In today’s environment, companies in Beaumont, Texas depend on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their business. Fortune 500 companies to small businesses and everything in between, rely on reliable and fast access to The web.
access to The web will become increasingly important to us in the coming months and years. Our dependence on access to The Internet will only grow as time goes on.
Our uses of the web reach far and wide. From data sharing, video calls, and shopping to VOIP and email, the net has a broad presence. What is the best fix to meet your needs? Is a cable modem sufficient? Maybe you need Metro Ethernet. Is Gigabit Internet right for you? Will your Beaumont organization needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg access to The net or 100 Meg access to The web point?
Prior to selecting a service, your organization must figure out its needs. Why will you need the web? Will you only be web surfing and emailing? Is the web used for real-time data connection with servers in the cloud? Are you hosting the data in Beaumont that remote places rely upon?
What will happen to your organization if your high-speed Internet experiences an outage? Can your company afford a long pause or lull in productivity? Is uptime essential to the success of your company? Ask yourself these questions before making any purchases. The answers will help you determine what is right for you.
It is no secret that all companies need high-speed access to the web. When picking the correct broadband internet, balancing the costs and benefits to your organization is imperative. Don’t be distracted by terminology. While you may hear providers throw out words and phrases like:
… the real issue is understanding what capability and technical solutions best meet your needs.
At any company in Beaumont, Texas some employees, if not all employees, need some type of access to the net if they are to properly perform their job duties. Third party applications, organization research or development and e-commerce are just a few of the ways the internet may be needed.
Your best course of action may be determined by the size of your work force. An Internet circuit of 5 -10 megabytes might be enough for your company if you only have a few people working for you. If you have more than that, you may need more.
Do your employees primarily use an intranet system? If so, you may not need much high-speed Internet service. On the other hand, Internet speed becomes dramatically more important when they are required to regularly download things like documents or videos.
Are you performing routine backups? If, as recommended, you conduct remote backups from every single desk, you will need to support simultaneous connections out to the web. This will allow you to sync your backup data.
Are you using Google drive, DropBox or another file sharing service? The saved files go to the cloud and are then synchronized or “shared” with other people’s computers. In order to ensure that all of your functions work properly, in addition to file sharing, you must have sufficient bandwidth.
Depending on your location, high-speed company Internet access, including Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options. They are almost always found in “lit buildings” in Beaumont that are already wired by a carrier. It may be shock you to know that installing high-speed Internet access may not be particularly expensive or inconvenient.
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. You can actually get high-speed access with gigabit Internet or even Metro Ethernet quickly. It often takes only 30 days or less, depending on availability.
Does your organization host its own servers running websites, APIs or data feeds for other offices or companies outside of your own four walls? Do your headquarters have a hosted Internet application that must be accessed regularly by 40 or 50 branch offices? Does your office host the point of sale (POS) system for every single store in a large retail chain? You may be a law firm hosting data for three or four different offices.
When things are hosted at a central point, parties outside the office must somehow gain access. 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 locations?
For a single office surfing the web, a cable modem or inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be adequate. It is advisable that high-speed Internet access be available at the central organization office or headquarters, including gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuits. While high speed is great, you also need support for your multiple diverse connections. This could probably not be accomplished with a cable modem.
In many scenarios, bringing in an inexpensive circuit, such as a cable modem, comes at a price. You may save money on your monthly bill but the bandwidth you get must be shared among many people. During peak hours, your connection may slow down, even though you subscribe to a cable modem with a thirty-megabyte connection. Often, within a given community, cable companies may only deliver a particular amount of bandwidth. That bandwidth reaches out like branches to every building in the community and the people living and working in those buildings. You might be capped at 30-megabyte speed, but may never be able to actually reach that speed during the important hours of your business day. Do you care if you only get 6 when you were set up to expect 30?
Some providers offer customers dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. In this situation, your bandwidth is not shared but is fully allocated to your company. The full capacity of your circuit should be attainable during all hours regardless of neighboring buildings, people or offices.
For example, Metro Ethernet guarantees bandwidth in 5 met circuits, 10 Meg circuits, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. With gigabit Internet providers, you can reach gigabit speeds in your office out to the web.
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.
You can’t control everything. Even with the superior Internet bandwidth products that some providers offer in Beaumont, problems arise and circuits can fail. How can you decrease the chance of an outage?
You may be a candidate for redundant circuits.
Essentially, there are two different ways to look at redundancy.
A single carrier, providing multiple circuits, to one customer, characterizes one form of redundancy. These redundant circuits help protect from certain failures, for example, router port issues or physical line trouble. However, if that carrier has a regional outage or physical line damaged outside of your building, both circuits may go down. You get some protection, but also some risk.
Circuit redundancy can also be achieved in the following way: Import circuits using two different and distinct carriers. If you think it is beneficial, you can bind the connections together in a manner that makes your circuits act and look like a single source. In reality, they are completely separate and redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy offers far greater protection. 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.
If you want to maximize redundancy in Beaumont, Texas please consider the following question: Do the providers I am considering use the same physical geographic pathways? In other words, try to obtain circuits entering the building from different sides of the building. The circuits would attached to the proper outside source whether a subterranean conduit or a telephone pole. They would be set up in different directions and would lead to different data centers or main office spaces. What if there is some kind of catastrophic incident such as a fire or accident that impacts circuits within a region? Now, you have redundancy in an alternative physical direction.
Even though Internet access comes with a cost, you will save money if you make sure it is dependable. Unreliable access will end up costing you more in the long run. Contemplate these situations:
The carrier you use for your cable modem also provides circuits for a dozen or more tenants in the office 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 will happen to the strength and quality of that call? Will you lose calls? Will you sound muffled or choppy to your customers?
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 sites whether you have two or two thousand. What happens if your circuit crashes? Is it a mere annoyance or a catastrophic failure? Can meaningful work be conducted at your remote offices? Can they take or process any orders at all? Share essential data? Picking the right a solution can be difficult. Before doing so, be sure you fully understand your requirements. You might have hundreds and hundreds of loyal customers. Perhaps you are a software company running a hosted solution they all rely on. Maybe you operate a service that allows other systems to communicate with yours via API. This may be to collect miscellaneous data, calculate prices or shipping rates or other information. What happens when there is a problem connecting to your servers? How long will your customers tolerate repeated outages?
Your company is 100% dependent on the internet to properly function. No outbound calls can be made should your circuits go down. Calls coming in would be unanswerable. You might not even know people are trying to reach your office. Basically, you are done. For competent call centers that already use and understand the problems that can arise, is redundancy enough? Are the carriers that you are using reliable enough? Clear and reliable calls are essential. Does your carrier service consistently provide this?
You have several different options to pick from. Your decision will be based on different factors including your organization needs and your budget. As a high-level summary:
Sometimes redundancy is not crucial to you. For example, If you are a small company, with just one office location, a single Internet access circuit may be adequate. You may get by with one 50, 10 or even 5 megabyte circuit. You may find that if your building is “lit”, gigabit service and Metro Ethernet service may be reasonably cost-effective choices for you. Because prices can vary based on the location of your company and the availability of circuits, speak with our engineers to learn your options.
Having a medium or mid-sized company in Beaumont requires that you have higher-speed access to the web. Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet and other higher speed Internet circuits are options to consider. Ideally, you want to have the greatest redundancy. You can achieve this by using multiple circuits from different providers. Achieving this may cost extra but it won’t double your costs. Two 50-megabyte circuits may be more cost effective than a single 100 circuit. Availability and costs vary. Your specific location will determine what options you have. Please speak with one of our experts to find out what those are and how we can meet your needs.
Companies with different locations, whether 5 or 50, are at the highest risk. Redundant circuits are essential. Multiple providers or carriers are recommended. You can minimize the risk of downtime at if you also have redundant equipment like routers or switches. Look at all of your options: Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet providers, Metro Ethernet providers and other high-speed circuit providers. The right mix of providers and services will help keep your company up and running as efficiently as possible.
If you fall into this group, you must have Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet circuits and point-to-point High-speed Internet circuits. You must have redundant circuits for multiple providers as well as redundant hardware in your office to ensure your uptime. You must have the bandwidth to withstand sharp increases in usage. Doing so will help protect you from slowdowns or interruptions. Your goal is to have hardware and circuits that are more than capable of providing support to a significant number of fast and simultaneous connections.
Do you understand how great the risk of failing circuits and insufficient bandwidth really is? You need to have the right circuit or circuits to meet your demands while staying within your budget. You have to select the optimal combination of hardware and circuits, which is a daunting task.
Our engineers can help. We will analyze your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. We will look at your current usage, demand levels and scope out a design to give you the resources you need while keeping your business up and running at a reasonable cost.
If you would like to arrange for an assessment, please click here to complete the contact information form to the right. You can call our office as well. We do assessments quickly. It can take as little as 48 hours to complete your analysis.