The lifeblood of Conroe, Texas companies doing business in the current environment depends on reliable Internet access. Fortune 500 companies to small businesses and everything in between, rely on reliable and fast Internet access.
Our reliance on access to the internet will become greater in the near and distant future.
The Internet is ubiquitous. From email to data sharing, archiving to commerce and VOIP to video conferencing, the net is everywhere. What is the best fix for your needs? Will a cable modem be sufficient? Do you need Metro Ethernet? Gigabit Internet may be required. What does your Conroe, Texas organization need? Does it require 10 Meg access to The Internet, a 100 Meg access to The web point, a 50 Meg circuit or a 5 Meg circuit?
Before selecting an appropriate service for your company, you must first determine what needs you are trying to satisfy. Is the web primarily used for emailing or web surfing? Is the internet used for real-time data connection with servers in the cloud? Do remote places rely on you hosting the data in Conroe, Texas?
Have you thought about what will happen to your organization if your high-speed Internet is interrupted by an outage? Can your company afford the downtime? Is uptime essential? Before you buy anything, you must answer these questions.
High-speed access to the net is something all companies need. Before you choose your broadband, look at the costs and benefits. Performing this analysis is an important step in picking the right one for your business. While various providers will throw around terminology like:
… do not lose sight of the real issues: what are the capabilities and technical solutions you need to best serve your company?
At any company in Conroe some employees, if not all employees, need some type of access to the net if they are to properly perform their job duties. Third party applications, organization research or development and e-commerce are just some of the ways the internet may be needed.
The number of workers you employ, may be the most important factor in your decision making process. A 5 or 10 megabyte Internet circuit may be perfect if you only have a few employees. If you have more than that, you may need more.
Do your employees primarily use an intranet system? If so, you may not need much high-speed Internet service. However, employees who must often download documents, images and videos, need that speed.
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.
Are you using Google drive, DropBox or another file sharing service? As people save files, those files are pushed to the cloud and then synchronized back to other people’s computers. Running all your services properly, including sharing files, requires that you have the right amount of bandwidth.
High-speed company Internet access like Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options for you depending on your location. They are commonly found in “lit buildings” in Conroe 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.
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. Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet may provide you with high-speed access to The Internet in thirty days or less, depending on availability.
Consider whether your business hosts its own servers that run APIs, websites and/or data to outside buildings, offices or companies. Are your business headquarters with a hosted application connected to fifty or more satellite offices? Perhaps you are in retail and host the point of sale (POS) system for thousands of stores? Do you run a law office that hosts the data for satellite offices in different cities or states?
When data, programs, or information is hosted centrally, those outside your office must gain access. Those people are not able to work without a solid Internet connection. Are you picking an intranet solution that provides reliability and stability for your multiple, simultaneous connections from various places?
A cable modem or fairly cheap 10-megabyte circuit may be enough in certain scenarios. For example, these may meet the needs of a single office surfing the web. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable for the headquarters where high-speed Internet access is important. High-speed alone is not enough. They must also need to be capable of supporting many diverse connections. This could probably not be accomplished with a cable modem.
Utilizing a cable modem or other less expensive circuit may seem like a good option but can result in unexpected cost. While the monthly rate is lower, the bandwidth is generally shared among other tenants. It is possible that you have a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection but cannot reach proper speeds during peak hours. Cable operators differ but many have prescribed limits on the bandwidth amount that they can deliver within a set community. Different buildings and tenants housed or working within those buildings all share that set amount of bandwidth. Will you achieve 30-meg speed during the working day? Is this a problem for you if you expect 30 and get 6?
There are carriers who offer dedicated and even guaranteed bandwidth. In this scenario, the bandwidth is fully allocated to you and your company or company. No one else uses it. 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.
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 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.
The truth is that circuits can go down in Conroe, Texas even though some carriers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. What can you do to minimize the chance that you will experience an outage of some kind?
Circuits that are redundant may be a good idea.
We are primarily talking about two kinds of redundancy.
The first type exists when the same carrier gives you multiple circuits. When there are problems with a physical line or a port or other failures, it can be helpful to have redundant circuits. 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. While offering some protection, it is not without risk.
In the second type of redundancy, you bring in circuits from two different providers. Using advanced routers and IP address allocations, you can bind these connections together so that, to your users and to the public, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. Truthfully, they are entirely separate. They are redundant and exist in case one of them fails. You will get more substantial protection from this diversity redundancy. You will still have a live, fully functioning carrier if one fails.
If you want to maximize redundancy in Conroe please consider the following question: Do the carriers I am considering use the same physical geographic pathways? Basically this means that you want your circuits to enter your building on different sides or paths. 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. 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.
While access to The net is not free, it pales in comparison with the cost of not having reliable access to The net. Contemplate these scenarios:
The carrier you use for your cable modem also provides circuits for a dozen or more tenants in the office building. During company hours, any of those tenants could be streaming video, performing massive file downloads, processing large volumes of phone calls and more. As they use more bandwidth, there is less for available to meet your requirements. What will happen to your phone calls? How will the quality of that phone call be affected? Are the calls going to be dropped? Perhaps you will sound choppy or will be inaudible.
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. Your primary Internet connection is responsible for granting access to data to all of your places. This is true whether you have 3 sites or 2000 sites. What happens in the event of a circuit failure? Would it cause mere annoyance or utter disaster? Can meaningful work be conducted at your remote offices? Can they process transactions or new orders? Circulate necessary data? Do you know what your organization needs? Be sure to fully understand your requirements. It will help you choose the correct solution. You have a software company, and are running a hosted solution for dozens, maybe hundreds, of customers. Perhaps you operate a service where other systems communicate with yours via an API to calculate freight rates, commodity prices, collect current weather data or receive any other information that you serve up. What happens when there is a problem connecting to your servers? Customers will only take so many repeated outages. How long with they remain with your company?
Is the web integral to the proper function of your organization? Do you rely on it entirely? Should your circuits stop working, imagine your people being unable to make any outbound phone calls. In addition, they will be unable to answer incoming calls. Looks like you are now out of business. For competent call centers that already use and understand the problems that can arise, is redundancy enough? Are the carriers that you are using reliable enough? 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 access to The Internet 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 will vary. They are based on your location and circuit availability; speak with our engineers to learn your best options.
Mid-sized businesses in Conroe, Texas should be equipped with higher-speed Internet. Higher-speed circuits like Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or others may be your best options. Using different circuits and different carriers will, if you choose, provide you with redundancy. Achieving this may cost extra but it won’t double your costs. Using one 100-megabyte circuit instead of two 50-megabyte circuits, is one example. Do not forget that you will find variations in price and availability. In order to find out the options available for you, in your location, you need to speak with one of our seasoned experts.
Businesses with many places face the greatest risk for failure. Redundant circuits must be an essential part of their systems. Multiple providers or carriers are recommended. Additionally, you should consider redundant equipment (routers and switches) in your facility to minimize the risk of downtime. Before you make a decision here too, do your research. Look closely into Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed circuit providers. The right mix of providers and services will help keep your company 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. You will want to have the greatest protection of your uptime. To accomplish this you must have redundancy: redundant circuits from multiple carriers and redundant hardware for your system. The last thing you want is interruptions or slowdowns affecting your organization. You must provide enough bandwidth to avoid these pitfalls that sometimes occur during sudden usage spikes. Be sure to have the right circuits and hardware. They both must be able to support multiple, fast, concurrent connections.
Insufficient bandwidth and failing circuits are present tremendous risk to your organization. Your demand and budget constraints should both be considered when you decide what circuit or combination of circuits you must have. The pressure involved in selecting the proper mix of hardware and circuits can be overwhelming.
We have experts to help. Our engineers will do an analysis of your needs and requirements, and develop a free action plan for you based on their findings. Our experts will examine your current usage and demand. We’ll then generate a design that gives you the resources you need while keeping your company up and running at a reasonable cost.
Please click here to complete the contact form on the right side of this page or call our office to schedule an appointment for an assessment. Your assessment may be finished within as little as 48 hours.