The lifeblood of Cranston, Rhode Island companies doing organization in the current environment depends on reliable Internet access. The company functions of all companies, from Fortune 500 to small companies, count on fast and reliable access to The web.
In the coming months and years, we will become increasingly reliant on our access to the web.
From email to data sharing, video chat to VoIP, and data archiving to Internet commerce, the net is ubiquitous. What can best meet your needs? Is a cable modem enough? It could be that you need Metro Ethernet. You may need Gigabit Internet. Will your Cranston, Rhode Island business needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg Internet access or 100 Meg access to The net point?
Before selecting an appropriate service for your organization, you must first determine what needs you are trying to satisfy. Will web surfing and email be your primary use of the web? Is connecting with cloud servers and sharing real time data the main use of the web? Do remote sites rely on you hosting the data in Cranston, Rhode Island?
Have you thought about what happens to your organization if your high-speed Internet is interrupted by an outage? What about the downtime that results? Can your organization afford that? Is uptime required? Before you buy anything, you must answer these questions.
Plainly stated, companies require high-speed access to The web. You need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits to your company before choosing the right broadband. While you are likely to hear some service providers toss around terms such as:
… do not stray from the real issues. Focus on what your company’s needs are and what capabilities and technical solutions will help satisfy them.
Workers for most companies in Cranston, Rhode Island have some need to access the internet during the course of their job. It may be needed for company research, to order office supplies or other reasons.
Perhaps the size of your work force may determine the solution that best fits your needs. A 5 or 10 megabyte Internet circuit may be perfect if you only have a few employees. If you have a larger workforce, you may want to consider more. This is especially true if they all need to use the net simultaneously.
Perhaps most workers at your company use an intranet system with limited features. High- speed Internet may not be a priority in this case. 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? If you are doing remote backups from every desk, which is advisable, you will need to be able to support simultaneous connections out to the web to synchronize your backup data.
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. Enough bandwidth is required to support this function along with every other service.
Your organization location may cause you to think about high-speed business Internet access such as Metro Ethernet and/or gigabit Internet. Usually, you can find these in “lit buildings” in Cranston that have been previously wired by a carrier. Choosing to add high-speed Internet to your office is a tough decision but it can be less expensive and easier than you think.
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. Also, securing high-speed Internet access using gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet often takes less than 30 days, depending on its availability.
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? Do fifty or so branch offices need access to a hosted application at your company headquarters? Are you a retail chain hosting the POS system for 12, 000 stores? Does your legal practice host all of the data for 3, 4 or 5 offices in different places?
If your company hosts its programs and information at a central location, people outside of that location need to have access in order to conduct company. For those people, no Internet connection means no work gets done. Are you choosing an intranet solution that is sufficiently reliable and stable to support multiple simultaneous connections from varied sites?
An inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be enough if you have one office that needs to surf the net. A cable modem may also be adequate in this situation. For headquarters, Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed Internet dedicated circuits is advisable. While fast Internet access is and important, they must also have the capability to handle assorted simultaneous connections. A cable modem would likely not provide the necessary support.
In many scenarios, bringing in an inexpensive circuit, such as a cable modem, comes at a price. While the monthly rate is lower, the bandwidth is generally shared among other tenants. During peak hours, your connection may slow down, even though you subscribe to a cable modem with a thirty-megabyte connection. Cable operators differ but many have prescribed limits on the bandwidth amount that they can deliver within a set community. The bandwidth branches off to the multiple buildings, offices and tenants within them. With a 30-megabyte connection, you may not get to that speed during the working day. Is it a problem if you get a quarter or even half of the speed you expected?
There are carriers who offer dedicated and even guaranteed bandwidth. If you want your very own bandwidth that is not used by anyone else, you should consider this. No matter who is in the building or what buildings surround you, you should always run at full speed.
Metro Ethernet provides guaranteed bandwidth in increments as follows: 5, 10, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. Want to reach gigabit speeds? You can by using a gigabit Internet provider.
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.
You can’t control everything. Even with the superior Internet bandwidth products that some carriers offer in Cranston, problems arise and circuits can fail. How can you decrease the chance of an outage?
Redundant circuits may be the answer for you.
There are, in reality, two kinds of redundancy.
The first type exists when the same carrier gives you multiple circuits. This provides some protection when there are certain failures. Multiple circuits can help for example, when there is a physical line issue or a problem with a router port. If your carrier experiences a regional outage or you have a line broken outside of your building, you may lose the use of all of your circuits. There is some protection that comes with this but there is risk as well.
Circuit redundancy can also be achieved in the following way: Import circuits using two different and distinct providers. These connections can be bound together so they act and appear to the public as a single circuit. Using particular routers and IP address allocations, no one would be able to tell that you have multiple carriers or circuits. Though they may appear as one, you know that they are each individual circuits and redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy provides greater assurance, comfort and protection. In the event that one carrier goes down, the other will still be alive.
For maximum redundancy, you should look for redundant circuits from different carriers with different physical geographic pathways in Cranston. If at all possible, you want to obtain circuits entering the premises on different sides. The circuits would be attached underground or to telephone poles, in various directions. The circuits would go to different data centers or central offices. 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 think about the following scenarios:
Your office uses a cable modem and, in addition to you, the carrier provides 10-15 additional tenants with circuits. It is possible that during normal business hours, those tenants might be downloading large files or watching continuous videos. They might be getting a lot of phone calls. As they use more bandwidth, there is less for available for your needs. What will happen to your phone calls? What happens to the quality of that phone call? Are calls lost or dropped? Will your voice be inaudible? Will you have difficulty hearing the other end?
Your office is the hub of your company, whether you are a retail organization operating a distributed point of sale (POS) system, an accounting firm sharing databases or a law firm engaged in file sharing. Your primary Internet connection is solely responsible for smoothly granting access and sending data to all of your sites whether you have two or two thousand. What happens in the event of a circuit failure? Will it cause disastrous results of just annoy you a little bit? Are remote offices able to work at all? What about new orders? Share information? Make sure you completely understand your needs before you pick a solution. Perhaps you have hundreds of clients or customers that use a hosted solution that your software business is running. Is an API utilized in your business so that your customers can access and communicate with your system? You may find that they are unable to reach or connect with your organization servers. If you have repeated outages, how long will they remain a customer?
Does your organization completely rely on the net? No calls can go out if your circuits fail. There would be no way to answer incoming calls of people trying to reach your representatives. Your company is basically done with. While most call centers that are reputable use redundancy, is it enough? Are the carriers you currently use as reliable as they should be? Are they as reliable as you need them to be? Clear and reliable calls are essential. Does your carrier service consistently provide this?
You have no shortage of options. Your business needs and budgets will drive your decisions. To summarize:
Sometimes redundancy is not important to you. For example, If you are a small business, with just one office location, a single access to The web circuit may be sufficient. You may get by with one 50, 10 or even 5 megabyte circuit. For an office in a lit building, you may find that gigabit service or Metro Ethernet are affordable options for you. Because prices can vary based on the location of your business and the availability of circuits, speak with our engineers to learn your options.
You have a midsized company in Cranston; you will surely need higher-speed Internet. Higher-speed circuits like Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or others may be your best options. In a perfect scenario, multiple circuits from different providers will give you the most redundancy. This may be attainable without doubling your costs. Two 50-megabyte circuits may be more cost effective than a single 100 circuit. Again, costs vary. Availability also varies. In order to find out the options available for you, in your location, you need to speak with one of our seasoned experts.
If your business has several places or offices, you are at great risk for failure. Redundant circuits must be an essential part of their systems. It is helpful if they use multiple providers. You can decrease risk during downtime by having redundant equipment as well. Take a careful look at Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers and gigabit Internet providers. Research other high-speed Internet access circuit providers also and make an informed decision. Finding the best combination of services, providers and equipment can go a long way toward helping your company run 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. Having plenty of bandwidth will help avoid interruptions or decreased speed that sometimes occurs during spikes in usage. Both your hardware and circuits must be capable of supporting a vast number of simultaneous and fast connections.
Your company faces great risk of less than adequate bandwidth and failing circuits. You must select the single circuit or multiple circuits that can meet your demands and stay within your budget. 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. After reviewing your current usage and demand levels, we’ll generate a cost effective plan that provides your business with the resources it needs.
Please call our office for an assessment appointment or click here to complete the contact form on the right side of the page. Your assessment may be finished within as little as 48 hours.