Because of today’s environment, companies in Clovis depend on the net. Reliable access to the net is the lifeblood of their business. All companies, from Fortune 500 to small businesses, have functions that rely on easy, dependable and quick access to The web.
Our reliance on access to the net will become greater in the near and distant future.
The Internet is ubiquitous. From email to data sharing, archiving to commerce and VOIP to video conferencing, the internet is everywhere. What is the best solution for you? Will a cable modem be adequate? Your needs may point to Metro Ethernet as a solution. You may need Gigabit Internet. Does your Clovis business need a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The web, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The Internet point?
Before choosing an adequate or appropriate service, you must decide what your company really needs. Is the internet primarily used for emailing or web surfing? Will real-time data connection with servers in the cloud be the primary use of the internet? There may be remote places that rely on you and you are hosting the data in Clovis.
What if you have a disruption in your high-speed Internet? How might the downtime cause problems for your business? Is your success reliant on uptime? These types of questions must be answered before you make purchase anything.
Speaking broadly, 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 internet. Don’t be distracted by terminology. While you may hear providers throw out words and phrases like:
… do not lose sight of the real issues: what are the capabilities and technical solutions you need to best serve your company?
Workers for most companies in Clovis have some need to access the internet during the course of their job. Whether it is to talk to shippers, do research or place orders, access to The net is required.
Your best course of action may be determined by the size of your work force. If you have a smaller workforce, you may do fine with a smaller Internet circuit. For example, if you only employ a handful of people, a 5 or 10 Meg circuit may meet your needs. If you have more than that, you may need more.
Do your employees primarily use an intranet system? If so, you may not need much high-speed Internet service. 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 backups? 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.
Are you using Google drive, DropBox or another file sharing service? When you save a file it is pushed to the cloud. Then it is synched to the computer or computers of someone else. Running all your services properly, including sharing files, requires that you have the right amount of bandwidth.
High-speed organization Internet access like Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options for you depending on your location. Usually, you can find these in “lit buildings” in Clovis that have been previously wired by a carrier. It may be shock you to know that installing high-speed access to The net may not be particularly expensive or inconvenient.
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. You can actually get high-speed access with gigabit Internet or even Metro Ethernet quickly. It often takes only 30 days or less, depending on availability.
Ask yourself this: Does we host our own servers to run APIs, websites and data feeds to external offices or organization premises? Are your corporate headquarters with a hosted application utilized by 50 branch offices? Are you hosting the point of sale (POS) system for 15, 000 retail chain stores? You may be a law firm hosting data for three or four different offices.
If you host programs, data or information centrally, people outside of the central location need to have access. People can’t work if you have no Internet connection. 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 places?
For a single office surfing the web, a cable modem or inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be adequate. It is advisable that high-speed access to The net be available at the central organization office or headquarters, including gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuits. High speed is important but they also must be able to support multiple distinct connections. Do you think a cable modem is sufficient? It is probably not.
Bringing in a less-expensive circuit like a cable modem often comes with 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. During peak use hours, you may not be able to reach proper speeds. Often, within a given community, cable companies may only deliver a particular amount of bandwidth. 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 company day. 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. With these options, bandwidth is yours. It is not shared with anyone outside of your business. The full capacity of your circuit should be attainable during all hours regardless of neighboring buildings, people or offices.
For example, with Metro Ethernet, you can receive a guaranteed bandwidth in increments of five Meg circuits, 10 Meg circuits, 50 Meg circuits and 100 Meg circuits. Want to reach gigabit speeds? You can by using a gigabit Internet provider.
Here, carriers deliver enough high-speed to the building, so that it can be split among various tenants. The carrier has the right amount so that everyone gets the contracted speed that has been promised.
While certain carriers offer superior Internet bandwidth products in Clovis, the reality is that it is possible for a circuit to go down. How can you decrease the chance of an outage?
Redundant circuits.
There are, in reality, two kinds of redundancy.
With the first type of redundancy, you receive multiple circuits from the same carrier. This provides some protection when there are certain failures. Multiple circuits can help for example, when there is a physical line issue or a problem with a router port. 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.
Utilizing circuits from two different providers is the second kind of redundancy. 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. Though they may appear as one, you know that they are each individual circuits and redundant to each other. While circuit redundancy in general is a good idea, diversity redundancy by using different carriers, offers far better protection. 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 Clovis. This is an important consideration when trying to obtain the most redundancy. Basically this means that you want your circuits to enter your building on different sides or paths. They would be on outside phone poles or underground conduits in different directions and leading to different places. If a major accident occurs or there is a fire that impedes the function of circuits in a particular region, you have redundancy in a different direction.
Although access to The web comes at a price, the price of unreliable Internet access is tremendous. Consider the following:
Your company is on a cable modem and your carrier provides circuits to 20 other offices in your building. During business hours, any of those tenants could be streaming video, performing massive file downloads, processing large volumes of phone calls and more. 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 is the center of your business. You may be a law firm that does file sharing or a retailer operating a POS 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 happens? Is it simply an irritation or a catastrophe? Can your satellite or remote office do any work at all? Can they process transactions or new orders? Share essential information with anyone? Do you know what your business needs? Be sure to fully understand your requirements. It will help you choose the correct solution. Perhaps you have hundreds of clients or customers that use a hosted solution that your software company is running. 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 prices, prices, or to collect information that you serve up? What happens when they are unable to connect to your servers? Multiple outages may annoy your customers.
What if your business could not function at all without the net? Maybe your business relies on it completely. No calls can go out if your circuits fail. Calls coming in would be unanswerable. You might not even know people are trying to reach your office. Your company is basically done with. 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 providers as dependable as you would like? Are you getting quality service so that your calls are clear and consistent?
You clearly have several choices. The needs and budget of your company will both affect your choices. Essentially:
A single fifty, ten or five megabyte Internet access circuit may be sufficient to meet the needs of your small company, particularly if you have only one location and are not worried about redundancy. If you are in a “lit” building, Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be reasonably priced options. Prices will vary. They are based on your location and circuit availability; speak with our engineers to learn your best options.
Having a medium or mid-sized company in Clovis requires that you have higher-speed access to the internet. Your choices include: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or other high-speed circuits. Optimally, multiple carriers and multiple circuits will give you the most redundancy. You may be able to achieve this in a manner that will not break the bank. For instance, it may be cheaper to utilize two 50 meg circuits in place of one 100 meg circuit. Do not forget that you will find variations in price and availability. In order to find out the options available for you, in your location, you need to speak with one of our seasoned experts.
Companies with multiple locations are most at risk for failure. Redundancy is extremely crucial to them. Multiple providers or providers are recommended. Also, redundant equipment such as switches and routers in your facility can minimize the risk of downtime. As always, take a careful look and choose the right Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed Internet access circuit providers. The right mix of carriers and services will help keep your business up and running as efficiently as possible.
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. Having plenty of bandwidth will help avoid interruptions or decreased speed that sometimes occurs during spikes in usage. Both your hardware and circuits must be capable of supporting a vast number of simultaneous and fast connections.
There is great risk of failing circuits or insufficient bandwidth. The circuit or circuits you have must stay within the parameters of your budget while still meeting your organization needs. Selecting the appropriate mix of circuits and hardware can overwhelm you.
Our engineers will analyze your needs and requirements and develop a free action plan for you. You want your business to run smoothly. We are going to look at your current usage levels and demand levels and design a plan that meets your needs at a cost that makes sense for you.
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 do assessments quickly. It can take as little as 48 hours to complete your analysis.