these in “lit buildings” in Avondale, Arizona that have been previously wired by a carrier. The ease and affordability of adding high-speed Internet to your office may surprise you.
Introducing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be expensive. Bringing a connection to a suite within the building is not. In fact, in as little as 30 days, you may be able to obtain high-speed access to the net 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 fifty or so branch offices need access to a hosted application at your company headquarters? Are you a retail company hosting the POS system for thousands of chain stores? Are you a law firm hosting data for multiple office sites?
Access to data and programs by people outside of your main location becomes necessary when you host information centrally. People can’t work if you have no Internet connection. Are you choosing an intranet solution that is sufficiently reliable and stable to support multiple simultaneous connections from varied sites?
For one office or a small organization with just one or two people surfing the web, a less expensive 10 Meg circuit or a cable modem may meet your needs. For headquarters, Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed Internet dedicated circuits is advisable. While high speed is great, you also need support for your multiple diverse connections. This could probably not be accomplished with a cable modem.
Bringing in a cable modem, which seems to save money, may actually come at a price. You may have to share bandwidth in order to secure that low monthly rate. You may experience slow downs. For example, although you subscribe to a cable modem with a thirty Meg connection, it can be difficult to maintain the maximum speed during busy times and peak hours. Only a certain amount of bandwidth may be available in a community. Many cable companies have limits on the amount they can deliver. 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 company hours. Is this a problem for you if you expect 30 and get 6?
There are carriers who offer dedicated and even guaranteed bandwidth. With these, bandwidth belongs to you and your company only; no sharing. No matter who is in the building or what buildings surround you, you should always run at full speed.
You can receive guaranteed bandwidth with Metro Ethernet. You can receive it in increments of five, 10, 50 or one hundred megabyte circuits. If you want to reach gigabit speeds from your business out to the net, you can by using a gigabit Internet provider.
The providers in this situation deliver high-speed to a particular building in sufficient quantity to split their circuit among various tenants. Of course, they must ensure that they each get the specific amount of their contracted speed.
You can’t control everything. Even with the superior Internet bandwidth products that some providers offer in Avondale, Arizona, problems arise and circuits can fail. How can you lower the chances that you will experience some kind of outage?
Circuits that are redundant may be a good idea.
There are, in essence, two types of redundancy.
The first type exists when the same carrier gives you multiple circuits. When there are problems with a physical line or a port or other failures, it can be helpful to have redundant circuits. 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 offering some protection, it is not without risk.
Bringing in circuits using two distinct carriers is the second form of circuit redundancy. These connections can be bound together so they act and appear to the public as a single circuit. Using particular routers and IP address allocations, no one would be able to tell that you have multiple carriers or circuits. But, you know that they are actually separate and redundant. While circuit redundancy in general is a good idea, diversity redundancy by using different providers, offers far better protection. When one carrier has a problem like an outage or some other failure, you have another one that works.
You want maximum redundancy. In order to achieve this, look for redundant circuits from different providers with different physical geographic pathways in Avondale. This means that you should try to have the circuits come into you building from different sides. 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. Please consider these situations:
The carrier you use for your cable modem also provides circuits for a dozen or more tenants in the office building. During company hours, any of those tenants could be streaming video, performing massive file downloads, processing large volumes of phone calls and more. How will less available bandwidth affect your telephone calls? How will it affect the quality of that telephone call? Will calls be cut-off? Inaudible (choppy) to your customers?
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. Whether you have 2 sites, 250, or 2000, they all depend on your primary Internet connection to retrieve data and information. How will you be affected if your circuit goes down? Would you merely be annoyed? Would there be catastrophic consequences? Is work even possible at your other places? What about new orders? Circulate essential files and data? It is important that prior to choosing a solution, you understand the true needs and requirements of your particular business. You have a software company, and are running a hosted solution for dozens, maybe hundreds, of customers. Maybe you offer a service that allows other systems use an application program interface (API) to talk to you to collect information and data. What if you have server problems and they are unable to connect to you? How long will your customers tolerate repeated outages?
Your business is completely reliant on the net. Should your circuits stop working, imagine your people being unable to make any outbound phone calls. Your reps have no way of answering calls, if they even know they are coming in. You are now, essentially, out of organization. Even for the most reputable call centers that already know of and use redundancy, is it sufficient? Are you really getting the dependable service you need form your carriers? Are you using providers that are truly reliable? Are you getting quality service so that your calls are clear and consistent?
You clearly have many options. The needs and budget of your business will both affect your choices. In 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 access to The Internet circuit may be sufficient. If you are in a “lit” building, Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be reasonably priced options. Costs vary with location and the availability of circuits so speak with our engineers. Together, we can find the best option for you and your organization.
Mid sized companies with a single office in Avondale, need higher speed access to The web. Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet and other higher speed Internet circuits are options to consider. Ideally, multiple circuits from multiple providers will provide you with the greatest redundancy. Achieving this may not be as costly as you first thought. For example, one 100-megabyte circuit may cost more than two smaller 50-megabyte circuits. Remember, costs vary. So does availability. In order to find out the options available for you, in your location, you need to speak with one of our seasoned experts.
If your business has several locations or offices, you are at great risk for failure. They require redundant circuits. Varied providers are optimal. Additionally, you should consider redundant equipment (routers and switches) in your facility to minimize the risk of downtime. Look at all of your options: Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet providers, Metro Ethernet providers and other high-speed circuit providers. Your company can benefit from finding the right mix of services and carriers.
If you fall into this group, you must have Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet circuits and point-to-point High-speed Internet circuits. Having redundant hardware as well as redundant circuits from different providers will ensure your needed uptime. The last thing you want is interruptions or slowdowns affecting your business. You must provide enough bandwidth to avoid these pitfalls that sometimes occur during sudden usage spikes. The hardware and circuits you choose must both be able to support the following: a great number of concurrent, speedy connections.
Insufficient bandwidth and failing circuits are present tremendous risk to your business. You must select the single circuit or multiple circuits that can meet your demands and stay within your budget. There is tremendous pressure on you to choose the best combination of circuits and hardware.
Our expert engineers will review your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. You want your company to run smoothly. We’ll look at your current usage levels and demand levels and design a plan that meets your needs at a cost that makes sense for you.
Please click here to complete the contact form on the right side of this page or call our office to schedule an appointment for an assessment. We do assessments quickly. It can take as little as 48 hours to complete your analysis.