These days, companies in Canton rely on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their company. The organization functions of every company, whether it is a small business or on the Fortune 500, from Fortune 500, depends upon fast and reliable access to The web.
Internet access will become increasingly vital to us in the coming months and years. Our dependence on Internet access will only grow as time goes on.
From email messaging to information sharing, e-commerce to archiving data, and voice over IP to video chat, the net is omnipresent. How can your needs be met? Is a cable modem sufficient? Is Metro Ethernet necessary? Your needs may be met with Gigabit Internet. What is best for your business in Canton, Ohio? Will your company needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg access to The net or 100 Meg Internet access point?
You must, before selecting a service, assess the actual needs of your company. Is the net primarily used for emailing or web surfing? Is it used for real-time data connection with cloud servers? Are you hosting data in Canton, Ohio? Do remote sites depend upon you?
Have you thought about what will happen to your organization if your high-speed Internet is interrupted by an outage? What about the downtime that results? Can your company afford that? Is uptime essential to the success of your organization? You must answer questions like these so you can make a purchase that actually meets your needs
High-speed Internet access is required by all businesses. 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 company. Don’t be distracted by terminology. While you may hear service providers throw out words and phrases like:
… do not lose sight of the real issues: what are the capabilities and technical solutions you need to best serve your company?
For most companies in Canton, Ohio, some or all of the employees need access to the net. Third party applications, business research or development and e-commerce are just some of the ways the web may be needed.
The number of employees you have may determine your best solution. If you only have a few workers, you may be fine with a smaller Internet circuit such as a 5 or 10 megabyte. If you have more than that, you may need more.
You may not need as much high-speed Internet access if your employees work primarily on an intranet system with limited graphics and video. When they are frequently downloading things, whether documents, graphics or videos, however, speed is necessary for efficient job performance.
Do you routinely backup? 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.
Does your organization use a file sharing service? DropBox? Google drive? The saved files go to the cloud and are then synchronized or “shared” with other people’s computers. You need to have sufficient bandwidth to support this function while also supporting every other service.
Are you interested in high-speed organization Internet? Depending on where you are located, you may want to look into the viability of gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet. Usually, you can find these in “lit buildings” in Canton that have been previously wired by a carrier. Choosing to add high-speed Internet to your office is a tough decision but it can be less expensive and easier than you think.
Unless you are bringing Metro Ethernet into a new building, it does not have to be an expensive proposition to connect it to a suite within a building. Did you know that obtaining high-speed Internet access with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less? Of course, this depends upon availability.
Do you have your own company servers that run APIs, websites or feeds for offsite offices or companies? Are your company headquarters with a hosted application accessed by 50 branch offices? Is your business retail? Do you have thousands of stores? Do you host the point of sale system for the entire chain? Are you a law firm hosting data for multiple office sites?
Granting access to outsiders is necessary when you host data and programs at a central location. People can’t work if you have no Internet connection. When deciding on the right intranet solution for your organization, ask yourself: Is the solution going to adequately support simultaneous and multiple connections from my different places?
If you have one office using the web, you may get by with a cable modem or a low- cost 10-megabyte circuit. For headquarters, Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed Internet dedicated circuits is advisable. High-speed alone is not enough. They must also need to be capable of supporting many diverse connections. Do you think a cable modem is sufficient? It is probably not.
There is a price that comes along with choosing a cable modem or other lower cost circuit. Your low monthly bill may mean that the bandwidth is shared among multiple tenants. 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. Often, within a given community, cable companies may only deliver a particular amount of bandwidth. Different buildings and tenants housed or working within those buildings all share that set amount of bandwidth. While you may be capped at thirty-megabyte speed, will you ever reach that speed during company 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 carriers. In this scenario, the bandwidth is fully allocated to you and your company or organization. No one else uses it. The full capacity of your circuit should be attainable during all hours regardless of neighboring buildings, people or offices.
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. In your office out to the net you can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit providers
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.
Realistically, while some carriers in Canton, Ohio offer excellent Internet bandwidth products, it is possible for a circuit to go down. You must ask yourself: “how do I lessen the chance of an outage? ”
The answer is redundant circuits.
There are, in reality, two kinds of redundancy.
With the first kind, you receive several circuits but they all come from the same carrier. These redundant circuits help protect from certain failures, for example, router port issues or physical line trouble. If that carrier has a wide reaching outage or there is a line broken or damaged outside of your building, both circuits may go down. There is some protection that comes with this but there is risk as well.
In the second type of redundancy, you bring in circuits from two different carriers. You may want your circuits to appear and act as if they are one and come from the same source. If so you can use IP address allocations and advanced routers to do so. However, despite appearances, they are actually very much separate and are redundant to each other. While circuit redundancy in general is a good idea, diversity redundancy by using different carriers, 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 want maximum redundancy. In order to achieve this, look for redundant circuits from different carriers with different physical geographic pathways in Canton. Basically this means that you want your circuits to enter your building on different sides or paths. The circuits would attached to the proper outside source whether a subterranean conduit or a telephone pole. They would be set up in different directions and would lead to different data centers or main office spaces. Having redundancy in different physical directions can protect you if there is a serious incident at a data center or some accident that causes a regional circuit issue.
The cost to your company if you do not have reliable access to The web will be far greater than you may realize. Please think about the following scenarios:
Your office uses a cable modem and, in addition to you, the carrier provides 10-15 additional tenants with circuits. 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 available bandwidth shrinks, what will happen to your calls? What happens to the strength and quality of that call? Maybe calls will randomly drop? Will you sound muffled or choppy to your customers?
Your office may be the working center of an entire company enterprise. The kind of business 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. Your primary Internet connection is solely responsible for smoothly granting access and sending data to all of your locations whether you have two or two thousand. What will happen in the event of a circuit failure? Is it a mere annoyance or a catastrophic failure? Can your satellite offices perform any work at all? Take new orders? Service existing ones? Share essential data? Be sure you understand your requirements fully before choosing a solution. You might have hundreds and hundreds of loyal customers. Perhaps you are a software company running a hosted solution they all rely on. 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 if you have server problems and they are unable to connect to you? How will repeated outages affect your customers? Will they remain customers?
What if your business could not function at all without the internet? Maybe your business depends on it completely. What if your representatives can make no outgoing telephone calls because your circuits go down? There would be no way to answer incoming calls of people trying to reach your representatives. You are essentially out of business. Even for the most reputable call centers that already know of and use redundancy, is it sufficient? Are your carriers sufficiently reliable? Do you consistently get quality service that provides clear and reliable calls?
Clearly, there are many choices. Your budget, as well as the needs of your company, will help drive your decisions. 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. Prices change based on your location and the availability of circuits. Please speak with our engineers about what options best suit your needs.
You have a midsized company in Canton, Ohio; you will surely need higher-speed Internet. Your choices include: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or other high-speed circuits. Using different circuits and different providers will, if you choose, provide you with redundancy. You can sometimes achieve this without doubling costs. Using one 100-megabyte circuit instead of two 50-megabyte circuits, is one example. Remember, costs vary. So does availability. You need to speak with one of our experts to determine your options in your specific location.
The greatest risk of failure belongs to companies that have multiple places of company or offices. Redundant circuits must be an essential part of their systems. Varied providers are optimal. In addition, consider redundant equipment. Redundant routers and switches can minimize risk also. 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. The right combination of services and providers can positively impact the efficiency of your organization.
For companies falling in this category, gigabit Internet circuits, Metro Ethernet Internet circuits and point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits are essential. You must have redundant circuits for multiple providers as well as redundant hardware in your office to ensure your uptime. The last thing you want is interruptions or slowdowns affecting your organization. You must provide enough bandwidth to avoid these pitfalls that sometimes occur during sudden usage spikes. Be sure to have the right circuits and hardware. They both must be able to support multiple, fast, concurrent connections.
Do not risk having failing circuits or not enough bandwidth. The circuit or circuits you have must stay within the parameters of your budget while still meeting your organization needs. Selecting the appropriate mix of circuits and hardware can overwhelm you.
Our engineers will analyze your needs and requirements and develop a free action plan for you. You want your company to run smoothly. We are going to 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.
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. It can take as little as 48 hours to provide a complete assessment.