In today’s world, Burlington companies need dependable access to The web. It is the lifeblood of their company. The business functions of all companies, from Fortune 500 to small companies, depend on fast and reliable Internet access.
Internet access will become increasingly essential to us in the coming months and years. Our dependence on access to The web will only grow as time goes on.
The use of the net is pervasive. We use it for email and data sharing, video chat and VOIP, archiving and commerce. What do you need? Can a cable modem suffice? Metro Ethernet may be the thing you need. Is Gigabit Internet right for you? Your Burlington company probably needs a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The web, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The web point but which one is best?
Before choosing an adequate or appropriate service, you must decide what your business really needs. Perhaps the net is only used for a few things such as email communication or surfing the web. Will real-time data connection with servers in the cloud be the primary use of the net? Are you hosting the data in Burlington that remote locations depend upon?
What will happen to your business if your high-speed Internet experiences an outage? Will your business suffer from the lull? Is your success reliant on uptime? You must answer these questions before you buy.
Speaking broadly, all companies need high-speed access to the internet. When picking the correct broadband, balancing the costs and benefits to your business is imperative. Many service 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?
For most companies in Burlington, some or all of the employees need access to the web. The web is required for so many things, whether to order items, look up organization information communicate with third parties.
The number of workers you have may be the factor that drives your decision. A 5 or 10 megabyte Internet circuit may be perfect if you only have a few employees. If your business has nearly 50 people, however, and they all need to use the net at the same time, you may find that more is better.
Do your employees primarily use an intranet system? If so, you may not need much high-speed Internet service. On the other hand, if your company requires that its employees download many documents or images and videos, Internet speed becomes more important.
Does your company regularly conduct 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.
Are you using Google drive, DropBox or another file sharing service? As a file is saved, it is pushed to the cloud and then synced back to other people’s computers. You must have sufficient bandwidth if you are to successfully support every service including file sharing.
Depending on where you are, you may want to look into high-speed company access to The web such as Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet. These are typically found in “lit buildings” in Burlington. Providers have already wired these buildings. Choosing to add high-speed Internet to your office is a tough decision but it can be less expensive and easier than 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. Depending on availability, it is often possible to obtain high-speed access to The net with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet in 30 days or less.
Your organization may host its own servers. Do they run websites APIs or data feeds for external offices? Is your main company office with a hosted application accessed by 40 or even 50 branch office sites? Are you a retail chain hosting the POS system for 12, 000 stores? You may be a law firm hosting data for three or four different offices.
When things are hosted at a central point, parties outside the office must somehow gain access. Those people are not able to do their work if the net connection fails or is unreliable. When deciding on the right intranet solution for your business, ask yourself: Is the solution going to adequately support simultaneous and multiple connections from my different locations?
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. For headquarters, Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed Internet dedicated circuits is advisable. High speed is important but they also must be able to support multiple distinct connections. A cable modem would probably not be enough.
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. The cable modem you subscribe to with the 30 Meg connections may not always reach those speeds, especially during the busiest or “peak” hours of the workday. Cable operators differ but many have prescribed limits on the bandwidth amount that they can deliver within a set community. That bandwidth reaches out like branches to every building in the community and the people living and working in those buildings. During crucial working hours, you may not get to the 30-meg speed you have been capped at. Is this a problem for you if you expect 30 and get 6?
Some providers are available who offer dedicated bandwidth and guaranteed bandwidth. In this case, your business receives full allocation of bandwidth. There is no sharing with any outsiders. The full capacity of your circuit should be attainable during all hours regardless of neighboring buildings, people or offices.
Five Meg, ten Meg, fifty Meg and 100 Meg circuits of guaranteed bandwidth are available with Metro Ethernet. In your office out to the internet you can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit providers
In these cases, the carriers 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.
Despite outstanding Internet bandwidth products offered by providers in Burlington, circuits do go down. The question then becomes, “how do I minimize my chance of an outage? ”
You may be a candidate for redundant circuits.
There are, in essence, two types of redundancy.
The first type is when one single carrier provides you with multiple circuits. This provides some protection when there are certain failures. Multiple circuits can help for example, when there is a physical line issue or a problem with a router port. Even multiple circuits can fail, such as in the event of a large-scale carrier outage or when there damage to an external line. While there is some protection, there is also some risk.
In the second type of redundancy, you bring in circuits from two different carriers. For users and the public, you can make it look like you have one cohesive circuit. You can also make the connections act as a single circuit. You can do this with various advanced routers and IP address allocations. Truthfully, they are entirely separate. They are redundant and exist in case one of them fails. This redundancy, referred to as diversity redundancy, offers much greater protection. In the event that one carrier goes down, the other will still be alive.
To maximize the benefit of redundancy, consider looking for redundant circuits from different carriers that have different pathway in Burlington, North Carolina. In other words, try to obtain circuits entering the building from different sides of the building. 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 locations. This way, if there is a major catastrophe, such as a fire at a data center or a major accident impacting circuits within a region, you have redundancy in a different physical direction.
Even though Internet access 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 these scenarios:
Are you on a cable modem and your carrier is providing circuits to dozens of other office suites 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 they use more bandwidth, there is less for available for your needs. What happens to your phone calls? What happens to the strength and quality of that call? Are calls lost or dropped? Will the calls be choppy?
Your office may be the working center of an entire organization enterprise. The kind of organization does not necessarily matter. You may be a law firm doing file sharing, an accounting practice sharing databases or a retailer operating a distributed point-of-sale system. All of your offices, whether you have 3 or 3, 000, rely on your primary Internet connection to successfully access data. How will you be affected if your circuit goes down? Is it a mere annoyance or a catastrophic failure? Can your satellite or remote office do any work at all? Can they take or process any orders at all? Circulate essential files and data? It is important that prior to choosing a solution, you understand the true needs and requirements of your particular company. 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 speak with you to collect information and data. What happens when there is a problem connecting to your servers? Multiple outages may annoy your customers.
Your company is completely reliant on the net. If your circuits go down, you cannot make calls. In addition, they will be unable to answer incoming calls. You are now, essentially, out of business. For competent call centers that already use and understand the problems that can arise, is redundancy enough? Can you truly rely on your providers? Are they as dependable as they claim? Is the quality of service sufficient for your calls to be clear and reliable?
It should be clear by now that you have many different options to select from. Your decision will be based on different factors including your company needs and your budget. In review:
Sometimes redundancy is not important to you. For example, If you are a small company, 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. 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. Because prices can vary based on the location of your company and the availability of circuits, speak with our engineers to learn your options.
Having a medium or mid-sized company in Burlington requires that you have higher-speed access to the web. Higher-speed circuits like Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or others may be your best options. Ideally, you want to have the greatest redundancy. You can achieve this by using multiple circuits from different carriers. This may be attainable without doubling your costs. For example, one 100-megabyte circuit may cost more than two smaller 50-megabyte circuits. Remember, costs vary. So does availability. Speaking with one of our experts will help you determine the options available in your specific location.
Businesses with many locations face the greatest risk for failure. Redundancy is extremely crucial to them. Varied providers are optimal. In addition, consider redundant equipment. Redundant routers and switches can minimize risk also. 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 Internet circuit providers. The right combination of services and carriers can positively impact the efficiency of your business.
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 will want to have the greatest protection of your uptime. To accomplish this you must have redundancy: redundant circuits from multiple providers and redundant hardware for your system. You need to provide sufficient bandwidth to handle usage spikes without slowdowns or interruptions. The hardware and circuits you choose must both be able to support the following: a great number of concurrent, speedy connections.
The danger and risk of failing circuits is tremendous. So is the risk of having less bandwidth than you need. Your demand and budget constraints should both be considered when you decide what circuit or combination of circuits you must have. You have to select the optimal combination of hardware and circuits, which is a daunting task.
We have engineers that will analyze your needs, look at your organization requirements and develop an action plan for you… for free!You want your business 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.
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.