The lifeblood of Fargo, North Dakota companies doing company in the current environment relies on reliable Internet access. All companies, from Fortune 500 to small companies, have functions that rely on easy, dependable and quick Internet access.
In the months and years ahead, people and businesses will become more dependent on internet access.
From email messaging to information sharing, e-commerce to archiving data, and voice over IP to video chat, the net is omnipresent. What is the best fix for your requirements? Is a cable modem sufficient? Metro Ethernet? Gigabit Internet may satisfy your needs. Does your Fargo, North Dakota business need a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The Internet, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The Internet point?
Before selecting the appropriate service, your company must assess its needs. Will web surfing and email be your primary use of the net? Is it used to network with cloud servers? You may be hosting the data in Fargo and remote locations rely on this.
How would an outage to your high-speed Internet affect your business? How might the downtime cause problems for your company? Is your success reliant on uptime? You must answer questions like these so you can make a purchase that actually meets your needs
High-speed access to the web is something all companies need. An analysis of the costs and benefits should be done prior to choosing the broadband internet that is correct for your business. While you are likely to hear some service providers toss around terms such as:
… focus on what matters: what does your organization need and what are the best services and solutions out there to meet those needs?
Workers for most companies in Fargo have some need to access the internet during the course of their job. The net is required for so many things, whether to order items, look up company information communicate with third parties.
The best solution may rely upon how many employees you have. If you have a handful of employees, a 5 or 10 Meg Internet circuit may be sufficient. You should consider more than that if you have more workers. Also keep in mind whether your workers need to access the internet at the same time.
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.
Do you use a file sharing service like Google drive or DropBox? When people save a file, it gets pushed to the cloud. The file is then synched with 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 access to The web such as Metro Ethernet and/or gigabit Internet. They are almost always found in “lit buildings” in Fargo that are already wired by a carrier. You may be surprised by how easy and affordable it is to add high-speed Internet to your organization.
The introduction of Metro Ethernet into a new building can be quite costly. However, bringing that connection into office space within that building is usually less so. Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet may provide you with high-speed Internet access in thirty days or less, depending on 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 business with 10, 000 stores? Do you host the POS system for all of them? Are you a legal practice hosting the data for three places?
Access to data and programs by people outside of your main location becomes necessary when you host information centrally. If the web 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.
If you have one office using the web, you may get by with a cable modem or a low- cost 10-megabyte circuit. High-speed Internet access is advisable for the headquarters. Gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit is recommended. While fast Internet access is and important, they must also have the capability to handle assorted simultaneous connections. The support you need could not be provided by a cable modem.
Bringing in a cable modem, which seems to save money, may actually come 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. You may experience slow downs. For example, although you subscribe to a cable modem with a thirty Meg connection, it can be difficult to maintain the maximum speed during busy times and peak hours. Cable operators differ but many have prescribed limits on the bandwidth amount that they can deliver within a set 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 organization hours. Is getting 7 when you expect 30 a problem?
You can find a carrier who can provide dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. In this case, your company receives full allocation of bandwidth. There is no sharing with any outsiders. Regardless of neighbors, or other tenants, you should have the full capacity of your circuit 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. With gigabit Internet providers, you can reach gigabit speeds in your office out to the internet.
Providers in these situations deliver enough to cover everyone’s needs. The carriers divide their circuit to various tenants while guaranteeing that everyone gets their contracted speed.
The truth is that circuits can go down in Fargo, North Dakota even though some providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. The question then becomes, “how do I minimize my chance of an outage? ”
The answer is redundant circuits.
There are two types of redundancy to consider.
The first kind of redundancy exists when one carrier provides one customer with many circuits. Redundant circuits can help protect against certain problems. They can mitigate the inconveniences when there is a failure of a physical line or a problem with the port into your router. However, if that carrier has a regional outage or physical line damaged outside of your building, both circuits may go down. You get some protection, but also some risk.
Utilizing circuits from two different carriers is the second kind of redundancy. 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. However, despite appearances, they are actually very much separate and are redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy, as this is called, offers you more protection that you might realize. When one carrier has a problem like an outage or some other failure, you have another one that works.
You should look for redundant circuits from carriers in Fargo that do not have the same physical geographic pathways, in order to get the most redundancy. Alternatively stated, try to have your circuits enter the building on different sides from one another. The circuits would be attached underground or to telephone poles, in various directions. The circuits would go to different data centers or central offices. By doing this, if there is a significant problem such as a fire at a data center, 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. Contemplate these scenarios:
You are on a cable modem with the carrier providing circuits to 14 other tenants in your building. It is possible that during normal company hours, those tenants might be downloading large files or watching continuous videos. They might be getting a lot of phone calls. How will your telephone calls be affected as the amount of available bandwidth decreases? How will the quality of that phone call be affected? Will you lose calls? Will you sound muffled or choppy to your customers?
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. All of your locations, you may have 2, you may have 500, you may have 4, 000, count on your main Internet connection to access and receive data. Your circuit goes down, now what will happen? Is it a mere annoyance or a catastrophic failure? Can meaningful work be conducted at your remote offices? Process new orders? Disseminate needed information and data? Before choosing a solution, be sure to assess and really understand what your organization requires. You might have hundreds and hundreds of loyal customers. Perhaps you are a software company running a hosted solution they all count on. Perhaps you operate a service where other systems talk to yours via an API to calculate freight prices, commodity prices, collect current weather data or receive any other information that you serve up. What if you have server problems and they are unable to connect to you? How long will your customers tolerate repeated outages?
Maybe your company depends entirely on the web. 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. Basically, you are done. Is redundancy enough? Are the providers you currently use as reliable as they should be? Are they as reliable as you need them to be? Is the quality of service sufficient? Are your calls clear and reliable?
You have several different options to pick from. Your business needs and budgets will drive your decisions. As a high-level summary:
You are probably not thinking about redundancy if you have a small organization 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. Metro Ethernet service or gigabit service may also be a reasonably priced option if you are in a lit building. 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 businesses in Fargo, North Dakota should be equipped with higher-speed Internet. You have several choices. Consider the following: Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet or higher-speed access to The web circuits. Ideally, multiple circuits from multiple providers will provide you with the greatest redundancy. This may be attainable without doubling your costs. For example, you may use 2 fifty meg circuits instead of 1 one hundred meg circuit. As a reminder; availability and costs may vary. You need to speak with one of our experts to determine your options in your specific location.
If your business has several sites or offices, you are at great risk for failure. Redundant circuits must be an essential part of their systems. Multiple providers would be great. Also, redundant equipment such as switches and routers in your facility can minimize the risk of downtime. Take a careful look at Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers and gigabit Internet providers. Research other high-speed access to The Internet circuit providers also and make an informed decision. The right mix of carriers and services will help keep your company up and running as efficiently as possible.
To run efficiently and effectively, corporations and businesses that fall into this category must use point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits, gigabit Internet circuits and Metro Ethernet 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 do not want any slowdowns or interruptions that often occur during spikes in usage. Avoid this by having sufficient bandwidth. Having both your hardware and your circuits capable of supporting many different, fast, and simultaneous connections is essential. It cannot be one or the other.
Insufficient bandwidth and failing circuits are present tremendous risk to your organization. It is imperative that the circuit or circuits you choose meet your needs but also keep you within your allowable budget. It is important to choose the correct mix of hardware and circuits. Figuring out exactly what to put in the mix, can be a daunting task.
Our engineers will take the pressure off and develop a free action plan for you by analyzing your needs. We are going to examine your current usage and demand levels then create a design that provides you with the resources you need to keep your business running smoothly at a reasonable cost.
Please call our office for an assessment appointment or click here to complete the contact form on the right side of the page. Assessments are completed in as little as 48 hours.