In today’s world, Covina companies need dependable Internet access. It is the lifeblood of their business. The business functions of all companies, from Fortune 500 to small businesses, depend on fast and reliable Internet access.
Our dependence on access to The web will continue to grow in the coming months and years.
From email to data sharing, video chat to VoIP, and data archiving to Internet commerce, the web is ubiquitous. What can best meet your needs? Perhaps a cable modem is all you need. It could be that you need Metro Ethernet. Gigabit Internet may satisfy your needs. What does your Covina, California organization need? Does it require 10 Meg access to The Internet, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 Meg circuit or a 5 Meg circuit?
Before selecting the appropriate service, your business must assess its needs. Are surfing the web and sending email the only uses of the web? Is connecting with cloud servers and sharing real time data the main use of the web? You may be hosting the data in Covina and remote places rely on this.
How would an outage to your high-speed Internet affect your business? How might the downtime cause problems for your company? Is your success reliant on uptime? Prior to making any purchases, you must determine the answers to these questions.
It is no secret that all companies need high-speed access to the web. Choosing the correct broadband for your organization requires a cost benefit analysis. 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.
Companies in Covina need access to the net for their employees. Some companies may need it only for a few people and others may need it for the entire workforce. It may be needed for business research, to order office supplies or other reasons.
The number of workers you employ, may be the most important factor in your decision making process. An Internet circuit of 5 -10 megabytes might be enough for your company if you only have a few people working for you. If your company has nearly 50 people, however, and they all need to use the web at the same time, you may find that more is better.
Do your employees primarily use an intranet system? If so, you may not need much high-speed Internet service. If your business functions demand the downloading of documents and images or videos on a regular basis, speed becomes a must more important issue.
Are you performing routine backups? You may need to support simultaneous connections to the web in order to sync your backup data. If you conduct remote backups from every workstation, which is advisable, this will be important.
Do you use a file sharing service like Google drive or DropBox? After a file is saved, it goes to the cloud and then to someone else’s computer. You need to have sufficient bandwidth to support this function while also supporting every other service.
Company high-speed Internet access may interest you. Depending on your location, you may have options such as gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. These are typically found in “lit buildings” in Covina. Carriers have already wired these buildings. Installing high-speed Internet may not be as difficult and expensive as you think.
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. Also, securing high-speed access to The Internet using gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet often takes less than 30 days, depending on its availability.
Does your organization host its own servers running websites, APIs or data feeds for other offices or companies outside of your own four walls? Maybe your organization requires that dozens of satellite offices have access to a hosted application at your company main headquarters. Are you a retail business with 10, 000 stores? Do you host the POS system for all of them? Are you an attorney with offices multiple cities or states? Do you have one office hosting data for several places?
When data, programs, or information is hosted centrally, those outside your office must gain access. People can’t work if you have no Internet connection. If you need multiple connections to function at the same time from many different locations, make sure that your intranet solution can reliably support it.
For one office or a small organization with just one or two people surfing the web, a less expensive 10 Meg circuit or a cable modem may meet your needs. 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. Do you think a cable modem is sufficient? It is probably not.
In many cases, installing an inexpensive cable modem comes at a price. Your low monthly bill may mean that the bandwidth is shared among multiple tenants. During peak hours, your connection may slow down, even though you subscribe to a cable modem with a thirty-megabyte connection. Cable companies are known to limit or predetermine the amount of bandwidth available for delivery in any particular community. Whatever that amount of bandwidth is, it branches into all buildings in the community and to all tenants in those buildings. Will you achieve 30-meg speed during the working day? Do you care if you only get 6 when you were set up to expect 30?
You can sign up for dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth from some providers. If you want your very own bandwidth that is not used by anyone else, you should consider this. Notwithstanding the existence of tenants, offices or buildings in the area, you should have the full capability of your circuits at all times.
For example, Metro Ethernet guarantees bandwidth in 5 met circuits, 10 Meg circuits, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. If you want to reach gigabit speeds from your company out to the internet, you can by using a gigabit Internet provider.
Here, providers 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.
While certain carriers offer superior Internet bandwidth products in Covina, the reality is that it is possible for a circuit to go down. Ask this question: “what can I do to decrease the likelihood of an outage?
The answer is redundant circuits.
There are, in reality, two kinds of redundancy.
A single carrier, providing multiple circuits, to one customer, characterizes one form of redundancy. When there are problems with a physical line or a port or other failures, it can be helpful to have redundant circuits. Even multiple circuits can fail, such as in the event of a large-scale carrier outage or when there damage to an external line. While offering some protection, it is not without risk.
You can also achieve redundancy by utilizing different providers to bring in and establish your circuits. 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. But, you know that they are actually separate and redundant. While circuit redundancy in general is a good idea, diversity redundancy by using different carriers, offers far better protection. You will still have a live, fully functioning carrier if one fails.
You should look for redundant circuits from providers in Covina that do not have the same physical geographic pathways, in order to get the most redundancy. In other words, try to obtain circuits entering the building from different sides of the building. They would be on outside phone poles or underground conduits in different directions and leading to different places. If a major accident occurs or there is a fire that impedes the function of circuits in a particular region, you have redundancy in a different direction.
access to The web costs money but the cost of NOT having reliable access to The web is greater. Think about the following situations:
Your business is on a cable modem and your carrier provides circuits to 20 other offices in your building. What if any or all of those tenants are huge call centers taking in a massive volume of phone calls, are company that perform large file downloads or stream many videos? What will happen to your telephone calls as the amount of usable bandwidth decreases? What about the quality of your calls? Are calls dropped? Inaudible (choppy) to your customers?
Your office is the center of your company. You may be a law firm that does file sharing or a retailer operating a POS system. All of your sites, whether 2 or 2000, depend on your primary Internet connection to access and retrieve data. What happens if your circuit goes down? Would it annoy you or destroy you? How much work, if any, can be done by your remote places? What about new orders? Circulate essential files and data? Before choosing a solution, be sure to assess and really understand what your business requires. Maybe your software company runs a hosted solution. Maybe that hosted solution is used by hundreds of your customers. Do you operate a service where other systems speak with yours by using an application program interface (API)? For example do other systems gain access to yours in order to calculate rates, prices, or to collect information that you serve up? What happens when they are unable to connect to your servers? If you have repeated outages, how long will they remain a customer?
Your organization is entirely Internet based. 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. Your organization is basically done with. Is redundancy enough? Can you truly rely on your carriers? Are they as dependable as they claim? Do you consistently get quality service that provides clear and reliable calls?
Obviously, there are a variety of choices. Your company needs and your budget will have to come into consideration when deciding on your solutions. As a high-level summary:
If you have one location or office and do not feel the need to consider redundancy for your system, a smaller access to The net circuit may be all you need. A single fifty, ten or five megabyte circuit might be enough. Metro Ethernet service or gigabit service may also be a reasonably priced option if you are in a lit building. The availability of circuits and your location determine prices; speak with one of our engineers to learn what your best options are.
If you have a midsized organization in Covina, California, you will need higher-speed access to The 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 not be as costly as you first thought. Using one 100-megabyte circuit instead of two 50-megabyte circuits, is one example. To repeat, availability and prices vary. You need to speak with one of our experts to determine your options in your specific location.
Any company with more than one location suffers the greatest risk of problems. Redundant circuits must be an essential part of their systems. Multiple providers would be great. 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 best mix of providers and services can maximize the productivity and efficiency of your company.
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. If you want to ensure your valuable uptime, have redundant circuits from multiple providers as well as redundant hardware. You need to provide sufficient bandwidth to handle usage spikes without slowdowns or interruptions. 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 business. The right circuits must meet your demand while keeping you within your budget. You have to select the optimal combination of hardware and circuits, which is a daunting task.
Our engineers can help. We will analyze your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. You want your business to run smoothly. We will 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.
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