Because of today’s environment, companies in Fishers, Indiana count on the web. Reliable access to the net is the lifeblood of their business. All companies rely on reliable and quick Internet access. This is true regardless how large or small the organization.
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.
Our uses of the web reach far and wide. From data sharing, video calls, and shopping to VOIP and email, the internet has a broad presence. What do you need? Perhaps a cable modem is all you need. Do you need Metro Ethernet? You may need Gigabit Internet. What does your Fishers, Indiana company need? Does it require 10 Meg Internet access, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 Meg circuit or a 5 Meg circuit?
Prior to selecting a service, your business must figure out its needs. Are surfing the web and sending email the only uses of the net? Will real-time data connection with servers in the cloud be the primary use of the internet? Perhaps you, in Fishers, are hosting the data and remote places rely on this.
What if there is an outage and your high-speed Internet is interrupted? Can your business 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.
Speaking broadly, all companies need high-speed access to the internet. You need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits to your company before choosing the right broadband internet. Many service providers toss out terms such as:
… the real issue is understanding what capability and technical solutions best meet your needs.
Companies in Fishers, Indiana need access to the web for their employees. Some companies may need it only for a few people and others may need it for the entire workforce. Whether it is for company research, to order supplies or to use third-party applications, the web is required.
The best solution may depend upon how many employees you have. A smaller Internet circuit may be enough if you only have a handful of workers. Perhaps a 5 or 10 megabyte is all you need. If you have many employees who need to use the web at the same time, you may do better with more.
Your need for high-speed Internet may be lessened if your workers are just accessing an intranet systemWhen employees are often downloading images, videos and documents, however, the need for speed increases significantly.
Do you perform backups at your company? Simultaneous connections to the web, which you need in order to sync your backup data, require support. If you conduct remote backups from every workstation, which you definitely should, this will be important.
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. Supporting file sharing, while supporting every other service, requires sufficient bandwidth.
Are you interested in high-speed company Internet? Depending on where you are located, you may want to look into the viability of gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet. They are commonly found in “lit buildings” in Fishers, Indiana that have already been wired by a carrier. Adding this high-speed Internet to your office may be surprisingly affordable and easy.
Unless you are bringing Metro Ethernet into a new building, it does not have to be an expensive proposition to connect it to a suite within a building. In fact, obtaining high-speed access to The net with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less depending upon availability.
Do you have your own company servers that run APIs, websites or feeds for offsite offices or companies? Do your headquarters have a hosted Internet application that must be accessed regularly by 40 or 50 branch offices? Are you hosting the point of sale (POS) system for 15, 000 retail chain stores? Are you a law firm hosting data for multiple office places?
When data and programs are hosted centrally at one main site, people outside that location must gain access. If the net connection is interrupted or fails, those people are unable to accomplish any 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?
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 access to The net is advisable for the headquarters. Gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit is recommended. High-speed alone is not enough. They must also need to be capable of supporting many diverse connections. A cable modem would not be able to accomplish this.
In many cases, installing an inexpensive cable modem comes at a price. There may be a lower monthly rate, but bandwidth is usually shared with many tenants. 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 companies are known to limit or predetermine the amount of bandwidth available for delivery in any particular community. Buildings, offices and tenants within the buildings all must share that amount of bandwidth, whatever it may be. You might be capped at 30-megabyte speed, but may never be able to actually reach that speed during the important hours of your company day. Is it a problem if you get a quarter or even half of the speed you expected?
Some providers offer customers dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. In this situation, you do not have to share bandwidth. The bandwidth is all yours and is fully allocated to the needs of your company. The full capacity of your circuit should be attainable during all hours regardless of neighboring buildings, people or offices.
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. Want to reach gigabit speeds? You can by using a gigabit Internet provider.
In these scenarios, carriers deliver a large quantity of high-speed to a building. The quantity must be enough so that it can split the circuit and deliver to every tenant. Whatever amount has been guaranteed in each tenant’s contract is the amount they receive.
Despite outstanding Internet bandwidth products offered by providers in Fishers, circuits do go down. Ask this question: “what can I do to decrease the likelihood of an outage?
Circuits that are redundant may be a good idea.
There are, in reality, two kinds of redundancy.
The first type is when one single carrier provides you with multiple circuits. Redundant circuits help protect you from certain failures including physical line issues, port issues within routers, and others. However, if that carrier has a regional outage or physical line damaged outside of your building, both circuits may go down. While there is some protection, there is also some risk.
In the second type of redundancy, you bring in circuits from two different providers. 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. However, despite appearances, they are actually very much separate and are redundant to each other. You will get more substantial protection from this diversity redundancy. If one carrier has a problem, the other likely will not.
The carriers you choose for your redundant circuits should have different physical pathways in Fishers, Indiana. This is an important consideration when trying to obtain the most redundancy. Basically this means that you want your circuits to enter your building on different sides or paths. Whether they are attached underground or to a telephone pole, your goal should be to have the circuits in different directions leading to different central places. Having redundancy in different physical directions can protect you if there is a serious incident at a data center or some accident that causes a regional circuit issue.
Although Internet access comes at a price, the price of unreliable access to The net is tremendous. Consider these scenarios:
You are on a cable modem with the carrier providing circuits to 14 other tenants 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 the amount of available bandwidth diminishes, what will happen to your phone calls? How will the caliber of the call be affected? Will calls be arbitrarily dropped? Will you sound muffled or choppy to your customers?
Your office is the center of your business. You may be a law firm that does file sharing or a retailer operating a POS system. All of your places, whether 2 or 2000, depend on your primary Internet connection to access and retrieve data. Your circuit goes down, now what will happen? Would it annoy you or destroy you? Can your satellite offices perform any work at all? Take new orders? Service existing ones? Disseminate needed information and data? Before choosing a solution, be sure to assess and really understand what your company requires. Maybe your software company runs a hosted solution. Maybe that hosted solution is used by hundreds of your customers. You may operate a service like this: other systems speak with yours via an API to figure out freight rates, stock prices, to compile weather data or receive any other information that you provide. What happens when they are unable to connect to your servers? Multiple outages may annoy your customers.
Does your company completely rely on the net? What if your representatives can make no outgoing telephone calls because your circuits go down? They are also unable to answer calls. Basically, you are out of organization. For competent call centers that already use and understand the problems that can arise, is redundancy enough? Are the carriers that you are using reliable enough? You should be getting high quality service that ensures your calls are consistently clear and reliable.
You have several different options to pick from. Your budget, as well as the needs of your company, will help drive your decisions. To summarize:
If you are a small organization, with just one location and not concerned about redundancy, a single five meg, 10 meg or 50 meg Internet access circuit may be sufficient. Is your building lit? If so, find out about gigabit or Metro Ethernet services. They 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.
Mid sized companies with a single office in Fishers, Indiana, need higher speed Internet access. Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet and other higher speed Internet circuits are options to consider. In a perfect world, you will achieve maximum redundancy by utilizing multiple providers to provide and service different circuits. This may be attainable without doubling your costs. For example, one 100-megabyte circuit may cost more than two smaller 50-megabyte circuits. As a reminder; availability and costs may vary. Call one of our experts to learn what is available in your specific area.
Companies with different places, whether 5 or 50, are at the highest risk. Redundancy is extremely vital to them. Multiple providers or providers are recommended. Redundant routers, switches and other equipment can also be helpful to lessen downtime during a problem. Have you looked at Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed Internet access circuit providers? You should do so before making a decision. Finding the best combination of services, providers and equipment can go a long way toward helping your company run 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. You must have redundant circuits for multiple providers as well as redundant hardware in your office to ensure your 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 circuits and hardware must be able to support a large number of fast and simultaneous 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. You have to select the optimal combination of hardware and circuits, which is a daunting task.
Our engineers can analyze your needs and create a free action plan for you. After reviewing your current usage and demand levels, we are going to generate a cost effective plan that provides your organization with the resources it needs.
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