Champaign, Illinois High-Speed Internet Access

Champaign, Illinois High Speed Access to the World Wide Web: Accessing Metro Ethernet, Business Broadband and Gigabit Internet

In today’s environment, companies in Champaign, Illinois count on reliable access to The net as the lifeblood of their business. Fast and reliable Internet access is needed for companies to function properly; large corporations and small businesses alike.

We are going to become increasingly dependent on Internet access as the months and years progress.

From email to data sharing, video conferencing to VoIP, and data archiving to Internet commerce, the Internet is ubiquitous. How can your needs be met? Is a cable modem enough? Do you need Metro Ethernet? Gigabit Internet may be required. What is best for your organization in Champaign, Illinois? Will your company needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg Internet access or 100 Meg Internet access point?

Access to the internet: Determining Your Business’s Needs

Before choosing an adequate or appropriate service, you must decide what your organization really needs. Is the net only used for web surfing and email? Will real-time data connection with servers in the cloud be the primary use of the web? There may be remote places that rely on you and you are hosting the data in Champaign.

What if there is an outage and your high-speed Internet is interrupted? Can your business afford the downtime? Is uptime required? These types of questions must be answered before you make purchase anything.

Evaluating Champaign, Illinois High Speed Internet Solutions

It is no secret that all companies need high-speed access to the net. When choosing the right broadband for business, you need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits. Many service providers toss out terms such as:

• High-speed access to The Internet service
• Business Internet / Internet for business
• Broadband cable modems are our specialty
• Metro Ethernet
• Provider of Gigabit Internet service
• Multiprotocol label switching (MPLS)
• Point-to-point circuit services
• Five megabyte Internet access
• 10 Meg access to The Internet circuits
• Internet access-50 Meg
• We provide 100-megabyte access to The Internet circuits
• sip trunking / sip trunks
• Dedicated Internet line
• … and that is only a few

… be sure not to forget what capability and technical solutions meet your business’s specific needs.

Business Access: Surfing the internet at Work

Companies in Champaign, Illinois need access to the internet for their employees. Some companies may need it only for a few people and others may need it for the entire workforce. Third party applications, business research or development and e-commerce are just some of the ways the internet may be needed.

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 sufficient. 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 workforce may simply use an intranet system with limited video and graphics. If this is true, your need for high speed Internet be less than you thought. When employees are often downloading images, videos and documents, however, the need for speed increases significantly.

Do you routinely backup? 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.

Do you use a file-sharing service? Perhaps you use Google drive, DropBox or a different service? After a file is saved, it goes to the cloud and then to someone else’s computer. Supporting file sharing, while supporting every other service, requires sufficient bandwidth.

Your organization location may cause you to think about high-speed company access to The web such as Metro Ethernet and/or gigabit Internet. These are typically found in “lit buildings” in Champaign. Providers have already wired these buildings. Installing high-speed Internet may not be as difficult and expensive as you think.

Introducing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be expensive. Bringing a connection to a suite within the building is not. 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.

Internet-based Applications That Need Access to High-Speed Internet

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? Is your main business office with a hosted application accessed by 40 or even 50 branch office sites? Are you a retail company with 10, 000 stores? Do you host the POS system for all of them? Are you an attorney with offices multiple cities or states? Do you have one office hosting data for several sites?

Granting access to outsiders is necessary when you host data and programs at a central location. If your Internet connection goes down, those people are unable to work. Can your intranet solution support your needs? Can it support multiple simultaneous connections? Is it stable enough to handle this when they are from various locations?

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. For the headquarters, high-speed access to The web including Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable. Multiple diverse connections require support, in addition to high speed. A cable modem would not be able to accomplish this.

Dedicated Internet Bandwidth in Champaign, Illinois V. Shared Cable Circuits

Bringing in a less-expensive circuit like a cable modem often comes with a price. Your low monthly bill may mean that the bandwidth is shared among multiple tenants. It is possible that you have a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection but cannot reach proper speeds during peak hours. Cable operators are only permitted to establish a certain amount of bandwidth within communities. Different buildings and tenants housed or working within those buildings all share that set amount of bandwidth. The 30-meg speed you are capped out sounds good but it is possible that you will never reach that speed during business hours. Will there be trouble if your expectation is set at 30 but you only get 8 or 10?

You can find a carrier who can provide dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. In this situation, you do not have to share bandwidth. The bandwidth is all yours and is fully allocated to the needs of your organization. The full capacity of your circuit should be attainable during all hours regardless of neighboring buildings, people or offices.

As an example, look at Metro Ethernet. They provide guaranteed bandwidth in various increments. You can receive guaranteed bandwidth in increments of 100, 50, 10 and 5 megabytes. You can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit Internet 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.

Champaign High Speed Organization Internet Circuits: Redundancy

Champaign, Illinois has some carriers 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?

Circuits that are redundant may be a good idea.

We are primarily talking about two kinds of redundancy.

A single carrier, providing multiple circuits, to one customer, characterizes one form of redundancy. Redundant circuits can help protect against certain problems. They can mitigate the inconveniences when there is a failure of a physical line or a problem with the port into your router. 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 security in this, you are still vulnerable under some circumstances.

Utilizing circuits from two different carriers is the second kind of 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. Though they may appear as one, you know that they are each individual circuits and redundant to each other. This is called diversity redundancy and offers more protection that the first. If one carrier has a problem, the other likely will not.

The providers you choose for your redundant circuits should have different physical pathways in Champaign. This is an important consideration when trying to obtain the most redundancy. Your goal should be to get circuits coming into your building on different sides. You do not want them on the same side. They would be on outside phone poles or underground conduits in different directions and leading to different places. 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.

What Cost Awaits if you do Not Have Enough High-Speed Internet access Protection for Your Company?

Although access to The web comes at a price, the price of unreliable access to The Internet is tremendous. Contemplate these situations:

Your organization telephone utilizes voice-over Internet Protocol, or VoIP as it is commonly known

The carrier you use for your cable modem also provides circuits for a dozen or more tenants in the office 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. How will your telephone calls be affected as the amount of available bandwidth decreases? What will happen to the strength and quality of that call? Are the calls going to be dropped? Will you sound muffled or choppy to your customers?

Your organization is the central data point for multiple locations

Whether you are a law firm doing file sharing, an accounting practice sharing databases or a retailer operating a distributed point-of-sale system, your office is the hub for your enterprise. All of your sites, you may have 2, you may have 500, you may have 4, 000, count on your main Internet connection to access and receive data. How will you be affected if your circuit goes down? Would you merely be annoyed? Would there be catastrophic consequences? Can meaningful work be conducted at your remote offices? Can they process transactions or new orders? Dispense and receive data? Do you know what your company needs? Be sure to fully understand your requirements. It will help you choose the correct solution. You have a software company, and are running a hosted solution for dozens, maybe hundreds, of customers. Is an API utilized in your company so that your customers can access and talk to your system? What if you have server problems and they are unable to connect to you? Multiple outages may annoy your customers.

The phones in your office, which functions as a call center, relies entirely on voice-over Internet protocol (VoIP)

Maybe your organization depends entirely on the internet. Should your circuits stop working, imagine your people being unable to make any outbound phone calls. In addition, they will be unable to answer incoming calls. Looks like you are now out of company. While most reputable call centers are already aware and using redundancy, is it enough? Are the carriers you currently use as reliable as they should be? Are they as reliable as you need them to be? Are you getting quality service so that your calls are clear and consistent?

Picking the Right High-Speed Organization Access Circuits for Your Champaign, Illinois Company

You clearly have several choices. Your business needs and your budget will have to come into consideration when deciding on your solutions. As a wrap-up:

Internet Access Needs for Small Organization

If you have one location or office and do not feel the need to consider redundancy for your system, a smaller access to The web circuit may be all you need. A single fifty, ten or five megabyte circuit might be enough. Is your building lit? If so, find out about gigabit or Metro Ethernet services. They may be reasonably priced options. Prices change based on your location and the availability of circuits. Please speak with our engineers about what options best suit your needs.

Internet Access-One Location- Medium Sized Business

Mid-sized businesses in Champaign, Illinois should be equipped with higher-speed Internet. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and other higher-speed Internet circuits are your options. Ideally, multiple circuits from multiple providers will provide you with the greatest redundancy. You may be able to achieve this in a manner that will not break the bank. Two 50-megabyte circuits may be more cost effective than a single 100 circuit. Availability and costs vary. You need to speak with one of our experts to determine your options in your specific location.

Mid-Sized Company with More than One Location: Access to the Internet

Companies with different locations, whether 5 or 50, are at the highest risk. Redundant circuits are essential. Multiple providers or providers are recommended. You can minimize the risk of downtime at if you also have redundant equipment like routers or switches. Before you make a decision here too, do your research. Look closely into Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed circuit providers. Finding the best combination of services, providers and equipment can go a long way toward helping your business run as efficiently as possible.

If you are a larger company, an enterprise company or a are in the business of providing services using the Internet

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. If you want to ensure your valuable uptime, have redundant circuits from multiple carriers as well as redundant hardware. The last thing you want is interruptions or slowdowns affecting your company. You must provide enough bandwidth to avoid these pitfalls that sometimes occur during sudden usage spikes. Your circuits and hardware must be able to support a large number of fast and simultaneous connections.

You May Receive an Internet Need and Internet Demand Analysis for Free

Your business faces great risk of less than adequate bandwidth and failing circuits. The right circuits must meet your demand while keeping you within your budget. The pressure involved in selecting the proper mix of hardware and circuits can be overwhelming.

Our engineers can help. We’ll analyze your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. Our experts will examine your current usage and demand. We will then generate a design that gives you the resources you need while keeping your company up and running at a reasonable cost.

Please call our office for an assessment appointment or click here to complete the contact form on the right side of the page. We can often provide assessments within 48 hours.