High-Speed Kalamazoo Access to The Internet

Kalamazoo, Michigan High Speed Access to the World Wide Web: Accessing Metro Ethernet, Business Broadband and Gigabit Internet

The lifeblood of Kalamazoo companies doing organization in the current environment depends upon reliable Internet access. The organization functions of every company, whether it is a small business or on the Fortune 500, from Fortune 500, depends on fast and reliable Internet access.

In the coming months and years, we will become increasingly dependent on our access to the net.

From email to data sharing, video conferencing to VoIP, and data archiving to Internet commerce, the Internet is ubiquitous. What is the best solution for you? Perhaps a cable modem is all you need. Do you need Metro Ethernet? Gigabit Internet? Your Kalamazoo, Michigan company probably needs a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The Internet, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The Internet point but which one is best?

How to Define your Company Need for Internet Access

Before selecting an appropriate service for your company, you must first determine what needs you are trying to satisfy. Is the net primarily used for emailing or web surfing? Will real-time data connection with servers in the cloud be the primary use of the net? Are you hosting the data in Kalamazoo and distant sites or offices rely on you?

What will happen to your company if your high-speed Internet experiences an outage? Can your business afford the downtime? Is uptime essential? You must answer these questions before you buy.

Appraising Various High-Speed Internet Solutions in Kalamazoo, Michigan

High-speed access to the web is something all companies need. When choosing the right broadband for business, you need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits. While many providers throw around terminologies such as:

• Fastest Internet access
• Business Internet service
• Broadband cable modem services
• Metro Ethernet service provider
• Gigabit Ethernet services or Gigabit Internet
• Multiprotocol label switching, also known as MPLS
• Point-to-point circuit services
• Internet access circuits-five megabyte
• 10 megabyte Internet access
• Internet access- 50 megabytes
• One hundred megabytes- fast access to The Internet circuits
• Session Initiation Protocol/ Sip trunk
• Internet access dedicated to you and only you
• … 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 access to The Internet for Web Surfing

For many, if not all, companies in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Internet access is needed for at least some employees. Whether it is for organization research, to order supplies or to use third-party applications, the web is required.

The number of workers you employ, may be the most important factor in your decision making process. If you have a handful of employees, a 5 or 10 Meg Internet circuit may be sufficient. If you have a larger workforce, you may want to consider more. This is especially true if they all need to use the internet simultaneously.

Your need for high-speed Internet may be lessened if your workers are just accessing an intranet systemOn the other hand, if your company requires that its employees download many documents or images and videos, Internet speed becomes more important.

Are you performing backups? It is recommended that you do remote backups from every desk. If you are, you will need to support simultaneous connections out to the web to synchronize the backup data to collect.

Does your organization use a file sharing service? DropBox? Google drive? As people save files, those files are pushed to the cloud and then synchronized back to 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.

Are you interested in high-speed company Internet? Depending on where you are located, you may want to look into the viability of gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet. They are commonly found in “lit buildings” in Kalamazoo, Michigan that have already been wired by a carrier. Adding this high-speed Internet to your office may be surprisingly affordable and easy.

The introduction of Metro Ethernet into a new building can be quite costly. However, bringing that connection into office space within that building is usually less so. In fact, obtaining high-speed Internet access with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less depending upon availability.

Web Applications Require Fast Internet Access

Your organization may host its own servers. Do they run websites APIs or data feeds for external offices? Maybe your business requires that dozens of satellite offices have access to a hosted application at your company main headquarters. Is your business retail? Do you have thousands of stores? Do you host the point of sale system for the entire chain? Do you run a law office that hosts the data for satellite offices in different cities or states?

When things are hosted at a central point, parties outside the office must somehow gain access. Those people are not able to do their work if the web connection fails or is unreliable. Are you picking an intranet solution that provides reliability and stability for your multiple, simultaneous connections from various places?

If you have one office using the web, you may get by with a cable modem or a low- cost 10-megabyte circuit. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable for the headquarters where high-speed Internet access is important. While fast Internet access is and important, they must also have the capability to handle assorted simultaneous connections. A cable modem would likely be insufficient.

Dedicated Bandwidth Versus Kalamazoo Shared Cable Circuits

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. Many cable operators can only deliver a certain amount of bandwidth in a community. Different buildings and tenants housed or working within those buildings all share that set amount of bandwidth. Will you achieve 30-meg speed during the working day? Is it a problem if you get a quarter or even half of the speed you expected?

You can find a carrier who can provide dedicated and 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. Regardless of neighbors, or other tenants, you should have the full capacity of your circuit at all times.

Metro Ethernet provides guaranteed bandwidth in increments as follows: 5, 10, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. Gigabit speeds from your office to the web can be reached if you use a gigabit Internet provider.

Here, carriers deliver enough high-speed to the building, so that it can be split among various tenants. The carrier has the right amount so that everyone gets the contracted speed that has been promised.

Backup With Kalamazoo, Michigan High Speed Organization Internet Circuits

Despite outstanding Internet bandwidth products offered by providers in Kalamazoo, circuits do go down. What can you do to minimize the chance that you will experience an outage of some kind?

The answer is redundant circuits.

We are primarily talking about two kinds of redundancy.

The first is where you get multiple circuits from one carrier. These redundant circuits help protect from certain failures, for example, router port issues or physical line trouble. However, if that carrier has a regional outage or physical line damaged outside of your building, both circuits may go down. While offering some protection, it is not without risk.

The other type of redundancy requires you to utilize circuits from different carriers. You may want your circuits to appear and act as if they are one and come from the same source. If so you can use IP address allocations and advanced routers to do so. However, despite appearances, they are actually very much separate and are redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy, as this is called, offers you more protection that you might realize. In the event that one carrier goes down, the other will still be alive.

To maximize the benefit of redundancy, consider looking for redundant circuits from different providers that have different pathway in Kalamazoo, Michigan. 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. What if there is some kind of catastrophic incident such as a fire or accident that impacts circuits within a region? Now, you have redundancy in an alternative physical direction.

Not Having Adequate Protection for your High-Speed access to The net: What is the Cost to Your Company?

The cost to your company if you do not have reliable access to The Internet will be far greater than you may realize. Consider these scenarios:

Does your organization rely on Voice-over Internet Protocol for telephone service?

Your office uses a cable modem and, in addition to you, the carrier provides 10-15 additional tenants with circuits. During the course of a regular work day, any or all of these other businesses might be performing massive file downloads. Tenants might be taking a large volume of calls or be regularly streaming video. As they use more bandwidth, there is less for available to meet your requirements. What will happen to your phone calls? How will the quality of that phone call be affected? Are calls dropped? Will the calls be choppy?

Your office is the main data point for various other offices

Whether you are a law firm doing file sharing, an accounting practice sharing databases or a retailer operating a distributed point-of-sale system, your office is the hub for your enterprise. All of your sites, you may have 2, you may have 500, you may have 4, 000, depend on your main Internet connection to access and receive data. What happens if your circuit crashes? Will it cause disastrous results of just annoy you a little bit? Are remote offices able to work at all? What about new orders? Circulate necessary data? Picking the right a solution can be difficult. Before doing so, be sure you fully understand your requirements. You have a software company, and are running a hosted solution for dozens, maybe 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 if you have server problems and they are unable to connect to you? If you have repeated outages, how long will they remain a customer?

The telephone system at your call center relies on VoIP

Your business is entirely Internet based. Should your circuits stop working, imagine your people being unable to make any outbound phone calls. They are also unable to answer calls. You are essentially out of business. While most call centers that are reputable use redundancy, is it enough? Are you really getting the dependable service you need form your carriers? Are you using carriers that are truly reliable? Clear and reliable calls are essential. Does your carrier service consistently provide this?

Considering the Best Kalamazoo, Michigan High-Speed Organization Access Circuits for Your Company

Obviously, there are a variety of choices. Your choices will largely count on your budget, in addition to the other requirements of your company. As a wrap-up:

Internet Access Needs for Small Business

If you are a small organization, with one location and you do not worry about redundancy, one five meg, ten meg, or fifty meg access to The net circuit may very well be enough to meet your needs. If you are in a “lit” building, Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be reasonably priced options. 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 business.

Mid-Sized Businesses access to The web – One Location

You will need higher speed Internet access if you have a medium sized organization in Kalamazoo. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and other higher-speed Internet circuits are your options. Ideally, multiple circuits from multiple providers will provide you with the greatest redundancy. You may be able to achieve this in a manner that will not break the bank. For example, choosing two 50 meg circuits versus one 100 meg circuit. Again, costs vary. Availability also varies. You need to speak with one of our experts to determine your options in your specific location.

Midsized Businesses with Multiple Locations: Internet Access

Any company with more than one location suffers the greatest risk of problems. Redundant circuits must be an essential part of their systems. Having several providers would afford extra protection. Additionally, you should consider redundant equipment (routers and switches) in your facility to minimize the risk of downtime. As always, take a careful look and choose the right Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed Internet access circuit providers. The right mix can help. If you can figure out the best combination of providers and services for your organization, you will benefit.

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

If you fall into this group, you must have Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet circuits and point-to-point 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. Having both your hardware and your circuits capable of supporting many different, fast, and simultaneous connections is essential. It cannot be one or the other.

Internet Demand and Internet Need: Receive Free Analysis

Do not risk having failing circuits or not enough bandwidth. You need to have the right circuit or circuits to meet your demands while staying 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.

We have engineers that will analyze your needs, look at your company requirements and develop an action plan for you… for free!We will examine your demand levels and current usage. We will then design a plan that keeps your costs reasonable while meeting your demand for a smoothly run company.

If you would like to arrange for an assessment, please click here to complete the contact information form to the right. You can call our office as well. Assessments are completed in as little as 48 hours.