Today’s environment demands that companies in Cleveland have reliable Internet service in order to run their business. All companies, big and small, need fast and reliable Internet access.
We’ll, in the months and years ahead, become more and more reliant on our Internet access.
From video conferencing to voice over IP, email to data sharing and data archiving to Internet commerce, the internet is everywhere you look. How can your needs be met? Perhaps a cable modem is all you need. Maybe you need Metro Ethernet. Gigabit Internet may satisfy your needs. What does your Cleveland, Tennessee company need? Does it require 10 Meg Internet access, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 Meg circuit or a 5 Meg circuit?
Prior to selecting a service, your company 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 crucial to your organization? Are you hosting data in Cleveland, Tennessee? Do remote sites rely upon you?
What happens if you have an outage in your high-speed Internet? Can your organization afford the downtime? Is uptime required? Before you buy anything, you must answer these questions.
It is no secret that all companies need high-speed access to the web. You need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits to your company before choosing the right broadband. While many service providers throw around terminologies such as:
… be sure not to forget what capability and technical solutions meet your business’s specific needs.
Workers for most companies in Cleveland, Tennessee have some need to access the web during the course of their job. The web is required for so many things, whether to order items, look up business information talk to third parties.
The number of workers you have may be the factor that drives your decision. A smaller Internet circuit may be enough if you only have a handful of workers. Perhaps a 5 or 10 megabyte is all you need. If you have many employees who need to use the internet at the same time, you may do better with more.
Your need for high-speed Internet may be lessened if your workers are just accessing an intranet systemOn the other hand, if your company requires that its employees download many documents or images and videos, Internet speed becomes more important.
Do you backup information? When you do remote backups from every workstation, which you should, you must support multiple and simultaneous connections to the web in order to sync your backup data.
Does your company require employees to share files using a service like Google drive or DropBox? After a file is saved, it goes to the cloud and then to someone else’s computer. You must have sufficient bandwidth if you are to successfully support every service including file sharing.
Your business location may cause you to think about high-speed company access to The Internet such as Metro Ethernet and/or gigabit Internet. Usually, you can find these in “lit buildings” in Cleveland, Tennessee that have been previously wired by a carrier. It may be shock you to know that installing high-speed Internet access may not be particularly expensive or inconvenient.
While bringing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be an expensive proposition, bringing that connection to a suite within the building is not. Also, securing high-speed access to The web using gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet often takes less than 30 days, depending on its availability.
Ask yourself this: Does we host our own servers to run APIs, websites and data feeds to external offices or business premises? Do fifty or so branch offices need access to a hosted application at your company headquarters? Does your office host the point of sale (POS) system for every single store in a large retail chain? Are you a law firm hosting data for multiple office places?
Granting access to outsiders is necessary when you host data and programs at a central location. If the net connection is interrupted or fails, those people are unable to accomplish any work. Are you choosing an intranet solution that is sufficiently reliable and stable to support multiple simultaneous connections from varied places?
The needs of an office with one employee web surfing may not need more than a cable modem or an inexpensive 5-10 megabyte circuit. For the headquarters, high-speed access to The net including Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable. While fast access to The web is and important, they must also have the capability to handle assorted simultaneous connections. This could probably not be accomplished with a cable modem.
Bringing in a cable modem, which seems to save money, may actually come 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. You may experience slow downs. For example, although you subscribe to a cable modem with a thirty Meg connection, it can be difficult to maintain the maximum speed during busy times and peak hours. Cable companies are known to limit or predetermine the amount of bandwidth available for delivery in any particular community. Whatever that amount of bandwidth is, it branches into all buildings in the community and to all tenants in those buildings. While you may be capped at thirty-megabyte speed, will you ever reach that speed during business hours? Is getting 7 when you expect 30 a problem?
You can sign up for dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth from some providers. With these, bandwidth belongs to you and your business only; no sharing. Regardless of other tenants in your building or neighboring buildings, you should receive the full capacity of your circuit.
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. If you want to reach gigabit speeds from your business out to the net, you can by using a gigabit Internet provider.
Carriers 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.
Cleveland has some carriers that offer exceptional Internet bandwidth products and services. However, circuits can still go down and cause disruption. How can you decrease the chance of an outage?
Redundant circuits may be the answer for you.
Redundancy basically comes in two forms.
With the first type of redundancy, you receive multiple circuits from the same carrier. 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. This is not foolproof, but does offer some protection.
Bringing in circuits using two distinct carriers is the second form of circuit redundancy. By using IP address allocations and certain routers, you can bind your connections. By doing this, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. You know the truth: that they are individual circuits and are there to back each other up in case one goes down. Diversity redundancy offers far greater protection. If one carrier has a widespread issue, you have a carrier that will still be alive.
For maximum redundancy, you should look for redundant circuits from different carriers with different physical geographic pathways in Cleveland, Tennessee. 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. By doing this, if there is a significant problem such as a fire at a data center, you have redundancy in an alternative physical direction.
The cost to your company if you do not have reliable access to The Internet will be far greater than you may realize. Think about the following situations:
Your office uses a cable modem and, in addition to you, the carrier provides 10-15 additional tenants with circuits. During your working day, those tenants could be conducting massive downloads of information, processing a large amount of calls or streaming endless video. As the amount of available bandwidth diminishes, what happens to your phone calls? How will the quality of that phone call be affected? Will you lose calls? Will your voice be inaudible? Will you have difficulty hearing the other end?
Your office is the center of your organization. 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. Your circuit goes down, now what will happen? Would it annoy you or destroy you? Can meaningful work be conducted at your remote offices? Can they take or process any orders at all? Disseminate needed information and data? Picking the right a solution can be difficult. Before doing so, be sure you fully understand your requirements. Perhaps you are a software company, running a hosted solution used by hundreds of customers. Maybe you offer a service that allows other systems use an application program interface (API) to speak with you to collect information and data. What if other systems can’t connect to your office servers? Customers do not enjoy repeated outages. How long with they put up with them before looking to take their company elsewhere?
Does your organization completely rely on the net? Your employees or representatives will not be able to make outgoing phone calls if your circuits go down. No calls could be answered either. Looks like you are now out of business. 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 you really getting the dependable service you need form your carriers? Are you using providers that are truly reliable? Is the quality of your calls consistently and reliably clear?
You clearly have many options. Your budget, as well as the needs of your company, will help drive your decisions. Essentially:
Sometimes redundancy is not important to you. For example, If you are a small business, with just one office location, a single Internet access circuit may be sufficient. You may get by with one 50, 10 or even 5 megabyte circuit. 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 Internet access if you have a medium sized business in Cleveland, Tennessee. 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 vary. Availability also varies. Call one of our experts to learn what is available in your specific area.
What companies have the highest risk for failure; those with multiple places. Redundancy is extremely vital to them. Multiple providers or carriers are recommended. Redundant routers, switches and other equipment can also be helpful to lessen downtime during a problem. As always, take a careful look and choose the right Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed access to The web circuit providers. The right mix can help. If you can figure out the best combination of providers and services for your organization, you will benefit.
To run efficiently and effectively, corporations and businesses that fall into this category must use point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits, gigabit Internet circuits and Metro Ethernet circuits. You must have redundant circuits for multiple providers as well as redundant hardware in your office to ensure your uptime. You must have the bandwidth to withstand sharp increases in usage. Doing so will help protect you from slowdowns or interruptions. Both your hardware and circuits must be capable of supporting a vast number of simultaneous and fast connections.
The danger and risk of failing circuits is tremendous. So is the risk of having less bandwidth than you need. The circuit or circuits you have must stay within the parameters of your budget while still meeting your company needs. 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 engineers will take the pressure off and develop a free action plan for you by analyzing your needs. After reviewing your current usage and demand levels, we will generate a cost effective plan that provides your organization with the resources it needs.
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