The lifeblood of Brentwood companies doing organization in the current environment relies on reliable access to The web. Fast and reliable access to The net is needed for companies to function properly; large corporations and small businesses alike.
In the months and years ahead, people and businesses will become more reliant on internet access.
The use of the internet is pervasive. We use it for email and data sharing, video chat and VOIP, archiving and commerce. What is the right solution for your requirements? A cable modem may be satisfactory. Metro Ethernet? Your needs may be met with Gigabit Internet. Does your business in Brentwood need one of these: 10 Meg access to The net, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?
Your company must assess its real needs. This must be done before an appropriate service can be chosen. Is the net only used for web surfing and email? Is it used for real-time data connection with cloud servers? Are you hosting the data in Brentwood and distant sites or offices rely on you?
What if there is an outage and your high-speed Internet is interrupted? Can your organization afford the downtime? Is your success dependent on uptime? Before you buy anything, you must answer these questions.
High-speed access to the net is something all companies need. Choosing the correct broadband for your organization requires a cost benefit analysis. Many providers toss out terms such as:
… focus on what matters: what does your organization need and what are the best services and solutions out there to meet those needs?
Workers for most companies in Brentwood have some need to access the internet during the course of their job. Whether it is to speak with shippers, do research or place orders, Internet access is required.
Your best course of action may be determined by the size of your work force. 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. You may need more if you have more workers and those workers all need to be on the internet during the same hours.
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. On the other hand, Internet speed becomes dramatically more important when they are required to regularly download things like documents or videos.
Are you regularly performing 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.
Does your company require employees to share files using a service like Google drive or DropBox? 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. You need to have sufficient bandwidth to support this function while also supporting every other service.
Depending on your location, high-speed company access to The net, including Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options. “Lit buildings” that have already been wired by a carrier, are commonly the site for these. 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 it may be the case that bringing Metro Ethernet into a new building can cause a big dent in your wallet, bringing the connection to a suite or offices within that building does not have to. Also, securing high-speed access to The net using gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet often takes less than 30 days, depending on its availability.
Does your business host its own servers to run information feeds, websites or application program interfaces (APIs) with companies or offices located outside of your four walls? Are your business headquarters with a hosted application connected to fifty or more satellite offices? Are you a retail company hosting the POS system for thousands of chain stores? Are you a legal practice hosting the data for three locations?
When data, programs, or information is hosted centrally, those outside your office must gain access. Those people are not able to work without a solid Internet connection. Are you picking an intranet solution that provides reliability and stability for your multiple, simultaneous connections from various places?
If you have one office using the web, you may get by with a cable modem or a low- cost 10-megabyte circuit. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable for the headquarters where high-speed Internet access is important. While high speed is great, you also need support for your multiple diverse connections. A cable modem would probably not be enough.
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. It is possible that you have a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection but cannot reach proper speeds during peak hours. Many cable companies only deliver a set amount of bandwidth within a community. That bandwidth reaches out like branches to every building in the community and the people living and working in those buildings. With a 30-megabyte connection, you may not get to that speed during the working day. Do you care if you only get 6 when you were set up to expect 30?
Guaranteed bandwidth and dedicated bandwidth are solutions that some providers offer. With these options, bandwidth is yours. It is not shared with anyone outside of your organization. Regardless of neighbors, or other tenants, you should have the full capacity of your circuit at all times.
Five Meg, ten Meg, fifty Meg and 100 Meg circuits of guaranteed bandwidth are available with Metro Ethernet. Gigabit speeds from your office to the internet can be reached if you use a gigabit Internet provider.
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.
While certain carriers offer superior Internet bandwidth products in Brentwood, 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? ”
Redundant circuits may be the answer for you.
Redundancy in this situation comes in two forms.
The first type exists when the same carrier gives you multiple circuits. If there is a problem with a line or a port in your router, circuit redundancy can offer some protection. Damage to an external wire or part can cause the failure of all of your circuits. A regional outage experienced by your carrier can have the same result. This offers some protection and assurance but does not eliminate all threats.
You can also achieve redundancy by utilizing different carriers to bring in and establish your circuits. If you think it is beneficial, you can bind the connections together in a manner that makes your circuits act and look like a single source. You know the truth: that they are individual circuits and are there to back each other up in case one goes down. While circuit redundancy in general is a good idea, diversity redundancy by using different providers, 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, Tennessee that do not have the same physical geographic pathways, in order to get the most redundancy. Basically this means that you want your circuits to enter your building on different sides or paths. The circuits would be attached to telephone poles (or underground conduits) in different directions leading to different data centers or central offices. 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 Internet access is not free, it pales in comparison with the cost of not having reliable access to The web. Consider the following:
Your business is on a cable modem and your carrier provides circuits to 20 other offices in your building. What if any or all of those tenants are huge call centers taking in a massive volume of phone calls, are business that perform large file downloads or stream many videos? As they use more bandwidth, there is less for available to meet your requirements. What happens to your phone calls? How will the caliber of the call be affected? Maybe calls will randomly drop? Inaudible (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 responsible for granting access to data to all of your places. This is true whether you have 3 locations or 2000 places. What if your circuit fails? Would you merely be annoyed? Would there be catastrophic consequences? Are your other offices able to do any work? Process or take new orders? Disseminate needed information and data? Make sure you completely understand your needs before you pick a solution. 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 other systems can’t connect to your office servers? Multiple outages may annoy your customers.
Your organization is completely reliant on the internet. No outbound calls can be made should your circuits go down. Calls coming in would be unanswerable. You might not even know people are trying to reach your office. You are essentially out of organization. Even for the most reputable call centers that already know of and use redundancy, is it sufficient? Are the providers you currently use as reliable as they should be? Are they as reliable as you need them to be? Do you consistently get quality service that provides clear and reliable calls?
It should be clear by now that you have many different options to select from. The needs and budget of your organization will both affect your choices. As a wrap-up:
Sometimes redundancy is not important to you. For example, If you are a small business, with just one office location, a single access to The web circuit may be adequate. You may get by with one 50, 10 or even 5 megabyte circuit. For an office in a lit building, you may find that gigabit service or Metro Ethernet are affordable options for you. Prices change based on your location and the availability of circuits. Please speak with our engineers about what options best suit your needs.
If you have a midsized company in Brentwood, you will need higher-speed access to The web. Your choices include: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or other high-speed circuits. Multiple circuits utilizing multiple providers would, ideally, provide you with maximum redundancy. This may be attainable without doubling your costs. For example, one 100-megabyte circuit may cost more than two smaller 50-megabyte circuits. Again, costs vary. Availability also varies. You should speak with our experts to learn the options for your particular location.
The greatest risk of failure belongs to companies that have multiple places of business or offices. Redundant circuits are essential. Multiple providers are highly desirable. Redundant routers, switches and other equipment can also be helpful to lessen downtime during a problem. Here too, take a careful look and choose the right Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed access to The web circuit providers. The right mix of carriers and services will help keep your organization up and running as efficiently as possible.
Companies such as these require the following: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and point-to-point (PPP) high-speed Internet circuits. You must have redundant circuits for multiple providers as well as redundant hardware in your office to ensure your uptime. You do not want any slowdowns or interruptions that often occur during spikes in usage. Avoid this by having sufficient bandwidth. Your circuits and hardware must be able to support a large number of fast and simultaneous connections.
There is great risk of failing circuits or insufficient bandwidth. You need to have the right circuit or circuits to meet your demands while staying within your budget. Choosing the right combination of hardware and circuits can be complicated and confusing.
Our engineers can analyze your needs and create a free action plan for you. We’ll 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 business needs, while keeping it running smoothly.
Please complete the contact form by clicking here. You may also call our office to set up an appointment for your assessment. We do assessments quickly. It can take as little as 48 hours to complete your analysis.