In today’s world, Brockton, Massachusetts companies need dependable access to The web. It is the lifeblood of their business. The business functions of all companies, from Fortune 500 to small businesses, depend on fast and reliable access to The Internet.
Our reliance on access to the net will become greater in the near and distant future.
The net has a significant presence in our lives. From email to information sharing, data archiving to e-commerce, and VOIP to video chat, the web is certainly ubiquitous. What is the best solution for you? Can a cable modem suffice? Metro Ethernet? You may need Gigabit Internet. Does your company in Brockton, Massachusetts need one of these: 10 Meg access to The net, a 100 Meg access to The Internet point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?
Before selecting an appropriate service for your organization, you must first determine what needs you are trying to satisfy. Is the web only used for web surfing and email? Will Internet usage mainly involve cloud servers and real time data connection? Perhaps you, in Brockton, Massachusetts, are hosting the data and remote locations rely on this.
What if your high-speed Internet is disrupted by an outage? What will happen to your organization? How will the downtime affect your business? Does your company require uptime? Before you buy anything, you must answer these questions.
Speaking broadly, all companies need high-speed access to the web. You need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits to your company before choosing the right broadband internet. While you are likely to hear some service providers toss around terms such as:
… you must not lose sight of the real issue, which is understanding what technical solutions best meet your needs.
Workers for most companies in Brockton have some need to access the net during the course of their job. There are countless reasons to need access to the web. Perhaps it is to order materials, to conduct company research or speak with clients.
The solution you choose may be based on the number of employees you have or expect to have. An Internet circuit of 5 -10 megabytes might be enough for your company if you only have a few people working for you. You may need more if you have more workers and those workers all need to be on the net during the same hours.
Perhaps most workers at your company use an intranet system with limited features. High- speed Internet may not be a priority in this case. On the other hand, Internet speed becomes dramatically more important when they are required to regularly download things like documents or videos.
Are you 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 people save a file, it gets pushed to the cloud. The file is then synched with other people’s computers. Supporting file sharing, while supporting every other service, requires sufficient bandwidth.
Depending on your location, high-speed business Internet access, including Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options. They are almost always found in “lit buildings” in Brockton, Massachusetts that are already wired by a carrier. Installing high-speed Internet may not be as difficult and expensive as you think.
While bringing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be an expensive proposition, bringing that connection to a suite within the building is not. In fact, obtaining high-speed access to The Internet with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less depending upon availability.
Your organization may host its own servers. Do they run websites APIs or data feeds for external offices? Do your headquarters have a hosted Internet application that must be accessed regularly by 40 or 50 branch 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 sites?
When data and programs are hosted centrally at one main site, people outside that location must gain access. If the web connection is interrupted, those people cannot get their work done. Make sure that when you choose your intranet solution it is reliable enough to support your need for multiple and simultaneous connections for many different places.
The needs of an office with one employee web surfing may not need more than a cable modem or an inexpensive 5-10 megabyte circuit. High-speed dedicated circuits, Metro Ethernet or gigabit Ethernet are advisable for company headquarters. High-speed alone is not enough. They must also need to be capable of supporting many diverse connections. A cable modem would probably not be enough.
There is a price that comes along with choosing a cable modem or other lower cost circuit. You may have to share bandwidth in order to secure that low monthly rate. While you may subscribe to a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection, you may be unable to reach those speeds during peak hours. Cable operators are only permitted to establish a certain amount of bandwidth within communities. Buildings, offices and tenants within the buildings all must share that amount of bandwidth, whatever it may be. The 30-meg speed you are capped out sounds good but it is possible that you will never reach that speed during organization hours. Do you care if you only get 6 when you were set up to expect 30?
You can sign up for dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth from some providers. In this situation, you do not have to share bandwidth. The bandwidth is all yours and is fully allocated to the needs of your organization. Regardless of neighbors, or other tenants, you should have the full capacity of your circuit at all times.
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. With gigabit Internet providers, you can reach gigabit speeds in your office out to the internet.
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.
Despite outstanding Internet bandwidth products offered by providers in Brockton, Massachusetts, circuits do go down. How can you decrease the chance of an outage?
Consider redundant circuits.
Essentially, there are two different ways to look at redundancy.
With the first type of redundancy, you receive multiple circuits from the same carrier. If there is a problem with a line or a port in your router, circuit redundancy can offer some protection. However, if that carrier has a greater outage to your entire region or there is a line damaged outside of your office building, you may have both or all circuits go down. While there is some protection, there is also some risk.
The other type of redundancy requires you to utilize circuits from different carriers. 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. In fact, they are totally redundant and separate. You will get more substantial protection from this diversity redundancy. 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.
To maximize the benefit of redundancy, consider looking for redundant circuits from different carriers that have different pathway in Brockton, Massachusetts. Basically this means that you want your circuits to enter your building on different sides or paths. The circuits would be established either underground or on telephone poles and would be set up in different directions and lead to different 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.
The cost to your company if you do not have reliable access to The web will be far greater than you may realize. Think about the following situations:
Your organization 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 company that perform large file downloads or stream many videos? What will happen to your telephone calls as the amount of usable bandwidth decreases? What happens to the quality of that phone call? Will you lose calls? Will the calls be choppy?
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. All of your offices, whether you have 3 or 3, 000, rely on your primary Internet connection to successfully access data. What if your circuit fails? Is it simply an irritation or a catastrophe? Can meaningful work be conducted at your remote offices? Can they take or process any orders at all? Circulate necessary 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 happens when there is a problem connecting to your servers? How long will your customers tolerate repeated outages?
Does your business completely rely on the net? No calls can go out if your circuits fail. In addition, they will be unable to answer incoming calls. You are essentially out of business. For competent call centers that already use and understand the problems that can arise, is redundancy enough? Are you really getting the dependable service you need form your carriers? Are you using providers that are truly reliable? Are you getting quality service so that your calls are clear and consistent?
Obviously, there are a variety of choices. Your business needs and your budget will have to come into consideration when deciding on your solutions. As a high-level summary:
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. Prices will vary. They are based on your location and circuit availability; speak with our engineers to learn your best options.
You have a midsized company in Brockton, Massachusetts; you will surely need higher-speed Internet. Your options are Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and higher speed circuits. In a perfect world, you will achieve maximum redundancy by utilizing multiple carriers to provide and service different circuits. Achieving this may not be as costly as you first thought. Using one 100-megabyte circuit instead of two 50-megabyte circuits, is one example. Again, costs and availability vary. Call one of our experts to learn what is available in your specific area.
Any company with more than one location suffers the greatest risk of problems. Redundant circuits must be an essential part of their systems. Multiple providers or providers are recommended. You can minimize the risk of downtime at if you also have redundant equipment like routers or switches. 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.
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. If you want to ensure your valuable uptime, have redundant circuits from multiple providers as well as redundant hardware. You need to provide sufficient bandwidth to handle usage spikes without slowdowns or interruptions. Be sure to have the right circuits and hardware. They both must be able to support multiple, fast, concurrent connections.
Your business faces great risk of less than adequate bandwidth and failing circuits. Your demand and budget constraints should both be considered when you decide what circuit or combination of circuits you must have. Choosing the right mix of circuits and hardware is a daunting task.
Our engineers will take the pressure off and develop a free action plan for you by analyzing your needs. You want your organization to run smoothly. We will 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.
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