Today’s environment demands that companies in Bowie, Maryland have reliable Internet service in order to run their organization. All companies, from Fortune 500 to small companies, have functions that rely on easy, dependable and quick Internet access.
Our reliance on access to the web 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 conferencing, the internet is omnipresent. What can best meet your needs? Maybe a cable modem is a sufficient solution. Is Metro Ethernet necessary? Gigabit Internet may satisfy your needs. Does your company in Bowie need one of these: 10 Meg access to The Internet, a 100 Meg access to The Internet point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?
The needs of your particular company must be determined before you can select an appropriate service. Why will you need the net? Will you only be web surfing and emailing? Is it used for real-time data connection with cloud servers? Perhaps you, in Bowie, Maryland, are hosting the data and remote sites depend upon this.
How would an outage to your high-speed Internet affect your business? What about the downtime that results? Can your organization afford that? Does your company require uptime? You must answer these questions before you buy.
High-speed access to the web is something all companies need. 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 company. While many providers like to spout technical terminologies such as:
… be sure not to forget what capability and technical solutions meet your business’s specific needs.
Most companies in Bowie, Maryland require that some or all of their workers have access to the net. Whether it is to speak with shippers, do research or place orders, access to The net is required.
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 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.
You may not need as much high-speed Internet access if your employees work primarily on an intranet system with limited graphics and video. When employees are often downloading images, videos and documents, however, the need for speed increases significantly.
Are you performing backups? If, as recommended, you conduct remote backups from every single desk, you will need to support simultaneous connections out to the web. This will allow you to sync 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? This is how a file sharing service works: You save a file. Then the file is pushed to the cloud, and is then synchronized with other people’s computers. The right amount of capacity or bandwidth is necessary to support this function in conjunction with every other service you have.
You may consider high-speed company Internet access if you location warrants it. Gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet may be viable options for you. These can usually be found in Bowie in “lit buildings” that have already been wired. Installing high-speed Internet may not be as difficult and expensive as you think.
Introducing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be expensive. Bringing a connection to a suite within the building is not. Did you know that obtaining high-speed access to The Internet with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less? Of course, this depends upon availability.
Ask yourself this: Does we host our own servers to run APIs, websites and data feeds to external offices or business premises? Do fifty or so branch offices need access to a hosted application at your company headquarters? Is your business retail? Do you have thousands of stores? Do you host the point of sale system for the entire chain? Does your legal practice host all of the data for 3, 4 or 5 offices in different sites?
Access to data and programs by people outside of your main location becomes necessary when you host information centrally. People can’t work if you have no Internet connection. When deciding on the right intranet solution for your company, ask yourself: Is the solution going to adequately support simultaneous and multiple connections from my different sites?
A cable modem or fairly cheap 10-megabyte circuit may be enough in certain scenarios. For example, these may meet the needs of a single office surfing 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. Do you think a cable modem is sufficient? It is probably not.
In some situations, there is a high price to pay for bringing in an inexpensive circuit or cable modem. While the monthly rate is lower, the bandwidth is generally shared among other tenants. During peak use hours, you may not be able to reach proper speeds. Many cable operators can only deliver a certain amount of bandwidth in a community. That amount of bandwidth must be shared with different buildings and with the tenants housed within. While you may be capped at a 30 Meg speed, you may never be able to reach that speed during business hours. Will there be trouble if your expectation is set at 30 but you only get 8 or 10?
Guaranteed bandwidth and dedicated bandwidth are solutions that some carriers offer. In this situation, you do not have to share bandwidth. The bandwidth is all yours and is fully allocated to the needs of your company. The full capacity of your circuit should be attainable during all hours regardless of neighboring buildings, people or offices.
As an example, look at Metro Ethernet. They provide guaranteed bandwidth in various increments. You can receive guaranteed bandwidth in increments of 100, 50, 10 and 5 megabytes. Want to reach gigabit speeds? You can by using a gigabit Internet provider.
Carriers in these situations deliver enough to cover everyone’s needs. The providers divide their circuit to various tenants while guaranteeing that everyone gets their contracted speed.
Despite outstanding Internet bandwidth products offered by carriers in Bowie, Maryland, circuits do go down. How can you lower the chances that you will experience some kind of outage?
You may be a candidate for redundant circuits.
There are, in reality, two kinds of redundancy.
A single carrier, providing multiple circuits, to one customer, characterizes one form of redundancy. These redundant circuits help protect from certain failures, for example, router port issues or physical line trouble. If that carrier has a wide reaching outage or there is a line broken or damaged outside of your building, both circuits may go down. While there is some security in this, you are still vulnerable under some circumstances.
Circuit redundancy can also be achieved in the following way: Import circuits using two different and distinct 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 reality, they are completely separate and redundant to each other. While circuit redundancy in general is a good idea, diversity redundancy by using different carriers, offers far better protection. In the event that one carrier goes down, the other will still be alive.
The providers you choose for your redundant circuits should have different physical pathways in Bowie. This is an important consideration when trying to obtain the most redundancy. 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. 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. 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.
While access to The net is not free, it pales in comparison with the cost of not having reliable Internet access. Consider these scenarios:
Is your company on a cable modem? How many other tenants is your carrier servicing in your building? Are 14 other offices getting circuits? During company hours, any of those tenants could be streaming video, performing massive file downloads, processing large volumes of phone calls and more. How will your telephone calls be affected as the amount of available bandwidth decreases? What happens to the strength and quality of that call? Are calls dropped? Will your voice be inaudible? Will you have difficulty hearing the other end?
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 organization. All of your places, you may have 2, you may have 500, you may have 4, 000, rely on your main Internet connection to access and receive data. Your circuit goes down, now what will happen? Is it just irritating? Is it going to cause tremendous problems? Can meaningful work be conducted at your remote offices? Process new orders? Circulate essential files and data? It is important that prior to choosing a solution, you understand the true needs and requirements of your particular organization. You have a software company, and are running a hosted solution for dozens, maybe hundreds, of customers. You may operate a service like this: other systems talk to yours via an API to figure out freight prices, stock prices, to compile weather data or receive any other information that you provide. What if these other systems have difficulty connecting your servers? How will repeated outages affect your customers? Will they remain customers?
Your company is completely reliant on the net. Should your circuits go down, your representatives cannot make outbound calls. Calls coming in would be unanswerable. You might not even know people are trying to reach your office. You are now officially out of company. While most reputable call centers are already aware and using redundancy, is it enough? Are your current carriers as dependable as you would like? Is the quality of your calls consistently and reliably clear?
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:
A single fifty, ten or five megabyte Internet access circuit may be adequate to meet the needs of your small company, particularly if you have only one location and are not worried about redundancy. Metro Ethernet service or gigabit service may also be a reasonably priced option if you are in a lit building. Prices change based on your location and the availability of circuits. Please speak with our engineers about what options best suit your needs.
Mid-sized businesses in Bowie, Maryland should be equipped with higher-speed Internet. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and other higher-speed Internet circuits are your options. Multiple circuits utilizing multiple providers would, ideally, provide you with maximum redundancy. You may be able to achieve this in a manner that will not break the bank. For instance, it may be cheaper to utilize two 50 meg circuits in place of one 100 meg circuit. Again, costs vary. Availability also varies. Speaking with one of our experts will help you determine the options available in your specific location.
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 carriers. Also, redundant equipment such as switches and routers in your facility can minimize the risk of downtime. 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 carriers and services can maximize the productivity and efficiency of your company.
For businesses that fit this description, it is essential to have gigabit Internet circuits, point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits and Metro Ethernet Internet circuits. Redundant hardware and redundant circuits will, for these businesses, ensure the greatest uptime. Be sure the circuits are from different providers. Having plenty of bandwidth will help avoid interruptions or decreased speed that sometimes occurs during spikes in usage. Your circuits and hardware must be able to support a large number of fast and simultaneous connections.
Do not risk having failing circuits or not enough bandwidth. 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 will look at your current usage, demand levels and scope out a design to give you the resources you need while keeping your organization up and running at a reasonable cost.
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 do assessments quickly. It can take as little as 48 hours to complete your analysis.