Obtaining High-Speed Internet Access in Gaithersburg, Maryland

Gaithersburg High Speed Internet access: Organization Broadband, Metro Ethernet Access and Gigabit Internet

The lifeblood of Gaithersburg, Maryland companies doing business in the current environment relies on reliable Internet access. The company functions of all companies, from Fortune 500 to small companies, rely on fast and reliable access to The net.

We’ll become increasingly dependent on access to The Internet as the months and years progress.

The use of the web is pervasive. We use it for email and data sharing, video conferencing and VOIP, archiving and commerce. What can best meet your needs? Is a cable modem sufficient? Metro Ethernet? You may need Gigabit Internet. A 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The Internet, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg Internet access point: what is right for your organization in Gaithersburg?

Access to the net: Determining Your Business’s Needs

Prior to selecting a service, your company must figure out its needs. Will web surfing and email be your primary use of the internet? Is the internet used for real-time data connection with servers in the cloud? Perhaps you, in Gaithersburg, are hosting the data and remote sites depend upon this.

What if there is an outage and your high-speed Internet is interrupted? What about the downtime that results? Can your business afford that? Is the absence of uptime detrimental? You must answer these questions before you buy.

Looking at Different High Speed Internet Solutions: Gaithersburg

In the broadest of terms, companies need 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. While you are likely to hear some service providers toss around terms such as:

• High-speed Internet access
• Business Internet or commercial Internet
• broadband cable modems
• Metro Ethernet service provider
• GbE services or Gigabit Internet
• MPLS services
• Point-to-point circuit protocol
• 5-megabyte access circuits
• We provide 10 Meg Internet access circuits
• Fifty-megabytes-Internet access circuits
• Internet access circuits- One hundred megabytes
• Session Initiation Protocol/ Sip trunk
• Personal, specific and dedicated Internet access
• … and much more

… focus on what matters: what does your business need and what are the best services and solutions out there to meet those needs?

Web Surfing and Business Internet Access

Companies in Gaithersburg 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 organization research, to order office supplies or other reasons.

The number of workers you employ, may be the most important factor in your decision making process. A five or ten megabyte Internet circuit may be all you need if employ a small workforce. If you have many employees who need to use the web at the same time, you may do better with more.

Do your employees primarily use an intranet system? If so, you may not need much high-speed Internet service. On the other hand, when they are frequently downloading documents, images and videos, that need for speed increases drastically.

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.

Are you using a service such as DropBox or Google drive to share files? 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. You must have sufficient bandwidth if you are to successfully support every service including file sharing.

Business high-speed access to The web may interest you. Depending on your location, you may have options such as gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. They are almost always found in “lit buildings” in Gaithersburg that are already wired by a carrier. Adding this high-speed Internet to your office may be surprisingly affordable and easy.

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 web with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet in 30 days or less.

Hosted Applications Requiring High-Speed Internet Access

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 corporate headquarters with a hosted application utilized by 50 branch offices? Are you a retail chain hosting the POS system for 12, 000 stores? You may be a law firm hosting data for three or four different offices.

When data and programs are hosted centrally at one main site, people outside that location must gain access. If the internet connection is interrupted or fails, those people are unable to accomplish any work. Are you picking an intranet solution that provides reliability and stability for your multiple, simultaneous connections from various locations?

An inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be enough if you have one office that needs to surf the web. A cable modem may also be adequate in this situation. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable for the headquarters where high-speed Internet access is important. 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.

Cable Circuit Sharing in Gaithersburg Versus Dedicated Bandwidth: What is Right For You?

In many scenarios, bringing in an inexpensive circuit, such as a cable modem, comes at 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. Cable operators are only permitted to establish a certain amount of bandwidth within communities. That bandwidth reaches out like branches to every building in the community and the people living and working in those buildings. While you may be capped at a 30 Meg speed, you may never be able to reach that speed during business hours. Is it a problem if you get a quarter or even half of the speed you expected?

You can find a carrier who can provide dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. If you want your very own bandwidth that is not used by anyone else, you should consider this. No matter who is in the building or what buildings surround you, you should always run at full speed.

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 company out to the web, you can by using a gigabit Internet provider.

In these scenarios, providers 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.

Redundancy With Gaithersburg High Speed Company Internet Circuits

Circuits can go down in Gaithersburg even though certain providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. How can you lower the chances that you will experience some kind of outage?

You may be a candidate for redundant circuits.

Redundancy in this situation comes in two forms.

The first type exists when the same carrier gives you 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. However, if that carrier has a greater outage to your entire region or there is a line damaged outside of your office building, you may have both or all circuits go down. This is not foolproof, but does offer some protection.

Circuit redundancy can also be achieved in the following way: Import circuits using two different and distinct carriers. For users and the public, you can make it look like you have one cohesive circuit. You can also make the connections act as a single circuit. You can do this with various advanced routers and IP address allocations. Though they may appear as one, you know that they are each individual circuits and redundant to each other. This is called diversity redundancy and offers more protection that the first. You will still have a live, fully functioning carrier if one fails.

You should look for redundant circuits from carriers in Gaithersburg, Maryland that do not have the same physical geographic pathways, in order to get the most redundancy. Your goal should be to get circuits coming into your building on different sides. You do not want them on the same side. 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 locations. If you can accomplish this, you are protected from a major catastrophe. For example, if a there is a fire or some other accident that negatively affects circuits in a region, you have redundancy in a physically different direction.

Not Having Adequate Protection for your High-Speed Internet access: What is the Cost to Your Company?

The cost of dependable Internet access pales in comparison to the cost of unreliable access. Consider these scenarios:

Your company relies on VoIP for its telephone service

Your company is on a cable modem and your carrier provides circuits to 20 other offices in your building. What if any or all of those tenants are huge call centers taking in a massive volume of phone calls, are company that perform large file downloads or stream many videos? As the amount of accessible bandwidth decreases, what happens to your needs? What will happen to your phone calls? What happens to the strength and quality of that call? Will you lose calls? Will you sound muffled or choppy to your customers?

Is your organization the central data location for multiple offices?

Regardless of whether you are part of a legal practice and your firm does file sharing, or an accounting practice sharing databases, your office is the central point or hub of your organization. Whether you have 2 locations, 250, or 2000, they all depend on your primary Internet connection to retrieve data and information. How will you be affected if your circuit goes down? Would it cause mere annoyance or utter disaster? Can your satellite or remote office do any work at all? What happens to new orders? Can they be taken or processed? Share information? Picking the right a solution can be difficult. Before doing so, be sure you fully understand your requirements. Perhaps you have hundreds of clients or customers that use a hosted solution that your software business is running. You may operate a service like this: other systems communicate with yours via an API to figure out freight rates, stock prices, to compile weather data or receive any other information that you provide. It is possible they will not be able to connect to your servers. Will your customers remain loyal to you if they have to withstand multiple outages?

The phones in your office, which functions as a call center, relies entirely on voice-over Internet protocol (VoIP)

Maybe your organization depends entirely on the internet. Should your circuits stop working, imagine your people being unable to make any outbound phone calls. Calls coming in would be unanswerable. You might not even know people are trying to reach your office. You are essentially out of organization. While most reputable call centers are already aware and using redundancy, is it enough? Make sure your providers are as reliable as possible. Is the quality of service sufficient for your calls to be clear and reliable?

Picking the Right High-Speed Company Access Circuits for Your Gaithersburg, Maryland Company

You have no shortage of options. Your business needs and budgets will drive your decisions. Essentially:

Internet Access Needs for Small Company

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 access to The net 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. Prices change based on your location and the availability of circuits. Please speak with our engineers about what options best suit your needs.

Medium Sized Company in One Location: Access to the Internet

Having a medium or mid-sized company in Gaithersburg requires that you have higher-speed access to the web. You have several choices. Consider the following: Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet or higher-speed access to The Internet circuits. Multiple circuits utilizing multiple providers would, ideally, provide you with maximum redundancy. It is sometimes possible to reach this without adding ridiculous costs. For example, you may use 2 fifty meg circuits instead of 1 one hundred meg circuit. To repeat, availability and prices vary. Call one of our experts to learn what is available in your specific area.

Midsized Businesses with Multiple Locations: Internet Access

If your organization has several places or offices, you are at great risk for failure. Redundancy is extremely vital to them. Multiple providers or providers are recommended. You can decrease risk during downtime by having redundant equipment as well. 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. The right mix of providers and services will help keep your business up and running as efficiently as possible.

Larger corporations, enterprising clients and clients who provide services that are delivered via the Internet

For businesses that fit this description, it is essential to have gigabit Internet circuits, point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits and Metro Ethernet Internet circuits. You will want to have the greatest protection of your uptime. To accomplish this you must have redundancy: redundant circuits from multiple providers and redundant hardware for your system. 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.

Free Internet Demand and Need Analysis

Your organization faces great risk of less than adequate bandwidth and failing circuits. It is imperative that the circuit or circuits you choose meet your needs but also keep you within your allowable budget. You have to select the optimal combination of hardware and circuits, which is a daunting task.

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.

An appointment for an assessment can be made by calling our office or clicking here to complete the contact form on the side of this page. We do assessments quickly. It can take as little as 48 hours to complete your analysis.