High-Speed Access to The Web in Decatur

Accessing High Speed Internet in Decatur, Illinois: Gigabit Internet, Business Broadband Internet and Metro Ethernet Access

Today’s environment demands that companies in Decatur have reliable Internet service in order to run their company. Fortune 500 companies to small businesses and everything in between, depend on reliable and fast Internet access.

In the months and years ahead, people and businesses will become more dependent on internet access.

From video chat to voice over IP, email to data sharing and data archiving to Internet commerce, the internet is everywhere you look. How can your needs be met? Is a cable modem enough? Metro Ethernet may be what you need. Would Gigabit Internet suffice? Your Decatur organization probably needs a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg Internet access, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The web point but which one is best?

Defining Your Business’s Internet access Needs

The needs of your particular company must be determined before you can select an appropriate service. Why will you need the net? Will you only be web surfing and emailing? Is it used for real-time data connection with cloud servers? Perhaps you, in Decatur, are hosting the data and remote locations rely on this.

What if there is an outage and your high-speed Internet is interrupted? How will the downtime affect your company? How much uptime is essential to your company? Prior to making any purchases, you must determine the answers to these questions.

High-Speed Internet Solutions in Decatur: Evaluating Differences

In the broadest of terms, companies need high-speed access to The Internet. Choosing the correct broadband internet for your organization requires a cost benefit analysis. While many providers throw around terminologies such as:

• High-speed access to the Internet
• Internet for businesses or Internet corporations
• What about broadband cable modems?
• Metro Ethernet service provider
• Provider of Gigabit Internet service
• Multiprotocol label switching, also known as MPLS
• Services related to point-to-point circuits
• 5-megabyte access circuits
• We provide 10 Meg Internet access circuits
• Fifty-megabytes-Internet access circuits
• One hundred megabytes- fast access to The net circuits
• We provide sip trunks
• Dedicated Internet line
• … and much more

… the actual issue is knowing what technology and capability can satisfy your needs.

Business Internet access for Surfing the Worldwide Web

At any company in Decatur some employees, if not all employees, need some type of access to the net if they are to properly perform their job duties. Whether it is for company research, to order supplies or to use third-party applications, the web is required.

The best solution may rely on how many employees you have. If you only have a few workers, you may be fine with a smaller Internet circuit such as a 5 or 10 megabyte. You should consider more than that if you have more workers. Also keep in mind whether your workers need to access the net at the same time.

If your employees are merely accessing an intranet system with limited graphics and video, your need for high-speed Internet may be reduced. When they are frequently downloading things, whether documents, graphics or videos, however, speed is necessary for efficient job performance.

Are you performing backups? When you do remote backups from every workstation, which you should, you must support multiple and simultaneous connections to the web in order to sync your backup data.

Do you use a file-sharing service? Perhaps you use Google drive, DropBox or a different service? When people save a file, it gets pushed to the cloud. The file is then synched with other people’s computers. Running all your services properly, including sharing files, requires that you have the right amount of bandwidth.

Organization high-speed access to The net may interest you. Depending on your location, you may have options such as gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. They are commonly found in “lit buildings” in Decatur 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 bringing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be an expensive proposition, bringing that connection to a suite within the building is not. You can actually get high-speed access with gigabit Internet or even Metro Ethernet quickly. It often takes only 30 days or less, depending on availability.

Internet-based Applications That Need Access to High-Speed Internet

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 organization with 10, 000 stores? Do you host the POS system for all of them? Are you a law firm? Do you host data for three or more external places?

Access to data and programs by people outside of your main location becomes necessary when you host information centrally. For those people, no Internet connection means no work gets done. 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 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. High-speed alone is not enough. They must also need to be capable of supporting many diverse connections. The support you need could not be provided by a cable modem.

Which is Better for You in Decatur, Illinois? Dedicated Internet Bandwidth or Shared Cable Circuits?

Utilizing a cable modem or other less expensive circuit may seem like a good option but can result in unexpected cost. Oftentimes, a lower monthly rate comes with the realization that you are sharing bandwidth with many different tenants and offices. If you subscribe to a cable modem with a 30-megabyte connection, you would expect to always be able to reach that high speed. However, it is possible that during peak hours, you won’t. Cable operators differ but many have prescribed limits on the bandwidth amount that they can deliver within a set community. Buildings, offices and tenants within the buildings all must share that amount of bandwidth, whatever it may be. During crucial working hours, you may not get to the 30-meg speed you have been capped at. If you expect 30 but only get 6, will you have problems?

Other carriers do offer dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. In this case, your organization receives full allocation of bandwidth. There is no sharing with any outsiders. Notwithstanding the existence of tenants, offices or buildings in the area, you should have the full capability of your circuits at all times.

You can receive guaranteed bandwidth with Metro Ethernet. You can receive it in increments of five, 10, 50 or one hundred megabyte circuits. Gigabit speeds from your office to the net can be reached if you use a gigabit Internet provider.

In these situations, each tenant receives their contracted high-speed. The carrier delivers enough so they can split their circuit and provide enough to each tenant.

Redundant High Speed Organization Internet in Decatur: Why More Circuits?

While certain carriers offer superior Internet bandwidth products in Decatur, Illinois, the reality is that it is possible for a circuit to go down. You must ask yourself: “how do I lessen the chance of an outage? ”

Redundant circuits may be the answer for you.

Essentially, there are two different ways to look at redundancy.

With the first kind, you receive several circuits but they all come from the same carrier. 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. 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 protection, there is also some risk.

Bringing in circuits using two distinct carriers is the second form of circuit redundancy. 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. In reality, they are completely separate and redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy offers far greater protection. In the event a carrier goes down, you will not have to worry. You will have a perfectly live carrier there to keep things moving.

The providers you choose for your redundant circuits should have different physical pathways in Decatur, Illinois. This is an important consideration when trying to obtain the most redundancy. Essentially, this just means that you do not want both of your circuits to enter the building on the same side. They should come in 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. If you can accomplish this, you are protected from a major catastrophe. For example, if a there is a fire or some other accident that negatively affects circuits in a region, you have redundancy in a physically different direction.

What Are the Costs Associated With Not Adequately Protecting Your Business High-Speed Internet access?

While access to The net is not free, it pales in comparison with the cost of not having reliable access to The web. Please consider these situations:

You use VoIP for your business telephone service

The carrier you use for your cable modem also provides circuits for a dozen or more tenants in the office building. Any of these tenants may be taking many calls, conducting huge downloads or streaming video during your regular office hours. What will happen to your telephone calls as the amount of usable bandwidth decreases? How will the caliber of the call be affected? Will calls be arbitrarily dropped? Will your voice be inaudible? Will you have difficulty hearing the other end?

Your office is the main data point for various other offices

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 company. Whether you have 2 sites, 250, or 2000, they all depend on your primary Internet connection to retrieve data and information. 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 sites? Process new orders? Dispense and receive data? Before choosing a solution, be sure to assess and really understand what your business requires. 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 prices or other information. You may find that they are unable to reach or connect with your organization servers. Will your customers remain loyal to you if they have to withstand multiple outages?

Your call center uses VoIP

Your business is 100% reliant on the net to properly function. No calls can go out if your circuits fail. Calls coming in would be unanswerable. You might not even know people are trying to reach your office. Basically, you are out of business. Is redundancy enough? Are your current carriers as dependable as you would like? Do you consistently get quality service that provides clear and reliable calls?

Select the Decatur, Illinois High-Speed Organization Access Circuits Best Suited for Your Company

You clearly have many options. Your choices will largely depend on your budget, in addition to the other requirements of your business. To recap:

Your Small Organization and Access to the Internet

A single fifty, ten or five megabyte Internet access circuit may be adequate to meet the needs of your small business, particularly if you have only one location and are not worried about redundancy. For an office in a lit building, you may find that gigabit service or Metro Ethernet are affordable options for you. Prices vary based on your location and availability of circuits; speak with our engineers to find your best option.

Mid-Sized Businesses access to The web – One Location

You will need higher speed access to The Internet if you have a medium sized business in Decatur. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and other higher-speed Internet circuits are your options. Using different circuits and different providers will, if you choose, provide you with redundancy. 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. Call one of our experts to learn what is available in your specific area.

Internet Access for the Medium Sized Company with Multiple Offices

Any company with more than one location suffers the greatest risk of problems. They need redundant circuits. Different carriers are desirable. You can decrease risk during downtime by having redundant equipment as well. Have you looked at Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed Internet access circuit providers? You should do so before making a decision. The right combination of services and providers can positively impact the efficiency of your business.

Larger corporate clients, enterprise clients and providers of services delivered via the Internet

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 must have redundant circuits for multiple providers as well as redundant hardware in your office to ensure your uptime. You need enough bandwidth. The bandwidth must be sufficient to handle spikes in usage with no slowdowns or interruptions. 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.

Receive a Free Internet Need and Demand Analysis

Do you understand how great the risk of failing circuits and insufficient bandwidth really is? You must select the single circuit or multiple circuits that can meet your demands and stay within your budget. Selecting the appropriate mix of circuits and hardware can overwhelm you.

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’ll examine your current usage and demand levels then create a design that provides you with the resources you need to keep your company running smoothly 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. Assessments are done in as few as two days or within 48 hours.