High-Speed Access to The Net in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Access to High Speed Internet in Harrisburg: Metro Ethernet Access, Company Broadband and Gigabit Internet

These days, companies in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania count on reliable access to The web as the lifeblood of their organization. All companies, big and small, need fast and reliable access to The net.

Our dependence on Internet access will continue to grow in the coming months and years.

Our uses of the internet reach far and wide. From data sharing, video calls, and shopping to VOIP and email, the net has a broad presence. How can your needs be met? A cable modem may be satisfactory. Metro Ethernet? You may need Gigabit Internet. Your Harrisburg business probably needs a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The net, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg Internet access point but which one is best?

Defining the Business Need for Internet Access

Before selecting an appropriate service for your organization, you must first determine what needs you are trying to satisfy. Why will you need the web? Will you only be web surfing and emailing? Is real time data connection with cloud servers essential to your company? Do remote locations rely on you hosting the data in Harrisburg?

What if there is an outage and your high-speed Internet is interrupted? Can your company afford a long pause or lull in productivity? Does your organization require uptime? Ask yourself these questions before making any purchases. The answers will help you determine what is right for you.

Evaluating Different High-Speed Internet Solutions in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Plainly stated, companies require high-speed access to The web. When picking the correct broadband internet, balancing the costs and benefits to your company is imperative. While you are likely to hear some providers toss around terms such as:

• High-speed access to the Internet
• Corporate Internet
• Broadband cable modems are our specialty
• Metro Ethernet service
• Gigabit Internet services
• Multiprotocol label switching, also known as MPLS
• PPP- or point-to-point protocol
• Five megabyte Internet access
• We provide 10 Meg Internet access circuits
• Internet access-50 Meg
• 100 Meg access to The web circuits
• Sip trunking specialists
• Internet access dedicated to you and only you
• … and then some

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

Surfing the Web: Organization Internet Access

At any company in Harrisburg some employees, if not all employees, need some type of access to the internet if they are to properly perform their job duties. Internet access may be needed to conduct research, use third-party applications or to order supplies.

The solution you choose may be based on the number of employees you have or expect to have. An Internet circuit of 5 -10 megabytes might be enough for your organization if you only have a few people working for you. You may need more if you have more workers and those workers all need to be on the internet during the same hours.

Do your employees primarily use an intranet system? If so, you may not need much high-speed Internet service. However, employees who must often download documents, images and videos, need that speed.

Do you perform backups at your company? 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.

Do you use a file sharing service like Google drive or DropBox? When people save a file, it gets pushed to the cloud. The file is then synched with other people’s computers. In order to ensure that all of your functions work properly, in addition to file sharing, you must have sufficient bandwidth.

Depending on your location, high-speed business access to The net, including Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options. They are usually contained in “lit buildings” in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania that have already been 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.

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. In fact, obtaining high-speed access to The web with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less depending upon availability.

Online Applications Need High-Speed Internet access

Your organization may host its own servers. Do they run websites APIs or data feeds for external offices? 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 a legal practice hosting the data for three sites?

If you host programs, data or information centrally, people outside of the central location need to have access. If the internet connection is interrupted or fails, those people are unable to accomplish any work. Is the intranet solution you are choosing sufficiently reliable? Is it stable enough to support simultaneous connections from different sites?

For a single office surfing the web, a cable modem or inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be sufficient. For headquarters, Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed Internet dedicated circuits is advisable. Multiple diverse connections require support, in addition to high speed. Do you think a cable modem is sufficient? It is probably not.

Dedicated Bandwidth Versus Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Shared Cable Circuits

In many scenarios, bringing in an inexpensive circuit, such as a cable modem, comes at a price. Even though you pay less money per month you must consider that the bandwidth you receive may be shared and used by multiple parties in the building. If you subscribe to a cable modem with a 30-megabyte connection, you would expect to always be able to reach that high speed. However, it is possible that during peak hours, you won’t. Only a certain amount of bandwidth may be available in a community. Many cable companies have limits on the amount they can deliver. Buildings, offices and tenants within the buildings all must share that amount of bandwidth, whatever it may be. During crucial working hours, you may not get to the 30-meg speed you have been capped at. Is it a problem if you get a quarter or even half of the speed you expected?

Some providers are available who offer dedicated bandwidth and guaranteed bandwidth. In this situation, your bandwidth is not shared but is fully allocated to 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. Want to reach gigabit speeds? You can by using a gigabit Internet provider.

In these situations, each tenant receives their contracted high-speed. The carrier delivers enough so they can split their circuit and provide enough to each tenant.

Backup With Harrisburg High Speed Organization Internet Circuits

The truth is that circuits can go down in Harrisburg even though some providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. You must ask yourself: “how do I lessen the chance of an outage? ”

Consider redundant circuits.

There are, in reality, two kinds of redundancy.

The first kind of redundancy exists when one carrier provides one customer with many 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. Damage to an external wire or part can cause the failure of all of your circuits. A regional outage experienced by your carrier can have the same result. You get some protection, but also some risk.

The other type of redundancy requires you to utilize circuits from different providers. 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. Though they may appear as one, you know that they are each individual circuits and redundant to each other. You will get more substantial protection from this diversity redundancy. If one carrier has a widespread issue, you have a carrier that will still be alive.

You want maximum redundancy. In order to achieve this, look for redundant circuits from different carriers with different physical geographic pathways in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. In other words, try to obtain circuits entering the building from different sides of the building. The circuits would be attached to telephone poles (or underground conduits) in different directions leading to different data centers or central offices. This way, if there is a major catastrophe, such as a fire at a data center or a major accident impacting circuits within a region, you have redundancy in a different physical direction.

Not Having Business Class High Speed-Internet Access Protection May Cost You

Even though Internet access 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. Contemplate these situations:

Your company is reliant on VoIP for phone service

Your office uses a cable modem and, in addition to you, the carrier provides 10-15 additional tenants with circuits. During business hours, any of those tenants could be streaming video, performing massive file downloads, processing large volumes of phone calls and more. How will your telephone calls be affected as the amount of available bandwidth decreases? How will the quality of that phone call be affected? Will calls be cut-off? Will they be full of static?

Multiple places use your company as the central data point

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. Every single one of your offices, stores and places rely on you and your primary Internet connection to retrieve data. What will happen if your circuit crashes? Is it just irritating? Is it going to cause tremendous problems? How much work, if any, can be done by your remote sites? Take new orders? Service existing ones? Disseminate needed information and data? It is important that prior to choosing a solution, you understand the true needs and requirements of your particular business. Perhaps you have hundreds of clients or customers that use a hosted solution that your software business 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. You may find that they are unable to reach or connect with your business servers. Customers do not enjoy repeated outages. How long with they put up with them before looking to take their company elsewhere?

The phones in your office, which functions as a call center, relies entirely on voice-over Internet protocol (VoIP)

Does your business completely rely on the internet? Should your circuits go down, your representatives cannot make outbound calls. Your representatives would also be unable to answer calls. Basically, you are done. Is redundancy enough? Many of the finest call centers with the best reputations already understand and use redundancy. They should consider if they have sufficient protection. Are the providers that you are using reliable enough? Clear and reliable calls are essential. Does your carrier service consistently provide this?

Choosing the Right Harrisburg, Pennsylvania High-Speed Company Access Circuits for Your Company

You clearly have many options. Your organization budget and needs will play a large part in your decision-making. In review:

If You Have a Small Organization That Needs Internet Access

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. Metro Ethernet service or gigabit service may also be a reasonably priced option if you are in a lit building. Prices change based on your location and the availability of circuits. Please speak with our engineers about what options best suit your needs.

Single Location Mid-Sized Company and Internet Access

Mid sized companies with a single office in Harrisburg, need higher speed Internet access. You may choose between gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. You may also look into other higher-speed Internet circuits. Ideally, multiple circuits from multiple providers will provide you with the greatest redundancy. It is sometimes possible to reach this without adding ridiculous costs. Using one 100-megabyte circuit instead of two 50-megabyte circuits, is one example. 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.

Mid-Sized Company with More than One Location: Access to the Internet

Companies with multiple sites are most at risk for failure. They need redundant circuits. Multiple providers or carriers are recommended. You can decrease risk during downtime by having redundant equipment as well. Take a careful look at Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers and gigabit Internet providers. Research other high-speed access to The net circuit providers also and make an informed decision. Finding the best combination of services, providers and equipment can go a long way toward helping your company run as efficiently as possible.

Clients who provide services delivered via Internet, large corporate and enterprise clientele

If you can place yourself in this category, it is essential that you have Metro Ethernet, point-to-point circuits and gigabit Internet circuits. Redundant hardware and redundant circuits will, for these businesses, ensure the greatest uptime. Be sure the circuits are from different providers. 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. The hardware and circuits you choose must both be able to support the following: a great number of concurrent, speedy connections.

You Can Get a Free Internet Need and Demand Analysis

There is great risk of failing circuits or insufficient bandwidth. You must select the single circuit or multiple circuits that can meet your demands and stay within your budget. Choosing the right mix of circuits and hardware is a daunting task.

Our expert engineers will review your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. After reviewing your current usage and demand levels, we’ll generate a cost effective plan that provides your organization with the resources it needs.

Please click here to complete the contact form on the right side of this page or call our office to schedule an appointment for an assessment. Your assessment may be finished within as little as 48 hours.