Reliable Internet access is the lifeblood of Corpus Christi, Texas companies and their company. All companies rely on reliable and quick Internet access. This is true no matter how large or small the business.
We are going to become increasingly reliant on Internet access as the months and years progress.
From video chat 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 requirements? Is a cable modem enough? Is Metro Ethernet necessary? Gigabit Internet may satisfy your needs. A 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The web, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The Internet point: what is right for your organization in Corpus Christi, Texas?
Your organization must assess its real needs. This must be done before an appropriate service can be chosen. Is the web only used for web surfing and email? Is it used for real-time data connection with cloud servers? You may be hosting the data in Corpus Christi and remote locations rely on this.
What if you have a disruption in your high-speed Internet? Will your organization suffer from the lull? Is uptime essential? Before you buy anything, you must answer these questions.
High-speed access to the net 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 business. You will hear providers use terms 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 Corpus Christi some employees, if not all employees, need some type of access to the web if they are to properly perform their job duties. Third party applications, organization research or development and e-commerce are just several of the ways the web may be needed.
The solution you choose may be based on the number of employees you have or expect to have. A five or ten megabyte Internet circuit may be all you need if employ a small workforce. If you have more than that, you may need more.
You may not need as much high-speed Internet access if your employees work primarily on an intranet system with limited graphics and video. On the other hand, if your company requires that its employees download many documents or images and videos, Internet speed becomes more important.
Do you routinely backup? 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.
Does your company require employees to share files using a service like Google drive or DropBox? After a file is saved, it goes to the cloud and then to someone else’s computer. Running all your services properly, including sharing files, requires that you have the right amount of bandwidth.
You may consider high-speed organization Internet access if you location warrants it. Gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet may be viable options for you. These are typically found in “lit buildings” in Corpus Christi, Texas. Providers have already wired these buildings. 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 bringing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be an expensive proposition, bringing that connection to a suite within the building is not. 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 company host its own servers? Does your company use the hosted servers to run data feeds, APIs or websites for offices or businesses located elsewhere? Are your corporate headquarters with a hosted application utilized by 50 branch offices? Does your office host the point of sale (POS) system for every single store in a large retail chain? 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. If the web connection is interrupted or fails, those people are unable to accomplish any work. Is the intranet solution you are choosing sufficiently reliable? Is it stable enough to support simultaneous connections from different places?
For a single office surfing the web, a cable modem or inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be sufficient. 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. This could probably not be accomplished with a cable modem.
In many scenarios, bringing in an inexpensive circuit, such as a cable modem, comes at a price. Your low monthly bill may mean that the bandwidth is shared among multiple tenants. During peak use hours, you may not be able to reach proper speeds. Cable operators differ but many have prescribed limits on the bandwidth amount that they can deliver within a set community. That amount of bandwidth must be shared with different buildings and with the tenants housed within. With a 30-megabyte connection, you may not get to that speed during the working day. Do you care if you only get 6 when you were set up to expect 30?
You can find a carrier who can provide dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. In this situation, your bandwidth is not shared but is fully allocated to your company. The presence of numerous buildings and tenants should have no effect on your speed. You should receive full capacity of your circuits no matter what the time of day.
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. If you want to reach gigabit speeds from your business out to the net, you can by using a gigabit Internet provider.
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.
Realistically, while some carriers in Corpus Christi offer excellent Internet bandwidth products, it is possible for a circuit to go down. How can you lower the chances that you will experience some kind of outage?
Circuits that are redundant may be a good idea.
There are, in essence, two types of redundancy.
The first kind of redundancy exists when one carrier provides one customer with many 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.
You can also achieve redundancy by utilizing different providers to bring in and establish 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. You know the truth: that they are individual circuits and are there to back each other up in case one goes down. Diversity redundancy, as this is called, offers you more protection that you might realize. When one carrier has a problem like an outage or some other failure, you have another one that works.
When considering redundant circuits and carriers, try to be sure that the providers you look at in Corpus Christi have different physical geographic routes or pathways. Doing so will maximize redundancy. Your goal should be to get circuits coming into your building on different sides. You do not want them on the same side. The circuits would be attached to telephone poles (or underground conduits) in different directions leading to different data centers or central offices. 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.
It is true that Internet access costs you money. However, the cost does not come close to what you will pay if the access that is not reliable. Contemplate these situations:
Are you on a cable modem and your carrier is providing circuits to dozens of other office suites in your building? Any of these tenants may be taking many calls, conducting huge downloads or streaming video during your regular office hours. How will less available bandwidth affect your telephone calls? What about phone call quality? Are the calls going to be dropped? Will you sound muffled?
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 business. All of your offices, whether you have 3 or 3, 000, rely on your primary Internet connection to successfully access data. What will happen if your circuit crashes? Is it just irritating? Is it going to cause tremendous problems? Is work even possible at your other places? Can they process transactions or new orders? Share essential data? Do you know what your company 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. 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 if other systems can’t connect to your office servers? Multiple outages may annoy your customers.
Your company 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. Your business is basically done with. While most call centers that are reputable use redundancy, is it enough? Are your current carriers as dependable as you would like? Is the quality of your calls consistently and reliably clear?
You clearly have many options. Your choices will largely depend on your budget, in addition to the other requirements of your company. In summary:
If you are a small business, with one location and you do not worry about redundancy, one five meg, ten meg, or fifty meg Internet access circuit may very well be enough to meet your needs. Find out if you are in a lit building. If so, the price of Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be affordable. Prices change based on your location and the availability of circuits. Please speak with our engineers about what options best suit your needs.
Mid-sized businesses in Corpus Christi, Texas should be equipped with higher-speed Internet. Your options are Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and higher speed circuits. Ideally, you want to have the greatest redundancy. You can achieve this by using multiple circuits from different carriers. But can you do this without doubling costs? Sometimes, yes. For example, one 100-megabyte circuit may cost more than two smaller 50-megabyte circuits. As a reminder; availability and costs may vary. You should speak with our experts to learn the options for your particular location.
Any company with more than one location suffers the greatest risk of problems. They need redundant circuits. Multiple providers or providers 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 correct combination of providers and services can keep your company running smoothly and efficiently.
If you fall into this group, you must have Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet circuits and point-to-point High-speed Internet circuits. 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. 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. 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.
Insufficient bandwidth and failing circuits are present tremendous risk to your company. You must select the single circuit or multiple circuits that can meet your demands and stay within your budget. Choosing the right combination of hardware and circuits can be complicated and confusing.
Our expert engineers will review your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. We will formulate a design or plan based partly on your current usage and demand levels. We are going to create something cost effective that gives you the resources your business needs, while keeping it running smoothly.
You can complete the contact form on the right side of this page by clicking here. If you would prefer, please call our office to set up an appointment for an assessment. Assessments are completed in as little as 48 hours.