The Web in Hoffman Estates, Illinois: High-Speed Access

Hoffman Estates High Speed Access to the World Wide Web: Accessing Metro Ethernet, Organization Broadband and Gigabit Internet

Because of today’s environment, companies in Hoffman Estates count on the internet. Reliable access to the web is the lifeblood of their organization. Fortune 500 companies to small companies and everything in between, rely on reliable and fast access to The Internet.

In the months and years ahead, people and businesses will become more reliant on internet access.

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 net is certainly ubiquitous. What can best meet your needs? Perhaps a cable modem is all you need. Is Metro Ethernet necessary? Would Gigabit Internet suffice? Does your company in Hoffman Estates need one of these: 10 Meg Internet access, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?

Internet Access: Defining the Business Need

The needs of your particular business must be determined before you can select an appropriate service. Are surfing the web and sending email the only uses of the net? Is connecting with cloud servers and sharing real time data the main use of the internet? Do remote places count on you hosting the data in Hoffman Estates, Illinois?

Have you thought about what happens to your company if your high-speed Internet is interrupted by an outage? How might the downtime cause problems for your organization? Does your company require uptime? Before you buy anything, you must answer these questions.

Evaluating Hoffman Estates High Speed Internet Solutions

In all-encompassing terms, businesses need high-speed access to The web. Choosing the correct broadband for your company requires a cost benefit analysis. You will hear service providers use terms like:

• High-speed access to the Internet
• Business Internet / Internet for business
• What about broadband cable modems?
• Metropolitan-area Ethernet provider
• Gigabit Ethernet services or Gigabit Internet
• MPLS
• Providers of point-to-point circuits
• 5 Meg Internet access
• 10 megabyte Internet access
• We provide access to The web circuits-50 Meg
• High-speed access to The Internet circuits-100 megabytes
• Sip trunking providers
• dedicated Internet access
• … and more

… 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.

Surfing the Web: Organization Internet Access

For most companies in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, some or all of the employees need access to the net. There are countless reasons to need access to the net. Perhaps it is to order materials, to conduct company research or communicate with clients.

The best solution may rely upon how many employees you have. If you only have a few workers, you may be fine with a smaller Internet circuit such as a 5 or 10 megabyte. If you have many employees who need to use the web at the same time, you may do better with more.

Your workforce may simply use an intranet system with limited video and graphics. If this is true, your need for high speed Internet be less than you thought. On the other hand, when they are frequently downloading documents, images and videos, that need for speed increases drastically.

Are you performing routine backups? Simultaneous connections to the web, which you need in order to sync your backup data, require support. If you conduct remote backups from every workstation, which you definitely should, this will be important.

Do you use a file-sharing service? Perhaps you use Google drive, DropBox or a different service? After a file is saved, it goes to the cloud and then to someone else’s computer. Enough bandwidth is required to support this function along with every other service.

Your organization location may cause you to think about high-speed organization Internet access such as Metro Ethernet and/or gigabit Internet. They are usually contained in “lit buildings” in Hoffman Estates, Illinois that have already been wired by a carrier. The ease and affordability of adding high-speed Internet to your office may surprise you.

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. In fact, in as little as 30 days, you may be able to obtain high-speed access to the web with either gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. It depends upon availability.

High-Speed access to The net Required for Hosting Applications

Does your company host its own servers? Does your company use the hosted servers to run data feeds, APIs or websites for offices or businesses located elsewhere? Do fifty or so branch offices need access to a hosted application at your company headquarters? Are you hosting the point of sale (POS) system for 15, 000 retail chain stores? Are you a law firm? Do you host data for three or more external locations?

If you host programs, data or information centrally, people outside of the central location need to have access. Those people are not able to work without a solid Internet connection. Is the intranet solution you are choosing sufficiently reliable? Is it stable enough to support simultaneous connections from different places?

If you have one office using the web, you may get by with a cable modem or a low- cost 10-megabyte circuit. Company headquarters should have high-speed Internet access such as gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit. High-speed alone is not enough. They must also need to be capable of supporting many diverse connections. A cable modem would probably not be enough.

Shared Cable Circuits in Hoffman Estates Versus Dedicated Internet Bandwidth

Utilizing a cable modem or other less expensive circuit may seem like a good option but can result in unexpected cost. You may save money on your monthly bill but the bandwidth you get must be shared among many people. The cable modem you subscribe to with the 30 Meg connections may not always reach those speeds, especially during the busiest or “peak” hours of the workday. Many cable operators can only deliver a certain amount of bandwidth in a community. The bandwidth branches off to the multiple buildings, offices and tenants within them. While you may be capped at a 30 Meg speed, you may never be able to reach that speed during organization hours. Do you care if you only get 6 when you were set up to expect 30?

Other providers do offer dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. With these, bandwidth belongs to you and your company only; no sharing. Regardless of neighbors, or other tenants, you should have the full capacity of your circuit at all times.

You can receive guaranteed bandwidth with Metro Ethernet. You can receive it in increments of five, 10, 50 or one hundred megabyte circuits. Want to reach gigabit speeds? You can by using a gigabit Internet provider.

In these scenarios, providers deliver a large quantity of high-speed to a building. The quantity must be enough so that it can split the circuit and deliver to every tenant. Whatever amount has been guaranteed in each tenant’s contract is the amount they receive.

Redundancy With Hoffman Estates High Speed Business Internet Circuits

Realistically, while some providers in Hoffman Estates offer excellent Internet bandwidth products, it is possible for a circuit to go down. How can you lower the chances that you will experience some kind of outage?

You may be a candidate for redundant circuits.

We are primarily talking about two kinds of redundancy.

The first type exists when the same carrier gives you multiple circuits. When there are problems with a physical line or a port or other failures, it can be helpful to have redundant circuits. Even multiple circuits can fail, such as in the event of a large-scale carrier outage or when there damage to an external line. While there is some security in this, you are still vulnerable under some circumstances.

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. Truthfully, they are entirely separate. They are redundant and exist in case one of them fails. This redundancy, referred to as diversity redundancy, offers much greater protection. When one carrier has a problem like an outage or some other failure, you have another one that works.

For maximum redundancy, you should look for redundant circuits from different providers with different physical geographic pathways in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. Alternatively stated, try to have your circuits enter the building on different sides from one another. Whether they are attached underground or to a telephone pole, your goal should be to have the circuits in different directions leading to different central sites. 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.

Not Having Company 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. Consider the following:

Your business relies on VoIP for its telephone service

Your office uses a cable modem and, in addition to you, the carrier provides 10-15 additional tenants with circuits. What if any or all of those tenants are huge call centers taking in a massive volume of phone calls, are organization that perform large file downloads or stream many videos? As the amount of accessible bandwidth decreases, what will happen to your needs? What happens to your phone calls? How will it affect the quality of that telephone call? Will calls be cut-off? Will you sound muffled?

Multiple places use your business as the central data point

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 locations. This is true whether you have 3 places or 2000 places. How will you be affected if your circuit goes down? Is it a mere annoyance or a catastrophic failure? Can your satellite offices perform any work at all? Can they process transactions or new orders? Share essential information with anyone? It is important that prior to choosing a solution, you understand the true needs and requirements of your particular business. You have a software company, and are running a hosted solution for dozens, maybe hundreds, of customers. Maybe you operate a service that allows other systems to speak with yours via API. This may be to collect miscellaneous data, calculate prices or shipping rates or other information. What if other systems can’t connect to your office servers? Customers do not enjoy repeated outages. How long with they put up with them before looking to take their organization elsewhere?

You are a call center and you completely count on VoIP

Is the internet integral to the proper function of your organization? Do you rely on it entirely? No outbound calls can be made should your circuits go down. Your reps have no way of answering calls, if they even know they are coming in. Basically, you are done. Even for the most reputable call centers that already know of and use redundancy, is it sufficient? Can you truly rely on your providers? Are they as dependable as they claim? Is the quality of your calls consistently and reliably clear?

Choosing the Right Hoffman Estates, Illinois High-Speed Business Access Circuits for Your Company

It should be clear by now that you have many different options to select from. Your company needs and your budget will have to come into consideration when deciding on your solutions. To recap:

Small Organization Internet Access

You are probably not thinking about redundancy if you have a small company with a single location. In this case, you can probably get by with a single Internet access circuit of 5, 10 or 50 meg. Metro Ethernet service or gigabit service may also be a reasonably priced option if you are in a lit building. Prices will vary. They are based on your location and circuit availability; speak with our engineers to learn your best options.

Internet Access for the Mid-Sized Company with One Location

You have a midsized company in Hoffman Estates, Illinois; 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. In a perfect world, you will achieve maximum redundancy by utilizing multiple carriers to provide and service different circuits. But can you do this without doubling costs? Sometimes, yes. For example, you may use 2 fifty meg circuits instead of 1 one hundred meg circuit. To repeat, availability and prices vary. You need to speak with one of our experts to determine your options in your specific location.

Access to the internet for the Mid-Sized Business with Several Offices

What companies have the highest risk for failure; those with multiple places. Redundancy is crucial. Different carriers are desirable. Redundant routers, switches and other equipment can also be helpful to lessen downtime during a problem. Look at all of your options: Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet providers, Metro Ethernet providers and other high-speed circuit providers. Your business can benefit from finding the right mix of services and providers.

Bigger corporations, enterprise companies and providers of services that are delivered using Internet

Companies such as these require the following: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and point-to-point (PPP) high-speed Internet circuits. Having redundant hardware as well as redundant circuits from different providers will ensure your needed uptime. You must have the bandwidth to withstand sharp increases in usage. Doing so will help protect you from slowdowns or interruptions. Your circuits and hardware must be able to support a large number of fast and simultaneous connections.

You Can Get a Free Internet Need and Demand Analysis

The danger and risk of failing circuits is tremendous. So is the risk of having less bandwidth than you need. Your ideal single circuit or multiple circuits should stay within your budget while still meeting your demands. You have to select the optimal combination of hardware and circuits, which is a daunting task.

Our engineers can help. We’ll analyze your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. We’ll formulate a design or plan based partly on your current usage and demand levels. We’ll create something cost effective that gives you the resources your company needs, while keeping it running smoothly.

Please click here if you wish to complete the contact form on the side of this page. Alternatively, call our office to schedule an assessment. Assessments are done in as few as two days or within 48 hours.