The lifeblood of Waco, Texas companies doing organization in the current environment relies on reliable access to The net. All companies, big and small, need fast and reliable Internet access.
In the coming months and years, we are going to become increasingly reliant on our access to the internet.
The Internet is ubiquitous. From email to data sharing, archiving to commerce and VOIP to video chat, the net is everywhere. What is the best fix to meet your needs? Is a cable modem sufficient? It could be that you need Metro Ethernet. You may need Gigabit Internet. Does your Waco organization need a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The net, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg Internet access point?
Your organization must assess its real needs. This must be done before an appropriate service can be chosen. Perhaps the internet is only used for a few things such as email communication or surfing the web. Will Internet usage mainly involve cloud servers and real time data connection? Are you hosting the data in Waco that remote sites rely upon?
What if you have a disruption in your high-speed Internet? How might the downtime cause problems for your organization? How much uptime is essential to your company? Ask yourself these questions before making any purchases. The answers will help you determine what is right for you.
It is no secret that all companies need high-speed access to the web. When choosing the right broadband internet for company, you need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits. You will hear service providers use terms like:
… the real issue is understanding what capability and technical solutions best meet your needs.
At any company in Waco some employees, if not all employees, need some type of access to the net if they are to properly perform their job duties. It may be needed for organization research, to order office supplies or other reasons.
The number of employees you have may determine your best solution. A smaller Internet circuit may be enough if you only have a handful of workers. Perhaps a 5 or 10 megabyte is all you need. 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 need for high-speed Internet may be lessened if your workers are just accessing an intranet systemHowever, employees who must often download documents, images and videos, need that speed.
Are you regularly performing backups? When you do remote backups from every workstation, which you should, you must support multiple and simultaneous connections to the web in order to sync your backup data.
Are you using a service such as DropBox or Google drive to share files? When you save a file it is pushed to the cloud. Then it is synched to the computer or computers of someone else. You need to have sufficient bandwidth to support this function while also supporting every other service.
Depending on where you are, you may want to look into high-speed company access to The web such as Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet. They are almost always found in “lit buildings” in Waco that are already wired by a carrier. If you’d like to install high-speed Internet in your office, you should know that it might be more affordable than you realize.
Unless you are bringing Metro Ethernet into a new building, it does not have to be an expensive proposition to connect it to a suite within a building. Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet may provide you with high-speed access to The Internet in thirty days or less, depending on availability.
Does your company host its own servers running websites, APIs or data feeds for other offices or companies outside of your own four walls? Are your company headquarters with a hosted application accessed by 50 branch offices? Are you a retail company hosting the POS system for thousands of chain stores? Are you a law firm hosting data for multiple office locations?
If your company hosts its programs and information at a central location, people outside of that location need to have access in order to conduct business. If your Internet connection goes down, those people are unable to work. Are you choosing an intranet solution that is sufficiently reliable and stable to support multiple simultaneous connections from varied places?
An inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be enough if you have one office that needs to surf the net. A cable modem may also be adequate in this situation. It is advisable that high-speed access to The web be available at the central business office or headquarters, including gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuits. While high speed is great, you also need support for your multiple diverse connections. A cable modem would likely be insufficient.
In some situations, there is a high price to pay for bringing in an inexpensive circuit or cable modem. Oftentimes, a lower monthly rate comes with the realization that you are sharing bandwidth with many different tenants and offices. During peak use hours, you may not be able to reach proper speeds. Cable operators are only permitted to establish a certain amount of bandwidth within communities. Different buildings and tenants housed or working within those buildings all share that set amount of bandwidth. You might be capped at 30-megabyte speed, but may never be able to actually reach that speed during the important hours of your organization day. Is getting 7 when you expect 30 a problem?
You can find a carrier who can provide dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. With these, bandwidth belongs to you and your company only; no sharing. Regardless of neighbors, or other tenants, you should have the full capacity of your circuit at all times.
You can receive guaranteed bandwidth with Metro Ethernet. You can receive it in increments of five, 10, 50 or one hundred megabyte circuits. You can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit Internet providers.
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.
Despite outstanding Internet bandwidth products offered by carriers in Waco, Texas, circuits do go down. Ask this question: “what can I do to decrease the likelihood of an outage?
The answer is redundant circuits.
There are two types of redundancy to consider.
The first type is when one single carrier provides you with multiple circuits. Redundant circuits help protect you from certain failures including physical line issues, port issues within routers, and others. 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 offering some protection, it is not without risk.
Bringing in circuits using two distinct carriers is the second form of circuit redundancy. Using advanced routers and IP address allocations, you can bind these connections together so that, to your users and to the public, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. But, you know that they are actually separate and redundant. Diversity redundancy, as this is called, offers you more protection that you might realize. Should one carrier have some trouble that extends to a greater area and is out of your control, you are backed up with a different carrier.
The carriers you choose for your redundant circuits should have different physical pathways in Waco, Texas. This is an important consideration when trying to obtain the most redundancy. Alternatively stated, try to have your circuits enter the building on different sides from one another. The circuits would be established either underground or on telephone poles and would be set up in different directions and lead to different offices. Having redundancy in different physical directions can protect you if there is a serious incident at a data center or some accident that causes a regional circuit issue.
While Internet access is not free, it pales in comparison with the cost of not having reliable access to The net. Consider these scenarios:
Your organization is on a cable modem and your carrier provides circuits to 20 other offices in your building. Between 9 and 5, any of those other offices could be downloading huge files, streaming video or taking large volume of phone calls and more. As they use more bandwidth, there is less for available for your requirements. What will happen to your phone calls? What happens to the quality of that phone call? Are calls lost or dropped? Will the calls be choppy?
Your office is the hub of your enterprise: You might be a law practice that shares files, a retail operation that utilizes POS systems or a large accounting firm that needs to share databases. All of your places, whether 2 or 2000, count on your primary Internet connection to access and retrieve data. How will you be affected if your circuit goes down? Would it cause mere annoyance or utter disaster? Are remote offices able to work at all? Can they take or process any orders at all? Circulate essential files and data? Be sure you understand your requirements fully before choosing a solution. 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. Maybe you operate a service that allows other systems to speak with yours via API. This may be to collect miscellaneous data, calculate prices or shipping rates or other information. What happens when there is a problem connecting to your servers? Will your customers remain loyal to you if they have to withstand multiple outages?
Your company is 100% dependent on the net to properly function. 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. You are essentially out of organization. While most call centers that are reputable use redundancy, is it enough? Make sure your providers are as reliable as possible. Is the quality of your calls consistently and reliably clear?
You have no shortage of options. Your choices will largely depend on your budget, in addition to the other requirements of your business. To summarize:
You are probably not thinking about redundancy if you have a small organization with a single location. In this case, you can probably get by with a single Internet access circuit of 5, 10 or 50 meg. 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. Costs vary with location and the availability of circuits so speak with our engineers. Together, we can find the best option for you and your business.
You have a midsized company in Waco; you will surely need higher-speed Internet. 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 carriers to provide and service different circuits. Achieving this may cost extra but it won’t double your costs. For example, you may use 2 fifty meg circuits instead of 1 one hundred meg circuit. As a reminder; availability and costs may vary. Learn your options by speaking with one of our knowledgeable experts. We can help you determine what is available in your specific location.
The greatest risk of failure belongs to companies that have multiple places of organization or offices. Redundant circuits are a necessity. It is helpful if they use multiple providers. You can minimize the risk of downtime at if you also have redundant equipment like routers or switches. Here also, examine the Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet providers. Take a careful look at other high-speed access to The net circuit providers before choosing the right one. The right mix can help. If you can figure out the best combination of providers and services for your business, you will benefit.
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. Redundant hardware and redundant circuits will, for these businesses, ensure the greatest uptime. Be sure the circuits are from different providers. Having plenty of bandwidth will help avoid interruptions or decreased speed that sometimes occurs during spikes in usage. Your circuits and hardware must be able to support a large number of fast and simultaneous connections.
Your business faces great risk of less than adequate bandwidth and failing circuits. The circuit or circuits you have must stay within the parameters of your budget while still meeting your business needs. It is vital 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 can analyze your needs and create a free action plan for you. You want your company to run smoothly. We’ll 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.
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. It can take as little as 48 hours to provide a complete assessment.