Obtaining High-Speed Access To The Internet in Flint, Michigan

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

The lifeblood of Flint companies doing business in the current environment relies on reliable access to The net. All companies, from Fortune 500 to small businesses, have functions that rely on easy, dependable and quick Internet access.

Our reliance on access to the web will become greater in the near and distant future.

From video chat to voice over IP, email to data sharing and data archiving to Internet commerce, the web is everywhere you look. How can your needs be met? Is a cable modem enough? Your needs may point to Metro Ethernet as a solution. Gigabit Internet? What is best for your business in Flint? Will your business needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg Internet access or 100 Meg Internet access point?

Access to the internet: Determining Your Business’s Needs

The needs of your particular business must be determined before you can select an appropriate service. Are surfing the web and sending email the only uses of the net? Is the net used for real-time data connection with servers in the cloud? Are you hosting data in Flint? Do remote sites depend upon you?

Have you thought about what happens to your company if your high-speed Internet is interrupted by an outage? Can your company afford a long pause or lull in productivity? Is the absence of uptime detrimental? These types of questions must be answered before you make purchase anything.

Appraising Various High-Speed Internet Solutions in Flint, Michigan

Plainly stated, companies require high-speed access to The net. 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:

• Internet access at high-speeds
• Business Internet / Internet for business
• We provide broadband cable modems
• Metro Ethernet
• Gigabit Ethernet
• Multiprotocol label switching (MPLS)
• Providers of point-to-point circuits
• Five megabyte Internet access circuit
• Internet access circuits- ten megabytes
• High-speed 50-megabyte Internet access circuits
• High-speed access to The Internet circuits-100 megabytes
• We provide sip trunks
• Dedicated or “specific” Internet access
• … and more

… the real issue is understanding what capability and technical solutions best meet your needs.

Business Access: Surfing the web at Work

Companies in Flint, Michigan need access to the internet for their employees. Some companies may need it only for a few people and others may need it for the entire workforce. It may be needed for business research, to order office supplies or other reasons.

The number of employees you have may determine your best solution. 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 your organization has nearly 50 people, however, and they all need to use the net at the same time, you may find that more is better.

Your need for high-speed Internet may be lessened if your workers are just accessing an intranet systemOn 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? 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 organization use a file sharing service? DropBox? Google drive? When people save a file, it gets pushed to the cloud. The file is then synched with other people’s computers. You need to have sufficient bandwidth to support this function while also supporting every other service.

Are you interested in high-speed organization Internet? Depending on where you are located, you may want to look into the viability of gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet. They are usually contained in “lit buildings” in Flint that have already been wired by a carrier. Installing high-speed Internet may not be as difficult and expensive as you think.

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. Did you know that obtaining high-speed Internet access with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less? Of course, this depends upon availability.

Web Applications Require Fast Internet Access

Ask yourself this: Does we host our own servers to run APIs, websites and data feeds to external offices or business premises? Is your main organization office with a hosted application accessed by 40 or even 50 branch office sites? Are you a retail chain hosting the POS system for 12, 000 stores? Are you a legal practice hosting the data for three sites?

If you host programs, data or information centrally, people outside of the central location need to have access. People can’t work if you have no Internet connection. When deciding on the right intranet solution for your organization, ask yourself: Is the solution going to adequately support simultaneous and multiple connections from my 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. High-speed dedicated circuits, Metro Ethernet or gigabit Ethernet are advisable for company headquarters. Multiple diverse connections require support, in addition to high speed. The support you need could not be provided by a cable modem.

Dedicated Internet Bandwidth in Flint V. Shared Cable Circuits

Bringing in a less-expensive circuit like a cable modem often comes with a price. While the monthly rate is lower, the bandwidth is generally shared among other 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. Often, within a given community, cable companies may only deliver a particular amount of bandwidth. The bandwidth branches off to the multiple buildings, offices and tenants within them. While you may be capped at a 30 Meg speed, you may never be able to reach that speed during company hours. If you expect 30 but only get 6, will you have problems?

There are providers who offer dedicated and even 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 organization. Regardless of neighbors, or other tenants, you should have the full capacity of your circuit at all times.

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.

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.

Incorporating Redundancy Into Your High Speed Business Internet Circuits in Flint

Realistically, while some providers in Flint, Michigan offer excellent Internet bandwidth products, it is possible for a circuit to go down. How can you lower the chances that you will experience some kind of outage?

The answer is redundant circuits.

Essentially, there are two different ways to look at redundancy.

The first type is when one single carrier provides you with multiple circuits. 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. It is possible for both circuits to go down. If your carrier has a regional problem like a widespread outage, or there is a broken line outside your building, even your redundant circuits may fail. There is some protection that comes with this but there is risk as well.

The other type of redundancy requires you to utilize circuits from different providers. 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. But, you know that they are actually separate and redundant. While circuit redundancy in general is a good idea, diversity redundancy by using different carriers, offers far better protection. In the event that one carrier goes down, the other will still be alive.

If you want to maximize redundancy in Flint, Michigan please consider the following question: Do the carriers I am considering use the same physical geographic pathways? Alternatively stated, try to have your circuits enter the building on different sides from one another. 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.

Not Having Adequate Protection for your High-Speed access to The web: What is the Cost to Your Organization?

The cost of dependable Internet access pales in comparison to the cost of unreliable access. Please consider these situations:

Your company is reliant on VoIP for phone service

Are you on a cable modem and your carrier is providing circuits to dozens of other office suites 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. What will happen to your telephone calls as the amount of usable bandwidth decreases? What about the quality of your calls? Are calls dropped? Will your voice be inaudible? Will you have difficulty hearing the other end?

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 business enterprise. The kind of company 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 sites, whether 2 or 2000, rely 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? Is work even possible at your other locations? Process or take new orders? Circulate necessary data? Choosing the right solution depends largely on assessing and understanding the specific needs of your company. Perhaps you are a software company, running a hosted solution used by hundreds of customers. Do you operate a service where other systems communicate with yours by using an application program interface (API)? For example do other systems gain access to yours in order to calculate prices, prices, or to collect information that you serve up? What if these other systems have difficulty connecting your servers? Multiple outages may annoy your customers.

You have a large call center that is completely reliant on voice over Internet protocol

Is the net integral to the proper function of your company? Do you rely on it entirely? Should your circuits go down, your representatives cannot make outbound calls. There would be no way to answer incoming calls of people trying to reach your representatives. Your business is basically done with. For competent call centers that already use and understand the problems that can arise, is redundancy enough? Are you really getting the dependable service you need form your carriers? Are you using providers that are truly reliable? Do you consistently get quality service that provides clear and reliable calls?

Picking the Right High-Speed Business Access Circuits for Your Flint Company

You clearly have several choices. Your decision will be based on different factors including your organization needs and your budget. As a high-level summary:

If You Have a Small Organization That Needs Internet Access

If you have one location or office and do not feel the need to consider redundancy for your system, a smaller access to The web circuit may be all you need. A single fifty, ten or five megabyte circuit might be enough. Metro Ethernet service or gigabit service may also be a reasonably priced option if you are in a lit building. Prices will vary. They are based on your location and circuit availability; speak with our engineers to learn your best options.

Mid-Sized Company access to The Internet: One Location

You have a mid-sized Flint, Michigan company; higher speed Internet access required. You have several choices. Consider the following: Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet or higher-speed Internet access circuits. Ideally, multiple circuits from multiple providers will provide you with the greatest redundancy. It is sometimes possible to reach this without adding ridiculous costs. Using one 100-megabyte circuit instead of two 50-megabyte circuits, is one example. 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.

Access to the internet for the Mid-Sized Business with Several Offices

Businesses with many locations face the greatest risk for failure. Redundancy is crucial. Varied providers are optimal. You can decrease risk during downtime by having redundant equipment as well. Look at all of your options: Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet providers, Metro Ethernet providers and other high-speed circuit providers. The right mix of providers and services will help keep your business up and running as efficiently as possible.

If you are a larger company, an enterprise company or a are in the company of providing services using the Internet

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 will want to have the greatest protection of your uptime. To accomplish this you must have redundancy: redundant circuits from multiple carriers and redundant hardware for your system. 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 goal is to have hardware and circuits that are more than capable of providing support to a significant number of fast and simultaneous connections.

Receive a Free Internet Need and Demand Analysis

The risk of insufficient bandwidth or failing circuits is tremendous. You need to have the right circuit or circuits to meet your demands while staying within your budget. There is tremendous pressure on you to choose the best combination of circuits and hardware.

We have engineers that will analyze your needs, look at your business requirements and develop an action plan for you… for free!We will examine your demand levels and current usage. We are going to then design a plan that keeps your costs reasonable while meeting your demand for a smoothly run company.

Please click here if you wish to complete the contact form on the side of this page. Alternatively, call our office to schedule an assessment. It can take as little as 48 hours to provide a complete assessment.