In today’s world, Baton Rouge, Louisiana companies need dependable Internet access. It is the lifeblood of their business. Fast and reliable Internet access is needed for businesses to function properly; large corporations and small businesses alike.
Internet access will become increasingly crucial to us in the coming months and years. Our dependence on access to The web will only grow as time goes on.
The Internet has a significant presence in our lives. From email to information sharing, data archiving to e-commerce, and VOIP to video conferencing, the web is certainly ubiquitous. What can best meet your needs? Can a cable modem suffice? Your needs may point to Metro Ethernet as a solution. Is Gigabit Internet right for you? Your Baton Rouge organization probably needs a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg Internet access, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg Internet access point but which one is best?
Before selecting an appropriate service for your business, you must first determine what needs you are trying to satisfy. Why will you need the web? Will you only be web surfing and emailing? Is connecting with cloud servers and sharing real time data the main use of the internet? Are you hosting the data in Baton Rouge that remote sites rely on?
What if your high-speed Internet is disrupted by an outage? What will happen to your company? Will your company suffer from the lull? How much uptime is essential to your organization? Before making a purchase, these are a few of the questions that you need to answer.
In the broadest of terms, companies need high-speed Internet access. An analysis of the costs and benefits should be done prior to choosing the broadband internet that is correct for your business. While various providers will throw around terminology like:
… the real issue is understanding what capability and technical solutions best meet your needs.
For many, if not all, companies in Baton Rouge, access to The Internet is needed for at least some employees. The web is required for so many things, whether to order items, look up company information talk to third parties.
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 many employees who need to use the web at the same time, you may do better with 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, Internet speed becomes dramatically more important when they are required to regularly download things like documents or videos.
Do you perform backups at your company? 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.
Are you using Google drive, DropBox or another file sharing service? When you save a file it is pushed to the cloud. Then it is synched to the computer or computers of someone else. In order to ensure that all of your functions work properly, in addition to file sharing, you must have sufficient bandwidth.
You may consider high-speed organization access to The web if you location warrants it. Gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet may be viable options for you. They are commonly found in “lit buildings” in Baton Rouge, Louisiana that have already been wired by a carrier. You may be surprised by how easy and affordable it is to add high-speed Internet to your business.
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. Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet may provide you with high-speed access to The Internet in thirty days or less, depending on availability.
Your organization may host its own servers. Do they run websites APIs or data feeds for external offices? Are your company headquarters with a hosted application connected to fifty or more satellite offices? Are you a retail company hosting the POS system for thousands of chain stores? 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 business. For those people, no Internet connection means no work gets done. Are you choosing an intranet solution that is sufficiently reliable and stable to support multiple simultaneous connections from varied locations?
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. High-speed access to The Internet 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. This could probably not be accomplished with a cable modem.
Bringing in a less-expensive circuit like a cable modem often comes with 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. It is possible that you have a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection but cannot reach proper speeds during peak hours. Often, within a given community, cable companies may only deliver a particular amount of bandwidth. That amount of bandwidth must be shared with different buildings and with the tenants housed within. 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?
Some providers offer customers dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. With these options, bandwidth is yours. It is not shared with anyone outside of your organization. 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, 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 net 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.
While certain carriers offer superior Internet bandwidth products in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the reality is that it is possible for a circuit to go down. You must ask yourself: “how do I lessen the chance of an outage? ”
Redundant circuits may be the answer for you.
There are two types of redundancy to consider.
The first type exists when the same carrier gives you multiple circuits. If there is a problem with a line or a port in your router, circuit redundancy can offer some protection. 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. There is some protection that comes with this but there is risk as well.
The second way to set up circuit redundancy is by using two different carriers to bring in your circuits. 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. In reality, they are completely separate and redundant to each other. 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.
The carriers you choose for your redundant circuits should have different physical pathways in Baton Rouge. This is an important consideration when trying to obtain the most redundancy. Alternatively stated, try to have your circuits enter the building on different sides from one another. The circuits would be attached underground or to telephone poles, in various directions. The circuits would go to different data centers or central offices. In this way you have redundancy in different physical directions. If there is an event that causes a regional circuit problem, you have an alternative that is unaffected.
While Internet access is not free, it pales in comparison with the cost of not having reliable access to The web. Consider these scenarios:
Your organization is on a cable modem and your carrier provides circuits to 20 other offices in your building. Between 9 and 5, any of those other offices could be downloading huge files, streaming video or taking large volume of phone calls and more. What will happen to your telephone calls as the amount of usable bandwidth decreases? What about phone call quality? Will calls be cut-off? Perhaps you will sound choppy or will be inaudible.
You may be an accounting firm that shares databases, a retail chain company utilizing a point of sale system or a law practice sharing files. Regardless of the specifics, 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 locations whether you have two or two thousand. What happens in the event of a circuit failure? Is it simply an irritation or a catastrophe? Can your satellite or remote office do any work at all? Process or take new orders? Disseminate needed information and data? Choosing the right solution depends largely on assessing and understanding the specific needs of your organization. You might have hundreds and hundreds of loyal customers. Perhaps you are a software company running a hosted solution they all depend on. You operate a service that utilizes API in order to grant access to other systems. They may use this to collect whatever data you are offering such as commodity prices, weather data or freight calculations. What happens when they are unable to connect to your servers? Customers do not enjoy repeated outages. How long with they put up with them before looking to take their organization elsewhere?
Your organization is 100% reliant on the web to properly function. No calls can go out if your circuits fail. Your reps have no way of answering calls, if they even know they are coming in. Basically, you are out of business. For competent call centers that already use and understand the problems that can arise, 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 your calls consistently and reliably clear?
It should be clear by now that you have many different options to select from. Your budget, as well as the needs of your company, will help drive your decisions. In review:
A single fifty, ten or five megabyte access to The web circuit may be sufficient to meet the needs of your small company, particularly if you have only one location and are not worried about redundancy. Find out if you are in a lit building. If so, the price of Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be affordable. Because prices can vary based on the location of your organization and the availability of circuits, speak with our engineers to learn your options.
You will need higher speed access to The web if you have a medium sized business in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Your choices include: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or other high-speed circuits. Ideally, you want to have the greatest redundancy. You can achieve this by using multiple circuits from different providers. But can you do this without doubling costs? Sometimes, yes. For example, choosing two 50 meg circuits versus one 100 meg circuit. To repeat, availability and prices vary. In order to find out the options available for you, in your location, you need to speak with one of our seasoned experts.
Companies with different locations, whether 5 or 50, are at the highest risk. Redundant circuits must be an essential part of their systems. Multiple providers or carriers are recommended. Additionally, you should consider redundant equipment (routers and switches) in your facility to minimize the risk of downtime. Before you make a decision here too, do your research. Look closely into Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed circuit providers. The right combination of services and carriers can positively impact the efficiency of your business.
To run efficiently and effectively, corporations and businesses that fall into this category must use point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits, gigabit Internet circuits and Metro Ethernet circuits. If you want to ensure your valuable uptime, have redundant circuits from multiple providers as well as redundant hardware. You need enough bandwidth. The bandwidth must be sufficient to handle spikes in usage with no slowdowns or interruptions. 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 organization. You need to have the right circuit or circuits to meet your demands while staying within your budget. Choosing the right mix of circuits and hardware is a daunting task.
We have engineers that will analyze your needs, look at your company requirements and develop an action plan for you… for free!You want your organization to run smoothly. We are going to 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 call our office for an assessment appointment or click here to complete the contact form on the right side of the page. It can take less than 48 hours to complete your assessment.