In today’s environment, companies in Clovis count on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their company. The business functions of all companies, from Fortune 500 to small businesses, rely on fast and reliable access to The Internet.
Our dependence on Internet access will continue to grow in the coming months and years.
The use of the web is pervasive. We use it for email and data sharing, video conferencing and VOIP, archiving and commerce. How can your needs be met? Will a cable modem be adequate? It could be that you need Metro Ethernet. Gigabit Internet may be required. Does your Clovis organization need a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The web, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg Internet access point?
You must, before selecting a service, assess the actual needs of your business. Is Internet use limited to website surfing or emailing only? Is it used to network with cloud servers? Are you hosting data in Clovis, New Mexico? Do remote places depend upon you?
What happens if you have an outage in your high-speed Internet? Can your organization afford the downtime? Does your business require uptime? Before buying, these are some of the questions that you must answer.
In all-encompassing terms, businesses need high-speed access to The Internet. 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 service providers throw out words and phrases like:
… the real issue is understanding what capability and technical solutions best meet your needs.
At most businesses including those in Clovis, New Mexico, some or all employees need Internet access. access to The net may be needed to conduct research, use third-party applications or to order supplies.
The number of employees you have may determine your best solution. If you have a handful of employees, a 5 or 10 Meg Internet circuit may be sufficient. If your business 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. If your business functions demand the downloading of documents and images or videos on a regular basis, speed becomes a must more important issue.
Do you backup information? Synchronizing your backup data after doing remote backups from every desk requires you to support simultaneous connections out to the web.
Google drive and DropBox are two popular sharing services. Are you using one of these or some other service that allows you to share files? As people save files, those files are pushed to the cloud and then synchronized back to other people’s computers. 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 business access to The net such as Metro Ethernet and/or gigabit Internet. Usually, you can find these in “lit buildings” in Clovis that have been previously wired by a carrier. You may be surprised by how easy and affordable it is to add high-speed Internet to your organization.
Absent the need to introduce Metro Ethernet into a new building, it is not particularly costly to connect Metro Ethernet to a suite or office within that building. 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.
Does your company host its own servers? Does your company use the hosted servers to run data feeds, APIs or websites for offices or businesses located elsewhere? Is your main organization office with a hosted application accessed by 40 or even 50 branch office sites? Are you a retail business with 10, 000 stores? Do you host the POS system for all of them? Are you a legal practice hosting the data for three locations?
Granting access to outsiders is necessary when you host data and programs at a central location. For those people, no Internet connection means no work gets done. Is the intranet solution you are choosing sufficiently reliable? Is it stable enough to support simultaneous connections from different sites?
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 Internet access including Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable. While high speed is great, you also need support for your multiple diverse connections. A cable modem would likely be insufficient.
In many scenarios, bringing in an inexpensive circuit, such as a cable modem, comes at a price. There may be a lower monthly rate, but bandwidth is usually shared with many tenants. It is possible that you have a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection but cannot reach proper speeds during peak hours. Only a certain amount of bandwidth may be available in a community. Many cable companies have limits on the amount they can deliver. The bandwidth branches off to the multiple buildings, offices and tenants within them. 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. Will there be trouble if your expectation is set at 30 but you only get 8 or 10?
Some providers offer customers dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. If you want your very own bandwidth that is not used by anyone else, you should consider this. The full capacity of your circuit should be attainable during all hours regardless of neighboring buildings, people or offices.
Five Meg, ten Meg, fifty Meg and 100 Meg circuits of guaranteed bandwidth are available with Metro Ethernet. In your office out to the net you can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit providers
In these scenarios, providers deliver a large quantity of high-speed to a building. The quantity must be enough so that it can split the circuit and deliver to every tenant. Whatever amount has been guaranteed in each tenant’s contract is the amount they receive.
Despite outstanding Internet bandwidth products offered by carriers in Clovis, circuits do go down. Ask this question: “what can I do to decrease the likelihood of an outage?
Redundant circuits.
There are, in essence, two types of redundancy.
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. It is possible for both circuits to go down. If your carrier has a regional problem like a widespread outage, or there is a broken line outside your building, even your redundant circuits may fail. While offering some protection, it is not without risk.
The other type of redundancy requires you to utilize circuits from different carriers. 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. However, despite appearances, they are actually very much separate and are redundant to each other. This is called diversity redundancy and offers more protection that the first. If one carrier has a widespread issue, you have a carrier that will still be alive.
If you want to maximize redundancy in Clovis, New Mexico please consider the following question: Do the carriers I am considering use the same physical geographic pathways? Essentially, this just means that you do not want both of your circuits to enter the building on the same side. They should come in on different sides. The circuits would be established either underground or on telephone poles and would be set up in different directions and lead to different 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 Internet comes at a price, the price of unreliable access to The Internet is tremendous. Consider the following:
Your office uses a cable modem and, in addition to you, the carrier provides 10-15 additional tenants with circuits. Any of these tenants may be taking many calls, conducting huge downloads or streaming video during your regular office hours. 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 your voice be inaudible? Will you have difficulty hearing the other end?
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 places, whether 2 or 2000, rely on your primary Internet connection to access and retrieve data. What will happen in the event of a circuit failure? Will it cause disastrous results of just annoy you a little bit? Can your satellite or remote office do any work at all? What happens to new orders? Can they be taken or processed? Share information? Choosing the right solution depends largely on assessing and understanding the specific needs of your organization. You have a software company, and are running a hosted solution for dozens, maybe hundreds, of customers. You may operate a service like this: other systems speak with yours via an API to figure out freight prices, stock prices, to compile weather data or receive any other information that you provide. It is possible they will not be able to connect to your servers. How will repeated outages affect your customers? Will they remain customers?
Does your organization completely rely on the web? Should your circuits stop working, imagine your people being unable to make any outbound phone calls. No calls could be answered either. Basically, you are done. While most reputable call centers are already aware and using redundancy, is it enough? Are your providers sufficiently reliable? Do you consistently get quality service that provides clear and reliable calls?
It should be clear by now that you have many different options to select from. Your budget, as well as the needs of your company, will help drive your decisions. As a wrap-up:
If you are a small business, with just one location and not concerned about redundancy, a single five meg, 10 meg or 50 meg Internet access circuit may be adequate. 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.
You will need higher speed Internet access if you have a medium sized business in Clovis, New Mexico. Your options are Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and higher speed circuits. Ideally, multiple circuits from multiple providers will provide you with the greatest redundancy. But can you do this without doubling costs? Sometimes, yes. Two 50-megabyte circuits may be more cost effective than a single 100 circuit. Do not forget that you will find variations in price and availability. Learn your options by speaking with one of our knowledgeable experts. We can help you determine what is available in your specific location.
Businesses with many locations face the greatest risk for failure. Redundancy is crucial. It is helpful if they use multiple carriers. Also, redundant equipment such as switches and routers in your facility can minimize the risk of downtime. Here also, examine the Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet providers. Take a careful look at other high-speed access to The Internet circuit providers before choosing the right one. Your organization can benefit from finding the right mix of services and carriers.
For companies falling in this category, gigabit Internet circuits, Metro Ethernet Internet circuits and point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits are essential. You absolutely need redundant circuits from different providers as well as redundant hardware. This is important to ensuring uptime. 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. It is crucial that not only your circuits have the ability to support a vast number of multiple and simultaneous connects, but your hardware must have the ability to support them as well.
The danger and risk of failing circuits is tremendous. So is the risk of having less bandwidth than you need. Your ideal single circuit or multiple circuits should stay within your budget while still meeting your demands. Choosing the right mix of circuits and hardware is a daunting task.
Our expert engineers will review your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. After reviewing your current usage and demand levels, we’ll generate a cost effective plan that provides your organization with the resources it needs.
If you would like to arrange for an assessment, please click here to complete the contact information form to the right. You can call our office as well. We can often provide assessments within 48 hours.