The lifeblood of Lakeland, Florida companies doing company in the current environment depends upon reliable access to The net. Fortune 500 companies to small companies and everything in between, rely on reliable and fast Internet access.
In the months and years ahead, people and businesses will become more reliant on internet access.
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 right solution to meet your needs? Perhaps a cable modem is all you need. Is Metro Ethernet necessary? Gigabit Internet may be required. Does your Lakeland, Florida business need a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The net, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The Internet point?
Prior to selecting a service, your organization must figure out its needs. Is the web primarily used for emailing or web surfing? Will real-time data connection with servers in the cloud be the primary use of the web? Perhaps you, in Lakeland, Florida, are hosting the data and remote places depend upon this.
What if there is an outage and your high-speed Internet is interrupted? Can your company afford the downtime? Is uptime essential to the success of your organization? These types of questions must be answered before you make purchase anything.
High-speed access to the internet is something all companies need. Choosing the correct broadband for your organization requires a cost benefit analysis. Many service providers toss out terms such as:
… do not stray from the real issues. Focus on what your company’s needs are and what capabilities and technical solutions will help satisfy them.
Companies in Lakeland need access to the net for their employees. Some companies may need it only for a few people and others may need it for the entire workforce. There are countless reasons to need access to the internet. Perhaps it is to order materials, to conduct company research or speak with clients.
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 a larger workforce, you may want to consider more. This is especially true if they all need to use the net simultaneously.
Your need for high-speed Internet may be lessened if your workers are just accessing an intranet systemIf your business functions demand the downloading of documents and images or videos on a regular basis, speed becomes a must more important issue.
Do you backup information? Simultaneous connections to the web, which you need in order to sync your backup data, require support. If you conduct remote backups from every workstation, which you definitely should, this will be important.
Are you using a service such as DropBox or Google drive to share files? After a file is saved, it goes to the cloud and then to someone else’s computer. In order to ensure that all of your functions work properly, in addition to file sharing, you must have sufficient bandwidth.
Your organization location may cause you to think about high-speed organization access to The web such as Metro Ethernet and/or gigabit Internet. Usually, you can find these in “lit buildings” in Lakeland, Florida 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.
Absent the need to introduce Metro Ethernet into a new building, it is not particularly costly to connect Metro Ethernet to a suite or office within that building. Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet may provide you with high-speed Internet access in thirty days or less, depending on availability.
Consider whether your company hosts its own servers that run APIs, websites and/or data to outside buildings, offices or companies. Maybe your company 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? Are you a law firm? Do you host data for three or more external sites?
Access to data and programs by people outside of your main location becomes necessary when you host information centrally. If the web connection is interrupted, those people cannot get their work done. 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.
An inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be enough if you have one office that needs to surf the web. A cable modem may also be sufficient in this situation. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable for the headquarters where high-speed Internet access is important. Multiple diverse connections require support, in addition to high speed. 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. If you subscribe to a cable modem with a 30-megabyte connection, you would expect to always be able to reach that high speed. However, it is possible that during peak hours, you won’t. Many cable operators can only deliver a certain amount of bandwidth in a community. The bandwidth branches off to the multiple buildings, offices and tenants within them. While you may be capped at a 30 Meg speed, you may never be able to reach that speed during organization hours. Is this a problem for you if you expect 30 and get 6?
Some carriers are available who offer dedicated bandwidth and guaranteed bandwidth. In this scenario, the bandwidth is fully allocated to you and your company or organization. No one else uses it. Regardless of other tenants in your building or neighboring buildings, you should receive the full capacity of your circuit.
For example, with Metro Ethernet, you can receive a guaranteed bandwidth in increments of five Meg circuits, 10 Meg circuits, 50 Meg circuits and 100 Meg circuits. With gigabit Internet providers, you can reach gigabit speeds in your office out to the internet.
In these scenarios, providers deliver a large quantity of high-speed to a building. The quantity must be enough so that it can split the circuit and deliver to every tenant. Whatever amount has been guaranteed in each tenant’s contract is the amount they receive.
Circuits can go down in Lakeland even though certain carriers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. In what way can you diminish the risk of an outage?
Circuits that are redundant may be a good idea.
There are, in essence, two types of redundancy.
The first type exists when the same carrier gives you multiple circuits. If there is a problem with a line or a port in your router, circuit redundancy can offer some protection. If that carrier has a wide reaching outage or there is a line broken or damaged outside of your building, both circuits may go down. This offers some protection and assurance but does not eliminate all threats.
Utilizing circuits from two different providers is the second kind of redundancy. By using IP address allocations and certain routers, you can bind your connections. By doing this, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. But, you know that they are actually separate and redundant. You will get more substantial protection from this diversity redundancy. In the event that one carrier goes down, the other will still be alive.
You should look for redundant circuits from providers in Lakeland, Florida that do not have the same physical geographic pathways, in order to get the most redundancy. Essentially, this just means that you do not want both of your circuits to enter the building on the same side. They should come in on different sides. They would be on outside phone poles or underground conduits in different directions and leading to different places. 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.
Even though Internet access comes with a cost, you will save money if you make sure it is dependable. Unreliable access will end up costing you more in the long run. Contemplate these situations:
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. What will happen to your telephone calls as the amount of usable bandwidth decreases? How will it affect the quality of that telephone call? Will you lose calls? Inaudible (choppy) to your customers?
Your office is the center of your organization. You may be a law firm that does file sharing or a retailer operating a POS system. Whether you have 2 locations, 250, or 2000, they all depend on your primary Internet connection to retrieve data and information. How will you be affected if your circuit goes down? Is it a mere annoyance or a catastrophic failure? Can your satellite or remote office do any work at all? Can they process transactions or new orders? Circulate necessary data? Picking the right a solution can be difficult. Before doing so, be sure you fully understand your requirements. You might have hundreds and hundreds of loyal customers. Perhaps you are a software company running a hosted solution they all count on. 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. You may find that they are unable to reach or connect with your business servers. Customers do not enjoy repeated outages. How long with they put up with them before looking to take their business elsewhere?
Is the net integral to the proper function of your business? Do you depend on it entirely? Should your circuits go down, your representatives cannot make outbound calls. Your representatives would also be unable to answer calls. You are now officially out of business. Even for the most reputable call centers that already know of and use redundancy, is it sufficient? Make sure your carriers are as reliable as possible. Clear and reliable calls are essential. Does your carrier service consistently provide this?
Clearly, there are many choices. Your company budget and needs will play a large part in your decision-making. As a high-level summary:
If you are a small company, with just one location and not concerned about redundancy, a single five meg, 10 meg or 50 meg Internet access circuit may be adequate. For an office in a lit building, you may find that gigabit service or Metro Ethernet are affordable options for you. Prices vary based on your location and availability of circuits; speak with our engineers to find your best option.
You have a mid-sized Lakeland company; higher speed Internet access required. Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet and other higher speed Internet circuits are options to consider. In a perfect world, you will achieve maximum redundancy by utilizing multiple carriers to provide and service different circuits. You may be able to achieve this in a manner that will not break the bank. For instance, it may be cheaper to utilize two 50 meg circuits in place of one 100 meg circuit. Again, costs vary. Availability also varies. In order to find out the options available for you, in your location, you need to speak with one of our seasoned experts.
The greatest risk of failure belongs to companies that have multiple places of company or offices. Redundancy is extremely important to them. It is helpful if they use multiple carriers. Additionally, you should consider redundant equipment (routers and switches) in your facility to minimize the risk of downtime. 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. Finding the best combination of services, providers and equipment can go a long way toward helping your organization 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. 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. 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. Your ideal single circuit or multiple circuits should stay within your budget while still meeting your demands. Choosing the right mix of circuits and hardware is a daunting task.
Our engineers will analyze your needs and requirements and develop 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.
An appointment for an assessment can be made by calling our office or clicking here to complete the contact form on the side of this page. It can take as little as 48 hours to provide a complete assessment.