In today’s world, Cedar Hill companies need dependable Internet access. It is the lifeblood of their company. All companies rely on reliable and quick Internet access. This is true no matter how large or small the company.
We’ll, in the months and years ahead, become more and more dependent on our Internet access.
The use of the internet is pervasive. We use it for email and data sharing, video conferencing and VOIP, archiving and commerce. What is the right solution to meet your needs? A cable modem may be satisfactory. Metro Ethernet may be what you need. You may need Gigabit Internet. What does your Cedar Hill company need? Does it require 10 Meg Internet access, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 Meg circuit or a 5 Meg circuit?
Before selecting the appropriate service, your business must assess its needs. Will web surfing and email be your primary use of the net? Will real-time data connection with servers in the cloud be the primary use of the net? Are you hosting the data in Cedar Hill, Texas that remote places rely upon?
What if there is an outage and your high-speed Internet is interrupted? What about the downtime that results? Can your company afford that? Is your success dependent on uptime? These types of questions must be answered before you make purchase anything.
It is no secret that all companies need high-speed access to the web. Deciding on the right broadband internet is not easy. It requires a thorough cost-benefit analysis. You will hear service providers use terms like:
… the real issue is understanding what capability and technical solutions best meet your needs.
For many, if not all, companies in Cedar Hill, access to The Internet is needed for at least some employees. It may be needed for company research, to order office supplies or other reasons.
The best solution may rely upon how many employees you have. If you have a smaller workforce, you may do fine with a smaller Internet circuit. For example, if you only employ a handful of people, a 5 or 10 Meg circuit may meet your needs. If you have more than that, you may need more.
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.
Do you backup information? 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 company use a file sharing service? DropBox? Google drive? After a file is saved, it goes to the cloud and then to someone else’s computer. In order to ensure that all of your functions work properly, in addition to file sharing, you must have sufficient bandwidth.
Depending on where you are, you may want to look into high-speed business access to The web such as Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet. They are almost always found in “lit buildings” in Cedar Hill, Texas that are already wired by a carrier. You may be surprised by how easy and affordable it is to add high-speed Internet to your company.
Introducing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be expensive. Bringing a connection to a suite within the building is not. In fact, obtaining high-speed Internet access with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less depending upon availability.
Does your company host its own servers to run information feeds, websites or application program interfaces (APIs) with companies or offices located outside of your four walls? Do fifty or so branch offices need access to a hosted application at your company headquarters? Is your organization retail? Do you have thousands of stores? Do you host the point of sale system for the entire chain? Are you a law firm? Do you host data for three or more external locations?
When data, programs, or information is hosted centrally, those outside your office must gain access. Those people are not able to do their work if the internet connection fails or is unreliable. Are you choosing an intranet solution that is sufficiently reliable and stable to support multiple simultaneous connections from varied 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. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable for the headquarters where high-speed access to The Internet is important. High speed is important but they also must be able to support multiple distinct connections. A cable modem would likely not provide the necessary support.
In many cases, installing an inexpensive cable modem comes at a price. There may be a lower monthly rate, but bandwidth is usually shared with many tenants. During peak use hours, you may not be able to reach proper speeds. Many cable companies only deliver a set amount of bandwidth within a community. That amount of bandwidth must be shared with different buildings and with the tenants housed within. While you may be capped at thirty-megabyte speed, will you ever reach that speed during company hours? Is this a problem for you if you expect 30 and get 6?
Other providers do offer dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. In this scenario, the bandwidth is fully allocated to you and your company or business. No one else uses it. Regardless of other tenants in your building or neighboring buildings, you should receive the full capacity of your circuit.
For example, Metro Ethernet guarantees bandwidth in 5 met circuits, 10 Meg circuits, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. Want to reach gigabit speeds? You can by using a gigabit Internet provider.
Providers in these situations deliver enough to cover everyone’s needs. The providers divide their circuit to various tenants while guaranteeing that everyone gets their contracted speed.
Cedar Hill has some carriers that offer exceptional Internet bandwidth products and services. However, circuits can still go down and cause disruption. How can you lower the chances that you will experience some kind of outage?
You may be a candidate for redundant circuits.
Redundancy in this situation comes in two forms.
With the first type of redundancy, you receive multiple circuits from the same carrier. 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. However, if that carrier has a regional outage or physical line damaged outside of your building, both circuits may go down. This offers some protection and assurance but does not eliminate all threats.
Circuit redundancy can also be achieved in the following way: Import circuits using two different and distinct carriers. By using IP address allocations and certain routers, you can bind your connections. By doing this, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. Though they may appear as one, you know that they are each individual circuits and redundant to each other. While circuit redundancy in general is a good idea, diversity redundancy by using different carriers, offers far better protection. 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.
If you want to maximize redundancy in Cedar Hill please consider the following question: Do the carriers I am considering use the same physical geographic pathways? This means that you should try to have the circuits come into you building from 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. In this way you have redundancy in different physical directions. If there is an event that causes a regional circuit problem, you have an alternative that is unaffected.
access to The web costs money but the cost of NOT having reliable access to The Internet is greater. Please consider these situations:
Your office uses a cable modem and, in addition to you, the carrier provides 10-15 additional tenants with circuits. What if any or all of those tenants are huge call centers taking in a massive volume of phone calls, are organization that perform large file downloads or stream many videos? As available bandwidth shrinks, what will happen to your calls? How will it affect the quality of that telephone call? Will calls be cut-off? Will you sound muffled or choppy to your customers?
Your office is the center of your company. You may be a law firm that does file sharing or a retailer operating a POS system. All of your sites, you may have 2, you may have 500, you may have 4, 000, rely on your main Internet connection to access and receive data. What if your circuit fails? Would you merely be annoyed? Would there be catastrophic consequences? How much work, if any, can be done by your remote places? Can they process transactions or new orders? Share information? Before choosing a solution, be sure to assess and really understand what your business requires. Maybe your software company runs a hosted solution. Maybe that hosted solution is used by hundreds of your customers. Is an API utilized in your company so that your customers can access and communicate with your system? What happens when they are unable to connect to your servers? How long will your customers tolerate repeated outages?
Maybe your company depends entirely on the web. No outbound calls can be made should your circuits go down. No calls could be answered either. You are essentially out of business. For competent call centers that already use and understand the problems that can arise, is redundancy enough? Are your carriers sufficiently reliable? Is the quality of service sufficient? Are your calls clear and reliable?
You have no shortage of options. Your choices will largely count on your budget, in addition to the other requirements of your company. To recap:
If you are a small company, with one location and you do not worry about redundancy, one five meg, ten meg, or fifty meg access to The net circuit may very well be enough to meet your needs. Find out if you are in a lit building. If so, the price of Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be affordable. Prices will vary. They are based on your location and circuit availability; speak with our engineers to learn your best options.
Having a medium or mid-sized company in Cedar Hill requires that you have higher-speed access to the web. You have several choices. Consider the following: Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet or higher-speed access to The net circuits. Ideally, you want to have the greatest redundancy. You can achieve this by using multiple circuits from different providers. Achieving this may cost extra but it won’t double your costs. For example, you may use 2 fifty meg circuits instead of 1 one hundred meg circuit. Do not forget that you will find variations in price and availability. You should speak with our experts to learn the options for your particular location.
If your business has several sites or offices, you are at great risk for failure. Redundancy is crucial. Varied providers are optimal. In addition, consider redundant equipment. Redundant routers and switches can minimize risk also. Take a careful look at Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers and gigabit Internet providers. Research other high-speed access to The web circuit providers also and make an informed decision. Finding the best combination of services, providers and equipment can go a long way toward helping your organization run as efficiently as possible.
If you fall into this group, you must have Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet circuits and point-to-point High-speed 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 must have the bandwidth to withstand sharp increases in usage. Doing so will help protect you from 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 ideal single circuit or multiple circuits should stay within your budget while still meeting your demands. There is tremendous pressure on you to choose the best combination of circuits and hardware.
Our expert engineers will review your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. We are going to formulate a design or plan based partly on your current usage and demand levels. We’ll create something cost effective that gives you the resources your organization needs, while keeping it running smoothly.
Please call our office for an assessment appointment or click here to complete the contact form on the right side of the page. It can take as little as 48 hours to provide a complete assessment.