Because of today’s environment, companies in Concord, North Carolina rely on the internet. Reliable access to the web is the lifeblood of their company. The business functions of all companies, from Fortune 500 to small companies, depend on fast and reliable Internet access.
We’ll become increasingly dependent on Internet access as the months and years progress.
Our uses of the net reach far and wide. From data sharing, video calls, and shopping to VOIP and email, the internet has a broad presence. What is the right solution for your requirements? Perhaps a cable modem is all you need. Is Metro Ethernet necessary? Gigabit Internet may be required. 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 company in Concord, North Carolina?
Your company must assess its real needs. This must be done before an appropriate service can be chosen. Why will you need the web? Will you only be web surfing and emailing? Will Internet usage mainly involve cloud servers and real time data connection? You may be hosting the data in Concord and remote locations rely on this.
What if your high-speed Internet is disrupted by an outage? What will happen to your organization? How much downtime can your company withstand? Does your organization require uptime? Before making a purchase, these are several of the questions you need to answer.
High-speed access to The web is required by all businesses. You need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits to your company before choosing the right broadband. Don’t be distracted by terminology. While you may hear service providers throw out words and phrases like:
… focus on what matters: what does your company need and what are the best services and solutions out there to meet those needs?
For most companies in Concord, some or all of the employees need access to the web. Third party applications, organization research or development and e-commerce are just several of the ways the net may be needed.
Your best course of action may be determined by the size of your work force. A 5 or 10 megabyte Internet circuit may be perfect if you only have a few employees. You should consider more than that if you have more workers. Also keep in mind whether your workers need to access the internet at the same time.
Do your employees primarily use an intranet system? If so, you may not need much high-speed Internet service. On the other hand, Internet speed becomes dramatically more important when they are required to regularly download things like documents or videos.
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.
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 a file is saved, it is pushed to the cloud and then synced back to 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 your location, high-speed company Internet access, including Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options. “Lit buildings” that have already been wired by a carrier, are commonly the site for these. It may be shock you to know that installing high-speed access to The Internet may not be particularly expensive or inconvenient.
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. Depending on availability, it is often possible to obtain high-speed access to The net with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet in 30 days or less.
Does your organization 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 organization retail? Do you have thousands of stores? Do you host the point of sale system for the entire chain? Does your legal practice host all of the data for 3, 4 or 5 offices in different places?
If you host programs, data or information centrally, people outside of the central location need to have access. If your Internet connection goes down, those people are unable to work. Are you choosing an intranet solution that is sufficiently reliable and stable to support multiple simultaneous connections from varied places?
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. High-speed dedicated circuits, Metro Ethernet or gigabit Ethernet are advisable for company headquarters. All offer quick speed but they must also be able to support diverse and multiple connections. A cable modem would likely not provide the necessary support.
Bringing in a less-expensive circuit like a cable modem often comes with a price. You may save money on your monthly bill but the bandwidth you get must be shared among many people. While you may subscribe to a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection, you may be unable to reach those speeds during peak hours. Many cable companies only deliver a set amount of bandwidth within a community. That bandwidth reaches out like branches to every building in the community and the people living and working in those buildings. Will you achieve 30-meg speed during the working day? Is it a problem if you get a quarter or even half of the speed you expected?
You can find a carrier who can provide dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. In this situation, you do not have to share bandwidth. The bandwidth is all yours and is fully allocated to the needs of your company. You should receive full capacity of your circuits during all hours. This is true even though you may have many buildings, businesses and tenants nearby.
For example, Metro Ethernet guarantees bandwidth in 5 met circuits, 10 Meg circuits, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. Gigabit Internet providers offer gigabit speeds from your office to the web.
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.
Despite outstanding Internet bandwidth products offered by carriers in Concord, North Carolina, circuits do go down. How can you lower the chances that you will experience some kind of outage?
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. 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. 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. You get some protection, but also some risk.
Circuit redundancy can also be achieved in the following way: Import circuits using two different and distinct providers. If you think it is beneficial, you can bind the connections together in a manner that makes your circuits act and look like a single source. In fact, they are totally redundant and separate. You will get more substantial protection from this diversity redundancy. You will still have a live, fully functioning carrier if one fails.
To maximize the benefit of redundancy, consider looking for redundant circuits from different carriers that have different pathway in Concord. Alternatively stated, try to have your circuits enter the building on different sides from one another. The circuits would be established either underground or on telephone poles and would be set up in different directions and lead to different offices. 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 of dependable Internet access pales in comparison to the cost of unreliable access. Contemplate these situations:
The carrier you use for your cable modem also provides circuits for a dozen or more tenants in the office building. 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. How will your telephone calls be affected as the amount of available bandwidth decreases? How will it affect the quality of that telephone call? Are calls lost or dropped? Will they be full of static?
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 company. Every single one of your offices, stores and sites rely on you and your primary Internet connection to retrieve data. If your circuit goes done, what happens next? Would it annoy you or destroy you? Are your other offices able to do any work? What happens to new orders? Can they be taken or processed? 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 organization is running. Perhaps you operate a service where other systems talk to yours via an API to calculate freight rates, commodity prices, collect current weather data or receive any other information that you serve up. It is possible they will not be able to connect to your servers. How long will your customers tolerate repeated outages?
Your organization is entirely Internet based. What if your representatives can make no outgoing telephone calls because your circuits go down? They are also unable to answer calls. Basically, you are out of organization. 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 you really getting the dependable service you need form your carriers? Are you using providers that are truly reliable? Is the quality of your calls consistently and reliably clear?
You clearly have several choices. The needs and budget of your company will both affect your choices. As a high-level summary:
If you are a small organization, with one location and you do not worry about redundancy, one five meg, ten meg, or fifty meg access to The Internet circuit may very well be enough to meet your needs. Metro Ethernet service or gigabit service may also be a reasonably priced option if you are in a lit building. Prices vary based on your location and availability of circuits; speak with our engineers to find your best option.
If you have a midsized company in Concord, North Carolina, you will need higher-speed access to The net. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and other higher-speed Internet circuits are your options. In a perfect world, you will achieve maximum redundancy by utilizing multiple providers to provide and service different circuits. You may be able to achieve this in a manner that will not break the bank. Two 50-megabyte circuits may be more cost effective than a single 100 circuit. Again, costs and availability vary. You should speak with our experts to learn the options for your particular location.
Companies with multiple places are most at risk for failure. Redundant circuits are essential. Different carriers are desirable. Redundant routers, switches and other equipment can also be helpful to lessen downtime during a problem. Look at all of your options: Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet providers, Metro Ethernet providers and other high-speed circuit providers. The right mix of carriers and services will help keep your business up and running as efficiently as possible.
Gigabit Internet circuits, point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits are essential and Metro Ethernet Internet circuits must be utilized by companies in any of these categories. Redundant hardware and redundant circuits will, for these businesses, ensure the greatest uptime. Be sure the circuits are from different providers. The last thing you want is interruptions or slowdowns affecting your business. You must provide enough bandwidth to avoid these pitfalls that sometimes occur during sudden usage spikes. 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.
Insufficient bandwidth and failing circuits are present tremendous risk to your company. It is imperative that the circuit or circuits you choose meet your needs but also keep you within your allowable budget. The pressure involved in selecting the proper mix of hardware and circuits can be overwhelming.
Our engineers will take the pressure off and develop a free action plan for you by analyzing your needs. After reviewing your current usage and demand levels, we will generate a cost effective plan that provides your business with the resources it needs.
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