Today’s environment demands that companies in Kannapolis, North Carolina have reliable Internet service in order to run their company. All companies depend on reliable and quick Internet access. This is true regardless how large or small the business.
In the months and years ahead, people and businesses will become more dependent on internet access.
The web is ubiquitous. From email to data sharing, archiving to commerce and VOIP to video chat, the web is everywhere. What is the best fix for your needs? Is a cable modem enough? Your needs may point to Metro Ethernet as a solution. Would Gigabit Internet suffice? Does your company in Kannapolis need one of these: 10 Meg Internet access, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?
Before selecting an appropriate service for your organization, you must first determine what needs you are trying to satisfy. Will web surfing and email be your primary use of the web? Is the net used for real-time data connection with servers in the cloud? Are you hosting data in Kannapolis, North Carolina? Do remote places rely on you?
How would an outage to your high-speed Internet affect your company? Can your organization afford the downtime? Is uptime essential to the success of your organization? Ask yourself these questions before making any purchases. The answers will help you determine what is right for you.
High-speed access to the web is something all companies need. 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 company. While many providers like to spout technical terminologies such as:
… the real issue is understanding what capability and technical solutions best meet your needs.
Workers for most companies in Kannapolis have some need to access the internet during the course of their job. Whether it is to talk to shippers, do research or place orders, access to The web is required.
Perhaps the size of your work force may determine the solution that best fits your needs. A smaller Internet circuit may be enough if you only have a handful of workers. Perhaps a 5 or 10 megabyte is all you need. If you have more than that, you may need more.
If your employees are merely accessing an intranet system with limited graphics and video, your need for high-speed Internet may be reduced. When employees are often downloading images, videos and documents, however, the need for speed increases significantly.
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.
Does your company require employees to share files using a service like Google drive or DropBox? As people save files, those files are pushed to the cloud and then synchronized back to other people’s computers. Supporting file sharing, while supporting every other service, requires sufficient bandwidth.
High-speed company access to The web like Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options for you depending on your location. These are typically found in “lit buildings” in Kannapolis. Providers have already wired these buildings. 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. Did you know that obtaining high-speed Internet access with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less? Of course, this depends upon availability.
Do you have your own organization servers that run APIs, websites or feeds for offsite offices or companies? Maybe your business requires that dozens of satellite offices have access to a hosted application at your company main headquarters. Perhaps you are in retail and host the point of sale (POS) system for thousands of stores? Do you run a law office that hosts the data for satellite offices in different cities or states?
Access to data and programs by people outside of your main location becomes necessary when you host information centrally. Those people are not able to work without a solid Internet connection. Make sure that when you choose your intranet solution it is reliable enough to support your need for multiple and simultaneous connections for many different places.
For one office or a small organization with just one or two people surfing the web, a less expensive 10 Meg circuit or a cable modem may meet your needs. Company headquarters should have high-speed access to The Internet such as gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit. While high speed is great, you also need support for your multiple diverse connections. The support you need could not be provided by a cable modem.
In some situations, there is a high price to pay for bringing in an inexpensive circuit or cable modem. Oftentimes, a lower monthly rate comes with the realization that you are sharing bandwidth with many different tenants and offices. During peak hours, your connection may slow down, even though you subscribe to a cable modem with a thirty-megabyte connection. Many cable companies only deliver a set amount of bandwidth within a community. Different buildings and tenants housed or working within those buildings all share that set amount of bandwidth. While you may be capped at thirty-megabyte speed, will you ever reach that speed during organization hours? What will the consequences be if you expect 30 but only get half that? What if you get even less?
You can sign up for dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth from some carriers. With these, bandwidth belongs to you and your company only; no sharing. Notwithstanding the existence of tenants, offices or buildings in the area, you should have the full capability of your circuits 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. Gigabit Internet providers offer gigabit speeds from your office to the internet.
In these cases, the providers deliver high-speed to the building in sufficient quantity that they can then split their circuit to various tenants while guaranteeing each tenant is receiving their contracted speeds.
You can’t control everything. Even with the superior Internet bandwidth products that some carriers offer in Kannapolis, problems arise and circuits can fail. Ask this question: “what can I do to decrease the likelihood of an outage?
Consider redundant circuits.
There are two types of redundancy to consider.
The first is where you get multiple circuits from one 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. While there is some security in this, you are still vulnerable under some circumstances.
In the second type of redundancy, you bring in circuits from two different carriers. 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. However, despite appearances, they are actually very much separate and are redundant to each other. You will get more substantial protection from this diversity redundancy. In the event a carrier goes down, you will not have to worry. You will have a perfectly live carrier there to keep things moving.
You want maximum redundancy. In order to achieve this, look for redundant circuits from different providers with different physical geographic pathways in Kannapolis, North Carolina. Alternatively stated, try to have your circuits enter the building on different sides from one another. Ideally, the circuits will be going in different directions and toward various central organization spaces or data centers. 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 of dependable access to The web pales in comparison to the cost of unreliable access. Think about the following situations:
Your company is on a cable modem and your carrier provides circuits to 20 other offices in your building. 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 they use more bandwidth, there is less for available to meet your needs. What will happen to your phone calls? What about the quality of your calls? Will calls be arbitrarily dropped? Will you sound muffled?
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 places, whether 2 or 2000, count on your primary Internet connection to access and retrieve data. How will you be affected if your circuit goes down? Would it annoy you or destroy you? Can meaningful work be conducted at your remote offices? Take new orders? Service existing ones? Circulate essential files and data? Do you know what your organization needs? Be sure to fully understand your requirements. It will help you choose the correct 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. 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. If you have repeated outages, how long will they remain a customer?
Your company is 100% reliant on the internet to properly function. No outbound calls can be made should your circuits go down. Your representatives would also be unable to answer calls. You are essentially out of organization. While most reputable call centers are already aware and using redundancy, is it enough? Are the carriers you currently use as reliable as they should be? Are they as reliable as you need them to be? You should be getting high quality service that ensures your calls are consistently clear and reliable.
Obviously, there are a variety of choices. Your budget, as well as the needs of your company, will help drive your decisions. Essentially:
Sometimes redundancy is not vital to you. For example, If you are a small company, with just one office location, a single Internet access circuit may be sufficient. You may get by with one 50, 10 or even 5 megabyte circuit. For an office in a lit building, you may find that gigabit service or Metro Ethernet are affordable options for you. Speak with our engineers about what is right for you. Prices vary with location and circuit availability.
You have a midsized company in Kannapolis; 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. Ideally, multiple circuits from multiple providers will provide you with the greatest redundancy. It is sometimes possible to reach this without adding ridiculous costs. For instance, it may be cheaper to utilize two 50 meg circuits in place of one 100 meg circuit. Remember, costs vary. So does availability. You need to speak with one of our experts to determine your options in your specific location.
Businesses with many locations face the greatest risk for failure. They require redundant circuits. Having several providers would afford extra protection. Redundant routers, switches and other equipment can also be helpful to lessen downtime during a problem. Here also, examine the Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet providers. Take a careful look at other high-speed access to The net circuit providers before choosing the right one. Finding the best combination of services, providers and equipment can go a long way toward helping your company run as efficiently as possible.
For companies falling in this category, gigabit Internet circuits, Metro Ethernet Internet circuits and point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits are essential. Having redundant hardware as well as redundant circuits from different providers will ensure your needed uptime. Having plenty of bandwidth will help avoid interruptions or decreased speed that sometimes occurs during spikes in usage. It is crucial that not only your circuits have the ability to support a vast number of multiple and simultaneous connects, but your hardware must have the ability to support them as well.
Do you understand how great the risk of failing circuits and insufficient bandwidth really is? Your ideal single circuit or multiple circuits should stay within your budget while still meeting your demands. Choosing the right combination of hardware and circuits can be complicated and confusing.
Our engineers will analyze your needs and requirements and develop a free action plan for you. After reviewing your current usage and demand levels, we will generate a cost effective plan that provides your business 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. It can take less than 48 hours to complete your assessment.