In today’s environment, companies in Bowling Green, Kentucky rely on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their organization. The company functions of every company, whether it is a small organization or on the Fortune 500, from Fortune 500, depends on fast and reliable access to The Internet.
access to The net will become increasingly essential to us in the coming months and years. Our dependence on Internet access will only grow as time goes on.
From email messaging to information sharing, e-commerce to archiving data, and voice over IP to video chat, the internet is omnipresent. How can your needs be met? Can a cable modem suffice? Your needs may point to Metro Ethernet as a solution. Is Gigabit Internet right for you? What is best for your business in Bowling Green, Kentucky? Will your business needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg access to The net or 100 Meg access to The web point?
Before choosing an adequate or appropriate service, you must decide what your company really needs. Is Internet use limited to website surfing or emailing only? Is the net used for real-time data connection with servers in the cloud? There may be remote sites that rely on you and you are hosting the data in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
What happens to your organization if your high-speed Internet experiences an outage? What about the downtime that results? Can your company afford that? Is the absence of uptime detrimental? Before you buy anything, you must answer these questions.
It is no secret that all companies need high-speed access to the net. An analysis of the costs and benefits should be done prior to choosing the broadband internet that is correct for your organization. While you are likely to hear some service providers toss around terms such as:
… the actual issue is knowing what technology and capability can satisfy your needs.
For many, if not all, companies in Bowling Green, Kentucky, access to The Internet is needed for at least some employees. Third party applications, business research or development and e-commerce are just a few of the ways the web may be needed.
The solution you choose may be based on the number of employees you have or expect to have. If you only have a few workers, you may be fine with a smaller Internet circuit such as a 5 or 10 megabyte. If you have a larger workforce, you may want to consider more. This is especially true if they all need to use the net simultaneously.
Your workforce may simply use an intranet system with limited video and graphics. If this is true, your need for high speed Internet be less than you thought. If your company functions demand the downloading of documents and images or videos on a regular basis, speed becomes a must more important issue.
Are you regularly performing backups? If you are doing remote backups from every desk, which is advisable, you will need to be able to support simultaneous connections out to the web to synchronize your backup data.
Does your company require employees to share files using a service like Google drive or DropBox? The saved files go to the cloud and are then synchronized or “shared” with other people’s computers. Supporting file sharing, while supporting every other service, requires sufficient bandwidth.
Your organization location may cause you to think about high-speed business access to The Internet such as Metro Ethernet and/or gigabit Internet. These are typically found in “lit buildings” in Bowling Green. Carriers have already wired these buildings. If you’d like to install high-speed Internet in your office, you should know that it might be more affordable than you realize.
While bringing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be an expensive proposition, bringing that connection to a suite within the building is not. Depending on availability, it is often possible to obtain high-speed access to The web with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet in 30 days or less.
Do you have your own organization servers that run APIs, websites or feeds for offsite offices or companies? Are your company 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? Do you run a law office that hosts the data for satellite offices in different cities or states?
When things are hosted at a central point, parties outside the office must somehow gain access. If the net connection is interrupted or fails, those people are unable to accomplish any work. Is the intranet solution you are choosing sufficiently reliable? Is it stable enough to support simultaneous connections from different sites?
For one office or a small organization with just one or two people surfing the web, a less expensive 10 Meg circuit or a cable modem may meet your needs. High-speed access to The Internet is advisable for the headquarters. Gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit is recommended. While high speed is great, you also need support for your multiple diverse connections. A cable modem would likely be insufficient.
In many scenarios, bringing in an inexpensive circuit, such as a cable modem, comes at a price. 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. Cable operators are only permitted to establish a certain amount of bandwidth within communities. 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 company hours. Will there be trouble if your expectation is set at 30 but you only get 8 or 10?
Other carriers do offer dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. If you want your very own bandwidth that is not used by anyone else, you should consider this. Regardless of other tenants in your building or neighboring buildings, you should receive the full capacity of your circuit.
Metro Ethernet provides guaranteed bandwidth in increments as follows: 5, 10, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. You can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit Internet providers.
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.
While certain providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products in Bowling Green, Kentucky, the reality is that it is possible for a circuit to go down. How can you decrease the chance of an outage?
Redundant circuits.
There are two types of redundancy to consider.
The first is where you get multiple circuits from one carrier. When there are problems with a physical line or a port or other failures, it can be helpful to have redundant circuits. 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.
The other type of redundancy requires you to utilize circuits from different providers. 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. Though they may appear as one, you know that they are each individual circuits and redundant to each other. This is called diversity redundancy and offers more protection that the first. 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.
When considering redundant circuits and carriers, try to be sure that the providers you look at in Bowling Green have different physical geographic routes or pathways. Doing so will maximize redundancy. In other words, try to obtain circuits entering the building from different sides of the building. They would be on outside phone poles or underground conduits in different directions and leading to different places. 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.
access to The net costs money but the cost of NOT having reliable Internet access is greater. 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. During the course of a regular work day, any or all of these other businesses might be performing massive file downloads. Tenants might be taking a large volume of calls or be regularly streaming video. How will less available bandwidth affect your telephone calls? How will the quality of that phone call be affected? Will calls be cut-off? Perhaps you will sound choppy or will be inaudible.
Your office is the hub of your enterprise: You might be a law practice that shares files, a retail operation that utilizes POS systems or a large accounting firm that needs to share databases. All of your locations, you may have 2, you may have 500, you may have 4, 000, count on your main Internet connection to access and receive data. What if your circuit fails? Is it simply an irritation or a catastrophe? How much work, if any, can be done by your remote places? Take new orders? Service existing ones? Share essential data? Be sure you understand your requirements fully before choosing a solution. 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 speak with your system? What if other systems can’t connect to your office servers? If you have repeated outages, how long will they remain a customer?
What if your business could not function at all without the web? Maybe your organization depends upon it completely. If your circuits go down, you cannot make calls. In addition, they will be unable to answer incoming calls. You are now, essentially, out of company. While many of the most reputable call centers are already aware and using the advantages of redundancy, is it sufficiently meeting their needs? Are you really getting the dependable service you need form your carriers? Are you using providers that are truly reliable? You should be getting high quality service that ensures your calls are consistently clear and reliable.
Obviously, there are a variety of choices. Your company budget and needs will play a large part in your decision-making. As a high-level summary:
You are probably not thinking about redundancy if you have a small organization with a single location. In this case, you can probably get by with a single Internet access circuit of 5, 10 or 50 meg. Find out if you are in a lit building. If so, the price of Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be affordable. Speak with our engineers about what is right for you. Prices vary with location and circuit availability.
You have a mid-sized Bowling Green, Kentucky company; higher speed Internet access required. 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. Achieving this may cost extra but it won’t double your costs. Two smaller circuits may be cheaper than one. For instance, you may use two 50 meg circuits instead of a single 100 meg circuit. Availability and costs vary. Learn your options by speaking with one of our knowledgeable experts. We can help you determine what is available in your specific location.
Any company with more than one location suffers the greatest risk of problems. Redundant circuits are a necessity. Having several providers would afford extra protection. Additionally, you should consider redundant equipment (routers and switches) in your facility to minimize the risk of downtime. 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. Your organization can benefit from finding the right mix of services and providers.
If you can place yourself in this category, it is essential that you have Metro Ethernet, point-to-point circuits and gigabit Internet circuits. You will want to have the greatest protection of your uptime. To accomplish this you must have redundancy: redundant circuits from multiple providers and redundant hardware for your system. Having plenty of bandwidth will help avoid interruptions or decreased speed that sometimes occurs during spikes in usage. Both your hardware and circuits must be capable of supporting a vast number of simultaneous and fast connections.
There is great risk of failing circuits or insufficient bandwidth. The right circuits must meet your demand while keeping you within your budget. The pressure involved in selecting the proper mix of hardware and circuits can be overwhelming.
Our engineers will analyze your needs and requirements and develop a free action plan for you. You want your organization to run smoothly. We are going to look at your current usage levels and demand levels and design a plan that meets your needs at a cost that makes sense for you.
Please call our office for an assessment appointment or click here to complete the contact form on the right side of the page. We do assessments quickly. It can take as little as 48 hours to complete your analysis.