Today’s environment demands that companies in Carol Stream, Illinois have reliable Internet service in order to run their organization. Fortune 500 companies to small businesses and everything in between, rely on reliable and fast Internet access.
Our reliance on access to the net will become greater in the near and distant future.
From email to data sharing, video conferencing to VoIP, and data archiving to Internet commerce, the net is ubiquitous. What do you need? Maybe a cable modem is a sufficient solution. Do you need Metro Ethernet? Would Gigabit Internet suffice? What is best for your organization in Carol Stream, Illinois? Will your company needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg access to The net or 100 Meg access to The Internet point?
The needs of your particular company must be determined before you can select an appropriate service. Is Internet use limited to website surfing or emailing only? Is it used to network with cloud servers? There may be remote locations that rely on you and you are hosting the data in Carol Stream.
What happens if you have an outage in your high-speed Internet? What about the downtime that results? Can your organization afford that? Is uptime essential? Prior to making any purchases, you must determine the answers to these questions.
Speaking broadly, all companies need high-speed access to the internet. Deciding on the right broadband is not easy. It requires a thorough cost-benefit analysis. While many service providers throw around terminologies such as:
… do not stray from the real issues. Focus on what your company’s needs are and what capabilities and technical solutions will help satisfy them.
Workers for most companies in Carol Stream have some need to access the net during the course of their job. The Internet is required for so many things, whether to order items, look up business information communicate with third parties.
The number of workers you employ, may be the most important factor in your decision making process. If you have a handful of employees, a 5 or 10 Meg Internet circuit may be adequate. If your organization has nearly 50 people, however, and they all need to use the net at the same time, you may find that more is better.
Your need for high-speed Internet may be lessened if your workers are just accessing an intranet systemWhen employees are often downloading images, videos and documents, however, the need for speed increases significantly.
Does your organization regularly conduct backups? If, as recommended, you conduct remote backups from every single desk, you will need to support simultaneous connections out to the web. This will allow you to sync your backup data.
Do you use a file sharing service like Google drive or DropBox? As a file is saved, it is pushed to the cloud and then synced back to 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.
Are you interested in high-speed business Internet? Depending on where you are located, you may want to look into the viability of gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet. “Lit buildings” that have already been wired by a carrier, are commonly the site for these. You may be surprised by how easy and affordable it is to add high-speed Internet to your company.
While it may be the case that bringing Metro Ethernet into a new building can cause a big dent in your wallet, bringing the connection to a suite or offices within that building does not have to. Depending on availability, it is often possible to obtain high-speed Internet access with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet in 30 days or less.
Does your business host its own servers to run information feeds, websites or application program interfaces (APIs) with companies or offices located outside of your four walls? Are your company headquarters with a hosted application accessed by 50 branch offices? Are you a retail company hosting the POS system for thousands of chain stores? Are you a law firm hosting data for multiple office sites?
If your company hosts its programs and information at a central location, people outside of that location need to have access in order to conduct company. If your Internet connection goes down, those people are unable to work. If you need multiple connections to function at the same time from many different places, make sure that your intranet solution can reliably support it.
If you have one office using the web, you may get by with a cable modem or a low- cost 10-megabyte circuit. Company headquarters should have high-speed access to The net such as gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit. Multiple diverse connections require support, in addition to high speed. A cable modem would likely be insufficient.
Utilizing a cable modem or other less expensive circuit may seem like a good option but can result in unexpected cost. Even though you pay less money per month you must consider that the bandwidth you receive may be shared and used by multiple parties in the building. It is possible that you have a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection but cannot reach proper speeds during peak hours. Many cable companies only deliver a set amount of bandwidth within a 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. Will there be trouble if your expectation is set at 30 but you only get 8 or 10?
Guaranteed bandwidth and dedicated bandwidth are solutions that some carriers offer. If you want your very own bandwidth that is not used by anyone else, you should consider this. 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. If you want to reach gigabit speeds from your business out to the web, you can by using a gigabit Internet provider.
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.
Carol Stream has some providers that offer exceptional Internet bandwidth products and services. However, circuits can still go down and cause disruption. What can you do to minimize the chance that you will experience an outage of some kind?
Redundant circuits may be the answer for you.
Essentially, there are two different ways to look at redundancy.
The first is where you get multiple circuits from one carrier. When there are problems with a physical line or a port or other failures, it can be helpful to have redundant circuits. 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. This is not foolproof, but does offer some protection.
Bringing in circuits using two distinct carriers is the second form of circuit redundancy. Advanced routers and IP address allocations can be utilized to make it look to your users and the public that you have a single circuit. But, you know that they are actually separate and redundant. Diversity redundancy offers far greater protection. When one carrier has a problem like an outage or some other failure, you have another one that works.
The providers you choose for your redundant circuits should have different physical pathways in Carol Stream, Illinois. This is an important consideration when trying to obtain the most redundancy. If at all possible, you want to obtain circuits entering the premises on different sides. The circuits would be established either underground or on telephone poles and would be set up in different directions and lead to different offices. 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.
It is true that Internet access costs you money. However, the cost does not come close to what you will pay if the access that is not reliable. Contemplate these situations:
Are you on a cable modem and your carrier is providing circuits to dozens of other office suites in your building? Between 9 and 5, any of those other offices could be downloading huge files, streaming video or taking large volume of phone calls and more. As the amount of accessible bandwidth decreases, what happens to your needs? What happens to your phone calls? What about the quality of your calls? Are the calls going to be dropped? Will they be full of static?
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 business. Your primary Internet connection is responsible for granting access to data to all of your places. This is true whether you have 3 sites or 2000 sites. Your circuit goes down, now what will happen? Would it annoy you or destroy you? Can your satellite offices perform any work at all? What will happen to new orders? Can they be taken or processed? Share essential data? Make sure you completely understand your needs before you pick a solution. Perhaps you have hundreds of clients or customers that use a hosted solution that your software organization is running. Perhaps you operate a service where other systems speak with yours via an API to calculate freight rates, commodity prices, collect current weather data or receive any other information that you serve up. What if other systems can’t connect to your office servers? Multiple outages may annoy your customers.
Your company is 100% reliant on the net to properly function. No calls can go out if your circuits fail. Your representatives would also be unable to answer calls. Basically, you are 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? Are you getting quality service so that your calls are clear and consistent?
Obviously, there are a variety of choices. Your decision will be based on different factors including your business needs and your budget. Essentially:
You are probably not thinking about redundancy if you have a small organization with a single location. In this case, you can probably get by with a single Internet access circuit of 5, 10 or 50 meg. For an office in a lit building, you may find that gigabit service or Metro Ethernet are affordable options for you. Costs vary with location and the availability of circuits so speak with our engineers. Together, we can find the best option for you and your company.
If you have a midsized business in Carol Stream, Illinois, you will need higher-speed Internet access. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and other higher-speed Internet circuits are your options. In a perfect world, you will achieve maximum redundancy by utilizing multiple carriers to provide and service different circuits. This may be attainable without doubling your costs. For instance, it may be cheaper to utilize two 50 meg circuits in place of one 100 meg circuit. Again, costs and availability vary. You need to speak with one of our experts to determine your options in your specific location.
What companies have the highest risk for failure; those with multiple places. Redundant circuits are a necessity. Varied providers are optimal. Redundant routers, switches and other equipment can also be helpful to lessen downtime during a problem. Here also, examine the Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet providers. Take a careful look at other high-speed access to The net circuit providers before choosing the right one. The best mix of providers and services can maximize the productivity and efficiency of your company.
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. In order to maximize and protect your uptime, you must have redundancy. You should have redundant circuits from multiple carriers in addition to redundant hardware. You do not want any slowdowns or interruptions that often occur during spikes in usage. Avoid this by having sufficient bandwidth. Your circuits and hardware must be able to support a large number of fast and simultaneous connections.
There is great risk of failing circuits or insufficient bandwidth. 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.
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’ll then design a plan that keeps your costs reasonable while meeting your demand for a smoothly run company.
Please complete the contact form by clicking here. You may also call our office to set up an appointment for your assessment. We do assessments quickly. It can take as little as 48 hours to complete your analysis.