These days, companies in Goose Creek depend on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their organization. All companies, large and small, need fast and reliable access to The net.
In the coming months and years, we’ll become increasingly reliant on our access to the web.
The use of the internet is pervasive. We use it for email and data sharing, video chat and VOIP, archiving and commerce. What can best meet your needs? Perhaps a cable modem is all you need. Metro Ethernet? Gigabit Internet may satisfy your needs. Does your company in Goose Creek need one of these: 10 Meg access to The web, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?
Prior to selecting a service, your organization must figure out its needs. Perhaps the web is only used for a few things such as email communication or surfing the web. Is it used to network with cloud servers? Perhaps you, in Goose Creek, are hosting the data and remote places depend upon this.
What if your high-speed Internet is disrupted by an outage? What will happen to your company? Can your company afford a long pause or lull in productivity? Is uptime required? These types of questions must be answered before you make purchase anything.
Speaking broadly, all companies need high-speed access to the internet. Deciding on the right broadband is not easy. It requires a thorough cost-benefit analysis. You will hear service providers use terms like:
… be sure not to forget what capability and technical solutions meet your business’s specific needs.
At any company in Goose Creek some employees, if not all employees, need some type of access to the web if they are to properly perform their job duties. Whether it is for business research, to order supplies or to use third-party applications, the web is required.
The solution you choose may be based on the number of employees you have or expect to have. A five or ten megabyte Internet circuit may be all you need if employ a small workforce. If your company has nearly 50 people, however, and they all need to use the net at the same time, you may find that more is better.
If your employees are merely accessing an intranet system with limited graphics and video, your need for high-speed Internet may be reduced. On 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 company use a file sharing service? DropBox? Google drive? After a file is saved, it goes to the cloud and then to someone else’s computer. Enough bandwidth is required to support this function along with every other service.
You may consider high-speed company Internet access if you location warrants it. Gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet may be viable options for you. These are typically found in “lit buildings” in Goose Creek, South Carolina. Providers have already wired these buildings. The ease and affordability of adding high-speed Internet to your office may surprise you.
The introduction of Metro Ethernet into a new building can be quite costly. However, bringing that connection into office space within that building is usually less so. In fact, obtaining high-speed access to The web with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less depending upon availability.
Consider whether your company hosts its own servers that run APIs, websites and/or data to outside buildings, offices or companies. Are your organization headquarters with a hosted application connected to fifty or more satellite offices? Are you a retail chain hosting the POS system for 12, 000 stores? Are you a law firm hosting data for multiple office sites?
When data, programs, or information is hosted centrally, those outside your office must gain access. For those people, no Internet connection means no work gets done. Can your intranet solution support your needs? Can it support multiple simultaneous connections? Is it stable enough to handle this when they are from various locations?
The needs of an office with one employee web surfing may not need more than a cable modem or an inexpensive 5-10 megabyte circuit. For headquarters, Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed Internet dedicated circuits is advisable. Multiple diverse connections require support, in addition to high speed. A cable modem would likely be insufficient.
In many scenarios, bringing in an inexpensive circuit, such as a cable modem, comes at a price. Your low monthly bill may mean that the bandwidth is shared among multiple tenants. The cable modem you subscribe to with the 30 Meg connections may not always reach those speeds, especially during the busiest or “peak” hours of the workday. Often, within a given community, cable companies may only deliver a particular amount of bandwidth. That bandwidth branches off to different buildings and then to various tenants within those buildings. While you may be capped at a 30 Meg speed, you may never be able to reach that speed during business hours. If you expect 30 but only get 6, will you have problems?
There are providers who offer dedicated and even guaranteed bandwidth. If you want your very own bandwidth that is not used by anyone else, you should consider this. You should receive full capacity of your circuits during all hours. This is true even though you may have many buildings, businesses and tenants nearby.
Five Meg, ten Meg, fifty Meg and 100 Meg circuits of guaranteed bandwidth are available with Metro Ethernet. Want to reach gigabit speeds? You can by using a gigabit Internet provider.
In these cases, the carriers deliver high-speed to the building in sufficient quantity that they can then split their circuit to various tenants while guaranteeing each tenant is receiving their contracted speeds.
While certain providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products in Goose Creek, South Carolina, the reality is that it is possible for a circuit to go down. How can you decrease the chance of an outage?
Redundant circuits may be the answer for you.
Redundancy in this situation comes in two forms.
The first kind of redundancy exists when one carrier provides one customer with many circuits. If there is a problem with a line or a port in your router, circuit redundancy can offer some protection. 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 second way to set up circuit redundancy is by using two different carriers to bring in your circuits. By using IP address allocations and certain routers, you can bind your connections. By doing this, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. In reality, they are completely separate and redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy provides greater assurance, comfort and protection. When one carrier has a problem like an outage or some other failure, you have another one that works.
For maximum redundancy, you should look for redundant circuits from different providers with different physical geographic pathways in Goose Creek. Basically this means that you want your circuits to enter your building on different sides or paths. The circuits would be attached underground or to telephone poles, in various directions. The circuits would go to different data centers or central offices. This way, if there is a major catastrophe, such as a fire at a data center or a major accident impacting circuits within a region, you have redundancy in a different physical direction.
The cost to your company if you do not have reliable access to The net will be far greater than you may realize. Think about the following situations:
Your organization is on a cable modem and your carrier provides circuits to 20 other offices in your building. Any of these tenants may be taking many calls, conducting huge downloads or streaming video during your regular office hours. As available bandwidth shrinks, what will happen to your calls? How will the caliber of the call be affected? Will calls be cut-off? Will you sound muffled or choppy to your customers?
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. All of your offices, whether you have 3 or 3, 000, rely on your primary Internet connection to successfully access data. Your circuit goes down, now what happens? Would you merely be annoyed? Would there be catastrophic consequences? Can meaningful work be conducted at your remote offices? Take new orders? Service existing ones? Share essential information with anyone? Choosing the right solution depends largely on assessing and understanding the specific needs of your business. Perhaps you are a software company, running a hosted solution used by hundreds of customers. Perhaps you operate a service where other systems communicate with yours via an API to calculate freight prices, commodity prices, collect current weather data or receive any other information that you serve up. What if other systems can’t connect to your office servers? How will repeated outages affect your customers? Will they remain customers?
Maybe your company depends entirely on the net. If your circuits go down, you cannot make calls. Your representatives would also be unable to answer calls. You are now, essentially, out of business. Even for the most reputable call centers that already know of and use redundancy, is it sufficient? Are you really getting the dependable service you need form your carriers? Are you using providers that are truly reliable? You should be getting high quality service that ensures your calls are consistently clear and reliable.
You clearly have several choices. Your decision will be based on different factors including your organization needs and your budget. In review:
A single fifty, ten or five megabyte access to The Internet circuit may be sufficient to meet the needs of your small company, particularly if you have only one location and are not worried about redundancy. For an office in a lit building, you may find that gigabit service or Metro Ethernet are affordable options for you. Speak with our engineers about what is right for you. Prices vary with location and circuit availability.
You will need higher speed Internet access if you have a medium sized business in Goose Creek, South Carolina. Your options are Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and higher speed circuits. Using different circuits and different carriers will, if you choose, provide you with redundancy. Achieving this may cost extra but it won’t double your costs. For example, one 100-megabyte circuit may cost more than two smaller 50-megabyte circuits. Again, costs vary. Availability also varies. 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.
If your company has several places or offices, you are at great risk for failure. Redundant circuits are essential. Multiple providers are highly desirable. You can decrease risk during downtime by having redundant equipment as well. Before you make a decision here too, do your research. Look closely into Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed circuit providers. The right combination of services and carriers can positively impact the efficiency of your organization.
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. You must have redundant circuits for multiple providers as well as redundant hardware in your office to ensure your uptime. Having plenty of bandwidth will help avoid interruptions or decreased speed that sometimes occurs during spikes in usage. The hardware and circuits you choose must both be able to support the following: a great number of concurrent, speedy connections.
Your organization faces great risk of less than adequate bandwidth and failing circuits. You need to have the right circuit or circuits to meet your demands while staying within your budget. Choosing the right combination of hardware and circuits can be complicated and confusing.
Our engineers can analyze your needs and create a free action plan for you. We are going to 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 complete the contact form by clicking here. You may also call our office to set up an appointment for your assessment. Assessments are done in as few as two days or within 48 hours.