These days, companies in Greensboro depend on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their organization. Fortune 500 companies to small companies and everything in between, depend on reliable and fast Internet access.
In the months and years ahead, people and businesses will become more dependent on access to the internet.
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 solution bet fits your needs? Is a cable modem enough? Metro Ethernet may be the thing you need. Your needs may be met with Gigabit Internet. Does your organization in Greensboro, North Carolina need one of these: 10 Meg access to The web, a 100 Meg access to The web point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?
Your company must assess its real needs. This must be done before an appropriate service can be chosen. Are surfing the web and sending email the only uses of the internet? Is it used for real-time data connection with cloud servers? Are you hosting data in Greensboro, North Carolina? Do remote sites rely on you?
Have you thought about what happens to your business if your high-speed Internet is interrupted by an outage? How much downtime can your organization withstand? Is your success reliant on uptime? 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 internet. Deciding on the right broadband is not easy. It requires a thorough cost-benefit analysis. While various providers will throw around terminology like:
… the actual issue is knowing what technology and capability can satisfy your needs.
Most companies in Greensboro require that some or all of their workers have access to the web. It may be needed for company research, to order office supplies or other reasons.
Perhaps the size of your work force may determine the solution that best fits your needs. A five or ten megabyte Internet circuit may be all you need if employ a small workforce. You should consider more than that if you have more workers. Also keep in mind whether your workers need to access the net at the same time.
You may not need as much high-speed Internet access if your employees work primarily on an intranet system with limited graphics and video. If your organization functions demand the downloading of documents and images or videos on a regular basis, speed becomes a must more important issue.
Do you backup information? Synchronizing your backup data after doing remote backups from every desk requires you to support simultaneous connections out to the web.
Does your business use a file sharing service? DropBox? Google drive? When people save a file, it gets pushed to the cloud. The file is then synched with other people’s computers. You must have sufficient bandwidth if you are to successfully support every service including file sharing.
Company high-speed access to The net may interest you. Depending on your location, you may have options such as gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. “Lit buildings” that have already been wired by a carrier, are commonly the site for these. Adding this high-speed Internet to your office may be surprisingly affordable and easy.
Absent the need to introduce Metro Ethernet into a new building, it is not particularly costly to connect Metro Ethernet to a suite or office within that building. Also, securing high-speed Internet access using gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet often takes less than 30 days, depending on its availability.
Does your organization host its own servers to run information feeds, websites or application program interfaces (APIs) with companies or offices located outside of your four walls? Are your company headquarters with a hosted application accessed by 50 branch offices? Perhaps you are in retail and host the point of sale (POS) system for thousands of stores? Are you an attorney with offices multiple cities or states? Do you have one office hosting data for several sites?
Access to data and programs by people outside of your main location becomes necessary when you host information centrally. Those people are not able to work without a solid Internet connection. Are you picking an intranet solution that provides reliability and stability for your multiple, simultaneous connections from various places?
For a single office surfing the web, a cable modem or inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be adequate. For headquarters, Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed Internet dedicated circuits is advisable. High speed is important but they also must be able to support multiple distinct connections. A cable modem would probably not be enough.
Bringing in a less-expensive circuit like a cable modem often comes with a price. While the monthly rate is lower, the bandwidth is generally shared among other tenants. You may experience slow downs. For example, although you subscribe to a cable modem with a thirty Meg connection, it can be difficult to maintain the maximum speed during busy times and peak hours. Only a certain amount of bandwidth may be available in a community. Many cable companies have limits on the amount they can deliver. That amount of bandwidth must be shared with different buildings and with the tenants housed within. With a 30-megabyte connection, you may not get to that speed during the working day. 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. No matter who is in the building or what buildings surround you, you should always run at full speed.
Metro Ethernet provides guaranteed bandwidth in increments as follows: 5, 10, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. With gigabit Internet providers, you can reach gigabit speeds in your office out to the net.
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.
You can’t control everything. Even with the superior Internet bandwidth products that some providers offer in Greensboro, problems arise and circuits can fail. You must ask yourself: “how do I lessen the chance of an outage? ”
The answer is redundant circuits.
Essentially, there are two different ways to look at redundancy.
A single carrier, providing multiple circuits, to one customer, characterizes one form of redundancy. If there is a problem with a line or a port in your router, circuit redundancy can offer some protection. However, if that carrier has a regional outage or physical line damaged outside of your building, both circuits may go down. While offering some protection, it is not without risk.
You can also achieve redundancy by utilizing different carriers to bring in and establish your circuits. These connections can be bound together so they act and appear to the public as a single circuit. Using particular routers and IP address allocations, no one would be able to tell that you have multiple providers or circuits. In reality, they are completely separate and redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy, as this is called, offers you more protection that you might realize. 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 Greensboro, North Carolina. 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.
The cost to your company if you do not have reliable access to The Internet will be far greater than you may realize. Contemplate these situations:
Your office uses a cable modem and, in addition to you, the carrier provides 10-15 additional tenants with circuits. 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? What will happen to the strength and quality of that call? Are the calls going to be dropped? Will the calls be choppy?
Regardless of whether you are part of a legal practice and your firm does file sharing, or an accounting practice sharing databases, your office is the central point or hub of your organization. Your primary Internet connection is solely responsible for smoothly granting access and sending data to all of your sites whether you have two or two thousand. Your circuit goes down, now what will happen? Is it simply an irritation or a catastrophe? Can your satellite offices perform any work at all? What happens to new orders? Can they be taken or processed? Share essential data? Make sure you completely understand your needs before you pick a solution. Perhaps you have hundreds of clients or customers that use a hosted solution that your software organization is running. You operate a service that utilizes API in order to grant access to other systems. They may use this to collect whatever data you are offering such as commodity prices, weather data or freight calculations. What will happen when there is a problem connecting to your servers? How long will your customers tolerate repeated outages?
Your organization is 100% reliant on the web to properly function. Your employees or representatives will not be able to make outgoing phone calls if your circuits go down. There would be no way to answer incoming calls of people trying to reach your representatives. You are essentially out of company. Even for the most reputable call centers that already know of and use redundancy, is it sufficient? Are the carriers that you are using reliable enough? Is the quality of service sufficient? Are your calls clear and reliable?
It should be clear by now that you have many different options to select from. The needs and budget of your company will both affect your choices. As a high-level summary:
If you have one location or office and do not feel the need to consider redundancy for your system, a smaller Internet access circuit may be all you need. A single fifty, ten or five megabyte circuit might be enough. 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. Prices vary based on your location and availability of circuits; speak with our engineers to find your best option.
You will need higher speed Internet access if you have a medium sized organization in Greensboro. Your choices include: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or other high-speed circuits. Multiple circuits utilizing multiple providers would, ideally, provide you with maximum redundancy. It is sometimes possible to reach this without adding ridiculous costs. For instance, it may be cheaper to utilize two 50 meg circuits in place of one 100 meg circuit. To repeat, availability and prices vary. Call one of our experts to learn what is available in your specific area.
The greatest risk of failure belongs to companies that have multiple places of business or offices. Redundant circuits are a necessity. Multiple providers are highly desirable. In addition, consider redundant equipment. Redundant routers and switches can minimize risk also. Here also, examine the Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet providers. Take a careful look at other high-speed access to The Internet circuit providers before choosing the right one. The correct combination of providers and services can keep your business running smoothly and efficiently.
If you can place yourself in this category, it is essential that you have Metro Ethernet, point-to-point circuits and gigabit Internet circuits. If you want to ensure your valuable uptime, have redundant circuits from multiple carriers as well as redundant hardware. 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. 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.
Do not risk having failing circuits or not enough bandwidth. The right circuits must meet your demand while keeping you within your budget. You have to select the optimal combination of hardware and circuits, which is a daunting task.
We have engineers that will analyze your needs, look at your organization requirements and develop an action plan for you… for free!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 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. It can take less than 48 hours to complete your assessment.