In today’s environment, companies in Brentwood count on reliable access to The Internet as the lifeblood of their company. All companies, large and small, need fast and reliable Internet access.
We are going to, in the months and years ahead, become more and more dependent on our access to The Internet.
The Internet has a significant presence in our lives. From email to information sharing, data archiving to e-commerce, and VOIP to video conferencing, the internet is certainly ubiquitous. How can your needs be met? Can a cable modem suffice? Maybe you need Metro Ethernet. Would Gigabit Internet suffice? Will your Brentwood business needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg Internet access or 100 Meg access to The web point?
Before selecting an appropriate service for your organization, you must first determine what needs you are trying to satisfy. Is the internet only used for web surfing and email? Is the net used for real-time data connection with servers in the cloud? There may be remote locations that rely on you and you are hosting the data in Brentwood, California.
What happens to your organization if your high-speed Internet experiences an outage? Can your company afford a long pause or lull in productivity? Is uptime required? Before you buy anything, you must answer these questions.
In the broadest of terms, companies need high-speed Internet access. Choosing the correct broadband internet for your business requires a cost benefit analysis. 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?
At most businesses including those in Brentwood, California, some or all employees need Internet access. access to The web may be needed to conduct research, use third-party applications or to order supplies.
The solution you choose may be based on the number of employees you have or expect to have. A 5 or 10 megabyte Internet circuit may be perfect if you only have a few employees. 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.
Do your employees primarily use an intranet system? If so, you may not need much high-speed Internet service. 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? 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.
Do you use a file sharing service like Google drive or DropBox? When you save a file it is pushed to the cloud. Then it is synched to the computer or computers of someone else. Running all your services properly, including sharing files, requires that you have the right amount of bandwidth.
High-speed business Internet access like Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options for you depending on your location. They are usually contained in “lit buildings” in Brentwood that have already been wired by a carrier. You may be surprised by how easy and affordable it is to add high-speed Internet to your business.
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. Did you know that obtaining high-speed access to The web with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less? Of course, this depends upon availability.
Your business may host its own servers. Do they run websites APIs or data feeds for external offices? Is your main business office with a hosted application accessed by 40 or even 50 branch office sites? Are you a retail business with 10, 000 stores? Do you host the POS system for all of them? Are you an attorney with offices multiple cities or states? Do you have one office hosting data for several locations?
If you host programs, data or information centrally, people outside of the central location need to have access. People can’t work if you have no Internet connection. Can your intranet solution support your needs? Can it support multiple simultaneous connections? Is it stable enough to handle this when they are from various places?
For a single office surfing the web, a cable modem or inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be adequate. For the headquarters, high-speed Internet access including Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed 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. You may save money on your monthly bill but the bandwidth you get must be shared among many people. 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. Buildings, offices and tenants within the buildings all must share that amount of bandwidth, whatever it may be. During crucial working hours, you may not get to the 30-meg speed you have been capped at. Do you care if you only get 6 when you were set up to expect 30?
Other providers do offer dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. In this case, your organization receives full allocation of bandwidth. There is no sharing with any outsiders. You should receive full capacity of your circuits during all hours. This is true even though you may have many buildings, businesses and tenants nearby.
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. You can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit Internet providers.
In these cases, the providers deliver high-speed to the building in sufficient quantity that they can then split their circuit to various tenants while guaranteeing each tenant is receiving their contracted speeds.
You can’t control everything. Even with the superior Internet bandwidth products that some providers offer in Brentwood, California, problems arise and circuits can fail. How can you lower the chances that you will experience some kind of outage?
Try using redundant circuits.
There are, in essence, two types of redundancy.
The first type is when one single carrier provides you with multiple circuits. If there is a problem with a line or a port in your router, circuit redundancy can offer some protection. 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. You get some protection, but also some risk.
In the second type of redundancy, you bring in circuits from two different providers. These connections can be bound together so they act and appear to the public as a single circuit. Using particular routers and IP address allocations, no one would be able to tell that you have multiple carriers or circuits. Though they may appear as one, you know that they are each individual circuits 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 a carrier goes down, you will not have to worry. You will have a perfectly live carrier there to keep things moving.
You should look for redundant circuits from providers in Brentwood, California that do not have the same physical geographic pathways, in order to get the most redundancy. This means that you should try to have the circuits come into you building from 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.
Although Internet access comes at a price, the price of unreliable Internet access is tremendous. Consider these scenarios:
The carrier you use for your cable modem also provides circuits for a dozen or more tenants in the office building. Between 9 and 5, any of those other offices could be downloading huge files, streaming video or taking large volume of phone calls and more. As the amount of accessible bandwidth decreases, what happens to your needs? What happens to your phone calls? What will happen to the strength and quality of that call? Are the calls going to be dropped? Will you sound muffled or choppy to your customers?
Your office is the hub of your company, whether you are a retail company operating a distributed point of sale (POS) system, an accounting firm sharing databases or a law firm engaged in file sharing. Your primary Internet connection is solely responsible for smoothly granting access and sending data to all of your locations whether you have two or two thousand. What if your circuit fails? Is it just irritating? Is it going to cause tremendous problems? Are your other offices able to do any work? What about 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 business. Maybe your software company runs a hosted solution. Maybe that hosted solution is used by hundreds of your customers. 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? Customers do not enjoy repeated outages. How long with they put up with them before looking to take their business elsewhere?
Maybe your organization depends entirely on the net. What if your representatives can make no outgoing telephone calls because your circuits go down? There would be no way to answer incoming calls of people trying to reach your representatives. Basically, you are out of business. 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? You should be getting high quality service that ensures your calls are consistently clear and reliable.
Clearly, there are many choices. Your organization needs and your budget will have to come into consideration when deciding on your solutions. To summarize:
If you have one location or office and do not feel the need to consider redundancy for your system, a smaller Internet access circuit may be all you need. A single fifty, ten or five megabyte circuit might be enough. 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. Speak with our engineers about what is right for you. Prices vary with location and circuit availability.
Mid sized companies with a single office in Brentwood, California, need higher speed access to The web. Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet and other higher speed Internet circuits are options to consider. 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. For instance, it may be cheaper to utilize two 50 meg circuits in place of one 100 meg circuit. Availability and costs vary. Call one of our experts to learn what is available in your specific area.
The greatest risk of failure belongs to companies that have multiple places of business or offices. Redundancy is crucial. Multiple providers are highly desirable. In addition, consider redundant equipment. Redundant routers and switches can minimize risk also. Here also, examine the Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet providers. Take a careful look at other high-speed Internet access circuit providers before choosing the right one. Finding the best combination of services, providers and equipment can go a long way toward helping your business run as efficiently as possible.
If you can place yourself in this category, it is essential that you have Metro Ethernet, point-to-point circuits and gigabit Internet circuits. Having redundant hardware as well as redundant circuits from different providers will ensure your needed uptime. You must have the bandwidth to withstand sharp increases in usage. Doing so will help protect you from slowdowns or interruptions. Your circuits and hardware must be able to support a large number of fast and simultaneous connections.
The risk of insufficient bandwidth or failing circuits is tremendous. Your ideal single circuit or multiple circuits should stay within your budget while still meeting your demands. You have to select the optimal combination of hardware and circuits, which is a daunting task.
We have experts to help. Our engineers will do an analysis of your needs and requirements, and develop a free action plan for you based on their findings. 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.
An appointment for an assessment can be made by calling our office or clicking here to complete the contact form on the side of this page. It can take less than 48 hours to complete your assessment.