Obtaining High-Speed Access To The Web in Bridgeport, Connecticut

Accessing High Speed Internet in Bridgeport, Connecticut: Gigabit Internet, Company Broadband and Metro Ethernet Access

These days, companies in Bridgeport depend on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their business. All companies, large and small, need fast and reliable access to The web.

Our dependence on access to The net will continue to grow in the coming months and years.

The Internet has a significant presence in our lives. From email to information sharing, data archiving to e-commerce, and VOIP to video chat, the internet is certainly ubiquitous. What can best meet your needs? Is a cable modem enough? Is Metro Ethernet necessary? Your needs may be met with Gigabit Internet. Your Bridgeport, Connecticut organization probably needs a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg Internet access, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The Internet point but which one is best?

Defining Your Business’s Internet access Needs

Before selecting the appropriate service, your business must assess its needs. Is the web primarily used for emailing or web surfing? Is it used to network with cloud servers? You may be hosting the data in Bridgeport, Connecticut and remote locations rely on this.

What will happen to your company if your high-speed Internet experiences an outage? Will your business suffer from the lull? Is the absence of uptime detrimental? These types of questions must be answered before you make purchase anything.

Evaluating Different High-Speed Internet Solutions in Bridgeport

It is no secret that all companies need high-speed access to the internet. When choosing the right broadband for company, you need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits. You will hear service providers use terms like:

• Fast Internet access is for you!
• Business Internet or commercial Internet
• Broadband cable modems are our specialty
• Metro Ethernet service
• Gigabit Ethernet services or Gigabit Internet
• MPLS services
• Providers of point-to-point circuits
• 5 Meg Internet access
• Internet access circuits-10 Meg
• We have fifty-megabyte access to The web circuits
• High-speed access to The web circuits-100 megabytes
• Sip trunking experts
• Personal, specific and dedicated Internet access
• … and countless others

… be sure not to forget what capability and technical solutions meet your business’s specific needs.

Business Internet access for Website Surfing

At most businesses including those in Bridgeport, Connecticut, some or all employees need Internet access. There are countless reasons to need access to the net. Perhaps it is to order materials, to conduct business research or speak with clients.

Your best course of action may be determined by the size of your work force. A five or ten megabyte Internet circuit may be all you need if employ a small workforce. If you have many employees who need to use the net at the same time, you may do better with more.

You may not need as much high-speed access to The net if your employees work primarily on an intranet system with limited graphics and video. On the other hand, if your company requires that its employees download many documents or images and videos, Internet speed becomes more important.

Do you perform backups at your company? You may need to support simultaneous connections to the web in order to sync your backup data. If you conduct remote backups from every workstation, which is advisable, this will be important.

Are you using a service such as DropBox or Google drive 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. In order to ensure that all of your functions work properly, in addition to file sharing, you must have sufficient bandwidth.

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 Bridgeport in “lit buildings” that have already been wired. 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. You can actually get high-speed access with gigabit Internet or even Metro Ethernet quickly. It often takes only 30 days or less, depending on availability.

Internet-based Applications That Need Access to High-Speed Internet

Consider whether your organization hosts its own servers that run APIs, websites and/or data to outside buildings, offices or companies. Do fifty or so branch offices need access to a hosted application at your company headquarters? Is your company 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 your Internet connection goes down, those people are unable to work. 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 access to The Internet including Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable. High speed is important but they also must be able to support multiple distinct connections. A cable modem would not be able to accomplish this.

Shared Cable Circuits in Bridgeport, Connecticut Versus Dedicated Internet Bandwidth

In many cases, installing an inexpensive cable modem comes at a price. You may have to share bandwidth in order to secure that low monthly rate. It is possible that you have a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection but cannot reach proper speeds during peak hours. Cable companies are known to limit or predetermine the amount of bandwidth available for delivery in any particular community. Different buildings and tenants housed or working within those buildings all share that set amount of bandwidth. You might be capped at 30-megabyte speed, but may never be able to actually reach that speed during the important hours of your company day. Is this a problem for you if you expect 30 and get 6?

There are carriers who offer dedicated and even guaranteed bandwidth. In this case, your organization receives full allocation of bandwidth. There is no sharing with any outsiders. No matter who is in the building or what buildings surround you, you should always run at full speed.

With Metro Ethernet, for example, you can receive a guaranteed bandwidth in various increments including 5 and 10 Meg circuits, and 50 and 100 Meg circuits. Gigabit speeds from your office to the web can be reached if you use 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.

Backup With Bridgeport, Connecticut High Speed Business Internet Circuits

The truth is that circuits can go down in Bridgeport even though some providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. How can you decrease the chance of an outage?

Redundant circuits may be the answer for you.

Redundancy basically comes in two forms.

The first is where you get multiple circuits from one carrier. 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. While there is some protection, there is 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. However, despite appearances, they are actually very much separate and are 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.

You should look for redundant circuits from carriers in Bridgeport 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. Whether they are attached underground or to a telephone pole, your goal should be to have the circuits in different directions leading to different central places. 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.

What is the Cost of Not Having Adequate Protection for Your Business Class High-Speed access to The Internet?

The cost to your company if you do not have reliable Internet access will be far greater than you may realize. Think about the following situations:

Your organization relies on VoIP for its telephone service

Are you on a cable modem and your carrier is providing circuits to dozens of other office suites in your building? It is possible that during normal organization hours, those tenants might be downloading large files or watching continuous videos. They might be getting a lot of phone calls. How will less available bandwidth affect your telephone calls? What about phone call quality? Will you lose calls? Will your voice be inaudible? Will you have difficulty hearing the other end?

Your office or company is the main location for data and functions in that role for multiple locations

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. Every single one of your offices, stores and sites rely on you and your primary Internet connection to retrieve data. Your circuit goes down, now what happens? Would it annoy you or destroy you? Are remote offices able to work at all? Can they take or process any orders at all? Share information? It is important that prior to choosing a solution, you understand the true needs and requirements of your particular organization. Maybe your software company runs a hosted solution. Maybe that hosted solution is used by hundreds of your customers. Maybe you offer a service that allows other systems use an application program interface (API) to talk to you to collect information and data. What happens when they are unable to connect to your servers? How will repeated outages affect your customers? Will they remain customers?

The telephone system at your call center relies on VoIP

Your organization is 100% dependent on the net to properly function. No calls can go out if your circuits fail. There would be no way to answer incoming calls of people trying to reach your representatives. Basically, you are done. While most reputable call centers are already aware and using redundancy, is it enough? Are the providers you currently use as reliable as they should be? Are they as reliable as you need them to be? Clear and reliable calls are essential. Does your carrier service consistently provide this?

Picking the Right High-Speed Organization Access Circuits for Your Bridgeport Company

It should be clear by now that you have many different options to select from. Your budget, as well as the needs of your company, will help drive your decisions. As a wrap-up:

Internet Access for the Small Organization Owner

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. The availability of circuits and your location determine prices; speak with one of our engineers to learn what your best options are.

Medium Sized Company in One Location: Access to the Internet

Having a medium or mid-sized company in Bridgeport, Connecticut requires that you have higher-speed access to the net. You may choose between gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. You may also look into other higher-speed Internet circuits. Optimally, multiple carriers and multiple circuits will give you the most redundancy. Achieving this may cost extra but it won’t double your costs. For example, one 100-megabyte circuit may cost more than two smaller 50-megabyte circuits. Again, costs vary. Availability also varies. In order to find out the options available for you, in your location, you need to speak with one of our seasoned experts.

Mid-Sized Businesses access to The Internet – Multiple Locations

Companies with multiple locations are most at risk for failure. Redundant circuits must be an essential part of their systems. Multiple providers or providers are recommended. Redundant routers, switches and other equipment can also be helpful to lessen downtime during a problem. 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 right mix can help. If you can figure out the best combination of carriers and services for your organization, you will benefit.

Larger corporate clients, enterprise clients and providers of services delivered via the Internet

For companies falling in this category, gigabit Internet circuits, Metro Ethernet Internet circuits and point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits are essential. Redundant hardware and redundant circuits will, for these businesses, ensure the greatest uptime. Be sure the circuits are from different providers. You need to provide sufficient bandwidth to handle usage spikes without slowdowns or interruptions. Your circuits and hardware must be able to support a large number of fast and simultaneous connections.

Internet Demand and Internet Need: Receive Free Analysis

Do you understand how great the risk of failing circuits and insufficient bandwidth really is? It is imperative that the circuit or circuits you choose meet your needs but also keep you within your allowable budget. Selecting the appropriate mix of circuits and hardware can overwhelm you.

Our expert engineers will review your requirements and 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 are going to create something cost effective that gives you the resources your organization needs, while keeping it running smoothly.

Please click here to complete the contact form on the right side of this page or call our office to schedule an appointment for an assessment. It can take less than 48 hours to complete your assessment.