Today’s environment demands that companies in Dover have reliable Internet service in order to run their company. All companies, large and small, need fast and reliable access to The Internet.
In the months and years ahead, people and businesses will become more reliant on access to the net.
The web is ubiquitous. From email to data sharing, archiving to commerce and VOIP to video chat, the internet is everywhere. What is the best fix for your needs? Is a cable modem sufficient? Do you need Metro Ethernet? Gigabit Internet? A 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg Internet access, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The web point: what is right for your business in Dover?
Before choosing an adequate or appropriate service, you must decide what your business really needs. Are surfing the web and sending email the only uses of the web? Will Internet usage mainly involve cloud servers and real time data connection? You may be hosting the data in Dover, Delaware and remote sites rely on this.
How would an outage to your high-speed Internet affect your business? Can your company afford a long pause or lull in productivity? Is uptime required? Prior to making any purchases, you must determine the answers to these questions.
High-speed Internet access is required by all businesses. When choosing the right broadband for organization, you need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits. While many providers throw around terminologies such as:
… be sure not to forget what capability and technical solutions meet your business’s specific needs.
At most businesses including those in Dover, some or all employees need access to The Internet. Third party applications, company research or development and e-commerce are just some of the ways the net may be needed.
The best solution may depend upon how many employees you have. 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 may need more if you have more workers and those workers all need to be on the web during the same hours.
Perhaps most workers at your company use an intranet system with limited features. High- speed Internet may not be a priority in this case. When employees are often downloading images, videos and documents, however, the need for speed increases significantly.
Does your company regularly conduct backups? It is recommended that you do remote backups from every desk. If you are, you will need to support simultaneous connections out to the web to synchronize the backup data to collect.
Google drive and DropBox are two popular sharing services. Are you using one of these or some other service that allows you to share files? 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. Running all your services properly, including sharing files, requires that you have the right amount of bandwidth.
Depending on where you are, you may want to look into high-speed organization Internet access such as Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet. “Lit buildings” that have already been wired by a carrier, are commonly the site for these. It may be shock you to know that installing high-speed access to The net may not be particularly expensive or inconvenient.
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 web with either gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. It depends upon availability.
Your business may host its own servers. Do they run websites APIs or data feeds for external offices? Do your headquarters have a hosted Internet application that must be accessed regularly by 40 or 50 branch offices? Perhaps you are in retail and host the point of sale (POS) system for thousands of stores? Does your legal practice host all of the data for 3, 4 or 5 offices in different places?
When data, programs, or information is hosted centrally, those outside your office must gain access. For those people, no Internet connection means no work gets done. Is the intranet solution you are choosing sufficiently reliable? Is it stable enough to support simultaneous connections from different places?
The needs of an office with one employee web surfing may not need more than a cable modem or an inexpensive 5-10 megabyte circuit. It is advisable that high-speed Internet access be available at the central company office or headquarters, including gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuits. 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.
Utilizing a cable modem or other less expensive circuit may seem like a good option but can result in unexpected cost. There may be a lower monthly rate, but bandwidth is usually shared with many tenants. During peak hours, your connection may slow down, even though you subscribe to a cable modem with a thirty-megabyte connection. Often, within a given community, cable companies may only deliver a particular amount of bandwidth. Whatever that amount of bandwidth is, it branches into all buildings in the community and to all tenants in those buildings. The 30-meg speed you are capped out sounds good but it is possible that you will never reach that speed during company hours. Will there be trouble if your expectation is set at 30 but you only get 8 or 10?
Some carriers are available who offer dedicated bandwidth and guaranteed bandwidth. In this situation, your bandwidth is not shared but is fully allocated to your company. Notwithstanding the existence of tenants, offices or buildings in the area, you should have the full capability of your circuits at all times.
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. Want to reach gigabit speeds? You can by using a gigabit Internet provider.
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 carriers in Dover 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?
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. These redundant circuits help protect from certain failures, for example, router port issues or physical line trouble. 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. This offers some protection and assurance but does not eliminate all threats.
Circuit redundancy can also be achieved in the following way: Import circuits using two different and distinct carriers. 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. Diversity redundancy offers far greater protection. If one carrier has a problem, the other likely will not.
If you want to maximize redundancy in Dover, Delaware please consider the following question: Do the carriers I am considering use the same physical geographic pathways? 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. In this way you have redundancy in different physical directions. If there is an event that causes a regional circuit problem, you have an alternative that is unaffected.
Even though access to The web 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:
Your business is on a cable modem and your carrier provides circuits to 20 other offices in your 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. As they use more bandwidth, there is less for available to meet your needs. What happens to your phone calls? How will the caliber of the call be affected? Are calls dropped? Will you sound muffled?
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 sites, whether 2 or 2000, depend on your primary Internet connection to access and retrieve data. How will you be affected if your circuit goes down? Would it cause mere annoyance or utter disaster? Can your satellite or remote office do any work at all? What happens to new orders? Can they be taken or processed? Circulate necessary data? Choosing the right solution depends largely on assessing and understanding the specific needs of your company. Maybe you are a corporation that designs and sells software and you run a hosted solution that is used by hundreds and hundreds of customers. You may operate a service like this: other systems communicate with yours via an API to figure out freight prices, stock prices, to compile weather data or receive any other information that you provide. What happens when there is a problem connecting to your servers? How will repeated outages affect your customers? Will they remain customers?
Is the web integral to the proper function of your company? Do you depend on it entirely? Should your circuits go down, your representatives cannot make outbound calls. Calls coming in would be unanswerable. You might not even know people are trying to reach your office. You are now, essentially, out of business. Is redundancy enough? Are you really getting the dependable service you need form your providers? Are you using providers that are truly reliable? Is the quality of your calls consistently and reliably clear?
You have several different options to pick from. Your choices will largely depend on your budget, in addition to the other requirements of your company. In review:
Sometimes redundancy is not essential to you. For example, If you are a small business, with just one office location, a single Internet access circuit may be sufficient. You may get by with one 50, 10 or even 5 megabyte circuit. Find out if you are in a lit building. If so, the price of Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be affordable. Costs vary with location and the availability of circuits so speak with our engineers. Together, we can find the best option for you and your organization.
Mid sized companies with a single office in Dover, Delaware, need higher speed Internet access. Your options are Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and higher speed circuits. Ideally, multiple circuits from multiple providers will provide you with the greatest redundancy. You may be able to achieve this in a manner that will not break the bank. Using one 100-megabyte circuit instead of two 50-megabyte circuits, is one example. Again, costs vary. Availability also varies. You should speak with our experts to learn the options for your particular location.
Companies with different places, whether 5 or 50, are at the highest risk. Redundancy is crucial. It is helpful if they use multiple carriers. You can minimize the risk of downtime at if you also have redundant equipment like routers or switches. Here too, 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. Finding the best combination of services, providers and equipment can go a long way toward helping your company run as efficiently as possible.
If you fall into this group, you must have Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet circuits and point-to-point High-speed Internet circuits. You absolutely need redundant circuits from different providers as well as redundant hardware. This is crucial to ensuring uptime. 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. 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.
The risk of insufficient bandwidth or failing circuits is tremendous. Your ideal single circuit or multiple circuits should stay within your budget while still meeting your demands. It is crucial to choose the correct mix of hardware and circuits. Figuring out exactly what to put in the mix, can be a daunting task.
We have engineers that will analyze your needs, look at your business requirements and develop an action plan for you… for free!We’ll examine your demand levels and current usage. We will then design a plan that keeps your costs reasonable while meeting your demand for a smoothly run business.
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