These days, companies in Joplin, Missouri count on reliable access to The web as the lifeblood of their business. Fortune 500 companies to small businesses and everything in between, count on reliable and fast Internet access.
In the coming months and years, we will become increasingly reliant on our access to the web.
From email messaging to information sharing, e-commerce to archiving data, and voice over IP to video chat, the internet is omnipresent. What is the right solution for your requirements? Perhaps a cable modem is all you need. Your needs may point to Metro Ethernet as a solution. Gigabit Internet? What does your Joplin, Missouri company need? Does it require 10 Meg access to The net, a 100 Meg access to The Internet point, a 50 Meg circuit or a 5 Meg circuit?
Prior to selecting a service, your organization must figure out its needs. Perhaps the internet is only used for a few things such as email communication or surfing the web. Is connecting with cloud servers and sharing real time data the main use of the web? Are you hosting data in Joplin? Do remote places rely on you?
What if you have a disruption in your high-speed Internet? How might the downtime cause problems for your business? Is the absence of uptime detrimental? Prior to making any purchases, you must determine the answers to these questions.
It is no secret that all companies need high-speed access to the web. Before you choose your broadband, look at the costs and benefits. Performing this analysis is an important step in picking the right one for your organization. Many service providers toss out terms such as:
… 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.
Workers for most companies in Joplin, Missouri have some need to access the internet during the course of their job. access to The web may be needed to conduct research, use third-party applications or to order supplies.
The number of workers you employ, may be the most important factor in your decision making process. If you have a smaller workforce, you may do fine with a smaller Internet circuit. For example, if you only employ a handful of people, a 5 or 10 Meg circuit may meet your needs. If you have more than that, you may need more.
High-speed Internet may become less important if the majority of your employees primarily use an intranet system with limited graphics and video. When employees are often downloading images, videos and documents, however, the need for speed increases significantly.
Are you performing routine 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.
Does your organization use a file sharing service? DropBox? Google drive? When you save a file it is pushed to the cloud. Then it is synched to the computer or computers of someone else. You must have sufficient bandwidth if you are to successfully support every service including file sharing.
Organization high-speed Internet access may interest you. Depending on your location, you may have options such as gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. Usually, you can find these in “lit buildings” in Joplin that have been previously wired by a carrier. The ease and affordability of adding high-speed Internet to your office may surprise you.
Unless you are bringing Metro Ethernet into a new building, it does not have to be an expensive proposition to connect it to a suite within a building. Also, securing high-speed Internet access using gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet often takes less than 30 days, depending on its availability.
Do you have your own company servers that run APIs, websites or feeds for offsite offices or companies? Maybe your company requires that dozens of satellite offices have access to a hosted application at your company main headquarters. Does your office host the point of sale (POS) system for every single store in a large retail chain? Are you an attorney with offices multiple cities or states? Do you have one office hosting data for several sites?
If you host programs, data or information centrally, people outside of the central location need to have 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 locations?
For one office or a small company with just one or two people surfing the web, a less expensive 10 Meg circuit or a cable modem may meet your needs. High-speed Internet access is advisable for the headquarters. Gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit is recommended. While fast Internet access is and important, they must also have the capability to handle assorted simultaneous connections. A cable modem would likely not provide the necessary support.
In many scenarios, bringing in an inexpensive circuit, such as a cable modem, comes at a price. Oftentimes, a lower monthly rate comes with the realization that you are sharing bandwidth with many different tenants and offices. 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. Cable operators differ but many have prescribed limits on the bandwidth amount that they can deliver within a set community. The bandwidth branches off to the multiple buildings, offices and tenants within them. Will you achieve 30-meg speed during the working day? Do you care if you only get 6 when you were set up to expect 30?
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. Regardless of neighbors, or other tenants, you should have the full capacity of your circuit at all times.
With Metro Ethernet, for example, you can receive a guaranteed bandwidth in various increments including 5 and 10 Meg circuits, and 50 and 100 Meg circuits. Want to reach gigabit speeds? You can by using a gigabit Internet provider.
Providers 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.
Realistically, while some providers in Joplin offer excellent Internet bandwidth products, it is possible for a circuit to go down. Ask this question: “what can I do to decrease the likelihood of an outage?
Consider redundant circuits.
Essentially, there are two different ways to look at redundancy.
The first kind of redundancy exists when one carrier provides one customer with many circuits. In this situation, the redundancy helps protect you from port issues or physical line issues. If your carrier experiences a regional outage or you have a line broken outside of your building, you may lose the use of all of your circuits. This offers some protection and assurance but does not eliminate all threats.
You can also achieve redundancy by utilizing different carriers to bring in and establish your circuits. 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. In fact, they are totally redundant and separate. While circuit redundancy in general is a good idea, diversity redundancy by using different carriers, offers far better protection. You will still have a live, fully functioning carrier if one fails.
When considering redundant circuits and providers, try to be sure that the providers you look at in Joplin, Missouri have different physical geographic routes or pathways. Doing so will maximize redundancy. This means that you should try to have the circuits come into you building from different sides. They would be on outside phone poles or underground conduits in different directions and leading to different places. By doing this, if there is a significant problem such as a fire at a data center, you have redundancy in an alternative physical direction.
The cost to your company if you do not have reliable access to The web will be far greater than you may realize. Contemplate these scenarios:
Your organization is on a cable modem and your carrier provides circuits to 20 other offices in your building. Any of these tenants may be taking many calls, conducting huge downloads or streaming video during your regular office hours. As the amount of available bandwidth diminishes, what will happen to your phone calls? What about the quality of your calls? Are calls dropped? Inaudible (choppy) to your customers?
Your office is the hub of your company, whether you are a retail organization operating a distributed point of sale (POS) system, an accounting firm sharing databases or a law firm engaged in file sharing. All of your sites, whether 2 or 2000, count on your primary Internet connection to access and retrieve data. What happens if your circuit crashes? Is it a mere annoyance or a catastrophic failure? Are remote offices able to work at all? Can they process transactions or new orders? Share information? Be sure you understand your requirements fully before choosing a solution. Maybe you are a corporation that designs and sells software and you run a hosted solution that is used by hundreds and hundreds of customers. Maybe you offer a service that allows other systems use an application program interface (API) to communicate with you to collect information and data. What happens when they are unable to connect to your servers? How will repeated outages affect your customers? Will they remain customers?
What if your business could not function at all without the net? Maybe your business depends upon it completely. If your circuits go down, you cannot make calls. There would be no way to answer incoming calls of people trying to reach your representatives. Looks like you are now out of organization. While most reputable call centers are already aware and using redundancy, is it enough? Are the carriers that you are using reliable enough? Is the quality of service sufficient for your calls to be clear and reliable?
Obviously, there are a variety of choices. The needs and budget of your business will both affect your choices. To recap:
If you are a small company, with just one location and not concerned about redundancy, a single five meg, 10 meg or 50 meg access to The web circuit may be adequate. You may find that if your building is “lit”, gigabit service and Metro Ethernet service may be reasonably cost-effective choices for you. Speak with our engineers about what is right for you. Prices vary with location and circuit availability.
Mid sized companies with a single office in Joplin, need higher speed Internet access. You have several choices. Consider the following: Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet or higher-speed Internet access circuits. In a perfect world, you will achieve maximum redundancy by utilizing multiple providers to provide and service different circuits. Achieving this may not be as costly as you first thought. For example, one 100-megabyte circuit may cost more than two smaller 50-megabyte circuits. As a reminder; availability and costs may vary. You should speak with our experts to learn the options for your particular location.
The greatest risk of failure belongs to companies that have multiple places of company or offices. Redundancy is extremely important to them. 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 best mix of providers and services can maximize the productivity and efficiency of your company.
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. Having redundant hardware as well as redundant circuits from different providers will ensure your needed uptime. The last thing you want is interruptions or slowdowns affecting your business. You must provide enough bandwidth to avoid these pitfalls that sometimes occur during sudden usage spikes. 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.
Insufficient bandwidth and failing circuits are present tremendous risk to your company. The right circuits must meet your demand while keeping you within your budget. Selecting the appropriate mix of circuits and hardware can overwhelm you.
We have experts to help. Our engineers will do an analysis of your needs and requirements, and develop a free action plan for you based on their findings. You want your company to run smoothly. We are going to look at your current usage levels and demand levels and design a plan that meets your needs at a cost that makes sense for you.
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. Your assessment may be finished within as little as 48 hours.