High-Speed Billings, Montana Internet Access

Billings High Speed Internet access: Company Broadband, Metro Ethernet Access and Gigabit Internet

Reliable access to The Internet is the lifeblood of Billings, Montana companies and their company. Fast and reliable access to The web is needed for businesses to function properly; large corporations and small businesses alike.

We are going to, in the months and years ahead, become more and more reliant on our access to The net.

Our uses of the net reach far and wide. From data sharing, video calls, and shopping to VOIP and email, the internet has a broad presence. What is the best fix to meet your needs? Is a cable modem enough? Metro Ethernet? Gigabit Internet may be required. Will your Billings organization needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg Internet access or 100 Meg Internet access point?

Accessing the web: Ascertaining Your Company Need

The needs of your particular business must be determined before you can select an appropriate service. Is Internet use limited to website surfing or emailing only? Will Internet usage mainly involve cloud servers and real time data connection? Perhaps you, in Billings, Montana, are hosting the data and remote places depend upon this.

Have you thought about what will happen to your company if your high-speed Internet is interrupted by an outage? Can your company afford a long pause or lull in productivity? Is the absence of uptime detrimental? Prior to making any purchases, you must determine the answers to these questions.

Appraising Various High-Speed Internet Solutions in Billings

High-speed access to the net is something all companies need. You need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits to your company before choosing the right broadband internet. Don’t be distracted by terminology. While you may hear service providers throw out words and phrases like:

• High-speed Internet access
• Internet for businesses or Internet corporations
• What about broadband cable modems?
• Metro Ethernet
• GbE or Gigabit Ethernet
• Multiprotocol label switching (MPLS)
• Point-to-point circuit protocol
• Five megabyte Internet access
• Ten megabyte access to The web provided
• Internet access- 50 megabytes
• We provide 100-megabyte Internet access circuits
• Session Initiation Protocol/ Sip trunk
• Dedicated Internet line
• … and countless others

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

Surfing the Web: Company Internet Access

At most businesses including those in Billings, some or all employees need Internet access. Whether it is to communicate with shippers, do research or place orders, access to The net is required.

Your best course of action may be determined by the size of your work force. If you have a handful of employees, a 5 or 10 Meg Internet circuit may be sufficient. If you have 50 employees who are using the web simultaneously, you may need more.

You may not need as much high-speed Internet access if your employees work primarily on an intranet system with limited graphics and video. On the other hand, if your company requires that its employees download many documents or images and videos, Internet speed becomes more important.

Does your company regularly conduct backups? 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 like Google drive or DropBox? 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.

Depending on where you are, you may want to look into high-speed business access to The web such as Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet. These are typically found in “lit buildings” in Billings. Carriers have already wired these buildings. The ease and affordability of adding high-speed Internet to your office may surprise you.

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 internet with either gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. It depends upon availability.

Hosted Applications Requiring High-Speed Internet Access

Does your company host its own servers? Does your company use the hosted servers to run data feeds, APIs or websites for offices or businesses located elsewhere? Is your main business office with a hosted application accessed by 40 or even 50 branch office sites? 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.

Access to data and programs by people outside of your main location becomes necessary when you host information centrally. For those people, no Internet connection means no work gets done. Is the intranet solution you are choosing sufficiently reliable? Is it stable enough to support simultaneous connections from different places?

A cost friendly 10 Meg circuit or even a cable modem may satisfy the needs of a business with a single office that needs to surf the web. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable for the headquarters where high-speed Internet access is important. All offer quick speed but they must also be able to support diverse and multiple connections. A cable modem would probably not be enough.

Dedicated Bandwidth Versus Billings Shared Cable Circuits

There is a price that comes along with choosing a cable modem or other lower cost circuit. You may save money on your monthly bill but the bandwidth you get must be shared among many people. If you subscribe to a cable modem with a 30-megabyte connection, you would expect to always be able to reach that high speed. However, it is possible that during peak hours, you won’t. Cable operators are only permitted to establish a certain amount of bandwidth within communities. That amount of bandwidth must be shared with different buildings and with the tenants housed within. During crucial working hours, you may not get to the 30-meg speed you have been capped at. If you expect 30 but only get 6, will you have problems?

Some providers offer customers dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. In this situation, your bandwidth is not shared but is fully allocated to your company. Regardless of other tenants in your building or neighboring buildings, you should receive the full capacity of your circuit.

Five Meg, ten Meg, fifty Meg and 100 Meg circuits of guaranteed bandwidth are available with Metro Ethernet. With gigabit Internet providers, you can reach gigabit speeds in your office out to the net.

In these scenarios, carriers 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.

Redundant High Speed Organization Internet in Billings, Montana: Why More Circuits?

While certain carriers offer superior Internet bandwidth products in Billings, the reality is that it is possible for a circuit to go down. You must ask yourself: “how do I lessen the chance of an outage? ”

Try using redundant circuits.

Redundancy basically comes in two forms.

The first type exists when the same carrier gives you multiple circuits. 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. However, if that carrier has a regional outage or physical line damaged outside of your building, both circuits may go down. There is some protection that comes with this but there is risk as well.

In the second type of redundancy, you bring in circuits from two different carriers. 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. In fact, they are totally redundant and separate. This is called diversity redundancy and offers more protection that the first. When one carrier has a problem like an outage or some other failure, you have another one that works.

For maximum redundancy, you should look for redundant circuits from different providers with different physical geographic pathways in Billings. Essentially, this just means that you do not want both of your circuits to enter the building on the same side. They should come in on different sides. Ideally, the circuits will be going in different directions and toward various central organization spaces or data centers. If you can accomplish this, you are protected from a major catastrophe. For example, if a there is a fire or some other accident that negatively affects circuits in a region, you have redundancy in a physically different direction.

What Will Not Having Enough Protection for Your Company Class High Speed Internet Cost You?

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:

Your company relies on VoIP for its telephone service

The carrier you use for your cable modem also provides circuits for a dozen or more tenants in the office building. During company hours, any of those tenants could be streaming video, performing massive file downloads, processing large volumes of phone calls and more. As they use more bandwidth, there is less for available to meet your needs. What will happen to your phone calls? What about phone call quality? Are the calls going to be dropped? Will your voice be inaudible? Will you have difficulty hearing the other end?

Your office is the main data point for various other offices

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 places. This is true whether you have 3 sites or 2000 places. Your circuit goes down, now what happens? Is it just irritating? Is it going to cause tremendous problems? How much work, if any, can be done by your remote sites? What happens to new orders? Can they be taken or processed? Circulate essential files and 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 count 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 you have server problems and they are unable to connect to you? How will repeated outages affect your customers? Will they remain customers?

The phones in your office, which functions as a call center, relies entirely on voice-over Internet protocol (VoIP)

Is the net integral to the proper function of your business? Do you count on it entirely? Your employees or representatives will not be able to make outgoing phone calls if your circuits go down. There would be no way to answer incoming calls of people trying to reach your representatives. Looks like you are now out of organization. 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 service sufficient for your calls to be clear and reliable?

Picking the Right High-Speed Organization Access Circuits for Your Company in Billings

Obviously, there are a variety of choices. Your choices will largely rely on your budget, in addition to the other requirements of your business. As a wrap-up:

Internet Access for the Small Company Owner

If your business is small, with one location or office, you are likely not concerned about redundancy. For you, a single 5, 10 or 50 megabyte Internet access circuit may suffice. Metro Ethernet service or gigabit service may also be a reasonably priced option if you are in a lit building. Costs vary with location and the availability of circuits so speak with our engineers. Together, we can find the best option for you and your business.

Medium Sized Company in One Location: Access to the Internet

You have a midsized company in Billings, Montana; you will surely need higher-speed Internet. You have several choices. Consider the following: Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet or higher-speed Internet access circuits. Ideally, multiple circuits from multiple providers will provide you with the greatest redundancy. Achieving this may cost extra but it won’t double your costs. Using one 100-megabyte circuit instead of two 50-megabyte circuits, is one example. 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.

Mid-Sized Businesses Internet access – Multiple Locations

Companies with different sites, whether 5 or 50, are at the highest risk. Redundancy is crucial. Varied providers are optimal. You can minimize the risk of downtime at if you also have redundant equipment like routers or switches. Have you looked at Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed Internet access circuit providers? You should do so before making a decision. Your organization can benefit from finding the right mix of services and carriers.

What about enterprise clients and large corporate clients? What about clients who provide services that rely on the web for delivery of said services?

Companies such as these require the following: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and point-to-point (PPP) high-speed Internet circuits. If you want to ensure your valuable uptime, have redundant circuits from multiple carriers as well as redundant hardware. You do not want any slowdowns or interruptions that often occur during spikes in usage. Avoid this by having sufficient bandwidth. 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.

Free Analysis: Internet Need and Demand

Your company faces great risk of less than adequate bandwidth and failing circuits. 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 analyze your needs and create a free action plan for you. We are going to formulate a design or plan based partly on your current usage and demand levels. We’ll create something cost effective that gives you the resources your business needs, while keeping it running smoothly.

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.