These days, companies in Georgetown, Texas rely on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their company. All companies, big and small, need fast and reliable access to The Internet.
access to The web will become increasingly important to us in the coming months and years. Our dependence on Internet access will only grow as time goes on.
From email messaging to information sharing, e-commerce to archiving data, and voice over IP to video chat, the net is omnipresent. What is the best fix for your requirements? A cable modem may be satisfactory. Your needs may point to Metro Ethernet as a solution. Gigabit Internet may be required. A 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg Internet access, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg Internet access point: what is right for your business in Georgetown, Texas?
Your organization must assess its real needs. This must be done before an appropriate service can be chosen. Is the internet only used for web surfing and email? Is the net used for real-time data connection with servers in the cloud? Perhaps you, in Georgetown, are hosting the data and remote sites rely on this.
What if your high-speed Internet is disrupted by an outage? What will happen to your company? What about the downtime that results? Can your organization afford that? Is the absence of uptime detrimental? These types of questions must be answered before you make purchase anything.
Speaking broadly, all companies need high-speed access to the internet. Before you choose your broadband internet, look at the costs and benefits. Performing this analysis is an important step in picking the right one for your organization. While various providers will throw around terminology like:
… the real issue is understanding what capability and technical solutions best meet your needs.
At most businesses including those in Georgetown, some or all employees need Internet access. Internet access may be needed to conduct research, use third-party applications or to order supplies.
Perhaps the size of your work force may determine the solution that best fits your needs. 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 50 employees who are using the web simultaneously, you may need more.
Perhaps most workers at your company use an intranet system with limited features. High- speed Internet may not be a priority in this case. On the other hand, Internet speed becomes dramatically more important when they are required to regularly download things like documents or videos.
Does your company regularly conduct backups? Synchronizing your backup data after doing remote backups from every desk requires you to support simultaneous connections out to the web.
Does your company require employees to share files using a 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.
High-speed company access to The net like Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options for you depending on your location. These can usually be found in Georgetown in “lit buildings” that have already been wired. The ease and affordability of adding high-speed Internet to your office may surprise you.
Introducing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be expensive. Bringing a connection to a suite within the building is not. Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet may provide you with high-speed access to The Internet in thirty days or less, depending on availability.
Your organization may host its own servers. Do they run websites APIs or data feeds for external offices? Are your company headquarters with a hosted application accessed by 50 branch offices? Are you a retail chain hosting the POS system for 12, 000 stores? Are you a legal practice hosting the data for three places?
When data and programs are hosted centrally at one main site, people outside that location must gain access. Those people are not able to work without a solid Internet connection. 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 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. A cable modem would likely be insufficient.
Bringing in a cable modem, which seems to save money, may actually come at a price. There may be a lower monthly rate, but bandwidth is usually shared with many tenants. It is possible that you have a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection but cannot reach proper speeds during peak hours. Many cable companies only deliver a set amount of bandwidth within a community. That bandwidth branches off to different buildings and then to various tenants within those buildings. During crucial working hours, you may not get to the 30-meg speed you have been capped at. What will the consequences be if you expect 30 but only get half that? What if you get even less?
You can sign up for dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth from some carriers. If you want your very own bandwidth that is not used by anyone else, you should consider this. The full capacity of your circuit should be attainable during all hours regardless of neighboring buildings, people or offices.
With Metro Ethernet, for example, you can receive a guaranteed bandwidth in various increments including 5 and 10 Meg circuits, and 50 and 100 Meg circuits. In your office out to the net you can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit providers
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.
Circuits can go down in Georgetown even though certain providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. How can you decrease the chance of an outage?
The answer is redundant circuits.
There are, in reality, two kinds of redundancy.
The first is where you get multiple circuits from one carrier. When there are problems with a physical line or a port or other failures, it can be helpful to have redundant circuits. 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. 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 carriers. You may want your circuits to appear and act as if they are one and come from the same source. If so you can use IP address allocations and advanced routers to do so. Though they may appear as one, you know that they are each individual circuits and redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy, as this is called, offers you more protection that you might realize. 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 Georgetown, Texas. If at all possible, you want to obtain circuits entering the premises on different sides. 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 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.
The cost of dependable Internet access pales in comparison to the cost of unreliable access. Please think about the following scenarios:
The carrier you use for your cable modem also provides circuits for a dozen or more tenants in the office building. Any of these tenants may be taking many calls, conducting huge downloads or streaming video during your regular office hours. As the amount of accessible bandwidth decreases, what will happen to your needs? What happens to your phone calls? What about phone call quality? Maybe calls will randomly drop? Will you sound muffled?
Whether you are a law firm doing file sharing, an accounting practice sharing databases or a retailer operating a distributed point-of-sale system, your office is the hub for your enterprise. Every single one of your offices, stores and places rely on you and your primary Internet connection to retrieve data. If your circuit goes done, what happens next? Will it cause disastrous results of just annoy you a little bit? Is work even possible at your other sites? Can they take or process any orders at all? Dispense and receive data? Choosing the right solution depends largely on assessing and understanding the specific needs of your business. 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. Do you operate a service where other systems speak 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 happens when they are unable to connect to your servers? Customers will only take so many repeated outages. How long with they remain with your company?
Is the net integral to the proper function of your organization? Do you rely on it entirely? What if your representatives can make no outgoing telephone calls because your circuits go down? Your representatives would also be unable to answer calls. Basically, you are out of business. While most call centers that are reputable use redundancy, is it enough? Are your current carriers as dependable as you would like? Are you getting quality service so that your calls are clear and consistent?
It should be clear by now that you have many different options to select from. Your decision will be based on different factors including your company needs and your budget. In summary:
If you are a small organization, with one location and you do not worry about redundancy, one five meg, ten meg, or fifty meg access to The Internet circuit may very well be enough to meet your needs. Metro Ethernet service or gigabit service may also be a reasonably priced option if you are in a lit building. The availability of circuits and your location determine prices; speak with one of our engineers to learn what your best options are.
Mid-sized businesses in Georgetown, Texas should be equipped with higher-speed Internet. You have several choices. Consider the following: Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet or higher-speed Internet access circuits. In a perfect world, you will achieve maximum redundancy by utilizing multiple carriers 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. Your specific location will determine what options you have. Please speak with one of our experts to find out what those are and how we can meet your needs.
The greatest risk of failure belongs to companies that have multiple places of business or offices. Redundancy is crucial. Varied providers are optimal. You can increase redundancy with switches or routers. Having redundant equipment can also minimize risk. Look at all of your options: Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet providers, Metro Ethernet providers and other high-speed circuit providers. The right mix can help. If you can figure out the best combination of carriers and services for your organization, you will benefit.
For companies falling in this category, gigabit Internet circuits, Metro Ethernet Internet circuits and point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits are essential. You absolutely need redundant circuits from different providers as well as redundant hardware. This is important to ensuring uptime. The last thing you want is interruptions or slowdowns affecting your business. You must provide enough bandwidth to avoid these pitfalls that sometimes occur during sudden usage spikes. 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 business faces great risk of less than adequate bandwidth and failing circuits. Your ideal single circuit or multiple circuits should stay within your budget while still meeting your demands. Choosing the right mix of circuits and hardware is a daunting task.
We have engineers that will analyze your needs, look at your company requirements and develop an action plan for you… for free!We’ll examine your current usage and demand levels then create a design that provides you with the resources you need to keep your organization running smoothly at a reasonable cost.
Please call our office for an assessment appointment or click here to complete the contact form on the right side of the page. We can often provide assessments within 48 hours.