The lifeblood of Grand Prairie companies doing company in the current environment relies on reliable Internet access. All companies, large and small, need fast and reliable Internet access.
Our reliance on access to the net will become greater in the near and distant future.
The web has a significant presence in our lives. From email to information sharing, data archiving to e-commerce, and VOIP to video conferencing, the web is certainly ubiquitous. What is the right solution for your needs? Maybe a cable modem is a sufficient solution. Metro Ethernet may be what you need. Gigabit Internet? Does your organization in Grand Prairie need one of these: 10 Meg Internet access, a 100 Meg access to The Internet point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?
Before selecting an appropriate service for your company, you must first determine what needs you are trying to satisfy. Is Internet use limited to website surfing or emailing only? Is the web used for real-time data connection with servers in the cloud? Perhaps you, in Grand Prairie, are hosting the data and remote locations depend upon this.
How would an outage to your high-speed Internet affect your business? How much downtime can your business withstand? How much uptime is essential to your organization? Ask yourself these questions before making any purchases. The answers will help you determine what is right for you.
Plainly stated, companies require high-speed access to The net. When choosing the right broadband for organization, you need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits. You will hear providers use terms like:
… do not stray from the real issues. Focus on what your company’s needs are and what capabilities and technical solutions will help satisfy them.
Most companies in Grand Prairie, Texas require that some or all of their workers have access to the web. Whether it is for organization research, to order supplies or to use third-party applications, the net is required.
The number of workers you have may be the factor that drives your decision. A 5 or 10 megabyte Internet circuit may be perfect if you only have a few employees. If your business has nearly 50 people, however, and they all need to use the net at the same time, you may find that more is better.
You may not need as much high-speed Internet access if your employees work primarily on an intranet system with limited graphics and video. When employees are often downloading images, videos and documents, however, the need for speed increases significantly.
Does your company regularly conduct backups? You may need to support simultaneous connections to the web in order to sync your backup data. If you conduct remote backups from every workstation, which is advisable, this will be important.
Do you use a file sharing service like Google drive or DropBox? 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.
Your business location may cause you to think about high-speed business Internet access such as Metro Ethernet and/or gigabit Internet. “Lit buildings” that have already been wired by a carrier, are commonly the site for these. Choosing to add high-speed Internet to your office is a tough decision but it can be less expensive and easier than you think.
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. You can actually get high-speed access with gigabit Internet or even Metro Ethernet quickly. It often takes only 30 days or less, depending on availability.
Your business may host its own servers. Do they run websites APIs or data feeds for external offices? Are your company headquarters with a hosted application connected to fifty or more satellite offices? Does your office host the point of sale (POS) system for every single store in a large retail chain? Are you an attorney with offices multiple cities or states? Do you have one office hosting data for several 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. For those people, no Internet connection means no work gets done. Make sure that when you choose your intranet solution it is reliable enough to support your need for multiple and simultaneous connections for many different places.
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. High-speed Internet access is advisable for the headquarters. Gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit is recommended. High speed is important but they also must be able to support multiple distinct connections. This could probably not be accomplished with a cable modem.
In some situations, there is a high price to pay for bringing in an inexpensive circuit or cable modem. There may be a lower monthly rate, but bandwidth is usually shared with many tenants. While you may subscribe to a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection, you may be unable to reach those speeds during peak hours. 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. The 30-meg speed you are capped out sounds good but it is possible that you will never reach that speed during organization hours. If you expect 30 but only get 6, will you have problems?
Other providers do offer dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. With these options, bandwidth is yours. It is not shared with anyone outside of your organization. The full capacity of your circuit should be attainable during all hours regardless of neighboring buildings, people or offices.
For example, Metro Ethernet guarantees bandwidth in 5 met circuits, 10 Meg circuits, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. In your office out to the net you can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit providers
Here, providers deliver enough high-speed to the building, so that it can be split among various tenants. The carrier has the right amount so that everyone gets the contracted speed that has been promised.
You can’t control everything. Even with the superior Internet bandwidth products that some carriers offer in Grand Prairie, problems arise and circuits can fail. In what way can you diminish the risk of an outage?
Redundant circuits.
Redundancy in this situation comes in two forms.
With the first type of redundancy, you receive multiple circuits from the same carrier. 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. If that carrier has a wide reaching outage or there is a line broken or damaged outside of your building, both circuits may go down. This offers some protection and assurance but does not eliminate all threats.
In the second type of redundancy, you bring in circuits from two different 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. You know the truth: that they are individual circuits and are there to back each other up in case one goes down. This redundancy, referred to as diversity redundancy, offers much greater protection. In the event that one carrier goes down, the other will still be alive.
You want maximum redundancy. In order to achieve this, look for redundant circuits from different providers with different physical geographic pathways in Grand Prairie, Texas. This means that you should try to have the circuits come into you building from different sides. The circuits would be established either underground or on telephone poles and would be set up in different directions and lead to different offices. In this way you have redundancy in different physical directions. If there is an event that causes a regional circuit problem, you have an alternative that is unaffected.
While access to The web is not free, it pales in comparison with the cost of not having reliable access to The net. Consider these scenarios:
Are you on a cable modem and your carrier is providing circuits to dozens of other office suites in your building? During company hours, any of those tenants could be streaming video, performing massive file downloads, processing large volumes of phone calls and more. What will happen to your telephone calls as the amount of usable bandwidth decreases? How will the quality of that phone call be affected? Are the calls going to be dropped? Inaudible (choppy) to your customers?
You may be an accounting firm that shares databases, a retail chain company utilizing a point of sale system or a law practice sharing files. Regardless of the specifics, 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? Will it cause disastrous results of just annoy you a little bit? Can meaningful work be conducted at your remote offices? What will happen to new orders? Can they be taken or processed? Dispense and receive data? It is important that prior to choosing a solution, you understand the true needs and requirements of your particular organization. Maybe your software company runs a hosted solution. Maybe that hosted solution is used by hundreds of your customers. Do you operate a service where other systems talk to yours by using an application program interface (API)? For example do other systems gain access to yours in order to calculate rates, prices, or to collect information that you serve up? What if other systems can’t connect to your office servers? How long will your customers tolerate repeated outages?
Your company is completely reliant on the internet. Your employees or representatives will not be able to make outgoing phone calls if your circuits go down. In addition, they will be unable to answer incoming calls. Basically, you are out of business. While most call centers that are reputable use redundancy, is it enough? Make sure your providers are as reliable as possible. You should be getting high quality service that ensures your calls are consistently clear and reliable.
You clearly have many options. The needs and budget of your business will both affect your choices. As a high-level summary:
If you are a small business, with just one location and not concerned about redundancy, a single five meg, 10 meg or 50 meg access to The web circuit may be sufficient. If you are in a “lit” building, Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be reasonably priced options. Because prices can vary based on the location of your business and the availability of circuits, speak with our engineers to learn your options.
Mid sized companies with a single office in Grand Prairie, need higher speed access to The web. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and other higher-speed Internet circuits are your options. Ideally, you want to have the greatest redundancy. You can achieve this by using multiple circuits from different providers. This may be attainable without doubling your costs. For instance, it may be cheaper to utilize two 50 meg circuits in place of one 100 meg circuit. Remember, costs vary. So does availability. Call one of our experts to learn what is available in your specific area.
What companies have the highest risk for failure; those with multiple places. Redundancy is crucial. 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 business running smoothly and efficiently.
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. Spikes or sudden increase in usage can result in Internet slowdowns or disruptions in service. You can decrease the risk of these events by having sufficient bandwidth. Both your hardware and circuits must be capable of supporting a vast number of simultaneous and fast connections.
Insufficient bandwidth and failing circuits are present tremendous risk to your company. It is imperative that the circuit or circuits you choose meet your needs but also keep you within your allowable budget. The pressure involved in selecting the proper mix of hardware and circuits can be overwhelming.
Our engineers can analyze your needs and create a free action plan for you. We will examine your demand levels and current usage. We are going to then design a plan that keeps your costs reasonable while meeting your demand for a smoothly run business.
Please call our office for an assessment appointment or click here to complete the contact form on the right side of the page. We do assessments quickly. It can take as little as 48 hours to complete your analysis.