Reliable access to The web is the lifeblood of Hutchinson companies and their company. The company functions of every company, whether it is a small company or on the Fortune 500, from Fortune 500, depends upon fast and reliable access to The net.
In the coming months and years, we’ll become increasingly dependent on our access to the net.
The use of the web is pervasive. We use it for email and data sharing, video conferencing and VOIP, archiving and commerce. How can your needs be met? A cable modem may be satisfactory. Metro Ethernet may be what you need. Gigabit Internet may be required. What does your Hutchinson organization need? Does it require 10 Meg Internet access, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 Meg circuit or a 5 Meg circuit?
Your organization must assess its real needs. This must be done before an appropriate service can be chosen. Will web surfing and email be your primary use of the web? Will Internet usage mainly involve cloud servers and real time data connection? Perhaps you, in Hutchinson, are hosting the data and remote locations rely on this.
What if there is an outage and your high-speed Internet is interrupted? How will the downtime affect your company? Does your organization require uptime? These types of questions must be answered before you make purchase anything.
High-speed Internet access is required by all businesses. When picking the correct broadband, balancing the costs and benefits to your business is imperative. While various providers will throw around terminology like:
… be sure not to forget what capability and technical solutions meet your business’s specific needs.
Workers for most companies in Hutchinson have some need to access the web during the course of their job. There are countless reasons to need access to the internet. Perhaps it is to order materials, to conduct organization research or communicate with clients.
Perhaps the size of your work force may determine the solution that best fits your needs. If you have a handful of employees, a 5 or 10 Meg Internet circuit may be adequate. You should consider more than that if you have more workers. Also keep in mind whether your workers need to access the web at the same time.
Do your employees primarily use an intranet system? If so, you may not need much high-speed Internet service. If your organization functions demand the downloading of documents and images or videos on a regular basis, speed becomes a must more important issue.
Are you performing backups? If, as recommended, you conduct remote backups from every single desk, you will need to support simultaneous connections out to the web. This will allow you 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? 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.
Depending on where you are, you may want to look into high-speed business access to The Internet such as Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet. These can usually be found in Hutchinson, Kansas in “lit buildings” that have already been wired. Installing high-speed Internet may not be as difficult and expensive as you think.
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. Did you know that obtaining high-speed access to The Internet with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less? Of course, this depends upon availability.
Your company may host its own servers. Do they run websites APIs or data feeds for external offices? Is your main company office with a hosted application accessed by 40 or even 50 branch office sites? Does your office host the point of sale (POS) system for every single store in a large retail chain? Are you a law firm? Do you host data for three or more external 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 organization. If the internet connection is interrupted or fails, those people are unable to accomplish any work. If you need multiple connections to function at the same time from many different places, make sure that your intranet solution can reliably support it.
An inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be enough if you have one office that needs to surf the net. A cable modem may also be adequate in this situation. High-speed dedicated circuits, Metro Ethernet or gigabit Ethernet are advisable for company headquarters. While fast access to The web is and important, they must also have the capability to handle assorted simultaneous connections. The support you need could not be provided by a cable modem.
In many cases, installing an inexpensive 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. During peak hours, your connection may slow down, even though you subscribe to a cable modem with a thirty-megabyte connection. Cable operators differ but many have prescribed limits on the bandwidth amount that they can deliver within a set community. That amount of bandwidth must be shared with different buildings and with the tenants housed within. While you may be capped at thirty-megabyte speed, will you ever reach that speed during business hours? Is getting 7 when you expect 30 a problem?
Other providers do offer dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. If you want your very own bandwidth that is not used by anyone else, you should consider this. The full capacity of your circuit should be attainable during all hours regardless of neighboring buildings, people or offices.
For example, with Metro Ethernet, you can receive a guaranteed bandwidth in increments of five Meg circuits, 10 Meg circuits, 50 Meg circuits and 100 Meg circuits. With gigabit Internet providers, you can reach gigabit speeds in your office out to the web.
Carriers in these situations deliver enough to cover everyone’s needs. The carriers divide their circuit to various tenants while guaranteeing that everyone gets their contracted speed.
Despite outstanding Internet bandwidth products offered by providers in Hutchinson, Kansas, circuits do go down. How can you decrease the chance of an outage?
Circuits that are redundant may be a good idea.
There are, in essence, two types of redundancy.
With the first kind, you receive several circuits but they all come 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. Even multiple circuits can fail, such as in the event of a large-scale carrier outage or when there damage to an external line. This is not foolproof, but does offer some protection.
Bringing in circuits using two distinct providers is the second form of circuit redundancy. Using advanced routers and IP address allocations, you can bind these connections together so that, to your users and to the public, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. In fact, they are totally redundant and separate. Diversity redundancy offers far greater protection. When one carrier has a problem like an outage or some other failure, you have another one that works.
You should look for redundant circuits from providers in Hutchinson, Kansas that do not have the same physical geographic pathways, in order to get the most redundancy. Your goal should be to get circuits coming into your building on different sides. You do not want them on the same side. The circuits would attached to the proper outside source whether a subterranean conduit or a telephone pole. They would be set up in different directions and would lead to different data centers or main office spaces. 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.
The cost of dependable access to The web pales in comparison to the cost of unreliable access. Consider the following:
Are you on a cable modem and your carrier is providing circuits to dozens of other office suites in your building? Between 9 and 5, any of those other offices could be downloading huge files, streaming video or taking large volume of phone calls and more. As available bandwidth shrinks, what will happen to your calls? How will the caliber of the call be affected? Are calls lost or dropped? Will they be full of static?
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. 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 happens? Is it just irritating? Is it going to cause tremendous problems? Are your other offices able to do any work? Process or take new orders? Circulate necessary data? Picking the right a solution can be difficult. Before doing so, be sure you fully understand your requirements. Perhaps you have hundreds of clients or customers that use a hosted solution that your software business is running. Do you operate a service where other systems speak with yours by using an application program interface (API)? For example do other systems gain access to yours in order to calculate prices, prices, or to collect information that you serve up? You may find that they are unable to reach or connect with your business servers. Multiple outages may annoy your customers.
Is the net integral to the proper function of your organization? Do you count on it entirely? Should your circuits go down, your representatives cannot make outbound calls. Your reps have no way of answering calls, if they even know they are coming in. You are essentially out of business. While most call centers that are reputable use redundancy, is it enough? Can you truly rely on your providers? Are they as dependable as they claim? Is the quality of service sufficient? Are your calls clear and reliable?
You have no shortage of options. Your organization needs and your budget will have to come into consideration when deciding on your solutions. In summary:
A single fifty, ten or five megabyte access to The Internet circuit may be sufficient to meet the needs of your small organization, particularly if you have only one location and are not worried about redundancy. If you are in a “lit” building, Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be reasonably priced options. The availability of circuits and your location determine prices; speak with one of our engineers to learn what your best options are.
Having a medium or mid-sized company in Hutchinson requires that you have higher-speed access to the internet. You have several choices. Consider the following: Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet or higher-speed access to The web circuits. Optimally, multiple providers and multiple circuits will give you the most redundancy. This may be attainable without doubling your costs. Using one 100-megabyte circuit instead of two 50-megabyte circuits, is one example. Again, costs vary. Availability also varies. In order to find out the options available for you, in your location, you need to speak with one of our seasoned experts.
Any company with more than one location suffers the greatest risk of problems. Redundant circuits are essential. Varied providers are optimal. You can minimize the risk of downtime at if you also have redundant equipment like routers or switches. Take a careful look at Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers and gigabit Internet providers. Research other high-speed access to The Internet circuit providers also and make an informed decision. The best mix of providers and services can maximize the productivity and efficiency of your company.
If you fall into this group, you must have Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet circuits and point-to-point High-speed Internet circuits. Redundant hardware and redundant circuits will, for these businesses, ensure the greatest uptime. Be sure the circuits are from different providers. You need enough bandwidth. The bandwidth must be sufficient to handle spikes in usage with no slowdowns or interruptions. Both your hardware and circuits must be capable of supporting a vast number of simultaneous and fast connections.
The risk of insufficient bandwidth or failing circuits is tremendous. Your demand and budget constraints should both be considered when you decide what circuit or combination of circuits you must have. Choosing the right combination of hardware and circuits can be complicated and confusing.
Our engineers can analyze your needs and create a free action plan for you. We are going to formulate a design or plan based partly on your current usage and demand levels. We are going to create something cost effective that gives you the resources your company needs, while keeping it running smoothly.
An appointment for an assessment can be made by calling our office or clicking here to complete the contact form on the side of this page. We can often provide assessments within 48 hours.