In today’s environment, companies in Coral Springs depend on reliable access to The net as the lifeblood of their business. Fast and reliable Internet access is needed for businesses to function properly; large corporations and small companies alike.
In the months and years ahead, people and businesses will become more reliant on access to the web.
From video conferencing to voice over IP, email to data sharing and data archiving to Internet commerce, the web is everywhere you look. What is the right solution to meet your needs? Maybe a cable modem is a sufficient solution. Metro Ethernet may be what you need. Would Gigabit Internet suffice? Does your Coral Springs, Florida business need a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg Internet access, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The web point?
Before selecting an appropriate service for your business, you must first determine what needs you are trying to satisfy. Are surfing the web and sending email the only uses of the net? Will Internet usage mainly involve cloud servers and real time data connection? Are you hosting the data in Coral Springs, Florida and distant places or offices rely on you?
What if you have a disruption in your high-speed Internet? How will the downtime affect your business? Is the absence of uptime detrimental? Before buying, these are some of the questions that you need to answer.
High-speed access to the web is something all companies need. 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 company. Don’t be distracted by terminology. While you may hear service providers throw out words and phrases like:
… be sure not to forget what capability and technical solutions meet your business’s specific needs.
Most companies in Coral Springs require that some or all of their workers have access to the net. Whether it is for company research, to order supplies or to use third-party applications, the internet is required.
Your best course of action may be determined by the size of your work force. If you have a smaller workforce, you may do fine with a smaller Internet circuit. For example, if you only employ a handful of people, a 5 or 10 Meg circuit may meet your needs. 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.
You may not need as much high-speed Internet access if your employees work primarily on 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? If, as recommended, you conduct remote backups from every single desk, you will need to support simultaneous connections out to the web. This will allow you to sync your backup data.
Do you use a file sharing service like Google drive or DropBox? This is how a file sharing service works: You save a file. Then the file is pushed to the cloud, and is then synchronized with other people’s computers. You need to have sufficient bandwidth to support this function while also supporting every other service.
Business high-speed Internet access may interest you. Depending on your location, you may have options such as gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. They are almost always found in “lit buildings” in Coral Springs that are already wired by a carrier. The ease and affordability of adding high-speed Internet to your office may surprise you.
If you have to bring Metro Ethernet into a new building, it can be expensive but bringing that connection to an office or suite within the building is usually not. In fact, in as little as 30 days, you may be able to obtain high-speed access to the net 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? Is your main business office with a hosted application accessed by 40 or even 50 branch office sites? Are you a retail company hosting the POS system for thousands of chain stores? Are you a legal practice hosting the data for three places?
If you host programs, data or information centrally, people outside of the central location need to have access. If the net connection is interrupted, those people cannot get their work done. Make sure that when you choose your intranet solution it is reliable enough to support your need for multiple and simultaneous connections for many different places.
For a single office surfing the web, a cable modem or inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be adequate. Company headquarters should have high-speed Internet access such as gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit. High speed is important but they also must be able to support multiple distinct connections. The support you need could not be provided by a cable modem.
In many scenarios, bringing in an inexpensive circuit, such as a cable modem, comes at a price. There may be a lower monthly rate, but bandwidth is usually shared with many tenants. During peak use hours, you may not be able to reach proper speeds. Many cable companies only deliver a set amount of bandwidth within a community. Different buildings and tenants housed or working within those buildings all share that set amount of bandwidth. During crucial working hours, you may not get to the 30-meg speed you have been capped at. Do you care if you only get 6 when you were set up to expect 30?
Some providers offer customers 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. Regardless of other tenants in your building or neighboring buildings, you should receive the full capacity of your circuit.
Five Meg, ten Meg, fifty Meg and 100 Meg circuits of guaranteed bandwidth are available with Metro Ethernet. In your office out to the net you can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit providers
In these cases, the providers deliver high-speed to the building in sufficient quantity that they can then split their circuit to various tenants while guaranteeing each tenant is receiving their contracted speeds.
Realistically, while some providers in Coral Springs, Florida offer excellent Internet bandwidth products, it is possible for a circuit to go down. In what way can you diminish the risk of an outage?
You may be a candidate for redundant circuits.
Essentially, there are two different ways to look at redundancy.
A single carrier, providing multiple circuits, to one customer, characterizes one form of redundancy. If there is a problem with a line or a port in your router, circuit redundancy can offer some protection. 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. While there is some security in this, you are still vulnerable under some circumstances.
The second way to set up circuit redundancy is by using two different carriers to bring in your circuits. Advanced routers and IP address allocations can be utilized to make it look to your users and the public that you have a single circuit. 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. If one carrier has a problem, the other likely will not.
If you want to maximize redundancy in Coral Springs 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. Ideally, the circuits will be going in different directions and toward various central company spaces or data centers. What if there is some kind of catastrophic incident such as a fire or accident that impacts circuits within a region? Now, you have redundancy in an alternative 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. Please consider these situations:
If your organization utilizes a cable modem, consider whether your carrier is providing circuits for multiple other tenants within the 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. How will less available bandwidth affect your telephone calls? What will happen to the strength and quality of that call? Maybe calls will randomly drop? Perhaps you will sound choppy or will be inaudible.
Whether you are a law firm doing file sharing, an accounting practice sharing databases or a retailer operating a distributed point-of-sale system, your office is the hub for your enterprise. All of your places, you may have 2, you may have 500, you may have 4, 000, count on your main Internet connection to access and receive data. What happens in the event of a circuit failure? Would you merely be annoyed? Would there be catastrophic consequences? Can your satellite or remote office do any work at all? Process or take new orders? Share essential information with anyone? Do you know what your business needs? Be sure to fully understand your requirements. It will help you choose the correct solution. Perhaps you are a software company, running a hosted solution used by hundreds of customers. Maybe you operate a service that allows other systems to talk to yours via API. This may be to collect miscellaneous data, calculate prices or shipping rates or other information. What if these other systems have difficulty connecting your servers? Customers will only take so many repeated outages. How long with they remain with your company?
Your company is entirely Internet based. What if your representatives can make no outgoing telephone calls because your circuits go down? No calls could be answered either. Basically, you are out of business. 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. Make sure your providers are as reliable as possible. Is the quality of your calls consistently and reliably clear?
Obviously, there are a variety of choices. Your choices will largely depend on your budget, in addition to the other requirements of your organization. In 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 web circuit may suffice. Find out if you are in a lit building. If so, the price of Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be affordable. Prices will vary. They are based on your location and circuit availability; speak with our engineers to learn your best options.
Mid sized companies with a single office in Coral Springs, need higher speed access to The Internet. You may choose between gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. You may also look into other higher-speed Internet circuits. Ideally, you want to have the greatest redundancy. You can achieve this by using multiple circuits from different providers. But can you do this without doubling costs? Sometimes, yes. For instance, it may be cheaper to utilize two 50 meg circuits in place of one 100 meg circuit. Again, costs vary. Availability also varies. You need to speak with one of our experts to determine your options in your specific location.
Companies with multiple places are most at risk for failure. Redundancy is crucial. Different carriers are desirable. You can increase redundancy with switches or routers. Having redundant equipment can also minimize risk. As always, take a careful look and choose the right Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed access to The Internet circuit providers. Your organization can benefit from finding the right mix of services and providers.
For companies falling in this category, gigabit Internet circuits, Metro Ethernet Internet circuits and point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits are essential. 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. You need to provide sufficient bandwidth to handle usage spikes without slowdowns or interruptions. 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 business faces great risk of less than adequate bandwidth and failing circuits. The circuit or circuits you have must stay within the parameters of your budget while still meeting your business needs. Choosing the right combination of hardware and circuits can be complicated and confusing.
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. We will look at your current usage, demand levels and scope out a design to give you the resources you need while keeping your organization up and running at a reasonable cost.
If you would like to arrange for an assessment, please click here to complete the contact information form to the right. You can call our office as well. Your assessment may be finished within as little as 48 hours.