These days, companies in Bellflower rely on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their organization. All companies, large and small, need fast and reliable Internet access.
Our reliance on access to the net will become greater in the near and distant future.
From email messaging to information sharing, e-commerce to archiving data, and voice over IP to video chat, the net is omnipresent. What can best meet your needs? Perhaps a cable modem is all you need. Metro Ethernet may be what you need. Gigabit Internet? What does your Bellflower organization need? Does it require 10 Meg access to The Internet, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 Meg circuit or a 5 Meg circuit?
You must, before selecting a service, assess the actual needs of your organization. Are surfing the web and sending email the only uses of the web? Will real-time data connection with servers in the cloud be the primary use of the net? Perhaps you, in Bellflower, California, are hosting the data and remote places rely on this.
What if there is an outage and your high-speed Internet is interrupted? How might the downtime cause problems for your business? Is the absence of uptime detrimental? You must answer questions like these so you can make a purchase that actually meets your needs
Speaking broadly, all companies need high-speed access to the internet. When choosing the right broadband for business, you need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits. 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 Bellflower need access to the internet for their employees. Some companies may need it only for a few people and others may need it for the entire workforce. Third party applications, company research or development and e-commerce are just some of the ways the net may be needed.
The solution you choose may be based on the number of employees you have or expect to have. If you have a handful of employees, a 5 or 10 Meg Internet circuit may be sufficient. If your company has nearly 50 people, however, and they all need to use the web at the same time, you may find that more is better.
High-speed Internet may become less important if the majority of your employees primarily use an intranet system with limited graphics and video. On the other hand, when they are frequently downloading documents, images and videos, that need for speed increases drastically.
Do you routinely backup? When you do remote backups from every workstation, which you should, you must support multiple and simultaneous connections to the web in order to sync your backup data.
Do you use a file-sharing service? Perhaps you use Google drive, DropBox or a different service? As a file is saved, it is pushed to the cloud and then synced 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 web such as Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet. They are usually contained in “lit buildings” in Bellflower that have already been wired by a carrier. The ease and affordability of adding high-speed Internet to your office may surprise you.
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. Depending on availability, it is often possible to obtain high-speed Internet access with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet in 30 days or less.
Your company may host its own servers. Do they run websites APIs or data feeds for external offices? Are your company headquarters with a hosted application accessed by 50 branch offices? Does your office host the point of sale (POS) system for every single store in a large retail chain? Does your legal practice host all of the data for 3, 4 or 5 offices in different places?
If you host programs, data or information centrally, people outside of the central location need to have access. Those people are not able to do their work if the web connection fails or is unreliable. When deciding on the right intranet solution for your business, ask yourself: Is the solution going to adequately support simultaneous and multiple connections from my different sites?
An inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be enough if you have one office that needs to surf the internet. A cable modem may also be sufficient in this situation. It is advisable that high-speed access to The net be available at the central company office or headquarters, including gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuits. High-speed alone is not enough. They must also need to be capable of supporting many diverse connections. The support you need could not be provided by 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. During peak use hours, you may not be able to reach proper speeds. Cable companies are known to limit or predetermine the amount of bandwidth available for delivery in any particular community. The bandwidth branches off to the multiple buildings, offices and tenants within them. The 30-meg speed you are capped out sounds good but it is possible that you will never reach that speed during organization hours. Do you care if you only get 6 when you were set up to expect 30?
Some providers are available who offer dedicated bandwidth and guaranteed bandwidth. In this scenario, the bandwidth is fully allocated to you and your company or business. No one else uses it. The full capacity of your circuit should be attainable during all hours regardless of neighboring buildings, people or offices.
You can receive guaranteed bandwidth with Metro Ethernet. You can receive it in increments of five, 10, 50 or one hundred megabyte circuits. Gigabit Internet providers offer gigabit speeds from your office to the net.
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.
Circuits can go down in Bellflower, California even though certain carriers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. The question then becomes, “how do I minimize my chance of an outage? ”
The answer is redundant circuits.
There are, in essence, two types of redundancy.
The first kind of redundancy exists when one carrier provides one customer with many circuits. These redundant circuits help protect from certain failures, for example, router port issues or physical line trouble. However, if that carrier has a greater outage to your entire region or there is a line damaged outside of your office building, you may have both or all circuits go down. This offers some protection and assurance but does not eliminate all threats.
Utilizing circuits from two different carriers is the second kind of redundancy. By using IP address allocations and certain routers, you can bind your connections. By doing this, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. But, you know that they are actually separate and redundant. This redundancy, referred to as diversity redundancy, offers much 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.
To maximize the benefit of redundancy, consider looking for redundant circuits from different providers that have different pathway in Bellflower, California. Your goal should be to get circuits coming into your building on different sides. You do not want them on the same side. Ideally, the circuits will be going in different directions and toward various central organization spaces or data centers. 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.
The cost to your company if you do not have reliable Internet access will be far greater than you may realize. 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. How will less available bandwidth affect your telephone calls? What about the quality of your calls? Are calls dropped? Will you sound muffled or choppy to your customers?
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. Whether you have 2 places, 250, or 2000, they all depend on your primary Internet connection to retrieve data and information. Your circuit goes down, now what will happen? Would it cause mere annoyance or utter disaster? Is work even possible at your other sites? Can they process transactions or new orders? Share information? Choosing the right solution depends largely on assessing and understanding the specific needs of your business. 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. Perhaps you operate a service where other systems talk to yours via an API to calculate freight prices, commodity prices, collect current weather data or receive any other information that you serve up. You may find that they are unable to reach or connect with your business servers. Multiple outages may annoy your customers.
Maybe your business depends entirely on the net. Should your circuits stop working, imagine your people being unable to make any outbound phone calls. Calls coming in would be unanswerable. You might not even know people are trying to reach your office. Your business is basically done with. Even for the most reputable call centers that already know of and use redundancy, is it sufficient? Are your providers sufficiently reliable? You should be getting high quality service that ensures your calls are consistently clear and reliable.
It should be clear by now that you have many different options to select from. Your company needs and your budget will have to come into consideration when deciding on your solutions. To recap:
If you are a small business, with just one location and not concerned about redundancy, a single five meg, 10 meg or 50 meg access to The web circuit may be sufficient. Gigabit service and Metro Ethernet options seem expensive. If you are in a lit building, however, they can be less than you think. Look into it. The availability of circuits and your location determine prices; speak with one of our engineers to learn what your best options are.
Mid-sized businesses in Bellflower, California should be equipped with higher-speed Internet. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and other higher-speed Internet circuits are your options. Using different circuits and different providers will, if you choose, provide you with redundancy. You can sometimes achieve this without doubling costs. For example, one 100-megabyte circuit may cost more than two smaller 50-megabyte circuits. As a reminder; availability and costs may 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 multiple places are most at risk for failure. Redundancy is extremely crucial to them. Multiple providers would be great. You can decrease risk during downtime by having redundant equipment as well. Here too, take a careful look and choose the right Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed access to The Internet circuit providers. The correct combination of providers and services can keep your business running smoothly and efficiently.
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 providers as well as redundant hardware. 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.
Insufficient bandwidth and failing circuits are present tremendous risk to your business. The right circuits must meet your demand while keeping you within your budget. Selecting the appropriate mix of circuits and hardware can overwhelm you.
Our engineers will analyze your needs and requirements and develop a free action plan for you. We are going to examine your demand levels and current usage. We will then design a plan that keeps your costs reasonable while meeting your demand for a smoothly run business.
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 can often provide assessments within 48 hours.