These days, companies in Coconut Creek rely on reliable access to The Internet as the lifeblood of their business. Fortune 500 companies to small companies and everything in between, rely on reliable and fast Internet access.
We’ll become increasingly dependent on Internet access as the months and years progress.
The use of the net is pervasive. We use it for email and data sharing, video chat and VOIP, archiving and commerce. What is the best solution for you? Is a cable modem sufficient? Do you need Metro Ethernet? Gigabit Internet? Does your organization in Coconut Creek need one of these: 10 Meg access to The Internet, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?
Your organization must assess its real needs. This must be done before an appropriate service can be chosen. Is the internet only used for web surfing and email? Is the internet used for real-time data connection with servers in the cloud? Perhaps you, in Coconut Creek, are hosting the data and remote sites rely on this.
What if you have a disruption in your high-speed Internet? How will the downtime affect your organization? Is uptime required? Before buying, these are some of the questions that you need to answer.
Speaking broadly, all companies need high-speed access to the web. Before you choose your broadband internet, look at the costs and benefits. Performing this analysis is an important step in picking the right one for your business. Many providers toss out terms such as:
… focus on what matters: what does your business need and what are the best services and solutions out there to meet those needs?
For most companies in Coconut Creek, some or all of the employees need access to the web. There are countless reasons to need access to the web. Perhaps it is to order materials, to conduct organization research or talk to clients.
Perhaps the size of your work force may determine the solution that best fits your needs. 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 more than that, you may need more.
High-speed Internet may become less important if the majority of your employees primarily use an intranet system with limited graphics and video. However, employees who must often download documents, images and videos, need that speed.
Are you regularly performing backups? 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.
Do you use a file-sharing service? Perhaps you use Google drive, DropBox or a different service? As a file is saved, it is pushed to the cloud and then synced back to other people’s computers. You need to have sufficient bandwidth to support this function while also supporting every other service.
Organization high-speed access to The Internet 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 Coconut Creek that have already been wired by a carrier. You may be surprised by how easy and affordable it is to add high-speed Internet to your company.
While bringing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be an expensive proposition, bringing that connection to a suite within the building is not. Depending on availability, it is often possible to obtain high-speed Internet access with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet in 30 days or less.
Does your business 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 accessed by 50 branch offices? Are you a retail chain hosting the POS system for 12, 000 stores? Does your legal practice host all of the data for 3, 4 or 5 offices in different sites?
Granting access to outsiders is necessary when you host data and programs at a central location. People can’t work if you have no Internet connection. When deciding on the right intranet solution for your organization, ask yourself: Is the solution going to adequately support simultaneous and multiple connections from my 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. It is advisable that high-speed access to The web be available at the central business office or headquarters, including gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuits. All offer quick speed but they must also be able to support diverse and multiple connections. A cable modem would probably not be enough.
Bringing in a cable modem, which seems to save money, may actually come at a price. You may have to share bandwidth in order to secure that low monthly rate. If you subscribe to a cable modem with a 30-megabyte connection, you would expect to always be able to reach that high speed. However, it is possible that during peak hours, you won’t. 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. The 30-meg speed you are capped out sounds good but it is possible that you will never reach that speed during organization hours. Will there be trouble if your expectation is set at 30 but you only get 8 or 10?
Some providers are available who offer dedicated bandwidth and guaranteed bandwidth. With these, bandwidth belongs to you and your organization only; no sharing. 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. In your office out to the web you can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit providers
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.
Coconut Creek, Florida has some carriers that offer exceptional Internet bandwidth products and services. However, circuits can still go down and cause disruption. You must ask yourself: “how do I lessen the chance of an outage? ”
Circuits that are redundant may be a good idea.
We are primarily talking about two kinds of redundancy.
With the first type of redundancy, you receive multiple circuits from the same carrier. In this situation, the redundancy helps protect you from port issues or physical line issues. However, if that carrier has a regional outage or physical line damaged outside of your building, both circuits may go down. You get some protection, but also some risk.
The other type of redundancy requires you to utilize circuits from different providers. For users and the public, you can make it look like you have one cohesive circuit. You can also make the connections act as a single circuit. You can do this with various advanced routers and IP address allocations. However, despite appearances, they are actually very much separate and are redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy, as this is called, offers you more protection that you might realize. You will still have a live, fully functioning carrier if one fails.
When considering redundant circuits and carriers, try to be sure that the carriers you look at in Coconut Creek have different physical geographic routes or pathways. Doing so will maximize redundancy. In other words, try to obtain circuits entering the building from different sides of the building. The circuits would be attached to telephone poles (or underground conduits) in different directions leading to different data centers or central offices. This way, if there is a major catastrophe, such as a fire at a data center or a major accident impacting circuits within a region, you have redundancy in a different physical direction.
Even though Internet access comes with a cost, you will save money if you make sure it is dependable. Unreliable access will end up costing you more in the long run. Consider these scenarios:
Your organization is on a cable modem and your carrier provides circuits to 20 other offices in your building. What if any or all of those tenants are huge call centers taking in a massive volume of phone calls, are business that perform large file downloads or stream many videos? As they use more bandwidth, there is less for available to meet your requirements. What will happen to your phone calls? What about phone call quality? Are calls lost or dropped? Will you sound muffled or 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. Your primary Internet connection is responsible for granting access to data to all of your locations. This is true whether you have 3 locations or 2000 sites. What will happen in the event of a circuit failure? Is it a mere annoyance or a catastrophic failure? Can meaningful work be conducted at your remote offices? Process or take new orders? Circulate necessary data? It is important that prior to choosing a solution, you understand the true needs and requirements of your particular organization. Maybe your software company runs a hosted solution. Maybe that hosted solution is used by hundreds of your customers. Is an API utilized in your organization so that your customers can access and communicate with your system? It is possible they will not be able to connect to your servers. Will your customers remain loyal to you if they have to withstand multiple outages?
Is the internet integral to the proper function of your business? Do you count on it entirely? What if your representatives can make no outgoing telephone calls because your circuits go down? No calls could be answered either. Basically, you are done. Is redundancy enough? Make sure your carriers are as reliable as possible. Is the quality of service sufficient? Are your calls clear and reliable?
You have no shortage of options. Your company budget and needs will play a large part in your decision-making. As a high-level summary:
If your business is small, with one location or office, you are likely not concerned about redundancy. For you, a single 5, 10 or 50 megabyte Internet access circuit may suffice. You may find that if your building is “lit”, gigabit service and Metro Ethernet service may be reasonably cost-effective choices for you. Prices change based on your location and the availability of circuits. Please speak with our engineers about what options best suit your needs.
Mid sized companies with a single office in Coconut Creek, Florida, need higher speed access to The net. You may choose between gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. You may also look into other higher-speed Internet circuits. Multiple circuits utilizing multiple providers would, ideally, provide you with maximum redundancy. You can sometimes achieve this without doubling costs. For example, one 100-megabyte circuit may cost more than two smaller 50-megabyte circuits. Remember, costs vary. So does availability. Call one of our experts to learn what is available in your specific area.
Any company with more than one location suffers the greatest risk of problems. They need redundant circuits. Varied providers are optimal. Additionally, you should consider redundant equipment (routers and switches) in your facility to minimize the risk of downtime. Here too, 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 organization up and running as efficiently as possible.
If you can place yourself in this category, it is essential that you have Metro Ethernet, point-to-point circuits and gigabit Internet circuits. In order to maximize and protect your uptime, you must have redundancy. You should have redundant circuits from multiple providers in addition to redundant hardware. Having plenty of bandwidth will help avoid interruptions or decreased speed that sometimes occurs during spikes in usage. 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.
Your company faces great risk of less than adequate bandwidth and failing circuits. Your ideal single circuit or multiple circuits should stay within your budget while still meeting your demands. Selecting the appropriate mix of circuits and hardware can overwhelm you.
Our engineers can help. We will analyze your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. We’ll examine your demand levels and current usage. We will then design a plan that keeps your costs reasonable while meeting your demand for a smoothly run company.
Please call our office for an assessment appointment or click here to complete the contact form on the right side of the page. Assessments are done in as few as two days or within 48 hours.