Reliable access to The net is the lifeblood of Beloit, Wisconsin companies and their company. Fortune 500 companies to small businesses and everything in between, rely on reliable and fast access to The Internet.
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 net 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. How can your needs be met? A cable modem may be satisfactory. Your needs may point to Metro Ethernet as a solution. Gigabit Internet may be required. A 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg Internet access, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg Internet access point: what is right for your business in Beloit, Wisconsin?
Prior to selecting a service, your company must figure out its needs. Perhaps the internet is only used for a few things such as email communication or surfing the web. Is it used to network with cloud servers? You may be hosting the data in Beloit, Wisconsin and remote sites rely on this.
What happens if you have an outage in your high-speed Internet? Can your organization afford the downtime? Is uptime essential to the success of your organization? You must answer these questions before you buy.
In all-encompassing terms, businesses need high-speed access to The Internet. Before you choose your broadband internet, look at the costs and benefits. Performing this analysis is an important step in picking the right one for your organization. You will hear service providers use terms like:
… do not lose sight of the real issues: what are the capabilities and technical solutions you need to best serve your company?
For most companies in Beloit, Wisconsin, some or all of the employees need access to the net. The web is required for so many things, whether to order items, look up business information speak with third parties.
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 your organization has nearly 50 people, however, and they all need to use the web at the same time, you may find that more is better.
Perhaps most workers at your company use an intranet system with limited features. High- speed Internet may not be a priority in this case. If your company functions demand the downloading of documents and images or videos on a regular basis, speed becomes a must more important issue.
Does your business regularly conduct backups? Simultaneous connections to the web, which you need in order to sync your backup data, require support. If you conduct remote backups from every workstation, which you definitely should, this will be important.
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? When people save a file, it gets pushed to the cloud. The file is then synched with other people’s computers. Enough bandwidth is required to support this function along with every other service.
You may consider high-speed company access to The Internet if you location warrants it. Gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet may be viable options for you. They are usually contained in “lit buildings” in Beloit, Wisconsin 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, in as little as 30 days, you may be able to obtain high-speed access to the net with either gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. It depends upon availability.
Does your company host its own servers running websites, APIs or data feeds for other offices or companies outside of your own four walls? Are your organization headquarters with a hosted application connected to fifty or more satellite offices? Does your office host the point of sale (POS) system for every single store in a large retail chain? Are you a law firm hosting data for multiple office sites?
When data and programs are hosted centrally at one main site, people outside that location must gain access. People can’t work if you have no Internet connection. If you need multiple connections to function at the same time from many different sites, make sure that your intranet solution can reliably support it.
The needs of an office with one employee web surfing may not need more than a cable modem or an inexpensive 5-10 megabyte circuit. High-speed Internet access is advisable for the headquarters. Gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit is recommended. While fast access to The web is and important, they must also have the capability to handle assorted simultaneous connections. A cable modem would not be able to accomplish this.
Utilizing a cable modem or other less expensive circuit may seem like a good option but can result in unexpected cost. While the monthly rate is lower, the bandwidth is generally shared among other tenants. It is possible that you have a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection but cannot reach proper speeds during peak hours. Cable operators are only permitted to establish a certain amount of bandwidth within communities. Buildings, offices and tenants within the buildings all must share that amount of bandwidth, whatever it may be. While you may be capped at a 30 Meg speed, you may never be able to reach that speed during organization hours. Is getting 7 when you expect 30 a problem?
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. Regardless of other tenants in your building or neighboring buildings, you should receive the full capacity of your circuit.
You can receive guaranteed bandwidth with Metro Ethernet. You can receive it in increments of five, 10, 50 or one hundred megabyte circuits. You can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit Internet providers.
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.
While certain providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products in Beloit, the reality is that it is possible for a circuit to go down. The question then becomes, “how do I minimize my chance of an outage? ”
The answer is redundant circuits.
Essentially, there are two different ways to look at redundancy.
With the first kind, you receive several circuits but they all come from the same carrier. 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.
In the second type of redundancy, you bring in circuits from two different carriers. Using advanced routers and IP address allocations, you can bind these connections together so that, to your users and to the public, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. However, despite appearances, they are actually very much separate and are redundant to each other. This redundancy, referred to as diversity redundancy, offers much greater protection. Should one carrier have some trouble that extends to a greater area and is out of your control, you are backed up with a different carrier.
If you want to maximize redundancy in Beloit, Wisconsin please consider the following question: Do the carriers I am considering use the same physical geographic pathways? Your goal should be to get circuits coming into your building on different sides. You do not want them on the same side. The circuits would be attached underground or to telephone poles, in various directions. The circuits would go to different data centers or central offices. 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.
The cost to your company if you do not have reliable access to The net will be far greater than you may realize. Contemplate these scenarios:
Is your organization on a cable modem? How many other tenants is your carrier servicing in your building? Are 14 other offices getting circuits? What if any or all of those tenants are huge call centers taking in a massive volume of phone calls, are business that perform large file downloads or stream many videos? How will less available bandwidth affect your telephone calls? How will the quality of that phone call be affected? Will you lose calls? Will the calls be choppy?
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. Every single one of your offices, stores and locations rely on you and your primary Internet connection to retrieve data. What if your circuit fails? Would it annoy you or destroy you? Are your other offices able to do any work? Take new orders? Service existing ones? Disseminate needed information and data? It is important that prior to choosing a solution, you understand the true needs and requirements of your particular company. What if you are a software company? Perhaps you are running a hosted solution and it must be used by multiple customers; maybe even hundreds. Is an API utilized in your organization so that your customers can access and communicate with your system? What happens when there is a problem connecting to your servers? Customers will only take so many repeated outages. How long with they remain with your company?
What if your company could not function at all without the web? Maybe your business depends upon it completely. No calls can go out if your circuits fail. In addition, they will be unable to answer incoming calls. You are now, essentially, out of business. While most reputable call centers are already aware and using redundancy, is it enough? Make sure your carriers are as reliable as possible. 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 organization budget and needs will play a large part in your decision-making. As a high-level summary:
A single fifty, ten or five megabyte Internet access circuit may be adequate to meet the needs of your small organization, particularly if you have only one location and are not worried about redundancy. 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. Because prices can vary based on the location of your business and the availability of circuits, speak with our engineers to learn your options.
Mid-sized businesses in Beloit, Wisconsin should be equipped with higher-speed Internet. You have several choices. Consider the following: Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet or higher-speed Internet access circuits. Using different circuits and different providers will, if you choose, provide you with redundancy. This may be attainable without doubling your costs. For example, you may use 2 fifty meg circuits instead of 1 one hundred meg circuit. Remember, costs vary. So does availability. Learn your options by speaking with one of our knowledgeable experts. We can help you determine what is available in your specific location.
Businesses with many locations face the greatest risk for failure. They need redundant circuits. Multiple providers or providers are recommended. In addition, consider redundant equipment. Redundant routers and switches can minimize risk also. Take a careful look at Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers and gigabit Internet providers. Research other high-speed Internet access circuit providers also and make an informed decision. The best mix of providers and services can maximize the productivity and efficiency of your company.
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. Having redundant hardware as well as redundant circuits from different providers will ensure your needed uptime. The last thing you want is interruptions or slowdowns affecting your business. You must provide enough bandwidth to avoid these pitfalls that sometimes occur during sudden usage spikes. The hardware and circuits you choose must both be able to support the following: a great number of concurrent, speedy connections.
There is great risk of failing circuits or insufficient bandwidth. It is imperative that the circuit or circuits you choose meet your needs but also keep you within your allowable budget. The pressure involved in selecting the proper mix of hardware and circuits can be overwhelming.
Our expert engineers will review your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. Our experts will examine your current usage and demand. We’ll then generate a design that gives you the resources you need while keeping your organization up and running at a reasonable cost.
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 as little as 48 hours to provide a complete assessment.