In today’s environment, companies in Grand Junction rely on reliable access to The net as the lifeblood of their organization. All companies, large and small, need fast and reliable Internet access.
We are going to become increasingly reliant on access to The net as the months and years progress.
The use of the internet is pervasive. We use it for email and data sharing, video conferencing and VOIP, archiving and commerce. What do you need? Is a cable modem enough? Your needs may point to Metro Ethernet as a solution. Would Gigabit Internet suffice? What is best for your business in Grand Junction, Colorado? Will your business needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg access to The net or 100 Meg access to The net point?
The needs of your particular organization must be determined before you can select an appropriate service. Is the internet only used for web surfing and email? Is connecting with cloud servers and sharing real time data the main use of the net? You may be hosting the data in Grand Junction, Colorado and remote sites rely on this.
What if your high-speed Internet is disrupted by an outage? What will happen to your business? Can your company afford a long pause or lull in productivity? Is the absence of uptime detrimental? You must answer questions like these so you can make a purchase that actually meets your needs
High-speed access to the web is something all companies need. You need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits to your company before choosing the right broadband. While many providers like to spout technical terminologies such as:
… do not lose sight of the real issues: what are the capabilities and technical solutions you need to best serve your company?
Companies in Grand Junction need access to the web for their employees. Some companies may need it only for a few people and others may need it for the entire workforce. Third party applications, organization research or development and e-commerce are just a few of the ways the net may be needed.
The number of workers you employ, may be the most important factor in your decision making process. If you have a handful of employees, a 5 or 10 Meg Internet circuit may be sufficient. If your business has nearly 50 people, however, and they all need to use the internet at the same time, you may find that more is better.
Perhaps most workers at your company use an intranet system with limited features. High- speed Internet may not be a priority in this case. When they are frequently downloading things, whether documents, graphics or videos, however, speed is necessary for efficient job performance.
Do you backup information? If, as recommended, you conduct remote backups from every single desk, you will need to support simultaneous connections out to the web. This will allow you to sync your backup data.
Are you using Google drive, DropBox or another file sharing service? After a file is saved, it goes to the cloud and then to someone else’s computer. You must have sufficient bandwidth if you are to successfully support every service including file sharing.
Depending on where you are, you may want to look into high-speed company access to The net such as Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet. “Lit buildings” that have already been wired by a carrier, are commonly the site for these. You may be surprised by how easy and affordable it is to add high-speed Internet to your company.
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. Did you know that obtaining high-speed access to The net with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less? Of course, this depends upon availability.
Do you have your own business servers that run APIs, websites or feeds for offsite offices or companies? Are your corporate headquarters with a hosted application utilized by 50 branch offices? Does your office host the point of sale (POS) system for every single store in a large retail chain? Are you a law firm hosting data for multiple office sites?
Granting access to outsiders is necessary when you host data and programs at a central location. Those people are not able to do their work if the internet connection fails or is unreliable. If you need multiple connections to function at the same time from many different locations, make sure that your intranet solution can reliably support it.
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. High-speed access to The web is advisable for the headquarters. Gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit is recommended. While high speed is great, you also need support for your multiple diverse connections. A cable modem would likely not provide the necessary support.
In some situations, there is a high price to pay for bringing in an inexpensive circuit or cable modem. Your low monthly bill may mean that the bandwidth is shared among multiple tenants. During peak hours, your connection may slow down, even though you subscribe to a cable modem with a thirty-megabyte connection. Often, within a given community, cable companies may only deliver a particular amount of bandwidth. Whatever that amount of bandwidth is, it branches into all buildings in the community and to all tenants 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 organization hours. Is it a problem if you get a quarter or even half of the speed you expected?
Other carriers do offer dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. With these options, bandwidth is yours. It is not shared with anyone outside of your organization. Regardless of neighbors, or other tenants, you should have the full capacity of your circuit at all times.
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.
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.
Grand Junction, Colorado has some carriers that offer exceptional Internet bandwidth products and services. However, circuits can still go down and cause disruption. How can you decrease the chance of an outage?
Try using redundant circuits.
There are two types of redundancy to consider.
With the first type of redundancy, you receive multiple circuits from the same carrier. Redundant circuits help protect you from certain failures including physical line issues, port issues within routers, and others. 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. This offers some protection and assurance but does not eliminate all threats.
The other type of redundancy requires you to utilize circuits from different carriers. Advanced routers and IP address allocations can be utilized to make it look to your users and the public that you have a single circuit. In fact, they are totally redundant and separate. 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.
If you want to maximize redundancy in Grand Junction please consider the following question: Do the providers I am considering use the same physical geographic pathways? Essentially, this just means that you do not want both of your circuits to enter the building on the same side. They should come in on different sides. The circuits would be attached to telephone poles (or underground conduits) in different directions leading to different data centers or central offices. 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.
Even though access to The Internet comes with a cost, you will save money if you make sure it is dependable. Unreliable access will end up costing you more in the long run. Please think about the following scenarios:
If your company utilizes a cable modem, consider whether your carrier is providing circuits for multiple other tenants within the building. Any of these tenants may be taking many calls, conducting huge downloads or streaming video during your regular office hours. What will happen to your telephone calls as the amount of usable bandwidth decreases? How will it affect the quality of that telephone call? Will you lose calls? 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. All of your locations, you may have 2, you may have 500, you may have 4, 000, depend on your main Internet connection to access and receive data. What happens if your circuit goes down? Is it simply an irritation or a catastrophe? Can your satellite or remote office do any work at all? Can they process transactions or new orders? Disseminate needed information and data? Before choosing a solution, be sure to assess and really understand what your business requires. Perhaps you are a software company, running a hosted solution used by hundreds of customers. 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 if you have server problems and they are unable to connect to you? How long will your customers tolerate repeated outages?
Is the net integral to the proper function of your business? Do you count on it entirely? No calls can go out if your circuits fail. No calls could be answered either. You are now, essentially, out of organization. For competent call centers that already use and understand the problems that can arise, is redundancy enough? Are your carriers sufficiently reliable? Is the quality of your calls consistently and reliably clear?
You clearly have many options. Your budget, as well as the needs of your company, will help drive your decisions. To recap:
If you are a small business, with one location and you do not worry about redundancy, one five meg, ten meg, or fifty meg Internet access circuit may very well be enough to meet your needs. If you are in a “lit” building, Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be reasonably priced options. Prices will vary. They are based on your location and circuit availability; speak with our engineers to learn your best options.
You have a midsized company in Grand Junction, Colorado; 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. Ideally, you want to have the greatest redundancy. You can achieve this by using multiple circuits from different carriers. This may be attainable without doubling your costs. Two smaller circuits may be cheaper than one. For instance, you may use two 50 meg circuits instead of a single 100 meg circuit. Do not forget that you will find variations in price and availability. In order to find out the options available for you, in your location, you need to speak with one of our seasoned experts.
Any company with more than one location suffers the greatest risk of problems. Redundant circuits are a necessity. Multiple providers or providers are recommended. You can increase redundancy with switches or routers. Having redundant equipment can also minimize risk. 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 correct combination of providers and services can keep your organization running smoothly and efficiently.
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 absolutely need redundant circuits from different providers as well as redundant hardware. This is crucial to ensuring uptime. You must have the bandwidth to withstand sharp increases in usage. Doing so will help protect you from slowdowns or interruptions. 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 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 expert engineers will review your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. We’ll examine your current usage and demand levels then create a design that provides you with the resources you need to keep your business running smoothly at a reasonable cost.
If you would like to arrange for an assessment, please click here to complete the contact information form to the right. You can call our office as well. Your assessment may be finished within as little as 48 hours.