The lifeblood of Lakeville, Minnesota companies doing business in the current environment depends on reliable access to The net. All companies, from Fortune 500 to small companies, have functions that rely on easy, dependable and quick Internet access.
Internet access will become increasingly important to us in the coming months and years. Our dependence on Internet access will only grow as time goes on.
Our uses of the net reach far and wide. From data sharing, video calls, and shopping to VOIP and email, the internet has a broad presence. What do you need? Maybe a cable modem is a sufficient solution. It could be that you need Metro Ethernet. Gigabit Internet? A 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The web, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The net point: what is right for your organization in Lakeville?
Prior to selecting a service, your organization must figure out its needs. Will web surfing and email be your primary use of the web? Is it used to network with cloud servers? You may be hosting the data in Lakeville, Minnesota and remote sites rely on this.
What if you have a disruption in your high-speed Internet? Can your company afford a long pause or lull in productivity? Is uptime required? Before making a purchase, these are some of the questions that you need to answer.
Speaking broadly, all companies need high-speed access to the net. An analysis of the costs and benefits should be done prior to choosing the broadband internet that is correct for your organization. While various providers will throw around terminology like:
… the real issue is understanding what capability and technical solutions best meet your needs.
At any company in Lakeville, Minnesota some employees, if not all employees, need some type of access to the internet if they are to properly perform their job duties. There are countless reasons to need access to the net. Perhaps it is to order materials, to conduct organization research or speak with clients.
The solution you choose may be based on the number of employees you have or expect to have. If you only have a few workers, you may be fine with a smaller Internet circuit such as a 5 or 10 megabyte. If you have 50 employees who are using the net simultaneously, you may need more.
High-speed Internet may become less important if the majority of your employees primarily use an intranet system with limited graphics and video. On the other hand, Internet speed becomes dramatically more important when they are required to regularly download things like documents or videos.
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.
Are you using a service such as DropBox or Google drive to share files? As people save files, those files are pushed to the cloud and then synchronized back to other people’s computers. Running all your services properly, including sharing files, requires that you have the right amount of bandwidth.
High-speed company Internet access like Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options for you depending on your location. They are almost always found in “lit buildings” in Lakeville that are already wired by a carrier. Adding this high-speed Internet to your office may be surprisingly affordable and easy.
While bringing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be an expensive proposition, bringing that connection to a suite within the building is not. Also, securing high-speed access to The Internet using gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet often takes less than 30 days, depending on its availability.
Do you have your own organization servers that run APIs, websites or feeds for offsite offices or companies? Do fifty or so branch offices need access to a hosted application at your company headquarters? Are you a retail company hosting the POS system for thousands of chain stores? Do you run a law office that hosts the data for satellite offices in different cities or states?
When data and programs are hosted centrally at one main site, people outside that location must gain access. Those people are not able to work without a solid Internet connection. 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.
The needs of an office with one employee web surfing may not need more than a cable modem or an inexpensive 5-10 megabyte circuit. High-speed dedicated circuits, Metro Ethernet or gigabit Ethernet are advisable for company headquarters. Multiple diverse connections require support, in addition to high speed. Do you think a cable modem is sufficient? It is probably not.
Bringing in a less-expensive circuit like a cable modem often comes with a price. Oftentimes, a lower monthly rate comes with the realization that you are sharing bandwidth with many different tenants and offices. 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. That bandwidth branches off to different buildings and then to various tenants within those buildings. The 30-meg speed you are capped out sounds good but it is possible that you will never reach that speed during company hours. Will there be trouble if your expectation is set at 30 but you only get 8 or 10?
You can find a carrier who can provide dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. In this case, your business 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.
With Metro Ethernet, for example, you can receive a guaranteed bandwidth in various increments including 5 and 10 Meg circuits, and 50 and 100 Meg circuits. In your office out to the net you can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit providers
In these cases, the carriers 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 Lakeville, Minnesota, problems arise and circuits can fail. You must ask yourself: “how do I lessen the chance of an outage? ”
Redundant circuits.
Redundancy basically comes in two forms.
The first type is when one single carrier provides you with multiple circuits. 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. Damage to an external wire or part can cause the failure of all of your circuits. A regional outage experienced by your carrier can have the same result. While there is some protection, there is also some risk.
Circuit redundancy can also be achieved in the following way: Import circuits using two different and distinct providers. 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. In fact, they are totally redundant and separate. This is called diversity redundancy and offers more protection that the first. 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 Lakeville that do not have the same physical geographic pathways, in order to get the most redundancy. If at all possible, you want to obtain circuits entering the premises on different sides. The circuits would be attached to telephone poles (or underground conduits) in different directions leading to different data centers or central offices. 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.
Although access to The web comes at a price, the price of unreliable access to The Internet is tremendous. Contemplate these scenarios:
Is your company on a cable modem? How many other tenants is your carrier servicing in your building? Are 14 other offices getting circuits? It is possible that during normal company hours, those tenants might be downloading large files or watching continuous videos. They might be getting a lot of phone calls. As the amount of available bandwidth diminishes, what happens to your phone calls? What about the quality of your calls? Will you lose calls? Inaudible (choppy) to your customers?
Your office is the center of your business. You may be a law firm that does file sharing or a retailer operating a POS system. All of your sites, whether 2 or 2000, count on your primary Internet connection to access and retrieve data. What if your circuit fails? Will it cause disastrous results of just annoy you a little bit? How much work, if any, can be done by your remote locations? Can they process transactions or new orders? Circulate necessary data? Make sure you completely understand your needs before you pick 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 may operate a service like this: other systems speak with yours via an API to figure out freight prices, stock prices, to compile weather data or receive any other information that you provide. It is possible they will not be able to connect to your servers. Customers do not enjoy repeated outages. How long with they put up with them before looking to take their company elsewhere?
Your organization is completely dependent on the net. Should your circuits go down, your representatives cannot make outbound calls. Your reps have no way of answering calls, if they even know they are coming in. Looks like you are now out of business. While most reputable call centers are already aware and using redundancy, is it enough? Are you really getting the dependable service you need form your carriers? Are you using carriers that are truly reliable? Is the quality of your calls consistently and reliably clear?
Obviously, there are a variety of choices. The needs and budget of your company will both affect your choices. In summary:
If you are a small organization, with one location and you do not worry about redundancy, one five meg, ten meg, or fifty meg Internet access circuit may very well be enough to meet your needs. Find out if you are in a lit building. If so, the price of Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be affordable. Prices vary based on your location and availability of circuits; speak with our engineers to find your best option.
You will need higher speed Internet access if you have a medium sized business in Lakeville. Your options are Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and higher speed circuits. Using different circuits and different providers will, if you choose, provide you with redundancy. This may be attainable without doubling your costs. Two smaller circuits may be cheaper than one. For instance, you may use two 50 meg circuits instead of a single 100 meg circuit. As a reminder; availability and costs may vary. You should speak with our experts to learn the options for your particular location.
Any company with more than one location suffers the greatest risk of problems. Redundant circuits are essential. Having several providers would afford extra protection. You can increase redundancy with switches or routers. Having redundant equipment can also minimize risk. Take a careful look at Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers and gigabit Internet providers. Research other high-speed access to The web circuit providers also and make an informed decision. 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. 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 need to provide sufficient bandwidth to handle usage spikes without slowdowns or interruptions. Be sure to have the right circuits and hardware. They both must be able to support multiple, fast, concurrent 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. Selecting the appropriate mix of circuits and hardware can overwhelm you.
We have experts to help. Our engineers will do an analysis of your needs and requirements, and develop a free action plan for you based on their findings. 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 company 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. Assessments are completed in as little as 48 hours.