Because of today’s environment, companies in Boca Raton, Florida depend on the net. Reliable access to the net is the lifeblood of their organization. Fortune 500 companies to small companies and everything in between, count on reliable and fast access to The web.
Our dependence on Internet access will continue to grow in the coming months and years.
The use of the internet is pervasive. We use it for email and data sharing, video chat and VOIP, archiving and commerce. What can best meet your needs? Perhaps a cable modem is all you need. Maybe you need Metro Ethernet. You may need Gigabit Internet. Does your Boca Raton, Florida organization need a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The Internet, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The web point?
You must, before selecting a service, assess the actual needs of your organization. Perhaps the internet is only used for a few things such as email communication or surfing the web. Is the net used for real-time data connection with servers in the cloud? Perhaps you, in Boca Raton, Florida, are hosting the data and remote locations rely upon this.
What happens to your business if your high-speed Internet experiences an outage? How much downtime can your company withstand? Is uptime required? 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. Choosing the correct broadband for your business requires a cost benefit analysis. While various providers will throw around terminology like:
… the actual issue is knowing what technology and capability can satisfy your needs.
At most businesses including those in Boca Raton, Florida, some or all employees need access to The web. The web is required for so many things, whether to order items, look up company information communicate with third parties.
The best solution may depend upon how many employees you have. If you have a smaller workforce, you may do fine with a smaller Internet circuit. For example, if you only employ a handful of people, a 5 or 10 Meg circuit may meet your needs. If you have many employees who need to use the net at the same time, you may do better with more.
Do your employees primarily use an intranet system? If so, you may not need much high-speed Internet service. When employees are often downloading images, videos and documents, however, the need for speed increases significantly.
Do you backup information? It is recommended that you do remote backups from every desk. If you are, you will need to support simultaneous connections out to the web to synchronize the backup data to collect.
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.
Your business location may cause you to think about high-speed organization access to The net such as Metro Ethernet and/or gigabit Internet. They are almost always found in “lit buildings” in Boca Raton that are already wired by a carrier. The ease and affordability of adding high-speed Internet to your office may surprise you.
The introduction of Metro Ethernet into a new building can be quite costly. However, bringing that connection into office space within that building is usually less so. In fact, obtaining high-speed Internet access with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less depending upon availability.
Consider whether your company hosts its own servers that run APIs, websites and/or data to outside buildings, offices or companies. Is your main business office with a hosted application accessed by 40 or even 50 branch office sites? Is your business retail? Do you have thousands of stores? Do you host the point of sale system for the entire chain? You may be a law firm hosting data for three or four different offices.
When data and programs are hosted centrally at one main site, people outside that location must gain access. If the web connection is interrupted, those people cannot get their work done. Is the intranet solution you are choosing sufficiently reliable? Is it stable enough to support simultaneous connections from different places?
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. For headquarters, Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed Internet dedicated circuits is advisable. While high speed is great, you also need support for your multiple diverse connections. Do you think a cable modem is sufficient? It is probably not.
Utilizing a cable modem or other less expensive circuit may seem like a good option but can result in unexpected cost. Oftentimes, a lower monthly rate comes with the realization that you are sharing bandwidth with many different tenants and offices. During peak hours, your connection may slow down, even though you subscribe to a cable modem with a thirty-megabyte connection. Cable operators differ but many have prescribed limits on the bandwidth amount that they can deliver within a set community. That bandwidth branches off to different buildings and then to various tenants within those buildings. During crucial working hours, you may not get to the 30-meg speed you have been capped at. Is getting 7 when you expect 30 a problem?
Guaranteed bandwidth and dedicated bandwidth are solutions that some carriers offer. In this situation, your bandwidth is not shared but is fully allocated to your organization. No matter who is in the building or what buildings surround you, you should always run at full speed.
For example, Metro Ethernet guarantees bandwidth in 5 met circuits, 10 Meg circuits, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. Want to reach gigabit speeds? You can by using a gigabit Internet provider.
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.
Despite outstanding Internet bandwidth products offered by carriers in Boca Raton, circuits do go down. How can you decrease the chance of an outage?
Consider redundant circuits.
Redundancy in this situation comes in two forms.
The first type exists when the same carrier gives you multiple circuits. Redundant circuits help protect you from certain failures including physical line issues, port issues within routers, and others. It is possible for both circuits to go down. If your carrier has a regional problem like a widespread outage, or there is a broken line outside your building, even your redundant circuits may fail. While offering some protection, it is not without risk.
The second way to set up circuit redundancy is by using two different carriers to bring in your circuits. You may want your circuits to appear and act as if they are one and come from the same source. If so you can use IP address allocations and advanced routers to do so. You know the truth: that they are individual circuits and are there to back each other up in case one goes down. Diversity redundancy, as this is called, offers you more protection that you might realize. 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.
To maximize the benefit of redundancy, consider looking for redundant circuits from different carriers that have different pathway in Boca Raton, Florida. If at all possible, you want to obtain circuits entering the premises on different sides. The circuits would be attached to telephone poles (or underground conduits) in different directions leading 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 web will be far greater than you may realize. Please think about the following scenarios:
Your office uses a cable modem and, in addition to you, the carrier provides 10-15 additional tenants with circuits. It is possible that during normal company hours, those tenants might be downloading large files or watching continuous videos. They might be getting a lot of phone calls. As available bandwidth shrinks, what will happen to your calls? How will the quality of that phone call be affected? Are the calls going to be dropped? Will your voice be inaudible? Will you have difficulty hearing the other end?
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 sites, 250, or 2000, they all rely on your primary Internet connection to retrieve data and information. How will you be affected if your circuit goes down? Is it simply an irritation or a catastrophe? Are your other offices able to do any work? Take new orders? Service existing ones? Share essential data? It is important that prior to choosing a solution, you understand the true needs and requirements of your particular business. Perhaps you have hundreds of clients or customers that use a hosted solution that your software organization is running. You may operate a service like this: other systems speak with yours via an API to figure out freight prices, stock prices, to compile weather data or receive any other information that you provide. It is possible they will not be able to connect to your servers. How will repeated outages affect your customers? Will they remain customers?
Is the web integral to the proper function of your organization? Do you rely on it entirely? Your employees or representatives will not be able to make outgoing phone calls if your circuits go down. They are also unable to answer calls. You are essentially out of organization. For competent call centers that already use and understand the problems that can arise, is redundancy enough? Are your current carriers as dependable as you would like? Clear and reliable calls are essential. Does your carrier service consistently provide this?
Obviously, there are a variety of choices. Your business needs and your budget will have to come into consideration when deciding on your solutions. In review:
If you are a small organization, 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. Find out if you are in a lit building. If so, the price of Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be affordable. Prices will vary. They are based on your location and circuit availability; speak with our engineers to learn your best options.
Mid sized companies with a single office in Boca Raton, need higher speed Internet access. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and other higher-speed Internet circuits are your options. Using different circuits and different carriers will, if you choose, provide you with redundancy. Achieving this may cost extra but it won’t double 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 places face the greatest risk for failure. Redundancy is crucial. Multiple providers would be great. You can minimize the risk of downtime at if you also have redundant equipment like routers or switches. Before you make a decision here too, do your research. Look closely into Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed circuit providers. The best mix of providers and services can maximize the productivity and efficiency of your company.
For companies falling in this category, gigabit Internet circuits, Metro Ethernet Internet circuits and point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits are essential. You absolutely need redundant circuits from different providers as well as redundant hardware. This is crucial to ensuring uptime. You need enough bandwidth. The bandwidth must be adequate to handle spikes in usage with no slowdowns or interruptions. Having both your hardware and your circuits capable of supporting many different, fast, and simultaneous connections is essential. It cannot be one or the other.
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. Choosing the right mix of circuits and hardware is a daunting task.
We have engineers that will analyze your needs, look at your organization requirements and develop an action plan for you… for free!We will formulate a design or plan based partly on your current usage and demand levels. We will create something cost effective that gives you the resources your organization needs, while keeping it running smoothly.
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