Today’s environment demands that companies in Buffalo, New York have reliable Internet service in order to run their business. Fast and reliable access to The web is needed for businesses to function properly; large corporations and small companies alike.
We will become increasingly dependent on Internet access as the months and years progress.
The web has a significant presence in our lives. From email to information sharing, data archiving to e-commerce, and VOIP to video chat, the net is certainly ubiquitous. What can best meet your needs? A cable modem may be satisfactory. Your needs may point to Metro Ethernet as a solution. Is Gigabit Internet right for you? Does your Buffalo business need a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The web, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 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. Are surfing the web and sending email the only uses of the internet? Is connecting with cloud servers and sharing real time data the main use of the web? Perhaps you, in Buffalo, are hosting the data and remote sites depend upon this.
What will happen to your business if your high-speed Internet experiences an outage? How might the downtime cause problems for your company? Is the absence of uptime detrimental? You must answer questions like these so you can make a purchase that actually meets your needs
Speaking broadly, all companies need high-speed access to the net. Before you choose your broadband internet, look at the costs and benefits. Performing this analysis is an important step in picking the right one for your business. While many providers like to spout technical terminologies such as:
… do not lose sight of the real issues: what are the capabilities and technical solutions you need to best serve your company?
Companies in Buffalo need access to the net for their employees. Some companies may need it only for a few people and others may need it for the entire workforce. Whether it is for company research, to order supplies or to use third-party applications, the net is required.
Perhaps the size of your work force may determine the solution that best fits your needs. An Internet circuit of 5 -10 megabytes might be enough for your organization if you only have a few people working for you. If you have 50 employees who are using the web simultaneously, you may need more.
Perhaps most workers at your company use an intranet system with limited features. High- speed Internet may not be a priority in this case. However, employees who must often download documents, images and videos, need that speed.
Are you 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 business use a file sharing service? DropBox? Google drive? 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. The right amount of capacity or bandwidth is necessary to support this function in conjunction with every other service you have.
Business high-speed Internet access may interest you. Depending on your location, you may have options such as gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. These are typically found in “lit buildings” in Buffalo. Providers have already wired these buildings. 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. Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet may provide you with high-speed Internet access in thirty days or less, depending on availability.
Does your organization host its own servers running websites, APIs or data feeds for other offices or companies outside of your own four walls? Are your corporate headquarters with a hosted application utilized by 50 branch offices? Perhaps you are in retail and host the point of sale (POS) system for thousands of stores? Do you run a law office that hosts the data for satellite offices in different cities or states?
Access to data and programs by people outside of your main location becomes necessary when you host information centrally. 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 sites?
A cable modem or fairly cheap 10-megabyte circuit may be enough in certain scenarios. For example, these may meet the needs of a single office surfing the web. High-speed dedicated circuits, Metro Ethernet or gigabit Ethernet are advisable for company headquarters. While fast access to The Internet is and important, they must also have the capability to handle assorted simultaneous connections. This could probably not be accomplished with a cable modem.
In many scenarios, bringing in an inexpensive circuit, such as a cable modem, comes at a price. Oftentimes, a lower monthly rate comes with the realization that you are sharing bandwidth with many different tenants and offices. You may experience slow downs. For example, although you subscribe to a cable modem with a thirty Meg connection, it can be difficult to maintain the maximum speed during busy times and peak hours. Only a certain amount of bandwidth may be available in a community. Many cable companies have limits on the amount they can deliver. That bandwidth reaches out like branches to every building in the community and the people living and working in those buildings. While you may be capped at a 30 Meg speed, you may never be able to reach that speed during business 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, your bandwidth is not shared but is fully allocated to your business. Regardless of neighbors, or other tenants, you should have the full capacity of your circuit at all times.
You can receive guaranteed bandwidth with Metro Ethernet. You can receive it in increments of five, 10, 50 or one hundred megabyte circuits. Gigabit speeds from your office to the web can be reached if you use a gigabit Internet provider.
In these scenarios, providers 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.
The truth is that circuits can go down in Buffalo, New York even though some carriers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. How can you decrease the chance of an outage?
Circuits that are redundant may be a good idea.
Redundancy in this situation comes in two forms.
The first is where you get multiple circuits from one carrier. Redundant circuits can help protect against certain problems. They can mitigate the inconveniences when there is a failure of a physical line or a problem with the port into your router. If your carrier experiences a regional outage or you have a line broken outside of your building, you may lose the use of all of your circuits. While there is some protection, there is also some risk.
In the second type of redundancy, you bring in circuits from two different providers. Using advanced routers and IP address allocations, you can bind these connections together so that, to your users and to the public, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. But, you know that they are actually separate and redundant. While circuit redundancy in general is a good idea, diversity redundancy by using different carriers, offers far better protection. In the event that one carrier goes down, the other will still be alive.
For maximum redundancy, you should look for redundant circuits from different carriers with different physical geographic pathways in Buffalo. If at all possible, you want to obtain circuits entering the premises on different sides. 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.
Even though access to The net comes with a cost, you will save money if you make sure it is dependable. Unreliable access will end up costing you more in the long run. Consider the following:
You are on a cable modem with the carrier providing circuits to 14 other tenants in your building. 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. As the amount of available bandwidth diminishes, what will happen to your phone calls? What happens to the strength and quality of that call? Maybe calls will randomly drop? Will the calls be choppy?
Regardless of whether you are part of a legal practice and your firm does file sharing, or an accounting practice sharing databases, your office is the central point or hub of your organization. All of your places, you may have 2, you may have 500, you may have 4, 000, depend on your main Internet connection to access and receive data. How will you be affected if your circuit goes down? Is it just irritating? Is it going to cause tremendous problems? Can your satellite offices perform any work at all? What will happen to new orders? Can they be taken or processed? Circulate necessary data? Make sure you completely understand your needs before you pick 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 talk to your system? What happens when there is a problem connecting to your servers? If you have repeated outages, how long will they remain a customer?
Your company is entirely Internet based. What if your representatives can make no outgoing telephone calls because your circuits go down? They are also unable to answer calls. Basically, you are out of organization. Is redundancy enough? Many of the finest call centers with the best reputations already understand and use redundancy. They should consider if they have sufficient protection. 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.
You clearly have many options. Your organization needs and your budget will have to come into consideration when deciding on your solutions. Essentially:
If you are a small organization, with just one location and not concerned about redundancy, a single five meg, 10 meg or 50 meg Internet access circuit may be sufficient. 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.
Having a medium or mid-sized company in Buffalo, New York requires that you have higher-speed access to the web. Your options are Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and higher speed circuits. Ideally, you want to have the greatest redundancy. You can achieve this by using multiple circuits from different providers. But can you do this without doubling costs? Sometimes, yes. Two smaller circuits may be cheaper than one. For instance, you may use two 50 meg circuits instead of a single 100 meg circuit. Remember, costs vary. So does availability. You should speak with our experts to learn the options for your particular location.
Any company with more than one location suffers the greatest risk of problems. They need redundant circuits. Multiple carriers would be great. You can decrease risk during downtime by having redundant equipment as well. 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 providers and services will help keep your business up and running 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. You absolutely need redundant circuits from different providers as well as redundant hardware. This is essential to ensuring uptime. You must have the bandwidth to withstand sharp increases in usage. Doing so will help protect you from slowdowns or interruptions. Both your hardware and circuits must be capable of supporting a vast number of simultaneous and fast connections.
Do not risk having failing circuits or not enough bandwidth. It is imperative that the circuit or circuits you choose meet your needs but also keep you within your allowable budget. There is tremendous pressure on you to choose the best combination of circuits and hardware.
Our engineers can help. We will analyze your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. We will examine your demand levels and current usage. We are going to then design a plan that keeps your costs reasonable while meeting your demand for a smoothly run organization.
You can complete the contact form on the right side of this page by clicking here. If you would prefer, please call our office to set up an appointment for an assessment. We can often provide assessments within 48 hours.