Battle Creek, Michigan High-Speed Internet Access

Accessing High Speed Internet in Battle Creek, Michigan: Gigabit Internet, Organization Broadband and Metro Ethernet Access

In today’s world, Battle Creek, Michigan companies need dependable Internet access. It is the lifeblood of their business. All companies, from Fortune 500 to small businesses, have functions that rely on easy, dependable and quick access to The Internet.

Internet access will become increasingly crucial to us in the coming months and years. Our dependence on access to The net will only grow as time goes on.

The use of the internet is pervasive. We use it for email and data sharing, video chat and VOIP, archiving and commerce. What can best meet your needs? Maybe a cable modem is a sufficient solution. Maybe you need Metro Ethernet. Your needs may be met with Gigabit Internet. Does your business in Battle Creek, Michigan need one of these: 10 Meg Internet access, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?

How to Define your Company Need for Internet Access

Prior to selecting a service, your company must figure out its needs. Perhaps the web 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? Are you hosting the data in Battle Creek and distant locations or offices rely on you?

What happens if you have an outage in your high-speed Internet? Can your company afford a long pause or lull in productivity? Is uptime essential? These types of questions must be answered before you make purchase anything.

Evaluating Different High-Speed Internet Solutions in Battle Creek, Michigan

In all-encompassing terms, businesses need high-speed access to The web. An analysis of the costs and benefits should be done prior to choosing the broadband that is correct for your company. While you are likely to hear some service providers toss around terms such as:

• High-speed access to The web service
• Business Internet or commercial Internet
• What about broadband cable modems?
• Metro Ethernet experts
• Gigabit Ethernet
• Multiprotocol label switching, also known as MPLS
• point-to-point circuits
• Five megabyte Internet access
• 10 megabyte Internet access
• Internet access- 50 megabytes
• One hundred megabytes- fast access to The web circuits
• Sip trunking providers
• Direct or dedicated Internet access
• … and countless others

… the actual issue is knowing what technology and capability can satisfy your needs.

Surfing the Web: Company Internet Access

For many, if not all, companies in Battle Creek, Michigan, access to The net is needed for at least some employees. Whether it is for business research, to order supplies or to use third-party applications, the web is required.

Perhaps the size of your work force may determine the solution that best fits your needs. An Internet circuit of 5 -10 megabytes might be enough for your organization if you only have a few people working for you. 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.

You may not need as much high-speed access to The Internet if your employees work primarily on an intranet system with limited graphics and video. However, employees who must often download documents, images and videos, need that speed.

Do you backup information? If you are doing remote backups from every desk, which is advisable, you will need to be able to support simultaneous connections out to the web to synchronize your backup data.

Do you use a file sharing service like Google drive or DropBox? When you save a file it is pushed to the cloud. Then it is synched to the computer or computers of someone else. Running all your services properly, including sharing files, requires that you have the right amount of bandwidth.

You may consider high-speed company Internet access if you location warrants it. Gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet may be viable options for you. They are usually contained in “lit buildings” in Battle Creek, Michigan that have already been wired by a carrier. Adding this high-speed Internet to your office may be surprisingly affordable and easy.

The introduction of Metro Ethernet into a new building can be quite costly. However, bringing that connection into office space within that building is usually less so. In fact, obtaining high-speed Internet access with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less depending upon availability.

Hosted Applications Requiring High-Speed Internet Access

Does your business host its own servers to run information feeds, websites or application program interfaces (APIs) with companies or offices located outside of your four walls? Are your corporate headquarters with a hosted application utilized by 50 branch offices? Are you a retail company hosting the POS system for thousands of chain stores? Are you a law firm? Do you host data for three or more external sites?

Access to data and programs by people outside of your main location becomes necessary when you host information centrally. Those people are not able to work without a solid 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 business with just one or two people surfing the web, a less expensive 10 Meg circuit or a cable modem may meet your needs. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable for the headquarters where high-speed Internet access is important. High-speed alone is not enough. They must also need to be capable of supporting many diverse connections. A cable modem would not be able to accomplish this.

Shared Cable Circuits in Battle Creek, Michigan Versus Dedicated Internet Bandwidth

In some situations, there is a high price to pay for bringing in an inexpensive circuit or cable modem. While the monthly rate is lower, the bandwidth is generally shared among other tenants. While you may subscribe to a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection, you may be unable to reach those 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. The 30-meg speed you are capped out sounds good but it is possible that you will never reach that speed during company hours. Is it a problem if you get a quarter or even half of the speed you expected?

Guaranteed bandwidth and dedicated bandwidth are solutions that some providers offer. In this case, your organization receives full allocation of bandwidth. There is no sharing with any outsiders. 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.

With Metro Ethernet, for example, you can receive a guaranteed bandwidth in various increments including 5 and 10 Meg circuits, and 50 and 100 Meg circuits. Gigabit Internet providers offer gigabit speeds from your office to the web.

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.

Redundancy With Battle Creek, Michigan High Speed Business Internet Circuits

While certain providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products in Battle Creek, Michigan, the reality is that it is possible for a circuit to go down. What can you do to minimize the chance that you will experience an outage of some kind?

Consider 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. This provides some protection when there are certain failures. Multiple circuits can help for example, when there is a physical line issue or a problem with a router port. 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. While offering some protection, it is not without risk.

Circuit redundancy can also be achieved in the following way: Import circuits using two different and distinct providers. By using IP address allocations and certain routers, you can bind your connections. By doing this, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. In reality, they are completely separate and redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy offers far greater protection. If one carrier has a problem, the other likely will not.

The carriers you choose for your redundant circuits should have different physical pathways in Battle Creek, Michigan. This is an important consideration when trying to obtain the most redundancy. This means that you should try to have the circuits come into you building from 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.

What Are the Costs Associated With Not Adequately Protecting Your Company High-Speed access to The net?

Internet access costs money but the cost of NOT having reliable Internet access is greater. Contemplate these scenarios:

You use VoIP for your business telephone service

Are you on a cable modem and your carrier is providing circuits to dozens of other office suites in your building? It is possible that during normal organization hours, those tenants might be downloading large files or watching continuous videos. They might be getting a lot of phone calls. As they use more bandwidth, there is less for available to meet your requirements. What will happen to your phone calls? What about phone call quality? Are calls dropped? Will you sound muffled?

Your organization is the central data point for multiple locations

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 responsible for granting access to data to all of your sites. This is true whether you have 3 locations or 2000 sites. What will happen if your circuit crashes? Is it just irritating? Is it going to cause tremendous problems? Is work even possible at your other sites? What happens to new orders? Can they be taken or processed? Circulate necessary data? Be sure you understand your requirements fully before choosing a solution. 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. Maybe you operate a service that allows other systems to talk to yours via API. This may be to collect miscellaneous data, calculate prices or shipping prices or other information. What happens when there is a problem connecting to your servers? How long will your customers tolerate repeated outages?

You are call center dependent on VoIP

Maybe your organization depends entirely on the internet. Should your circuits go down, your representatives cannot make outbound calls. They are also unable to answer calls. You are essentially out of organization. Is redundancy enough? Many of the finest call centers with the best reputations already understand and use redundancy. They should consider if they have sufficient protection. Are the carriers that you are using reliable enough? Do you consistently get quality service that provides clear and reliable calls?

Picking the Right High-Speed Organization Access Circuits for Your Company in Battle Creek, Michigan

You clearly have many options. Your decision will be based on different factors including your company needs and your budget. In review:

Internet Access Needs for Small Organization

If you are a small company, with one location and you do not worry about redundancy, one five meg, ten meg, or fifty meg Internet access circuit may very well be enough to meet your needs. Is your building lit? If so, find out about gigabit or Metro Ethernet services. They may be reasonably priced options. Speak with our engineers about what is right for you. Prices vary with location and circuit availability.

Single Location Mid-Sized Organization and Internet Access

Mid sized companies with a single office in Battle Creek, Michigan, need higher speed Internet access. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and other higher-speed Internet circuits are your options. In a perfect world, you will achieve maximum redundancy by utilizing multiple carriers to provide and service different circuits. It is sometimes possible to reach this without adding ridiculous costs. For instance, it may be cheaper to utilize two 50 meg circuits in place of one 100 meg circuit. Again, costs and availability vary. Speaking with one of our experts will help you determine the options available in your specific location.

Mid-Sized Company with More than One Location: Access to the Internet

Any company with more than one location suffers the greatest risk of problems. Redundant circuits are essential. Multiple providers would be great. You can increase redundancy with switches or routers. Having redundant equipment can also minimize risk. Look at all of your options: Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet providers, Metro Ethernet providers and other high-speed circuit providers. The right mix can help. If you can figure out the best combination of carriers and services for your company, you will benefit.

Clients who provide services delivered via Internet, large corporate and enterprise clientele

For companies falling in this category, gigabit Internet circuits, Metro Ethernet Internet circuits and point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits are essential. You will want to have the greatest protection of your uptime. To accomplish this you must have redundancy: redundant circuits from multiple carriers and redundant hardware for your system. Having plenty of bandwidth will help avoid interruptions or decreased speed that sometimes occurs during spikes in usage. The hardware and circuits you choose must both be able to support the following: a great number of concurrent, speedy connections.

Internet Need Demand Analysis Provided Free of Charge

Do not risk having failing circuits or not enough bandwidth. It is imperative that the circuit or circuits you choose meet your needs but also keep you within your allowable budget. Choosing the right mix of circuits and hardware is a daunting task.

Our expert engineers will review your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. You want your business 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 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. Assessments are done in as few as two days or within 48 hours.