Because of today’s environment, companies in Chicopee, Massachusetts rely on the net. Reliable access to the net is the lifeblood of their business. Fast and reliable access to The net is needed for businesses to function properly; large corporations and small companies alike.
In the months and years ahead, people and businesses will become more dependent on internet access.
The net has a significant presence in our lives. From email to information sharing, data archiving to e-commerce, and VOIP to video conferencing, the internet is certainly ubiquitous. What is the right solution for your requirements? Will a cable modem be adequate? Metro Ethernet? Is Gigabit Internet right for you? A 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The web, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The Internet point: what is right for your business in Chicopee?
You must, before selecting a service, assess the actual needs of your business. Is the net primarily used for emailing or web surfing? Will Internet usage mainly involve cloud servers and real time data connection? There may be remote locations that rely on you and you are hosting the data in Chicopee.
Have you thought about what will happen to your organization if your high-speed Internet is interrupted by an outage? How might the downtime cause problems for your business? Does your organization require uptime? Prior to making any purchases, you must determine the answers to these questions.
High-speed access to the internet is something all companies need. Choosing the correct broadband for your company requires a cost benefit analysis. While various providers will throw around terminology like:
… focus on what matters: what does your organization need and what are the best services and solutions out there to meet those needs?
For many, if not all, companies in Chicopee, Internet access is needed for at least some employees. Third party applications, company research or development and e-commerce are just several of the ways the net may be needed.
The solution you choose may be based on the number of employees you have or expect to have. If you have a handful of employees, a 5 or 10 Meg Internet circuit may be adequate. If you have more than that, you may need more.
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. If your company functions demand the downloading of documents and images or videos on a regular basis, speed becomes a must more important issue.
Are you performing routine backups? 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.
Do you use a file sharing service like Google drive or DropBox? The saved files go to the cloud and are then synchronized or “shared” with other people’s computers. Supporting file sharing, while supporting every other service, requires sufficient bandwidth.
Company high-speed Internet access may interest you. Depending on your location, you may have options such as gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. They are commonly found in “lit buildings” in Chicopee that have already been wired by a carrier. Installing high-speed Internet may not be as difficult and expensive as you think.
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. Did you know that obtaining high-speed access to The web with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less? Of course, this depends upon availability.
Your business may host its own servers. Do they run websites APIs or data feeds for external offices? Maybe your business requires that dozens of satellite offices have access to a hosted application at your company main headquarters. Is your company 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 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 do their work if the internet connection fails or is unreliable. Are you picking an intranet solution that provides reliability and stability for your multiple, simultaneous connections from various sites?
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. While high speed is great, you also need support for your multiple diverse connections. A cable modem would probably not be enough.
In many scenarios, bringing in an inexpensive circuit, such as a cable modem, comes at a price. 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. 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. Cable companies are known to limit or predetermine the amount of bandwidth available for delivery in any particular community. That bandwidth branches off to different buildings and then to various tenants within those buildings. You might be capped at 30-megabyte speed, but may never be able to actually reach that speed during the important hours of your business day. If you expect 30 but only get 6, will you have problems?
There are carriers who offer dedicated and even guaranteed bandwidth. In this case, your organization receives full allocation of bandwidth. There is no sharing with any outsiders. The presence of numerous buildings and tenants should have no effect on your speed. You should receive full capacity of your circuits no matter what the time of day.
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. In your office out to the web you can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit providers
Providers in these situations deliver enough to cover everyone’s needs. The carriers divide their circuit to various tenants while guaranteeing that everyone gets their contracted speed.
While certain providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products in Chicopee, Massachusetts, the reality is that it is possible for a circuit to go down. In what way can you diminish the risk of an outage?
Try using redundant circuits.
Redundancy basically comes in two forms.
The first type is when one single carrier provides you with multiple circuits. In this situation, the redundancy helps protect you from port issues or physical line issues. Even multiple circuits can fail, such as in the event of a large-scale carrier outage or when there damage to an external line. This offers some protection and assurance but does not eliminate all threats.
Bringing in circuits using two distinct carriers is the second form of circuit redundancy. These connections can be bound together so they act and appear to the public as a single circuit. Using particular routers and IP address allocations, no one would be able to tell that you have multiple carriers or circuits. But, you know that they are actually separate and redundant. This redundancy, referred to as diversity redundancy, offers much greater 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.
The carriers you choose for your redundant circuits should have different physical pathways in Chicopee, Massachusetts. 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 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. 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.
While access to The Internet is not free, it pales in comparison with the cost of not having reliable Internet access. Consider the following:
Are you on a cable modem and your carrier is providing circuits to dozens of other office suites in your building? Any of these tenants may be taking many calls, conducting huge downloads or streaming video during your regular office hours. How will less available bandwidth affect your telephone calls? What about phone call quality? Are calls dropped? Will the calls be choppy?
Your office may be the working center of an entire organization enterprise. The kind of organization 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. Whether you have 2 locations, 250, or 2000, they all count on your primary Internet connection to retrieve data and information. What happens if your circuit goes down? Is it a mere annoyance or a catastrophic failure? Can your satellite or remote office do any work at all? Process new orders? Share essential information with anyone? It is important that prior to choosing a solution, you understand the true needs and requirements of your particular organization. Maybe you are a corporation that designs and sells software and you run a hosted solution that is used by hundreds and hundreds of customers. You may operate a service like this: other systems speak with yours via an API to figure out freight rates, stock prices, to compile weather data or receive any other information that you provide. What happens when there is a problem connecting to your servers? Customers do not enjoy repeated outages. How long with they put up with them before looking to take their company elsewhere?
Does your business completely rely on the web? No outbound calls can be made should your circuits go down. Your representatives would also be unable to answer calls. You are now officially out of organization. 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? Do you consistently get quality service that provides clear and reliable calls?
Clearly, there are many choices. Your choices will largely depend on your budget, in addition to the other requirements of your company. As a high-level summary:
A single fifty, ten or five megabyte Internet access circuit may be sufficient to meet the needs of your small business, particularly if you have only one location and are not worried about redundancy. For an office in a lit building, you may find that gigabit service or Metro Ethernet are affordable options for you. The availability of circuits and your location determine prices; speak with one of our engineers to learn what your best options are.
If you have a midsized business in Chicopee, you will need higher-speed Internet access. Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet and other higher speed Internet circuits are options to consider. In a perfect scenario, multiple circuits from different providers will give you the most redundancy. But can you do this without doubling costs? Sometimes, yes. For example, choosing two 50 meg circuits versus one 100 meg circuit. As a reminder; availability and costs may vary. In order to find out the options available for you, in your location, you need to speak with one of our seasoned experts.
The greatest risk of failure belongs to companies that have multiple places of business or offices. Redundant circuits must be an essential part of their systems. Having several providers would afford extra protection. You can minimize the risk of downtime at if you also have redundant equipment like routers or switches. Here too, take a careful look and choose the right Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed access to The net circuit providers. The correct combination of providers and services can keep your organization running smoothly and efficiently.
For companies falling in this category, gigabit Internet circuits, Metro Ethernet Internet circuits and point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits are essential. Redundant hardware and redundant circuits will, for these businesses, ensure the greatest uptime. Be sure the circuits are from different providers. You need to provide sufficient bandwidth to handle usage spikes without slowdowns or interruptions. 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 risk of insufficient bandwidth or failing circuits is tremendous. Your ideal single circuit or multiple circuits should stay within your budget while still meeting your demands. The pressure involved in selecting the proper mix of hardware and circuits can be overwhelming.
Our engineers will analyze your needs and requirements and develop a free action plan for you. After reviewing your current usage and demand levels, we’ll generate a cost effective plan that provides your business with the resources it needs.
An appointment for an assessment can be made by calling our office or clicking here to complete the contact form on the side of this page. Assessments are done in as few as two days or within 48 hours.