In today’s world, Elmhurst, Illinois companies need dependable Internet access. It is the lifeblood of their company. Fast and reliable access to The net is needed for companies to function properly; large corporations and small businesses alike.
In the months and years ahead, people and businesses will become more reliant on access to the web.
The use of the internet is pervasive. We use it for email and data sharing, video conferencing and VOIP, archiving and commerce. How can your needs be met? Is a cable modem sufficient? Metro Ethernet may be what you need. Would Gigabit Internet suffice? What is best for your organization in Elmhurst? Will your business needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg access to The web or 100 Meg access to The Internet point?
The needs of your particular organization must be determined before you can select an appropriate service. Is the net primarily used for emailing or web surfing? Will real-time data connection with servers in the cloud be the primary use of the web? Do remote locations rely on you hosting the data in Elmhurst, Illinois?
What if there is an outage and your high-speed Internet is interrupted? Can your company afford the downtime? Is uptime essential? Ask yourself these questions before making any purchases. The answers will help you determine what is right for you.
In the broadest of terms, companies need high-speed access to The web. 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. While many providers like to spout technical 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 Elmhurst, some or all employees need access to The net. access to The Internet may be needed to conduct research, use third-party applications or to order supplies.
The solution you choose may be based on the number of employees you have or expect to have. If you have a handful of employees, a 5 or 10 Meg Internet circuit may be adequate. If you have more than that, you may need more.
If your employees are merely accessing an intranet system with limited graphics and video, your need for high-speed Internet may be reduced. On the other hand, when they are frequently downloading documents, images and videos, that need for speed increases drastically.
Do you perform backups at your company? 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.
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? As a file is saved, it is pushed to the cloud and then synced back to other people’s computers. Enough bandwidth is required to support this function along with every other service.
You may consider high-speed business Internet access if you location warrants it. Gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet may be viable options for you. These can usually be found in Elmhurst, Illinois in “lit buildings” that have already been wired. The ease and affordability of adding high-speed Internet to your office may surprise you.
Absent the need to introduce Metro Ethernet into a new building, it is not particularly costly to connect Metro Ethernet to a suite or office within that building. Also, securing high-speed Internet access using gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet often takes less than 30 days, depending on its availability.
Does your business host its own servers to run information feeds, websites or application program interfaces (APIs) with companies or offices located outside of your four walls? Do your headquarters have a hosted Internet application that must be accessed regularly by 40 or 50 branch offices? Are you a retail company hosting the POS system for thousands of chain stores? You may be a law firm hosting data for three or four different offices.
When things are hosted at a central point, parties outside the office must somehow gain access. People can’t work if you have no Internet connection. Make sure that when you choose your intranet solution it is reliable enough to support your need for multiple and simultaneous connections for many different places.
If you have one office using the web, you may get by with a cable modem or a low- cost 10-megabyte circuit. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable for the headquarters where high-speed access to The net is important. While high speed is great, you also need support for your multiple diverse connections. A cable modem would likely not provide the necessary support.
In many cases, installing an inexpensive cable modem comes at a price. Even though you pay less money per month you must consider that the bandwidth you receive may be shared and used by multiple parties in the building. While you may subscribe to a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection, you may be unable to reach those speeds during peak hours. Many cable companies only deliver a set amount of bandwidth within a community. 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 business hours. Is getting 7 when you expect 30 a problem?
You can find a carrier who can provide dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. In this situation, your bandwidth is not shared but is fully allocated to your organization. No matter who is in the building or what buildings surround you, you should always run at full speed.
As an example, look at Metro Ethernet. They provide guaranteed bandwidth in various increments. You can receive guaranteed bandwidth in increments of 100, 50, 10 and 5 megabytes. You can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit Internet providers.
The providers in this situation deliver high-speed to a particular building in sufficient quantity to split their circuit among various tenants. Of course, they must ensure that they each get the specific amount of their contracted speed.
Realistically, while some carriers in Elmhurst, Illinois offer excellent Internet bandwidth products, 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 essence, two types of redundancy.
The first kind of redundancy exists when one carrier provides one customer with many circuits. In this situation, the redundancy helps protect you from port issues or physical line issues. Damage to an external wire or part can cause the failure of all of your circuits. A regional outage experienced by your carrier can have the same result. While offering some protection, it is not without risk.
In the second type of redundancy, you bring in circuits from two different providers. By using IP address allocations and certain routers, you can bind your connections. By doing this, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. You know the truth: that they are individual circuits and are there to back each other up in case one goes down. You will get more substantial protection from this diversity redundancy. You will still have a live, fully functioning carrier if one fails.
The providers you choose for your redundant circuits should have different physical pathways in Elmhurst, Illinois. This is an important consideration when trying to obtain the most redundancy. Your goal should be to get circuits coming into your building on different sides. You do not want them on the same side. The circuits would be attached to telephone poles (or underground conduits) in different directions leading 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.
The cost of dependable access to The web pales in comparison to the cost of unreliable access. Contemplate these situations:
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 your working day, those tenants could be conducting massive downloads of information, processing a large amount of calls or streaming endless video. As available bandwidth shrinks, what will happen to your calls? How will the quality of that phone call be affected? Will calls be cut-off? Will your voice be inaudible? Will you have difficulty hearing the other end?
Your office is the hub of your enterprise: You might be a law practice that shares files, a retail operation that utilizes POS systems or a large accounting firm that needs to share databases. All of your locations, whether 2 or 2000, rely on your primary Internet connection to access and retrieve data. If your circuit goes done, what will happen next? Would it annoy you or destroy you? Can meaningful work be conducted at your remote offices? Can they take or process any orders at all? Disseminate needed information and data? Picking the right a solution can be difficult. Before doing so, be sure you fully understand your requirements. Maybe your software company runs a hosted solution. Maybe that hosted solution is used by hundreds of your customers. You operate a service that utilizes API in order to grant access to other systems. They may use this to collect whatever data you are offering such as commodity prices, weather data or freight calculations. It is possible they will not be able to connect to your servers. Multiple outages may annoy your customers.
What if your business could not function at all without the net? Maybe your company depends upon it completely. If your circuits go down, you cannot make calls. Calls coming in would be unanswerable. You might not even know people are trying to reach your office. Looks like you are now out of business. While many of the most reputable call centers are already aware and using the advantages of redundancy, is it sufficiently meeting their needs? Are the providers that you are using reliable enough? Is the quality of your calls consistently and reliably clear?
You have no shortage of options. Your company needs and your budget will have to come into consideration when deciding on your solutions. To summarize:
You are probably not thinking about redundancy if you have a small company with a single location. In this case, you can probably get by with a single access to The Internet circuit of 5, 10 or 50 meg. For an office in a lit building, you may find that gigabit service or Metro Ethernet are affordable options for you. 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.
You have a mid-sized Elmhurst company; higher speed Internet access required. You may choose between gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. You may also look into other higher-speed Internet circuits. Ideally, you want to have the greatest redundancy. You can achieve this by using multiple circuits from different providers. But can you do this without doubling costs? Sometimes, yes. For example, choosing two 50 meg circuits versus one 100 meg circuit. Do not forget that you will find variations in price and availability. Call one of our experts to learn what is available in your specific area.
What companies have the highest risk for failure; those with multiple locations. Redundant circuits are a necessity. Multiple providers are highly desirable. Redundant routers, switches and other equipment can also be helpful to lessen downtime during a problem. Here too, take a careful look and choose the right Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed Internet access circuit providers. The right mix can help. If you can figure out the best combination of carriers and services for your company, you will benefit.
For companies falling in this category, gigabit Internet circuits, Metro Ethernet Internet circuits and point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits are essential. You will want to have the greatest protection of your uptime. To accomplish this you must have redundancy: redundant circuits from multiple providers and redundant hardware for your system. You do not want any slowdowns or interruptions that often occur during spikes in usage. Avoid this by having sufficient bandwidth. Be sure to have the right circuits and hardware. They both must be able to support multiple, fast, concurrent connections.
Do not risk having failing circuits or not enough bandwidth. 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.
Our expert engineers will review your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. We’ll formulate a design or plan based partly on your current usage and demand levels. We are going to create something cost effective that gives you the resources your organization needs, while keeping it running smoothly.
Please call our office for an assessment appointment or click here to complete the contact form on the right side of the page. We do assessments quickly. It can take as little as 48 hours to complete your analysis.