The lifeblood of Kokomo, Indiana companies doing organization in the current environment relies on reliable Internet access. The organization functions of all companies, from Fortune 500 to small businesses, count on fast and reliable Internet access.
In the months and years ahead, people and businesses will become more dependent on access to the internet.
The net has a significant presence in our lives. From email to information sharing, data archiving to e-commerce, and VOIP to video chat, the internet is certainly ubiquitous. What can best meet your needs? Will a cable modem be adequate? Metro Ethernet may be the thing you need. Gigabit Internet may satisfy your needs. Your Kokomo, Indiana company probably needs a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The web, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg Internet access point but which one is best?
Before selecting the appropriate service, your organization must assess its needs. Is the internet primarily used for emailing or web surfing? Will Internet usage mainly involve cloud servers and real time data connection? Are you hosting data in Kokomo, Indiana? Do remote locations rely upon you?
What happens if you have an outage in your high-speed Internet? How much downtime can your business withstand? Is uptime essential? 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. When picking the correct broadband, balancing the costs and benefits to your organization is imperative. While many providers throw around terminologies such as:
… focus on what matters: what does your business need and what are the best services and solutions out there to meet those needs?
At any company in Kokomo, Indiana some employees, if not all employees, need some type of access to the net if they are to properly perform their job duties. It may be needed for business research, to order office supplies or other reasons.
Perhaps the size of your work force may determine the solution that best fits your needs. A five or ten megabyte Internet circuit may be all you need if employ a small workforce. If you have a larger workforce, you may want to consider more. This is especially true if they all need to use the web simultaneously.
Perhaps most workers at your company use an intranet system with limited features. High- speed Internet may not be a priority in this case. If your business functions demand the downloading of documents and images or videos on a regular basis, speed becomes a must more important issue.
Are you regularly 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 a file is saved, it is pushed to the cloud and then synced back to other people’s computers. The right amount of capacity or bandwidth is necessary to support this function in conjunction with every other service you have.
You may consider high-speed business Internet access if you location warrants it. Gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet may be viable options for you. They are commonly found in “lit buildings” in Kokomo, Indiana that have already been wired by a carrier. Choosing to add high-speed Internet to your office is a tough decision but it can be less expensive and easier than you think.
If you have to bring Metro Ethernet into a new building, it can be expensive but bringing that connection to an office or suite within the building is usually not. Depending on availability, it is often possible to obtain high-speed access to The Internet with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet in 30 days or less.
Ask yourself this: Does we host our own servers to run APIs, websites and data feeds to external offices or company premises? Are your corporate headquarters with a hosted application utilized by 50 branch offices? Are you a retail company hosting the POS system for thousands of chain stores? Are you a law firm hosting data for multiple office places?
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 locations?
A cable modem or fairly cheap 10-megabyte circuit may be enough in certain scenarios. For example, these may meet the needs of a single office surfing the web. For the headquarters, high-speed Internet access including Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable. While high speed is great, you also need support for your multiple diverse connections. This could probably not be accomplished with a cable modem.
Bringing in a cable modem, which seems to save money, may actually come at a price. You may save money on your monthly bill but the bandwidth you get must be shared among many people. 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. The bandwidth branches off to the multiple buildings, offices and tenants within them. The 30-meg speed you are capped out sounds good but it is possible that you will never 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?
There are providers who offer dedicated and even guaranteed bandwidth. In this scenario, the bandwidth is fully allocated to you and your company or organization. No one else uses it. The full capacity of your circuit should be attainable during all hours regardless of neighboring buildings, people or offices.
For example, Metro Ethernet guarantees bandwidth in 5 met circuits, 10 Meg circuits, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. In your office out to the web you can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit providers
The providers in this situation deliver high-speed to a particular building in sufficient quantity to split their circuit among various tenants. Of course, they must ensure that they each get the specific amount of their contracted speed.
Kokomo has some providers that offer exceptional Internet bandwidth products and services. However, circuits can still go down and cause disruption. How can you lower the chances that you will experience some kind of outage?
Circuits that are redundant may be a good idea.
There are, in reality, two kinds of redundancy.
With the first type of redundancy, you receive multiple circuits from the same carrier. In this situation, the redundancy helps protect you from port issues or physical line issues. 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 offers some protection and assurance but does not eliminate all threats.
Bringing in circuits using two distinct carriers 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. However, despite appearances, they are actually very much separate and are redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy offers far greater protection. Should one carrier have some trouble that extends to a greater area and is out of your control, you are backed up with a different carrier.
You should look for redundant circuits from providers in Kokomo that do not have the same physical geographic pathways, in order to get the most redundancy. Alternatively stated, try to have your circuits enter the building on different sides from one another. 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 you can accomplish this, you are protected from a major catastrophe. For example, if a there is a fire or some other accident that negatively affects circuits in a region, you have redundancy in a physically different direction.
Internet access costs money but the cost of NOT having reliable access to The web is greater. Contemplate these scenarios:
You are on a cable modem with the carrier providing circuits to 14 other tenants in your building. During organization hours, any of those tenants could be streaming video, performing massive file downloads, processing large volumes of phone calls and more. As the amount of accessible bandwidth decreases, what will happen to your needs? What happens to your phone calls? What about the quality of your calls? Will you lose calls? Perhaps you will sound choppy or will be inaudible.
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. All of your offices, whether you have 3 or 3, 000, rely on your primary Internet connection to successfully access data. If your circuit goes done, what happens next? Is it simply an irritation or a catastrophe? Are your other offices able to do any work? What about new orders? Share essential information with anyone? Be sure you understand your requirements fully before choosing a solution. What if you are a software company? Perhaps you are running a hosted solution and it must be used by multiple customers; maybe even hundreds. Maybe you operate a service that allows other systems to talk to yours via API. This may be to collect miscellaneous data, calculate prices or shipping prices or other information. What happens when they are unable to connect to your servers? How will repeated outages affect your customers? Will they remain customers?
Maybe your business depends entirely on the web. Should your circuits stop working, imagine your people being unable to make any outbound phone calls. Calls coming in would be unanswerable. You might not even know people are trying to reach your office. You are now, essentially, out of company. While most call centers that are reputable use redundancy, is it enough? Are the providers that you are using reliable enough? Do you consistently get quality service that provides clear and reliable calls?
You clearly have several choices. Your decision will be based on different factors including your organization needs and your budget. To summarize:
If you have one location or office and do not feel the need to consider redundancy for your system, a smaller Internet access circuit may be all you need. A single fifty, ten or five megabyte circuit might be enough. Is your building lit? If so, find out about gigabit or Metro Ethernet services. They may be reasonably priced options. Prices vary based on your location and availability of circuits; speak with our engineers to find your best option.
You have a midsized company in Kokomo, Indiana; you will surely need higher-speed Internet. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and other higher-speed Internet circuits are your options. Using different circuits and different carriers will, if you choose, provide you with redundancy. But can you do this without doubling costs? Sometimes, yes. For example, one 100-megabyte circuit may cost more than two smaller 50-megabyte circuits. Remember, costs vary. So does availability. You should speak with our experts to learn the options for your particular location.
Businesses with many places face the greatest risk for failure. Redundant circuits must be an essential part of their systems. Varied providers are optimal. In addition, consider redundant equipment. Redundant routers and switches can minimize risk also. Here also, examine the Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet providers. Take a careful look at other high-speed Internet access 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.
Companies such as these require the following: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and point-to-point (PPP) high-speed Internet circuits. You will want to have the greatest protection of your uptime. To accomplish this you must have redundancy: redundant circuits from multiple providers and redundant hardware for your system. Having plenty of bandwidth will help avoid interruptions or decreased speed that sometimes occurs during spikes in usage. Your circuits and hardware must be able to support a large number of fast and simultaneous connections.
Do not risk having failing circuits or not enough bandwidth. You must select the single circuit or multiple circuits that can meet your demands and stay within your budget. There is tremendous pressure on you to choose the best combination of circuits and hardware.
Our engineers can analyze your needs and create a free action plan for you. Our experts will examine your current usage and demand. We’ll then generate a design that gives you the resources you need while keeping your organization up and running at a reasonable cost.
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