Today’s environment demands that companies in Colorado Springs, Colorado have reliable Internet service in order to run their organization. All companies, from Fortune 500 to small companies, have functions that rely on easy, dependable and quick access to The Internet.
We are going to become increasingly reliant on Internet access as the months and years progress.
The Internet has a significant presence in our lives. From email to information sharing, data archiving to e-commerce, and VOIP to video chat, the web is certainly ubiquitous. How can your needs be met? Can a cable modem suffice? Do you need Metro Ethernet? You may need Gigabit Internet. What is best for your company in Colorado Springs, Colorado? Will your business needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg access to The net or 100 Meg access to The Internet point?
Before selecting an appropriate service for your company, you must first determine what needs you are trying to satisfy. Is Internet use limited to website surfing or emailing only? Is it used to network with cloud servers? Are you hosting the data in Colorado Springs that remote places depend upon?
What happens to your business if your high-speed Internet experiences an outage? How might the downtime cause problems for your company? Is your success dependent on uptime? You must answer questions like these so you can make a purchase that actually meets your needs
It is no secret that all companies 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. While many providers like to spout technical terminologies such as:
… do not stray from the real issues. Focus on what your company’s needs are and what capabilities and technical solutions will help satisfy them.
For many, if not all, companies in Colorado Springs, Colorado, access to The web is needed for at least some employees. access to The web may be needed to conduct research, use third-party applications or to order supplies.
The best solution may rely on how many employees you have. If you only have a few workers, you may be fine with a smaller Internet circuit such as a 5 or 10 megabyte. If you have 50 employees who are using the net simultaneously, you may need more.
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. On the other hand, when they are frequently downloading documents, images and videos, that need for speed increases drastically.
Are you performing routine backups? Synchronizing your backup data after doing remote backups from every desk requires you to support simultaneous connections out to the web.
Does your organization use a file sharing service? DropBox? Google drive? When people save a file, it gets pushed to the cloud. The file is then synched with other people’s computers. The right amount of capacity or bandwidth is necessary to support this function in conjunction with every other service you have.
Depending on where you are, you may want to look into high-speed company Internet access such as Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet. Usually, you can find these in “lit buildings” in Colorado Springs 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.
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. In fact, in as little as 30 days, you may be able to obtain high-speed access to the internet with either gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. It depends upon availability.
Does your business host its own servers running websites, APIs or data feeds for other offices or companies outside of your own four walls? Do fifty or so branch offices need access to a hosted application at your company headquarters? Is your company retail? Do you have thousands of stores? Do you host the point of sale system for the entire chain? Are you an attorney with offices multiple cities or states? Do you have one office hosting data for several locations?
If you host programs, data or information centrally, people outside of the central location need to have access. If the internet connection is interrupted, those people cannot get their work done. Are you choosing an intranet solution that is sufficiently reliable and stable to support multiple simultaneous connections from varied places?
For one office or a small company with just one or two people surfing the web, a less expensive 10 Meg circuit or a cable modem may meet your needs. For the headquarters, high-speed access to The net including Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable. High speed is important but they also must be able to support multiple distinct connections. This could probably not be accomplished with a cable modem.
In some situations, there is a high price to pay for bringing in an inexpensive circuit or cable modem. Oftentimes, a lower monthly rate comes with the realization that you are sharing bandwidth with many different tenants and offices. During peak hours, your connection may slow down, even though you subscribe to a cable modem with a thirty-megabyte connection. Many cable operators can only deliver a certain amount of bandwidth in a community. That bandwidth branches off to different buildings and then to various tenants within those buildings. With a 30-megabyte connection, you may not get to that speed during the working day. Is getting 7 when you expect 30 a problem?
Some providers are available who offer dedicated bandwidth and guaranteed bandwidth. In this scenario, the bandwidth is fully allocated to you and your company or company. No one else uses it. Regardless of neighbors, or other tenants, you should have the full capacity of your circuit at all times.
Metro Ethernet provides guaranteed bandwidth in increments as follows: 5, 10, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. You can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit Internet 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.
While certain carriers offer superior Internet bandwidth products in Colorado Springs, Colorado, the reality is that it is possible for a circuit to go down. What can you do to minimize the chance that you will experience an outage of some kind?
The answer is redundant circuits.
We are primarily talking about two kinds of redundancy.
The first type is when one single carrier provides you with multiple circuits. These redundant circuits help protect from certain failures, for example, router port issues or physical line trouble. However, if that carrier has a greater outage to your entire region or there is a line damaged outside of your office building, you may have both or all circuits go down. There is some protection that comes with this but there is risk as well.
Utilizing circuits from two different providers is the second kind of redundancy. These connections can be bound together so they act and appear to the public as a single circuit. Using particular routers and IP address allocations, no one would be able to tell that you have multiple providers or circuits. However, despite appearances, they are actually very much separate and are redundant to each other. 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 carriers with different physical geographic pathways in Colorado Springs, Colorado. 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 attached to the proper outside source whether a subterranean conduit or a telephone pole. They would be set up in different directions and would lead to different data centers or main office spaces. 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 net 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. 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. As the amount of available bandwidth diminishes, what happens to your phone calls? How will the caliber of the call be affected? Are calls lost or dropped? Inaudible (choppy) to your customers?
Regardless of whether you are part of a legal practice and your firm does file sharing, or an accounting practice sharing databases, your office is the central point or hub of your organization. All of your offices, whether you have 3 or 3, 000, rely on your primary Internet connection to successfully access data. How will you be affected if your circuit goes down? Is it just irritating? Is it going to cause tremendous problems? How much work, if any, can be done by your remote places? Take new orders? Service existing ones? Share essential information with anyone? It is important that prior to choosing a solution, you understand the true needs and requirements of your particular business. Perhaps you have hundreds of clients or customers that use a hosted solution that your software business is running. Maybe you offer a service that allows other systems use an application program interface (API) to communicate with you to collect information and data. What happens when they are unable to connect to your servers? Customers will only take so many repeated outages. How long with they remain with your company?
What if your organization could not function at all without the web? Maybe your organization relies on it completely. What if your representatives can make no outgoing telephone calls because your circuits go down? Calls coming in would be unanswerable. You might not even know people are trying to reach your office. Your company is basically done with. Even for the most reputable call centers that already know of and use redundancy, is it sufficient? Make sure your providers are as reliable as possible. Is the quality of service sufficient? Are your calls clear and reliable?
Clearly, there are many choices. Your decision will be based on different factors including your business needs and your budget. In summary:
If your company 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. 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.
Mid sized companies with a single office in Colorado Springs, need higher speed access to The Internet. Your options are Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and higher speed circuits. Using different circuits and different carriers will, if you choose, provide you with redundancy. You may be able to achieve this in a manner that will not break the bank. Using one 100-megabyte circuit instead of two 50-megabyte circuits, is one example. Availability and costs vary. In order to find out the options available for you, in your location, you need to speak with one of our seasoned experts.
If your organization has several locations or offices, you are at great risk for failure. They need redundant circuits. Multiple carriers would be great. You can decrease risk during downtime by having redundant equipment as well. Here also, examine the Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet providers. Take a careful look at other high-speed Internet access circuit providers before choosing the right one. Finding the best combination of services, providers and equipment can go a long way toward helping your organization run 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. Spikes or sudden increase in usage can result in Internet slowdowns or disruptions in service. You can decrease the risk of these events by having sufficient bandwidth. The hardware and circuits you choose must both be able to support the following: a great number of concurrent, speedy connections.
Insufficient bandwidth and failing circuits are present tremendous risk to your organization. Your ideal single circuit or multiple circuits should stay within your budget while still meeting your demands. It is important to choose the correct mix of hardware and circuits. Figuring out exactly what to put in the mix, can be a daunting task.
We have engineers that will analyze your needs, look at your organization requirements and develop an action plan for you… for free!We will look at your current usage, demand levels and scope out a design to give you the resources you need while keeping your company up and running at a reasonable cost.
Please complete the contact form by clicking here. You may also call our office to set up an appointment for your assessment. It can take as little as 48 hours to provide a complete assessment.