In today’s environment, companies in Laguna Niguel, California count on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their business. All companies, from Fortune 500 to small companies, have functions that rely on easy, dependable and quick Internet access.
In the coming months and years, we are going to become increasingly dependent on our access to the internet.
From video chat to voice over IP, email to data sharing and data archiving to Internet commerce, the net is everywhere you look. What is the best solution for you? Can a cable modem suffice? Do you need Metro Ethernet? Gigabit Internet? Does your company in Laguna Niguel need one of these: 10 Meg access to The Internet, a 100 Meg access to The net point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?
Your company must assess its real needs. This must be done before an appropriate service can be chosen. Will web surfing and email be your primary use of the web? Is connecting with cloud servers and sharing real time data the main use of the net? You may be hosting the data in Laguna Niguel and remote locations rely on this.
What if there is an outage and your high-speed Internet is interrupted? Will your organization suffer from the lull? Does your organization require uptime? You must answer these questions before you buy.
In all-encompassing terms, businesses need high-speed access to The net. Deciding on the right broadband is not easy. It requires a thorough cost-benefit analysis. Many providers toss out terms such as:
… do not lose sight of the real issues: what are the capabilities and technical solutions you need to best serve your company?
For most companies in Laguna Niguel, California, some or all of the employees need access to the internet. It may be needed for organization research, to order office supplies or other reasons.
The number of employees you have may determine your best solution. If you have a handful of employees, a 5 or 10 Meg Internet circuit may be sufficient. If your business has nearly 50 people, however, and they all need to use the web at the same time, you may find that more is better.
Perhaps most workers at your company use an intranet system with limited features. High- speed Internet may not be a priority in this case. On the other hand, Internet speed becomes dramatically more important when they are required to regularly download things like documents or videos.
Do you routinely backup? You may need to support simultaneous connections to the web in order to sync your backup data. If you conduct remote backups from every workstation, which is advisable, this will be important.
Do you use a file-sharing service? Perhaps you use Google drive, DropBox or a different service? When people save a file, it gets pushed to the cloud. The file is then synched with other people’s computers. You must have sufficient bandwidth if you are to successfully support every service including file sharing.
Depending on your location, high-speed company access to The Internet, including Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options. They are commonly found in “lit buildings” in Laguna Niguel, California that have already been wired by a carrier. Installing high-speed Internet may not be as difficult and expensive as you think.
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 access to The net with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less depending upon availability.
Do you have your own organization servers that run APIs, websites or feeds for offsite offices or companies? Is your main business office with a hosted application accessed by 40 or even 50 branch office sites? Is your business retail? Do you have thousands of stores? Do you host the point of sale system for the entire chain? Does your legal practice host all of the data for 3, 4 or 5 offices in different locations?
Granting access to outsiders is necessary when you host data and programs at a central location. If the internet connection is interrupted, those people cannot get their work done. If you need multiple connections to function at the same time from many different places, make sure that your intranet solution can reliably support it.
For a single office surfing the web, a cable modem or inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be adequate. For the headquarters, high-speed access to The web including Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable. 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.
In some situations, there is a high price to pay for bringing in an inexpensive circuit or cable modem. You may have to share bandwidth in order to secure that low monthly rate. During peak hours, your connection may slow down, even though you subscribe to a cable modem with a thirty-megabyte connection. Cable companies are known to limit or predetermine the amount of bandwidth available for delivery in any particular community. That bandwidth branches off to different buildings and then to various tenants within those buildings. While you may be capped at a 30 Meg speed, you may never be able to reach that speed during business hours. Is getting 7 when you expect 30 a problem?
There are carriers who offer dedicated and even 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 business. Regardless of neighbors, or other tenants, you should have the full capacity of your circuit at all times.
For example, Metro Ethernet guarantees bandwidth in 5 met circuits, 10 Meg circuits, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. Gigabit Internet providers offer gigabit speeds from your office to the net.
Providers in these situations deliver enough to cover everyone’s needs. The providers divide their circuit to various tenants while guaranteeing that everyone gets their contracted speed.
Laguna Niguel, California has some carriers that offer exceptional Internet bandwidth products and services. However, circuits can still go down and cause disruption. In what way can you diminish the risk of an outage?
The answer is redundant circuits.
We are primarily talking about two kinds of redundancy.
A single carrier, providing multiple circuits, to one customer, characterizes one form of redundancy. When there are problems with a physical line or a port or other failures, it can be helpful to have redundant circuits. 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. You get some protection, but also some risk.
Bringing in circuits using two distinct providers is the second form of circuit redundancy. 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. But, you know that they are actually separate and redundant. You will get more substantial protection from this diversity redundancy. If one carrier has a problem, the other likely will not.
If you want to maximize redundancy in Laguna Niguel, California please consider the following question: Do the carriers I am considering use the same physical geographic pathways? If at all possible, you want to obtain circuits entering the premises on different sides. Ideally, the circuits will be going in different directions and toward various central organization spaces or data centers. 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.
The cost of dependable Internet access pales in comparison to the cost of unreliable access. Please think about the following scenarios:
The carrier you use for your cable modem also provides circuits for a dozen or more tenants in the office 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. How will your telephone calls be affected as the amount of available bandwidth decreases? How will the caliber of the call be affected? Are calls lost or dropped? Will the calls be choppy?
Regardless of whether you are part of a legal practice and your firm does file sharing, or an accounting practice sharing databases, your office is the central point or hub of your company. All of your sites, whether 2 or 2000, rely on your primary Internet connection to access and retrieve data. What if your circuit fails? Is it a mere annoyance or a catastrophic failure? Can your satellite or remote office do any work at all? Process new orders? Share essential data? 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. You operate a service that utilizes API in order to grant access to other systems. They may use this to collect whatever data you are offering such as commodity prices, weather data or freight calculations. What happens when they are unable to connect to your servers? Multiple outages may annoy your customers.
Maybe your organization depends entirely on the web. No outbound calls can be made should your circuits go down. There would be no way to answer incoming calls of people trying to reach your representatives. Your organization is basically done with. Even for the most reputable call centers that already know of and use redundancy, is it sufficient? Can you truly rely on your carriers? Are they as dependable as they claim? Clear and reliable calls are essential. Does your carrier service consistently provide this?
It should be clear by now that you have many different options to select from. Your business needs and budgets will drive your decisions. 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. Find out if you are in a lit building. If so, the price of Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be affordable. Because prices can vary based on the location of your company and the availability of circuits, speak with our engineers to learn your options.
You have a mid-sized Laguna Niguel, California company; higher speed access to The net required. Higher-speed circuits like Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or others may be your best options. Multiple circuits utilizing multiple providers would, ideally, provide you with maximum redundancy. Achieving this may not be as costly as you first thought. Two smaller circuits may be cheaper than one. For instance, you may use two 50 meg circuits instead of a single 100 meg circuit. To repeat, availability and prices vary. Call one of our experts to learn what is available in your specific area.
Companies with multiple places are most at risk for failure. They need redundant circuits. It is helpful if they use multiple providers. Also, redundant equipment such as switches and routers in your facility can minimize the risk of downtime. Have you looked at Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed Internet access circuit providers? You should do so before making a decision. The right combination of services and providers can positively impact the efficiency of your business.
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. You absolutely need redundant circuits from different providers as well as redundant hardware. This is vital to ensuring uptime. Spikes or sudden increase in usage can result in Internet slowdowns or disruptions in service. You can decrease the risk of these events by having sufficient bandwidth. Your circuits and hardware must be able to support a large number of fast and simultaneous connections.
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 take the pressure off and develop a free action plan for you by analyzing your needs. We will formulate a design or plan based partly on your current usage and demand levels. We are going to create something cost effective that gives you the resources your business needs, while keeping it running smoothly.
Please call our office for an assessment appointment or click here to complete the contact form on the right side of the page. Assessments are done in as few as two days or within 48 hours.