Because of today’s environment, companies in Frisco, Texas rely on the web. Reliable access to the net is the lifeblood of their company. All companies, large and small, need fast and reliable access to The Internet.
access to The Internet will become increasingly essential to us in the coming months and years. Our dependence on access to The web will only grow as time goes on.
From email to data sharing, video chat to VoIP, and data archiving to Internet commerce, the web is ubiquitous. How can your needs be met? Is a cable modem enough? Metro Ethernet? Gigabit Internet may satisfy your needs. Does your company in Frisco need one of these: 10 Meg Internet access, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?
Your company must assess its real needs. This must be done before an appropriate service can be chosen. Perhaps the net is only used for a few things such as email communication or surfing the web. Will real-time data connection with servers in the cloud be the primary use of the web? There may be remote locations that rely on you and you are hosting the data in Frisco.
Have you thought about what will happen to your business if your high-speed Internet is interrupted by an outage? Can your company afford a long pause or lull in productivity? How much uptime is essential to your organization? You must answer these questions before you buy.
In all-encompassing terms, businesses need high-speed access to The web. When choosing the right broadband internet for business, you need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits. You will hear providers use terms like:
… do not lose sight of the real issues: what are the capabilities and technical solutions you need to best serve your company?
At most businesses including those in Frisco, some or all employees need access to The net. There are countless reasons to need access to the net. Perhaps it is to order materials, to conduct company research or communicate with clients.
The best solution may depend upon how many employees you have. If you only have a few workers, you may be fine with a smaller Internet circuit such as a 5 or 10 megabyte. If you have a larger workforce, you may want to consider more. This is especially true if they all need to use the web simultaneously.
Your workforce may simply use an intranet system with limited video and graphics. If this is true, your need for high speed Internet be less than you thought. On the other hand, if your company requires that its employees download many documents or images and videos, Internet speed becomes more important.
Are you regularly performing backups? Synchronizing your backup data after doing remote backups from every desk requires you to support simultaneous connections out to the web.
Does your organization use a file sharing service? DropBox? Google drive? This is how a file sharing service works: You save a file. Then the file is pushed to the cloud, and is then synchronized with other people’s computers. Supporting file sharing, while supporting every other service, requires sufficient bandwidth.
Depending on your location, high-speed organization access to The net, including Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options. These are typically found in “lit buildings” in Frisco. Carriers have already wired these buildings. You may be surprised by how easy and affordable it is to add high-speed Internet to your business.
If you have to bring Metro Ethernet into a new building, it can be expensive but bringing that connection to an office or suite within the building is usually not. Depending on availability, it is often possible to obtain high-speed access to The web 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? Are your organization headquarters with a hosted application connected to fifty or more satellite offices? Does your office host the point of sale (POS) system for every single store in a large retail chain? You may be a law firm hosting data for three or four different offices.
Granting access to outsiders is necessary when you host data and programs at a central location. For those people, no Internet connection means no work gets done. Are you picking an intranet solution that provides reliability and stability for your multiple, simultaneous connections from various locations?
A cable modem or fairly cheap 10-megabyte circuit may be enough in certain scenarios. For example, these may meet the needs of a single office surfing the web. For the headquarters, high-speed access to The web including Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable. While all offer high speeds, they also need to be capable of supporting multiple diverse connections. This could probably not be accomplished with a cable modem.
There is a price that comes along with choosing a cable modem or other lower cost circuit. You may have to share bandwidth in order to secure that low monthly rate. While you may subscribe to a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection, you may be unable to reach those speeds during peak hours. Cable operators differ but many have prescribed limits on the bandwidth amount that they can deliver within a set community. That bandwidth reaches out like branches to every building in the community and the people living and working 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. Will there be trouble if your expectation is set at 30 but you only get 8 or 10?
Some providers offer customers dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. With these options, bandwidth is yours. It is not shared with anyone outside 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. If you want to reach gigabit speeds from your organization out to the internet, you can by using a gigabit Internet provider.
Providers in these situations deliver enough to cover everyone’s needs. The providers divide their circuit to various tenants while guaranteeing that everyone gets their contracted speed.
Circuits can go down in Frisco even though certain carriers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. 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.
With the first type of redundancy, you receive multiple circuits from the same carrier. In this situation, the redundancy helps protect you from port issues or physical line issues. Even multiple circuits can fail, such as in the event of a large-scale carrier outage or when there damage to an external line. While there is some protection, there is 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 providers or circuits. In reality, they are completely separate and redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy offers far greater protection. In the event that one carrier goes down, the other will still be alive.
You want maximum redundancy. In order to achieve this, look for redundant circuits from different carriers with different physical geographic pathways in Frisco. In other words, try to obtain circuits entering the building from different sides of the building. They would be on outside phone poles or underground conduits in different directions and leading to different places. If a major accident occurs or there is a fire that impedes the function of circuits in a particular region, you have redundancy in a different direction.
It is true that Internet access costs you money. However, the cost does not come close to what you will pay if the access that is not reliable. Contemplate these situations:
Your business is on a cable modem and your carrier provides circuits to 20 other offices 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? How will it affect the quality of that telephone call? Are calls dropped? Will the calls be choppy?
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. Your primary Internet connection is responsible for granting access to data to all of your locations. This is true whether you have 3 sites or 2000 locations. What happens if your circuit goes down? Is it just irritating? Is it going to cause tremendous problems? Is work even possible at your other places? Can they take or process any orders at all? Circulate necessary data? Choosing the right solution depends largely on assessing and understanding the specific needs of your company. What if you are a software company? Perhaps you are running a hosted solution and it must be used by multiple customers; maybe even hundreds. 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. You may find that they are unable to reach or connect with your company servers. Customers will only take so many repeated outages. How long with they remain with your company?
Does your company completely rely on the internet? Should your circuits stop working, imagine your people being unable to make any outbound phone calls. In addition, they will be unable to answer incoming calls. You are now, essentially, out of company. Is redundancy enough? Many of the finest call centers with the best reputations already understand and use redundancy. They should consider if they have sufficient protection. Make sure your carriers are as reliable as possible. Are you getting quality service so that your calls are clear and consistent?
You have several different options to pick from. The needs and budget of your business will both affect your choices. In summary:
If you are a small business, with just one location and not concerned about redundancy, a single five meg, 10 meg or 50 meg Internet access circuit may be sufficient. Gigabit service and Metro Ethernet options seem expensive. If you are in a lit building, however, they can be less than you think. Look into it. Prices will vary. They are based on your location and circuit availability; speak with our engineers to learn your best options.
You have a mid-sized Frisco, Texas 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. 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, choosing two 50 meg circuits versus one 100 meg circuit. Again, costs and availability vary. Speaking with one of our experts will help you determine the options available in your specific location.
Companies with different places, whether 5 or 50, are at the highest risk. Redundant circuits are essential. It is helpful if they use multiple carriers. You can decrease risk during downtime by having redundant equipment as well. As always, 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 providers and services for your company, you will benefit.
Gigabit Internet circuits, point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits are essential and Metro Ethernet Internet circuits must be utilized by companies in any of these categories. In order to maximize and protect your uptime, you must have redundancy. You should have redundant circuits from multiple carriers in addition to redundant hardware. Having plenty of bandwidth will help avoid interruptions or decreased speed that sometimes occurs during spikes in usage. 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.
Your company faces great risk of less than adequate bandwidth and failing circuits. The right circuits must meet your demand while keeping you within your 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 analyze your needs and requirements and develop a free action plan for you. You want your company to run smoothly. We will look at your current usage levels and demand levels and design a plan that meets your needs at a cost that makes sense for you.
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. Assessments are completed in as little as 48 hours.