These days, companies in Cicero, Illinois depend on reliable access to The net as the lifeblood of their organization. The business functions of all companies, from Fortune 500 to small businesses, count on fast and reliable access to The Internet.
We are going to, in the months and years ahead, become more and more reliant on our access to The net.
The Internet is ubiquitous. From email to data sharing, archiving to commerce and VOIP to video chat, the internet is everywhere. What is the best fix to meet your needs? Perhaps a cable modem is all you need. Maybe you need Metro Ethernet. Gigabit Internet may be required. Does your organization in Cicero, Illinois need one of these: 10 Meg Internet access, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?
Before selecting an appropriate service for your business, you must first determine what needs you are trying to satisfy. Is Internet use limited to website surfing or emailing only? Is connecting with cloud servers and sharing real time data the main use of the web? Are you hosting the data in Cicero and distant locations or offices rely on you?
What happens if you have an outage in your high-speed Internet? Can your company afford a long pause or lull in productivity? How much uptime is essential to your company? 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 access to The net. Choosing the correct broadband for your business requires a cost benefit analysis. While you are likely to hear some service providers toss around terms such as:
… you must not lose sight of the real issue, which is understanding what technical solutions best meet your needs.
For many, if not all, companies in Cicero, Internet access is needed for at least some employees. The net is required for so many things, whether to order items, look up business information communicate with third parties.
Your best course of action may be determined by the size of your work force. 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.
Perhaps most workers at your company use an intranet system with limited features. High- speed Internet may not be a priority in this case. When employees are often downloading images, videos and documents, however, the need for speed increases significantly.
Are you regularly performing backups? Synchronizing your backup data after doing remote backups from every desk requires you to support simultaneous connections out to the web.
Do you use a file sharing service like Google drive or DropBox? When you save a file it is pushed to the cloud. Then it is synched to the computer or computers of someone else. You need to have sufficient bandwidth to support this function while also supporting every other service.
High-speed organization access to The net like Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options for you depending on your location. They are commonly found in “lit buildings” in Cicero that have already been wired by a carrier. It may be shock you to know that installing high-speed access to The Internet may not be particularly expensive or inconvenient.
Unless you are bringing Metro Ethernet into a new building, it does not have to be an expensive proposition to connect it to a suite within a building. 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.
Does your organization host its own servers running websites, APIs or data feeds for other offices or companies outside of your own four walls? Are your company headquarters with a hosted application connected to fifty or more satellite offices? Are you a retail chain hosting the POS system for 12, 000 stores? Are you a law firm hosting data for multiple office sites?
If you host programs, data or information centrally, people outside of the central location need to have access. 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 sites?
An inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be enough if you have one office that needs to surf the web. A cable modem may also be adequate in this situation. 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 alone is not enough. They must also need to be capable of supporting many diverse connections. A cable modem would likely be insufficient.
Bringing in a cable modem, which seems to save money, may actually come at a price. While the monthly rate is lower, the bandwidth is generally shared among other tenants. While you may subscribe to a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection, you may be unable to reach those speeds during peak hours. Cable companies are known to limit or predetermine the amount of bandwidth available for delivery in any particular 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 it a problem if you get a quarter or even half of the speed you expected?
Some providers offer customers dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. With these options, bandwidth is yours. It is not shared with anyone outside 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. Gigabit speeds from your office to the net can be reached if you use a gigabit Internet provider.
The providers in this situation deliver high-speed to a particular building in sufficient quantity to split their circuit among various tenants. Of course, they must ensure that they each get the specific amount of their contracted speed.
The truth is that circuits can go down in Cicero, Illinois even though some carriers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. How can you decrease the chance of an outage?
The answer is redundant circuits.
There are, in reality, two kinds of redundancy.
With the first kind, you receive several circuits but they all come from the same carrier. These redundant circuits help protect from certain failures, for example, router port issues or physical line trouble. Damage to an external wire or part can cause the failure of all of your circuits. A regional outage experienced by your carrier can have the same result. While there is some protection, there is also some risk.
You can also achieve redundancy by utilizing different providers to bring in and establish your circuits. 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. In fact, they are totally redundant and separate. You will get more substantial protection from this diversity redundancy. When one carrier has a problem like an outage or some other failure, you have another one that works.
You want maximum redundancy. In order to achieve this, look for redundant circuits from different providers with different physical geographic pathways in Cicero, Illinois. If at all possible, you want to obtain circuits entering the premises on different sides. The circuits would be attached underground or to telephone poles, in various directions. The circuits would go to different data centers or central offices. If you can accomplish this, you are protected from a major catastrophe. For example, if a there is a fire or some other accident that negatively affects circuits in a region, you have redundancy in a physically different direction.
Although access to The net comes at a price, the price of unreliable Internet access is tremendous. Consider the following:
Is your business on a cable modem? How many other tenants is your carrier servicing in your building? Are 14 other offices getting circuits? 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? How will the quality of that phone call be affected? Will calls be cut-off? Will they be full of static?
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. Your primary Internet connection is solely responsible for smoothly granting access and sending data to all of your places whether you have two or two thousand. What happens if your circuit crashes? Is it simply an irritation or a catastrophe? Can meaningful work be conducted at your remote offices? Process or take new orders? Dispense and receive data? Choosing the right solution depends largely on assessing and understanding the specific needs of your company. You might have hundreds and hundreds of loyal customers. Perhaps you are a software company running a hosted solution they all count on. Do you operate a service where other systems speak with yours by using an application program interface (API)? For example do other systems gain access to yours in order to calculate rates, prices, or to collect information that you serve up? You may find that they are unable to reach or connect with your company servers. How long will your customers tolerate repeated outages?
Your business is 100% dependent on the web to properly function. Should your circuits stop working, imagine your people being unable to make any outbound phone calls. There would be no way to answer incoming calls of people trying to reach your representatives. Basically, you are done. Is redundancy enough? Many of the finest call centers with the best reputations already understand and use redundancy. They should consider if they have sufficient protection. Are your current carriers as dependable as you would like? You should be getting high quality service that ensures your calls are consistently clear and reliable.
Clearly, there are many choices. Your business budget and needs will play a large part in your decision-making. To recap:
Sometimes redundancy is not essential to you. For example, If you are a small business, with just one office location, a single Internet access circuit may be adequate. You may get by with one 50, 10 or even 5 megabyte circuit. Find out if you are in a lit building. If so, the price of Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be affordable. 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 organization in Cicero, Illinois, you will need higher-speed access to The web. Your choices include: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or other high-speed circuits. Ideally, you want to have the greatest redundancy. You can achieve this by using multiple circuits from different carriers. This may be attainable without doubling your costs. Two smaller circuits may be cheaper than one. For instance, you may use two 50 meg circuits instead of a single 100 meg circuit. Again, costs and availability 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 organization or offices. They require redundant circuits. Different carriers are desirable. Redundant routers, switches and other equipment can also be helpful to lessen downtime during a problem. 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 providers and services will help keep your organization up and running as efficiently as possible.
For companies falling in this category, gigabit Internet circuits, Metro Ethernet Internet circuits and point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits are essential. If you want to ensure your valuable uptime, have redundant circuits from multiple carriers as well as 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.
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. 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’ll examine your current usage and demand levels then create a design that provides you with the resources you need to keep your business running smoothly at a reasonable cost.
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. We can often provide assessments within 48 hours.