In today’s world, La Puente, California companies need dependable Internet access. It is the lifeblood of their company. All companies, from Fortune 500 to small companies, have functions that rely on easy, dependable and quick Internet access.
Our dependence on Internet access will continue to grow in the coming months and years.
The use of the web is pervasive. We use it for email and data sharing, video chat and VOIP, archiving and commerce. What can best meet your needs? Is a cable modem sufficient? Your needs may point to Metro Ethernet as a solution. Gigabit Internet? A 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The Internet, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The web point: what is right for your company in La Puente?
Before choosing an adequate or appropriate service, you must decide what your organization really needs. Is Internet use limited to website surfing or emailing only? Will Internet usage mainly involve cloud servers and real time data connection? You may be hosting the data in La Puente and remote places rely on this.
What if your high-speed Internet is disrupted by an outage? What will happen to your organization? How much downtime can your organization withstand? Is the absence of uptime detrimental? Ask yourself these questions before making any purchases. The answers will help you determine what is right for you.
It is no secret that all companies need high-speed access to the net. When picking the correct broadband, balancing the costs and benefits to your company is imperative. You will hear service providers use terms like:
… the real issue is understanding what capability and technical solutions best meet your needs.
At most businesses including those in La Puente, some or all employees need Internet access. Third party applications, organization research or development and e-commerce are just some of the ways the net may be needed.
The number of workers you employ, may be the most important factor in your decision making process. If you only have a few workers, you may be fine with a smaller Internet circuit such as a 5 or 10 megabyte. You should consider more than that if you have more workers. Also keep in mind whether your workers need to access the net at the same time.
Do your employees primarily use an intranet system? If so, you may not need much high-speed Internet service. However, employees who must often download documents, images and videos, need that speed.
Do you perform backups at your company? If you are doing remote backups from every desk, which is advisable, you will need to be able to support simultaneous connections out to the web to synchronize your backup data.
Does your company require employees to share files using a service like Google drive or DropBox? When people save a file, it gets pushed to the cloud. The file is then synched with other people’s computers. Enough bandwidth is required to support this function along with every other service.
Depending on where you are, you may want to look into high-speed organization Internet access such as Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet. Usually, you can find these in “lit buildings” in La Puente that have been previously 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.
While bringing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be an expensive proposition, bringing that connection to a suite within the building is not. In fact, in as little as 30 days, you may be able to obtain high-speed access to the web with either gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. It depends upon availability.
Do you have your own company 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. Does your office host the point of sale (POS) system for every single store in a large retail chain? Are you a legal practice hosting the data for three sites?
Access to data and programs by people outside of your main location becomes necessary when you host information centrally. For those people, no Internet connection means no work gets done. When deciding on the right intranet solution for your business, ask yourself: Is the solution going to adequately support simultaneous and multiple connections from my different locations?
A cost friendly 10 Meg circuit or even a cable modem may satisfy the needs of a organization with a single office that needs to surf the web. It is advisable that high-speed Internet access be available at the central organization office or headquarters, including gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuits. While fast Internet access is and important, they must also have the capability to handle assorted simultaneous connections. A cable modem would not be able to accomplish this.
There is a price that comes along with choosing a cable modem or other lower cost circuit. You may have to share bandwidth in order to secure that low monthly rate. 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. Only a certain amount of bandwidth may be available in a community. Many cable companies have limits on the amount they can deliver. Whatever that amount of bandwidth is, it branches into all buildings in the community and to all tenants in those buildings. The 30-meg speed you are capped out sounds good but it is possible that you will never reach that speed during business hours. Do you care if you only get 6 when you were set up to expect 30?
You can sign up for dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth from some providers. In this case, your company receives full allocation of bandwidth. There is no sharing with any outsiders. Regardless of neighbors, or other tenants, you should have the full capacity of your circuit at all times.
Five Meg, ten Meg, fifty Meg and 100 Meg circuits of guaranteed bandwidth are available with Metro Ethernet. You can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit Internet 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.
While certain providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products in La Puente, California, the reality is that it is possible for a circuit to go down. In what way can you diminish the risk of an outage?
Redundant circuits may be the answer for you.
There are two types of redundancy to consider.
The first type exists when the same carrier gives you multiple circuits. Redundant circuits can help protect against certain problems. They can mitigate the inconveniences when there is a failure of a physical line or a problem with the port into your router. It is possible for both circuits to go down. If your carrier has a regional problem like a widespread outage, or there is a broken line outside your building, even your redundant circuits may fail. While there is some security in this, you are still vulnerable under some circumstances.
Utilizing circuits from two different carriers is the second kind of redundancy. Advanced routers and IP address allocations can be utilized to make it look to your users and the public that you have a single circuit. Though they may appear as one, you know that they are each individual circuits and redundant to each other. This redundancy, referred to as diversity redundancy, offers much greater protection. You will still have a live, fully functioning carrier if one fails.
When considering redundant circuits and carriers, try to be sure that the carriers you look at in La Puente, California have different physical geographic routes or pathways. Doing so will maximize redundancy. Alternatively stated, try to have your circuits enter the building on different sides from one another. The circuits would be established either underground or on telephone poles and would be set up in different directions and lead to different offices. This way, if there is a major catastrophe, such as a fire at a data center or a major accident impacting circuits within a region, you have redundancy in a different physical direction.
It is true that access to The Internet costs you money. However, the cost does not come close to what you will pay if the access that is not reliable. Consider the following:
You are on a cable modem with the carrier providing circuits to 14 other tenants 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? What happens to the quality of that phone call? Are the calls going to be dropped? Inaudible (choppy) to your customers?
Your office is the hub of your company, whether you are a retail company operating a distributed point of sale (POS) system, an accounting firm sharing databases or a law firm engaged in file sharing. Your primary Internet connection is responsible for granting access to data to all of your locations. This is true whether you have 3 sites or 2000 sites. What happens if your circuit crashes? Would it cause mere annoyance or utter disaster? Can your satellite offices perform any work at all? Process or take new orders? Share essential information with anyone? 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 company is running. Perhaps you operate a service where other systems communicate with yours via an API to calculate freight rates, commodity prices, collect current weather data or receive any other information that you serve up. What if other systems can’t connect to your office servers? If you have repeated outages, how long will they remain a customer?
Is the net integral to the proper function of your business? Do you count on it entirely? What if your representatives can make no outgoing telephone calls because your circuits go down? There would be no way to answer incoming calls of people trying to reach your representatives. Basically, you are done. Even for the most reputable call centers that already know of and use redundancy, is it sufficient? Make sure your providers are as reliable as possible. Is the quality of service sufficient? Are your calls clear and reliable?
Obviously, there are a variety of choices. Your choices will largely depend on your budget, in addition to the other requirements of your business. In review:
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. If you are in a “lit” building, Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be reasonably priced options. Prices will vary. They are based on your location and circuit availability; speak with our engineers to learn your best options.
You have a mid-sized La Puente, California company; higher speed Internet access required. You may choose between gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. You may also look into other higher-speed Internet circuits. Multiple circuits utilizing multiple providers would, ideally, provide you with maximum redundancy. Achieving this may not be as costly as you first thought. For example, you may use 2 fifty meg circuits instead of 1 one hundred meg circuit. Remember, costs vary. So does availability. Call one of our experts to learn what is available in your specific area.
If your company has several places or offices, you are at great risk for failure. Redundancy is crucial. Different carriers are desirable. Redundant routers, switches and other equipment can also be helpful to lessen downtime during a problem. Before you make a decision here too, do your research. Look closely into Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed circuit providers. The right combination of services and providers can positively impact the efficiency of your company.
For businesses that fit this description, it is essential to have gigabit Internet circuits, point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits and Metro Ethernet Internet circuits. In order to maximize and protect your uptime, you must have redundancy. You should have redundant circuits from multiple providers in addition to redundant hardware. You must have the bandwidth to withstand sharp increases in usage. Doing so will help protect you from slowdowns or interruptions. Your circuits and hardware must be able to support a large number of fast and simultaneous connections.
There is great risk of failing circuits or insufficient bandwidth. Your ideal single circuit or multiple circuits should stay within your budget while still meeting your demands. You have to select the optimal combination of hardware and circuits, which is a daunting task.
Our engineers can analyze your needs and create a free action plan for you. We will look at your current usage, demand levels and scope out a design to give you the resources you need while keeping your organization up and running at a reasonable cost.
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