These days, companies in Findlay count on reliable access to The net as the lifeblood of their company. Fortune 500 companies to small companies and everything in between, depend on reliable and fast Internet access.
Internet access will become increasingly vital to us in the coming months and years. Our dependence on Internet access will only grow as time goes on.
The net is ubiquitous. From email to data sharing, archiving to commerce and VOIP to video conferencing, the net is everywhere. What do you need? Will a cable modem be sufficient? It could be that you need Metro Ethernet. Would Gigabit Internet suffice? What is best for your business in Findlay? Will your organization needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg Internet access or 100 Meg access to The web point?
Before choosing an adequate or appropriate service, you must decide what your business really needs. Is Internet use limited to website surfing or emailing only? Is real time data connection with cloud servers vital to your organization? Do remote locations rely on you hosting the data in Findlay?
What if your high-speed Internet is disrupted by an outage? What will happen to your company? How will the downtime affect your business? How much uptime is essential to your organization? You must answer questions like these so you can make a purchase that actually meets your needs
In all-encompassing terms, businesses need high-speed access to The net. Choosing the correct broadband for your organization requires a cost benefit analysis. While various providers will throw around terminology like:
… do not stray from the real issues. Focus on what your company’s needs are and what capabilities and technical solutions will help satisfy them.
For many, if not all, companies in Findlay, Ohio, access to The net is needed for at least some employees. Whether it is for company research, to order supplies or to use third-party applications, the net is required.
Your best course of action may be determined by the size of your work force. A five or ten megabyte Internet circuit may be all you need if employ a small workforce. If your business has nearly 50 people, however, and they all need to use the internet at the same time, you may find that more is better.
You may not need as much high-speed access to The web if your employees work primarily on an intranet system with limited graphics and video. However, employees who must often download documents, images and videos, need that speed.
Are you performing routine 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.
Does your company require employees to share files using a service like Google drive or DropBox? As a file is saved, it is pushed to the cloud and then synced back to other people’s computers. Running all your services properly, including sharing files, requires that you have the right amount of bandwidth.
High-speed company access to The web like Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options for you depending on your location. They are commonly found in “lit buildings” in Findlay that have already been wired by a carrier. Installing high-speed Internet may not be as difficult and expensive as you think.
Introducing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be expensive. Bringing a connection to a suite within the building is not. Depending on availability, it is often possible to obtain high-speed access to The net with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet in 30 days or less.
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 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? Are you a law firm? Do you host data for three or more external locations?
Granting access to outsiders is necessary when you host data and programs at a central location. If your Internet connection goes down, those people are unable to work. When deciding on the right intranet solution for your business, ask yourself: Is the solution going to adequately support simultaneous and multiple connections from my different locations?
An inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be enough if you have one office that needs to surf the internet. A cable modem may also be adequate in this situation. High-speed dedicated circuits, Metro Ethernet or gigabit Ethernet are advisable for company headquarters. While all offer high speeds, they also need to be capable of supporting multiple diverse connections. The support you need could not be provided by a cable modem.
In some situations, there is a high price to pay for bringing in an inexpensive circuit or cable modem. Oftentimes, a lower monthly rate comes with the realization that you are sharing bandwidth with many different tenants and offices. The cable modem you subscribe to with the 30 Meg connections may not always reach those speeds, especially during the busiest or “peak” hours of the workday. Cable companies are known to limit or predetermine the amount of bandwidth available for delivery in any particular community. Different buildings and tenants housed or working within those buildings all share that set amount of bandwidth. During crucial working hours, you may not get to the 30-meg speed you have been capped at. 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. With these options, bandwidth is yours. It is not shared with anyone outside of your organization. Regardless of neighbors, or other tenants, you should have the full capacity of your circuit 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. 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.
Circuits can go down in Findlay, Ohio even though certain providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. The question then becomes, “how do I minimize my chance of an outage? ”
Consider redundant circuits.
Redundancy in this situation comes in two forms.
The first type exists when the same carrier gives you multiple 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. If your carrier experiences a regional outage or you have a line broken outside of your building, you may lose the use of all of your circuits. This is not foolproof, but does offer some protection.
You can also achieve redundancy by utilizing different providers to bring in and establish your circuits. 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. 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 carriers, 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.
To maximize the benefit of redundancy, consider looking for redundant circuits from different carriers that have different pathway in Findlay, Ohio. This means that you should try to have the circuits come into you building from different sides. They would be on outside phone poles or underground conduits in different directions and leading to different places. 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.
Although access to The web comes at a price, the price of unreliable Internet access is tremendous. Consider the following:
Are you on a cable modem and your carrier is providing circuits to dozens of other office suites in your building? It is possible that during normal business hours, those tenants might be downloading large files or watching continuous videos. They might be getting a lot of phone calls. As the amount of accessible bandwidth decreases, what happens to your needs? What happens to your phone calls? How will the caliber of the call be affected? Are calls lost or dropped? Will they be full of static?
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 places, whether 2 or 2000, depend on your primary Internet connection to access and retrieve data. What happens if your circuit goes down? Would you merely be annoyed? Would there be catastrophic consequences? Can your satellite or remote office do any work at all? What about new orders? Share essential data? Choosing the right solution depends largely on assessing and understanding the specific needs of your company. Perhaps you have hundreds of clients or customers that use a hosted solution that your software organization is running. Maybe you offer a service that allows other systems use an application program interface (API) to speak with you to collect information and data. What happens when there is a problem connecting to your servers? How long will your customers tolerate repeated outages?
What if your company could not function at all without the net? Maybe your organization relies on it completely. What if your representatives can make no outgoing telephone calls because your circuits go down? No calls could be answered either. Your organization is basically done with. While most call centers that are reputable use redundancy, is it enough? Are the providers you currently use as reliable as they should be? Are they as reliable as you need them to be? You should be getting high quality service that ensures your calls are consistently clear and reliable.
You clearly have several choices. The needs and budget of your business will both affect your choices. In review:
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 Internet access circuit of 5, 10 or 50 meg. Is your building lit? If so, find out about gigabit or Metro Ethernet services. They may be reasonably priced options. Because prices can vary based on the location of your business and the availability of circuits, speak with our engineers to learn your options.
Mid-sized businesses in Findlay, Ohio should be equipped with higher-speed Internet. Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet and other higher speed Internet circuits are options to consider. In a perfect scenario, multiple circuits from different providers will give you the most redundancy. You may be able to achieve this in a manner that will not break the bank. 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.
Businesses with many sites face the greatest risk for failure. Redundant circuits must be an essential part of their systems. Varied providers are optimal. You can increase redundancy with switches or routers. Having redundant equipment can also minimize risk. Before you make a decision here too, do your research. Look closely into Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed circuit providers. The right combination of services and carriers can positively impact the efficiency of your business.
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. Redundant hardware and redundant circuits will, for these businesses, ensure the greatest uptime. Be sure the circuits are from different providers. You need enough bandwidth. The bandwidth must be sufficient to handle spikes in usage with no slowdowns or interruptions. Be sure to have the right circuits and hardware. They both must be able to support multiple, fast, concurrent connections.
The danger and risk of failing circuits is tremendous. So is the risk of having less bandwidth than you need. The circuit or circuits you have must stay within the parameters of your budget while still meeting your organization needs. There is tremendous pressure on you to choose the best combination of circuits and hardware.
Our expert engineers will review your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. We will look at your current usage, demand levels and scope out a design to give you the resources you need while keeping your organization up and running 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. Your assessment may be finished within as little as 48 hours.