The Net in Hammond, Indiana: High-Speed Access

Business Broadband, Gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet: Hammond, Indiana High Speed Internet Access

In today’s environment, companies in Hammond, Indiana count on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their company. Fast and reliable access to The web is needed for businesses to function properly; large corporations and small companies alike.

We will become increasingly dependent 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 chat and VOIP, archiving and commerce. What solution bet fits your needs? Is a cable modem sufficient? Metro Ethernet may be what you need. Your needs may be met with Gigabit Internet. A 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The web, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg Internet access point: what is right for your organization in Hammond, Indiana?

Access to the internet: Determining Your Business’s Needs

Before choosing an adequate or appropriate service, you must decide what your organization really needs. Is the net only used for web surfing and email? Is it used to network with cloud servers? Are you hosting data in Hammond, Indiana? Do remote locations rely upon you?

What if there is an outage and your high-speed Internet is interrupted? Can your organization afford the downtime? Is the absence of uptime detrimental? These types of questions must be answered before you make purchase anything.

Looking at Different High Speed Internet Solutions: Hammond, Indiana

In the broadest of terms, companies need high-speed Internet access. An analysis of the costs and benefits should be done prior to choosing the broadband that is correct for your business. While many providers like to spout technical terminologies such as:

• Internet access at high-speeds
• Business Internet / Internet for business
• broadband cable modems
• Provider of Metro Ethernet
• Gigabit Ethernet services or Gigabit Internet
• MPLS service provider
• PPP- or point-to-point protocol
• five Meg access to The web circuits
• We provide 10 Meg access to The web circuits
• Internet access- 50 megabytes
• One hundred megabytes- fast access to The net circuits
• We provide sip trunks
• Dedicated or “specific” Internet access
• … and so many more

… do not lose sight of the real issues: what are the capabilities and technical solutions you need to best serve your company?

Business Internet access for Web Surfing

At any company in Hammond, Indiana some employees, if not all employees, need some type of access to the web if they are to properly perform their job duties. The Internet is required for so many things, whether to order items, look up company information talk to third parties.

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 you have many employees who need to use the net at the same time, you may do better with more.

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.

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.

Google drive and DropBox are two popular sharing services. Are you using one of these or some other service that allows you to share files? 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.

Your company location may cause you to think about high-speed organization Internet access such as Metro Ethernet and/or gigabit Internet. They are commonly found in “lit buildings” in Hammond that have already been wired by a carrier. Adding this high-speed Internet to your office may be surprisingly affordable and easy.

While it may be the case that bringing Metro Ethernet into a new building can cause a big dent in your wallet, bringing the connection to a suite or offices within that building does not have to. Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet may provide you with high-speed access to The web in thirty days or less, depending on availability.

Maximize Internet-based Applications With High-Speed Internet Access

Ask yourself this: Does we host our own servers to run APIs, websites and data feeds to external offices or company premises? Do fifty or so branch offices need access to a hosted application at your company headquarters? Are you a retail chain hosting the POS system for 12, 000 stores? Does your legal practice host all of the data for 3, 4 or 5 offices in different places?

When data, programs, or information is hosted centrally, those outside your office must gain access. People can’t work if you have no Internet connection. 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 places?

An inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be enough if you have one office that needs to surf the internet. A cable modem may also be adequate in this situation. Company headquarters should have high-speed Internet access such as gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit. While high speed is great, you also need support for your multiple diverse connections. A cable modem would likely not provide the necessary support.

Shared Cable Circuits V. Dedicated Internet Bandwidth in Hammond

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. Different buildings and tenants housed or working within those buildings all share that set amount of bandwidth. While you may be capped at a 30 Meg speed, you may never be able to reach that speed during company hours. Is this a problem for you if you expect 30 and get 6?

There are providers who offer dedicated and even guaranteed bandwidth. In this situation, you do not have to share bandwidth. The bandwidth is all yours and is fully allocated to the needs of your organization. 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.

Metro Ethernet provides guaranteed bandwidth in increments as follows: 5, 10, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. Gigabit Internet providers offer gigabit speeds from your office to the net.

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.

Hammond, Indiana High Speed Organization Internet Circuits: Redundancy

Circuits can go down in Hammond, Indiana even though certain carriers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. In what way can you diminish the risk of an outage?

Circuits that are redundant may be a good idea.

There are, in essence, two types of redundancy.

The first type is when one single carrier provides you with multiple circuits. Redundant circuits can help protect against certain problems. They can mitigate the inconveniences when there is a failure of a physical line or a problem with the port into your router. However, if that carrier has a regional outage or physical line damaged outside of your building, both circuits may go down. While there is some protection, there is also some risk.

Utilizing circuits from two different providers is the second kind of redundancy. If you think it is beneficial, you can bind the connections together in a manner that makes your circuits act and look like a single source. In fact, they are totally redundant and separate. Diversity redundancy provides greater assurance, comfort and protection. 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.

When considering redundant circuits and providers, try to be sure that the carriers you look at in Hammond have different physical geographic routes or pathways. Doing so will maximize redundancy. If at all possible, you want to obtain circuits entering the premises 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.

What Are the Costs Associated With Not Adequately Protecting Your Organization High-Speed Internet access?

access to The Internet costs money but the cost of NOT having reliable Internet access is greater. Contemplate these situations:

You use VoIP for your business telephone service

Your office uses a cable modem and, in addition to you, the carrier provides 10-15 additional tenants with circuits. It is possible that during normal organization hours, those tenants might be downloading large files or watching continuous videos. They might be getting a lot of phone calls. What will happen to your telephone calls as the amount of usable bandwidth decreases? How will it affect the quality of that telephone call? Maybe calls will randomly drop? Will you sound muffled?

Maybe your business acts as a data center for various other locations

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. Your primary Internet connection is responsible for granting access to data to all of your sites. This is true whether you have 3 locations or 2000 sites. Your circuit goes down, now what happens? Would it annoy you or destroy you? Can meaningful work be conducted at your remote offices? Take new orders? Service existing ones? Dispense and receive data? It is important that prior to choosing a solution, you understand the true needs and requirements of your particular company. Perhaps you have hundreds of clients or customers that use a hosted solution that your software business is running. Maybe you offer a service that allows other systems use an application program interface (API) to speak with you to collect information and data. What will happen when there is a problem connecting to your servers? Multiple outages may annoy your customers.

You have a large call center that is completely reliant on voice over Internet protocol

Your organization is entirely Internet based. What if your representatives can make no outgoing telephone calls because your circuits go down? There would be no way to answer incoming calls of people trying to reach your representatives. You are now officially out of company. Even for the most reputable call centers that already know of and use redundancy, is it sufficient? Make sure your carriers are as reliable as possible. Do you consistently get quality service that provides clear and reliable calls?

Select the Hammond, Indiana High-Speed Company Access Circuits Best Suited for Your Company

You clearly have many options. Your budget, as well as the needs of your company, will help drive your decisions. To summarize:

If You Have a Small Organization That Needs Internet Access

Sometimes redundancy is not essential to you. For example, If you are a small business, with just one office location, a single access to The web circuit may be adequate. You may get by with one 50, 10 or even 5 megabyte circuit. Metro Ethernet service or gigabit service may also be a reasonably priced option if you are in a lit building. 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 company.

Mid-Sized Company Internet access: One Location

Mid-sized businesses in Hammond should be equipped with higher-speed Internet. Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet and other higher speed Internet circuits are options to consider. In a perfect scenario, multiple circuits from different providers will give you the most 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. Again, costs vary. Availability also varies. Speaking with one of our experts will help you determine the options available in your specific location.

Mid-Sized Businesses Internet access – Multiple Locations

Any company with more than one location suffers the greatest risk of problems. Redundancy is crucial. Varied providers are optimal. You can decrease risk during downtime by having redundant equipment as well. Look at all of your options: Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet providers, Metro Ethernet providers and other high-speed circuit providers. The right mix of providers and services will help keep your business up and running as efficiently as possible.

What about enterprise clients and large corporate clients? What about clients who provide services that depend on the internet for delivery of said services?

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. You absolutely need redundant circuits from different providers as well as redundant hardware. This is vital to ensuring 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.

Free Internet Demand and Need Analysis

The risk of insufficient bandwidth or failing circuits is tremendous. The right circuits must meet your demand while keeping you within your budget. It is crucial 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 help. We’ll analyze your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. We will look at your current usage, demand levels and scope out a design to give you the resources you need while keeping your business up and running 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. We can often provide assessments within 48 hours.