These days, companies in Beavercreek depend on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their company. The organization functions of all companies, from Fortune 500 to small businesses, rely on fast and reliable access to The Internet.
Our dependence on access to The web will continue to grow in the coming months and years.
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 can best meet your needs? Is a cable modem enough? Metro Ethernet may be the thing you need. Gigabit Internet may satisfy your needs. Will your Beavercreek company needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg access to The Internet or 100 Meg Internet access point?
The needs of your particular organization must be determined before you can select an appropriate service. Is the internet only used for web surfing and email? Will Internet usage mainly involve cloud servers and real time data connection? Do remote places rely on you hosting the data in Beavercreek, Ohio?
Have you thought about what happens to your company if your high-speed Internet is interrupted by an outage? Will your company suffer from the lull? Is uptime essential to the success of your business? You must answer these questions before you buy.
High-speed access to the internet is something all companies need. An analysis of the costs and benefits should be done prior to choosing the broadband that is correct for your company. You will hear service providers use terms like:
… be sure not to forget what capability and technical solutions meet your business’s specific needs.
At most businesses including those in Beavercreek, Ohio, some or all employees need Internet access. There are countless reasons to need access to the web. Perhaps it is to order materials, to conduct company research or communicate with clients.
The number of workers you have may be the factor that drives your decision. 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 a larger workforce, you may want to consider more. This is especially true if they all need to use the internet simultaneously.
You may not need as much high-speed Internet access 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.
Are you regularly performing backups? 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.
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? As people save files, those files are pushed to the cloud and then synchronized back to 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 where you are, you may want to look into high-speed company access to The Internet such as Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet. They are commonly found in “lit buildings” in Beavercreek, Ohio that have already been wired by a carrier. Choosing to add high-speed Internet to your office is a tough decision but it can be less expensive and easier than you think.
While bringing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be an expensive proposition, bringing that connection to a suite within the building is not. In fact, obtaining high-speed access to The web with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less depending upon availability.
Does your company host its own servers to run information feeds, websites or application program interfaces (APIs) with companies or offices located outside of your four walls? Do your headquarters have a hosted Internet application that must be accessed regularly by 40 or 50 branch offices? Perhaps you are in retail and host the point of sale (POS) system for thousands of stores? Are you an attorney with offices multiple cities or states? Do you have one office hosting data for several 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 company. 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?
An inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be enough if you have one office that needs to surf the net. A cable modem may also be sufficient in this situation. For the headquarters, high-speed access to The Internet including Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable. Multiple diverse connections require support, in addition to high speed. A cable modem would probably not be enough.
There is a price that comes along with choosing a cable modem or other lower cost circuit. While the monthly rate is lower, the bandwidth is generally shared among other tenants. The cable modem you subscribe to with the 30 Meg connections may not always reach those speeds, especially during the busiest or “peak” hours of the workday. Many cable companies only deliver a set amount of bandwidth within a community. That amount of bandwidth must be shared with different buildings and with the tenants housed within. With a 30-megabyte connection, you may not get to that speed during the working day. If you expect 30 but only get 6, will you have problems?
Other providers do offer dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. In this case, your organization receives full allocation of bandwidth. There is no sharing with any outsiders. You should receive full capacity of your circuits during all hours. This is true even though you may have many buildings, businesses and tenants nearby.
Five Meg, ten Meg, fifty Meg and 100 Meg circuits of guaranteed bandwidth are available with Metro Ethernet. In your office out to the internet you can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit providers
In these scenarios, providers deliver a large quantity of high-speed to a building. The quantity must be enough so that it can split the circuit and deliver to every tenant. Whatever amount has been guaranteed in each tenant’s contract is the amount they receive.
Beavercreek has some providers that offer exceptional Internet bandwidth products and services. However, circuits can still go down and cause disruption. The question then becomes, “how do I minimize my chance of an outage? ”
You may be a candidate for redundant circuits.
Essentially, there are two different ways to look at redundancy.
The first type exists when the same carrier gives you multiple circuits. 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. While there is some protection, there is also some risk.
Utilizing circuits from two different carriers is the second kind of redundancy. For users and the public, you can make it look like you have one cohesive circuit. You can also make the connections act as a single circuit. You can do this with various advanced routers and IP address allocations. Though they may appear as one, you know that they are each individual circuits and redundant to each other. While circuit redundancy in general is a good idea, diversity redundancy by using different providers, offers far better 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.
You want maximum redundancy. In order to achieve this, look for redundant circuits from different carriers with different physical geographic pathways in Beavercreek, Ohio. This means that you should try to have the circuits come into you building from different sides. 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. This way, if there is a major catastrophe, such as a fire at a data center or a major accident impacting circuits within a region, you have redundancy in a different physical direction.
It is true that Internet access costs you money. However, the cost does not come close to what you will pay if the access that is not reliable. Contemplate these scenarios:
The carrier you use for your cable modem also provides circuits for a dozen or more tenants in the office 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 your telephone calls be affected as the amount of available bandwidth decreases? How will it affect the quality of that telephone call? Will calls be cut-off? Perhaps you will sound choppy or will be inaudible.
Regardless of whether you are part of a legal practice and your firm does file sharing, or an accounting practice sharing databases, your office is the central point or hub of your company. All of your locations, you may have 2, you may have 500, you may have 4, 000, rely on your main Internet connection to access and receive data. What if your circuit fails? Is it a mere annoyance or a catastrophic failure? Is work even possible at your other locations? Can they take or process any orders at all? Disseminate needed information and data? Before choosing a solution, be sure to assess and really understand what your business requires. 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 if these other systems have difficulty connecting your servers? How long will your customers tolerate repeated outages?
Maybe your company depends entirely 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 business. While most call centers that are reputable use redundancy, is it enough? Are your providers sufficiently reliable? Is the quality of service sufficient? Are your calls clear and reliable?
You have no shortage of options. Your budget, as well as the needs of your company, will help drive your decisions. As a high-level summary:
If you have one location or office and do not feel the need to consider redundancy for your system, a smaller Internet access circuit may be all you need. A single fifty, ten or five megabyte circuit might be enough. For an office in a lit building, you may find that gigabit service or Metro Ethernet are affordable options for you. Speak with our engineers about what is right for you. Prices vary with location and circuit availability.
Mid-sized businesses in Beavercreek, Ohio should be equipped with higher-speed Internet. Higher-speed circuits like Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or others may be your best 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 example, choosing two 50 meg circuits versus one 100 meg circuit. As a reminder; availability and costs may vary. Call one of our experts to learn what is available in your specific area.
Any company with more than one location suffers the greatest risk of problems. Redundant circuits must be an essential part of their systems. It is helpful if they use multiple providers. Redundant routers, switches and other equipment can also be helpful to lessen downtime during a problem. Here also, examine the Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet providers. Take a careful look at other high-speed access to The web circuit providers before choosing the right one. Your business can benefit from finding the right mix of services and providers.
For companies falling in this category, gigabit Internet circuits, Metro Ethernet Internet circuits and point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits are essential. If you want to ensure your valuable uptime, have redundant circuits from multiple carriers as well as redundant hardware. Having plenty of bandwidth will help avoid interruptions or decreased speed that sometimes occurs during spikes in usage. Both your hardware and circuits must be capable of supporting a vast number of simultaneous and fast connections.
The danger and risk of failing circuits is tremendous. So is the risk of having less bandwidth than you need. Your demand and budget constraints should both be considered when you decide what circuit or combination of circuits you must have. It is vital to choose the correct mix of hardware and circuits. Figuring out exactly what to put in the mix, can be a daunting task.
Our engineers can help. We will analyze your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. After reviewing your current usage and demand levels, we are going to generate a cost effective plan that provides your company with the resources it needs.
Please call our office for an assessment appointment or click here to complete the contact form on the right side of the page. We can often provide assessments within 48 hours.