High-Speed Columbus, Indiana Access to The Web

Accessing High Speed Internet in Columbus: Gigabit Internet, Organization Broadband Internet and Metro Ethernet Access

Because of today’s environment, companies in Columbus rely on the net. Reliable access to the net is the lifeblood of their business. All companies, big and small, need fast and reliable access to The net.

Our reliance on access to the web will become greater in the near and distant future.

Our uses of the web reach far and wide. From data sharing, video calls, and shopping to VOIP and email, the net has a broad presence. How can your needs be met? Maybe a cable modem is a sufficient solution. Metro Ethernet may be the thing you need. Is Gigabit Internet right for you? A 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg Internet access, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The net point: what is right for your business in Columbus?

Access to the net: Determining Your Business’s Needs

Your business must assess its real needs. This must be done before an appropriate service can be chosen. Why will you need the internet? Will you only be web surfing and emailing? Is it used to network with cloud servers? Are you hosting the data in Columbus, Indiana and distant locations or offices rely on you?

How would an outage to your high-speed Internet affect your business? How much downtime can your company withstand? Is uptime essential? Before making a purchase, these are several of the questions you need to answer.

Appraising Various High-Speed Internet Solutions in Columbus

High-speed access to the web is something all companies need. An analysis of the costs and benefits should be done prior to choosing the broadband internet that is correct for your company. While you are likely to hear some providers toss around terms such as:

• High-speed Internet access provider
• Business Internet or commercial Internet
• broadband cable modems
• Provider of Metro Ethernet
• GbE services or Gigabit Internet
• Multiprotocol label switching, also known as MPLS
• Providers of point-to-point circuits
• Internet access circuits-five megabyte
• Internet access circuits- ten megabytes
• Internet access- 50 megabytes
• Internet access circuits- One hundred megabytes
• Leading SIP trunk authority
• Internet access dedicated to your needs
• … and then some

… 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.

Web Surfing and Business Internet Access

Companies in Columbus need access to the web for their employees. Some companies may need it only for a few people and others may need it for the entire workforce. Whether it is to speak with shippers, do research or place orders, Internet access is required.

The solution you choose may be based on the number of employees you have or expect to have. An Internet circuit of 5 -10 megabytes might be enough for your organization if you only have a few people working for you. If you have a larger workforce, you may want to consider more. This is especially true if they all need to use the web simultaneously.

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.

Are you performing routine backups? Simultaneous connections to the web, which you need in order to sync your backup data, require support. If you conduct remote backups from every workstation, which you definitely should, this will be important.

Do you use a file sharing service like Google drive or DropBox? As a file is saved, it is pushed to the cloud and then synced back to other people’s computers. Running all your services properly, including sharing files, requires that you have the right amount of bandwidth.

Your business location may cause you to think about high-speed business access to The web such as Metro Ethernet and/or gigabit Internet. They are commonly found in “lit buildings” in Columbus that have already been wired by a carrier. If you’d like to install high-speed Internet in your office, you should know that it might be more affordable than you realize.

Unless you are bringing Metro Ethernet into a new building, it does not have to be an expensive proposition to connect it to a suite within a building. In fact, obtaining high-speed Internet access with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less depending upon availability.

Online Applications Need High-Speed access to The net

Does your organization host its own servers running websites, APIs or data feeds for other offices or companies outside of your own four walls? Are your business headquarters with a hosted application connected to fifty or more satellite offices? Does your office host the point of sale (POS) system for every single store in a large retail chain? You may be a law firm hosting data for three or four different offices.

When things are hosted at a central point, parties outside the office must somehow gain access. People can’t work if you have no Internet connection. Are you choosing an intranet solution that is sufficiently reliable and stable to support multiple simultaneous connections from varied locations?

An inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be enough if you have one office that needs to surf the internet. A cable modem may also be adequate in this situation. For headquarters, Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed Internet dedicated circuits is advisable. While all offer high speeds, they also need to be capable of supporting multiple diverse connections. The support you need could not be provided by a cable modem.

Dedicated Internet Bandwidth in Columbus V. Shared Cable Circuits

In some situations, there is a high price to pay for bringing in an inexpensive circuit or cable modem. Your low monthly bill may mean that the bandwidth is shared among multiple tenants. While you may subscribe to a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection, you may be unable to reach those speeds during peak hours. Often, within a given community, cable companies may only deliver a particular amount of bandwidth. Whatever that amount of bandwidth is, it branches into all buildings in the community and to all tenants in 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 it a problem if you get a quarter or even half of the speed you expected?

Some providers are available who offer dedicated bandwidth and guaranteed bandwidth. In this case, your company receives full allocation of bandwidth. There is no sharing with any outsiders. Regardless of neighbors, or other tenants, you should have the full capacity of your circuit at all times.

With Metro Ethernet, for example, you can receive a guaranteed bandwidth in various increments including 5 and 10 Meg circuits, and 50 and 100 Meg circuits. With gigabit Internet providers, you can reach gigabit speeds in your office out to the net.

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.

Backup With Columbus High Speed Organization Internet Circuits

Circuits can go down in Columbus even though certain providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. In what way can you diminish the risk of an outage?

You may be a candidate for redundant circuits.

Redundancy basically comes in two forms.

With the first type of redundancy, you receive multiple circuits from the same carrier. These redundant circuits help protect from certain failures, for example, router port issues or physical line trouble. 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. This is not foolproof, but does offer some protection.

Bringing in circuits using two distinct providers 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. In reality, they are completely separate and redundant to each other. This is called diversity redundancy and offers more protection that the first. In the event that one carrier goes down, the other will still be alive.

For maximum redundancy, you should look for redundant circuits from different carriers with different physical geographic pathways in Columbus. Alternatively stated, try to have your circuits enter the building on different sides from one another. The circuits would be attached to telephone poles (or underground conduits) in different directions leading to different data centers or central 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.

What Cost Awaits if you do Not Have Enough High-Speed Internet access Protection for Your Organization?

The cost of dependable Internet access pales in comparison to the cost of unreliable access. Please think about the following scenarios:

Does your organization rely on Voice-over Internet Protocol for telephone service?

The carrier you use for your cable modem also provides circuits for a dozen or more tenants in the office building. During the course of a regular work day, any or all of these other businesses might be performing massive file downloads. Tenants might be taking a large volume of calls or be regularly streaming video. As available bandwidth shrinks, what will happen to your calls? How will the quality of that phone call be affected? Are the calls going to be dropped? Will you sound muffled or choppy to your customers?

Your office is the main data point for various other offices

You may be an accounting firm that shares databases, a retail chain company utilizing a point of sale system or a law practice sharing files. Regardless of the specifics, your office is the hub for your enterprise. All of your locations, whether 2 or 2000, rely on your primary Internet connection to access and retrieve data. What will happen if your circuit crashes? Is it a mere annoyance or a catastrophic failure? Is work even possible at your other sites? Process or take new orders? Share information? Do you know what your company needs? Be sure to fully understand your requirements. It will help you choose the correct solution. Maybe your software company runs a hosted solution. Maybe that hosted solution is used by hundreds of your customers. You operate a service that utilizes API in order to grant access to other systems. They may use this to collect whatever data you are offering such as commodity prices, weather data or freight calculations. What happens when they are unable to connect to your servers? How long will your customers tolerate repeated outages?

You are a call center and you completely count on VoIP

Maybe your business depends entirely on the net. No calls can go out if your circuits fail. Your reps have no way of answering calls, if they even know they are coming in. You are now, essentially, out of company. For competent call centers that already use and understand the problems that can arise, is redundancy enough? Are your current carriers as dependable as you would like? Is the quality of your calls consistently and reliably clear?

Select the Columbus, Indiana High-Speed Company Access Circuits Best Suited for Your Company

It should be clear by now that you have many different options to select from. Your organization needs and your budget will have to come into consideration when deciding on your solutions. To recap:

Internet Access for the Small Company Owner

Sometimes redundancy is not crucial to you. For example, If you are a small organization, with just one office location, a single access to The web circuit may be adequate. You may get by with one 50, 10 or even 5 megabyte circuit. If you are in a “lit” building, Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be reasonably priced options. The availability of circuits and your location determine prices; speak with one of our engineers to learn what your best options are.

Mid-Sized Businesses Internet access – One Location

You have a mid-sized Columbus company; higher speed access to The net required. Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet and other higher speed Internet circuits are options to consider. In a perfect world, you will achieve maximum redundancy by utilizing multiple providers to provide and service different circuits. You can sometimes achieve this without doubling costs. For example, one 100-megabyte circuit may cost more than two smaller 50-megabyte circuits. To repeat, availability and prices vary. Learn your options by speaking with one of our knowledgeable experts. We can help you determine what is available in your specific location.

Midsized Businesses with Multiple Locations: Internet Access

If your company has several sites or offices, you are at great risk for failure. Redundancy is extremely crucial to them. Multiple providers are highly desirable. You can decrease risk during downtime by having redundant equipment as well. Look at all of your options: Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet providers, Metro Ethernet providers and other high-speed circuit providers. The correct combination of providers and services can keep your business running smoothly and efficiently.

Larger corporate clients, enterprise clients and providers of services delivered via the Internet

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. 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. 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.

Free Analysis: Internet Need and Demand

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 take the pressure off and develop a free action plan for you by analyzing your needs. You want your company 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.

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 completed in as little as 48 hours.