These days, companies in Centennial, Colorado depend on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their company. Fast and reliable Internet access is needed for companies to function properly; large corporations and small companies alike.
We will, in the months and years ahead, become more and more dependent on our access to The web.
The use of the net is pervasive. We use it for email and data sharing, video chat and VOIP, archiving and commerce. What is the right solution to meet your requirements? Will a cable modem be adequate? Your needs may point to Metro Ethernet as a solution. Is Gigabit Internet right for you? What does your Centennial, Colorado organization need? Does it require 10 Meg access to The net, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 Meg circuit or a 5 Meg circuit?
Prior to selecting a service, your business must figure out its needs. Will web surfing and email be your primary use of the internet? Is real time data connection with cloud servers essential to your organization? Are you hosting data in Centennial? Do remote sites rely on you?
What happens if you have an outage in your high-speed Internet? What about the downtime that results? Can your business afford that? How much uptime is essential to your business? You must answer questions like these so you can make a purchase that actually meets your needs
In the broadest of terms, companies need high-speed Internet access. An analysis of the costs and benefits should be done prior to choosing the broadband internet that is correct for your organization. While various providers will throw around terminology like:
… be sure not to forget what capability and technical solutions meet your business’s specific needs.
Workers for most companies in Centennial have some need to access the net during the course of their job. There are countless reasons to need access to the internet. Perhaps it is to order materials, to conduct business research or communicate with clients.
The number of workers you employ, may be the most important factor in your decision making process. A five or ten megabyte Internet circuit may be all you need if employ a small workforce. If your company has nearly 50 people, however, and they all need to use the internet at the same time, you may find that more is better.
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 employees are often downloading images, videos and documents, however, the need for speed increases significantly.
Are you performing routine 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? Perhaps you use Google drive, DropBox or a different service? When you save a file it is pushed to the cloud. Then it is synched to the computer or computers of someone else. In order to ensure that all of your functions work properly, in addition to file sharing, you must have sufficient bandwidth.
Organization high-speed Internet access may interest you. Depending on your location, you may have options such as gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. They are usually contained in “lit buildings” in Centennial, Colorado that have already been wired by a carrier. It may be shock you to know that installing high-speed Internet access may not be particularly expensive or inconvenient.
Introducing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be expensive. Bringing a connection to a suite within the building is not. In fact, in as little as 30 days, you may be able to obtain high-speed access to the web with either gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. It depends upon availability.
Your company may host its own servers. Do they run websites APIs or data feeds for external offices? Is your main business office with a hosted application accessed by 40 or even 50 branch office sites? Are you a retail company hosting the POS system for thousands of chain stores? Does your legal practice host all of the data for 3, 4 or 5 offices in different sites?
Access to data and programs by people outside of your main location becomes necessary when you host information centrally. Those people are not able to work without a solid Internet connection. Is the intranet solution you are choosing sufficiently reliable? Is it stable enough to support simultaneous connections from different sites?
A cost friendly 10 Meg circuit or even a cable modem may satisfy the needs of a organization with a single office that needs to surf the web. Company headquarters should have high-speed Internet access such as gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit. While all offer high speeds, they also need to be capable of supporting multiple diverse connections. This could probably not be accomplished with a cable modem.
In some situations, there is a high price to pay for bringing in an inexpensive circuit or cable modem. Your low monthly bill may mean that the bandwidth is shared among multiple tenants. 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. Many cable companies only deliver a set amount of bandwidth within a community. Buildings, offices and tenants within the buildings all must share that amount of bandwidth, whatever it may be. 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?
You can sign up for dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth from some carriers. If you want your very own bandwidth that is not used by anyone else, you should consider this. You should receive full capacity of your circuits during all hours. This is true even though you may have many buildings, businesses and tenants nearby.
For example, Metro Ethernet guarantees bandwidth in 5 met circuits, 10 Meg circuits, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. You can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit Internet providers.
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.
Circuits can go down in Centennial, Colorado even though certain carriers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. The question then becomes, “how do I minimize my chance of an outage? ”
Circuits that are redundant may be a good idea.
Redundancy in this situation comes in two forms.
A single carrier, providing multiple circuits, to one customer, characterizes one form of redundancy. If there is a problem with a line or a port in your router, circuit redundancy can offer some protection. However, if that carrier has a regional outage or physical line damaged outside of your building, both circuits may go down. While there is some security in this, you are still vulnerable under some circumstances.
The other type of redundancy requires you to utilize circuits from different providers. 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. You know the truth: that they are individual circuits and are there to back each other up in case one goes down. This redundancy, referred to as diversity redundancy, offers much greater 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.
When considering redundant circuits and providers, try to be sure that the providers you look at in Centennial have different physical geographic routes or pathways. Doing so will maximize redundancy. Your goal should be to get circuits coming into your building on different sides. You do not want them on the same side. The circuits would be attached to telephone poles (or underground conduits) in different directions leading to different data centers or central offices. 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.
The cost of dependable access to The web pales in comparison to the cost of unreliable access. Please consider these situations:
You are on a cable modem with the carrier providing circuits to 14 other tenants in your building. During your working day, those tenants could be conducting massive downloads of information, processing a large amount of calls or streaming endless video. How will less available bandwidth affect your telephone calls? How will the quality of that phone call be affected? Will calls be arbitrarily dropped? Inaudible (choppy) to your customers?
Your office may be the working center of an entire business enterprise. The kind of company 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. Your circuit goes down, now what will happen? Is it simply an irritation or a catastrophe? Is work even possible at your other locations? Process or take new orders? Circulate necessary data? It is important that prior to choosing a solution, you understand the true needs and requirements of your particular business. Perhaps you have hundreds of clients or customers that use a hosted solution that your software company is running. Maybe you offer a service that allows other systems use an application program interface (API) to communicate with you to collect information and data. It is possible they will not be able to connect to your servers. Will your customers remain loyal to you if they have to withstand multiple outages?
What if your business could not function at all without the net? Maybe your organization depends on it completely. Your employees or representatives will not be able to make outgoing phone calls if your circuits go down. No calls could be answered either. You are now, essentially, out of business. For competent call centers that already use and understand the problems that can arise, is redundancy enough? Are the providers you currently use as reliable as they should be? Are they as reliable as you need them to be? Is the quality of service sufficient? Are your calls clear and reliable?
You clearly have several choices. Your budget, as well as the needs of your company, will help drive your decisions. Essentially:
If your company is small, with one location or office, you are likely not concerned about redundancy. For you, a single 5, 10 or 50 megabyte Internet access circuit may suffice. For an office in a lit building, you may find that gigabit service or Metro Ethernet are affordable options for you. Prices will vary. They are based on your location and circuit availability; speak with our engineers to learn your best options.
You will need higher speed access to The Internet if you have a medium sized business in Centennial, Colorado. You may choose between gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. You may also look into other higher-speed Internet circuits. Multiple circuits utilizing multiple providers would, ideally, provide you with maximum redundancy. This may be attainable without doubling your costs. Two 50-megabyte circuits may be more cost effective than a single 100 circuit. To repeat, availability and prices vary. You need to speak with one of our experts to determine your options in your specific location.
If your company has several places or offices, you are at great risk for failure. They require redundant circuits. Multiple providers or providers are recommended. You can decrease risk during downtime by having redundant equipment as well. Take a careful look at Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers and gigabit Internet providers. Research other high-speed access to The Internet circuit providers also and make an informed decision. The right mix of carriers and services will help keep your organization 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 will want to have the greatest protection of your uptime. To accomplish this you must have redundancy: redundant circuits from multiple carriers and redundant hardware for your system. 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. Your goal is to have hardware and circuits that are more than capable of providing support to a significant number of fast and simultaneous connections.
The danger and risk of failing circuits is tremendous. So is the risk of having less bandwidth than you need. You need to have the right circuit or circuits to meet your demands while staying within your budget. It is vital to choose the correct mix of hardware and circuits. Figuring out exactly what to put in the mix, can be a daunting task.
Our expert engineers will review your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. We will 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 business needs, while keeping it running smoothly.
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