The Net in Dubuque, Iowa: High-Speed Access

Business Broadband Internet, Gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet: Dubuque High Speed Internet Access

In today’s world, Dubuque, Iowa companies need dependable access to The web. It is the lifeblood of their company. All companies, from Fortune 500 to small businesses, have functions that rely on easy, dependable and quick Internet access.

Our dependence on access to The net will continue to grow in the coming months and years.

From video conferencing to voice over IP, email to data sharing and data archiving to Internet commerce, the web is everywhere you look. What solution bet fits your needs? Perhaps a cable modem is all you need. Maybe you need Metro Ethernet. Would Gigabit Internet suffice? Does your business in Dubuque, Iowa need one of these: 10 Meg access to The net, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?

How to Define your Company Need for Internet Access

The needs of your particular organization must be determined before you can select an appropriate service. Perhaps the web is only used for a few things such as email communication or surfing the web. Is connecting with cloud servers and sharing real time data the main use of the web? Do remote locations depend on you hosting the data in Dubuque?

What happens if you have an outage in your high-speed Internet? Can your company afford a long pause or lull in productivity? Is uptime required? These types of questions must be answered before you make purchase anything.

Evaluating Different High-Speed Internet Solutions in Dubuque, Iowa

Plainly stated, companies require high-speed access to The net. Before you choose your broadband, look at the costs and benefits. Performing this analysis is an important step in picking the right one for your company. Many providers toss out terms such as:

• High-speed Internet access service
• Business Internet service provider
• Broadband cable modem services
• Metropolitan-area Ethernet
• GbE services or Gigabit Internet
• MPLS network
• Point-to-point circuit protocol
• Internet access circuits-5 Meg
• Internet access circuits-10 Meg
• We provide Internet access circuits-50 Meg
• High-speed access to The web circuits-100 megabytes
• Sip trunking providers
• dedicated Internet access
• … and countless others

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

Business Access: Surfing the web at Work

At any company in Dubuque, Iowa some employees, if not all employees, need some type of access to the net if they are to properly perform their job duties. It may be needed for business research, to order office supplies or other reasons.

The best solution may rely 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. If you have more than that, you may need more.

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 they are frequently downloading things, whether documents, graphics or videos, however, speed is necessary for efficient job performance.

Do you backup information? 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.

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.

You may consider high-speed company Internet access if you location warrants it. Gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet may be viable options for you. Usually, you can find these in “lit buildings” in Dubuque 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.

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. Also, securing high-speed Internet access using gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet often takes less than 30 days, depending on its availability.

High-Speed access to The net Required for Hosting Applications

Ask yourself this: Does we host our own servers to run APIs, websites and data feeds to external offices or organization premises? Are your company headquarters with a hosted application connected to fifty or more satellite offices? Are you a retail business 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?

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 business. If the internet connection is interrupted or fails, those people are unable to accomplish any work. If you need multiple connections to function at the same time from many different places, make sure that your intranet solution can reliably support it.

For one office or a small company with just one or two people surfing the web, a less expensive 10 Meg circuit or a cable modem may meet your needs. 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. Do you think a cable modem is sufficient? It is probably not.

Which is Better for You in Dubuque? Dedicated Internet Bandwidth or Shared Cable Circuits?

In some situations, there is a high price to pay for bringing in an inexpensive circuit or cable modem. 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 operators are only permitted to establish a certain amount of bandwidth within communities. 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 organization hours. Is getting 7 when you expect 30 a problem?

Guaranteed bandwidth and dedicated bandwidth are solutions that some carriers offer. With these options, bandwidth is yours. It is not shared with anyone outside of your business. 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. Want to reach gigabit speeds? 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.

Incorporating Redundancy Into Your High Speed Organization Internet Circuits in Dubuque, Iowa

The truth is that circuits can go down in Dubuque even though some providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. How can you decrease the chance of an outage?

You may be a candidate for redundant circuits.

There are two types of redundancy to consider.

A single carrier, providing multiple circuits, to one customer, characterizes one form of redundancy. 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. 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.

In the second type of redundancy, you bring in circuits from two different carriers. 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. Truthfully, they are entirely separate. They are redundant and exist in case one of them fails. While circuit redundancy in general is a good idea, diversity redundancy by using different providers, offers far better 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.

You should look for redundant circuits from providers in Dubuque, Iowa 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. The circuits would be attached underground or to telephone poles, in various directions. The circuits would go 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.

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

It is true that access to The Internet costs you money. However, the cost does not come close to what you will pay if the access that is not reliable. Please consider these situations:

The phone service in your office relies on Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP)

Is your business on a cable modem? How many other tenants is your carrier servicing in your building? Are 14 other offices getting circuits? During business hours, any of those tenants could be streaming video, performing massive file downloads, processing large volumes of phone calls and more. As they use more bandwidth, there is less for available for your needs. What happens to your phone calls? What happens to the quality of that phone call? Maybe calls will randomly drop? Will the calls be choppy?

Your office or company is the main location for data and functions in that role for multiple locations

Your office may be the working center of an entire company enterprise. The kind of business does not necessarily matter. You may be a law firm doing file sharing, an accounting practice sharing databases or a retailer operating a distributed point-of-sale system. Your primary Internet connection is responsible for granting access to data to all of your places. This is true whether you have 3 locations or 2000 sites. What happens if your circuit goes down? Is it simply an irritation or a catastrophe? Can your satellite or remote office do any work at all? What happens to new orders? Can they be taken or processed? Share essential information with anyone? Choosing the right solution depends largely on assessing and understanding the specific needs of your business. Maybe your software company runs a hosted solution. Maybe that hosted solution is used by hundreds of your customers. Is an API utilized in your organization so that your customers can access and talk to your system? It is possible they will not be able to connect to your servers. Multiple outages may annoy your customers.

The telephone system at your call center relies on VoIP

Maybe your company depends entirely on the net. No calls can go out if your circuits fail. No calls could be answered either. Your company is basically done with. Is redundancy enough? Many of the finest call centers with the best reputations already understand and use redundancy. They should consider if they have sufficient protection. Are your carriers sufficiently reliable? You should be getting high quality service that ensures your calls are consistently clear and reliable.

The Correct High-Speed Organization Access Circuits for Your Dubuque Company: How to Choose

You clearly have several choices. Your choices will largely depend on your budget, in addition to the other requirements of your organization. To summarize:

Internet Access for the Small Business Owner

If you have one location or office and do not feel the need to consider redundancy for your system, a smaller Internet access circuit may be all you need. A single fifty, ten or five megabyte circuit might be enough. If you are in a “lit” building, Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be reasonably priced options. Prices change based on your location and the availability of circuits. Please speak with our engineers about what options best suit your needs.

Single Location Mid-Sized Company and Internet Access

Having a medium or mid-sized company in Dubuque, Iowa requires that you have higher-speed access to the web. Higher-speed circuits like Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or others may be your best options. Ideally, multiple circuits from multiple providers will provide you with the greatest redundancy. But can you do this without doubling costs? Sometimes, yes. Two smaller circuits may be cheaper than one. For instance, you may use two 50 meg circuits instead of a single 100 meg circuit. To repeat, availability and prices vary. Learn your options by speaking with one of our knowledgeable experts. We can help you determine what is available in your specific location.

Internet Access for Mid-Sized Businesses with Several Locations

Businesses with many places face the greatest risk for failure. Redundant circuits must be an essential part of their systems. Different providers are desirable. Redundant routers, switches and other equipment can also be helpful to lessen downtime during a problem. 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 carriers and services can maximize the productivity and efficiency of your company.

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

If you can place yourself in this category, it is essential that you have Metro Ethernet, point-to-point circuits and gigabit Internet circuits. In order to maximize and protect your uptime, you must have redundancy. You should have redundant circuits from multiple providers in addition to redundant hardware. You need enough bandwidth. The bandwidth must be sufficient to handle spikes in usage with no slowdowns or interruptions. The hardware and circuits you choose must both be able to support the following: a great number of concurrent, speedy connections.

You Can Get a Free Internet Need and Demand Analysis

Insufficient bandwidth and failing circuits are present tremendous risk to your business. Your demand and budget constraints should both be considered when you decide what circuit or combination of circuits you must have. There is tremendous pressure on you to choose the best combination of circuits and hardware.

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 will formulate a design or plan based partly on your current usage and demand levels. We will create something cost effective that gives you the resources your business needs, while keeping it running smoothly.

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. It can take less than 48 hours to complete your assessment.