The Web in Lansing, Michigan: High-Speed Access

Lansing High Speed Internet access: Organization Broadband Internet, Metro Ethernet Access and Gigabit Internet

In today’s environment, companies in Lansing depend on reliable access to The net as the lifeblood of their business. Fast and reliable access to The net is needed for companies to function properly; large corporations and small companies alike.

In the coming months and years, we will become increasingly dependent on our access to the web.

The Internet has a significant presence in our lives. From email to information sharing, data archiving to e-commerce, and VOIP to video conferencing, the web is certainly ubiquitous. What do you need? Can a cable modem suffice? Metro Ethernet may be the thing you need. Gigabit Internet may be required. Will your Lansing, Michigan organization needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg Internet access or 100 Meg access to The net point?

Defining Your Business’s Internet access Needs

Your business must assess its real needs. This must be done before an appropriate service can be chosen. Is Internet use limited to website surfing or emailing only? Is the net used for real-time data connection with servers in the cloud? Perhaps you, in Lansing, Michigan, are hosting the data and remote locations depend upon this.

How would an outage to your high-speed Internet affect your business? How will the downtime affect your organization? Is uptime essential? You must answer questions like these so you can make a purchase that actually meets your needs

Evaluating Different High-Speed Internet Solutions in Lansing, Michigan

In the broadest of terms, companies need high-speed Internet access. When picking the correct broadband internet, balancing the costs and benefits to your organization is imperative. Don’t be distracted by terminology. While you may hear service providers throw out words and phrases like:

• Fastest Internet access
• Business Internet service provider
• Provider of broadband cable modems
• Metropolitan-area Ethernet provider
• Gigabit Ethernet
• Multiprotocol label switching, also known as MPLS
• Point-to-point circuit services
• Five megabyte access to The web circuit
• 10 megabyte Internet access
• Fifty-megabytes-Internet access circuits
• Internet access circuits- One hundred megabytes
• We provide sip trunks
• Internet access dedicated to you and only you
• … and that is only a few

… focus on what matters: what does your organization need and what are the best services and solutions out there to meet those needs?

Web Surfing and Organization Internet Access

For many, if not all, companies in Lansing, Michigan, access to The web is needed for at least some employees. Third party applications, company research or development and e-commerce are just some of the ways the internet may be needed.

Your best course of action may be determined by the size of your work force. 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 web at the same time.

Your need for high-speed Internet may be lessened if your workers are just accessing an intranet systemOn the other hand, if your company requires that its employees download many documents or images and videos, Internet speed becomes more important.

Are you regularly performing backups? 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.

Google drive and DropBox are two popular sharing services. Are you using one of these or some other service that allows you to share files? After a file is saved, it goes to the cloud and then to someone else’s computer. You must have sufficient bandwidth if you are to successfully support every service including file sharing.

Are you interested in high-speed organization Internet? Depending on where you are located, you may want to look into the viability of gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet. They are commonly found in “lit buildings” in Lansing that have already been wired by a carrier. Adding this high-speed Internet to your office may be surprisingly affordable and easy.

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. Did you know that obtaining high-speed access to The web with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less? Of course, this depends upon availability.

Internet-based Applications That Need Access to High-Speed Internet

Do you have your own company servers that run APIs, websites or feeds for offsite offices or companies? Are your company headquarters with a hosted application accessed by 50 branch offices? Are you hosting the point of sale (POS) system for 15, 000 retail chain stores? Are you a law firm hosting data for multiple office sites?

Granting access to outsiders is necessary when you host data and programs at a central location. For those people, no Internet connection means no work gets done. Is the intranet solution you are choosing sufficiently reliable? Is it stable enough to support simultaneous connections from different sites?

For one office or a small company with just one or two people surfing the web, a less expensive 10 Meg circuit or a cable modem may meet your needs. Company headquarters should have high-speed Internet access such as gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit. Multiple diverse connections require support, in addition to high speed. A cable modem would likely be insufficient.

Dedicated Internet Bandwidth in Lansing V. Shared Cable Circuits

In many scenarios, bringing in an inexpensive circuit, such as a cable modem, comes at a price. Your low monthly bill may mean that the bandwidth is shared among multiple tenants. During peak use hours, you may not be able to reach proper speeds. Cable operators are only permitted to establish a certain amount of bandwidth within communities. The bandwidth branches off to the multiple buildings, offices and tenants within them. While you may be capped at thirty-megabyte speed, will you ever reach that speed during business hours? If you expect 30 but only get 6, will you have problems?

There are providers who offer dedicated and even guaranteed bandwidth. With these options, bandwidth is yours. It is not shared with anyone outside of your company. Notwithstanding the existence of tenants, offices or buildings in the area, you should have the full capability of your circuits at all times.

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. 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.

Lansing, Michigan High Speed Organization Internet Circuits: Redundancy

The truth is that circuits can go down in Lansing, Michigan even though some providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. Ask this question: “what can I do to decrease the likelihood of an outage?

You may be a candidate for redundant circuits.

We are primarily talking about two kinds of redundancy.

The first type exists when the same carrier gives you multiple circuits. In this situation, the redundancy helps protect you from port issues or physical line issues. 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.

Circuit redundancy can also be achieved in the following way: Import circuits using two different and distinct providers. 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. You know the truth: that they are individual circuits and are there to back each other up in case one goes down. This redundancy, referred to as diversity redundancy, offers much greater protection. You will still have a live, fully functioning carrier if one fails.

You want maximum redundancy. In order to achieve this, look for redundant circuits from different providers with different physical geographic pathways in Lansing, Michigan. This means that you should try to have the circuits come into you building from different sides. The circuits would be attached to telephone poles (or underground conduits) in different directions leading to different data centers or central 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.

What is the Cost of Not Having Adequate Protection for Your Company Class High-Speed access to The Internet?

Although Internet access comes at a price, the price of unreliable Internet access is tremendous. Consider the following:

Your company is reliant on VoIP for phone service

You are on a cable modem with the carrier providing circuits to 14 other tenants in your building. What if any or all of those tenants are huge call centers taking in a massive volume of phone calls, are business that perform large file downloads or stream many videos? What will happen to your telephone calls as the amount of usable bandwidth decreases? What about phone call quality? Will calls be cut-off? Will they be full of static?

Your business functions as the primary data center for multiple external locations

Your office may be the working center of an entire company enterprise. The kind of company does not necessarily matter. You may be a law firm doing file sharing, an accounting practice sharing databases or a retailer operating a distributed point-of-sale system. Your primary Internet connection is solely responsible for smoothly granting access and sending data to all of your sites whether you have two or two thousand. Your circuit goes down, now what happens? Would it cause mere annoyance or utter disaster? Are your other offices able to do any work? What about new orders? Circulate essential files and data? Before choosing a solution, be sure to assess and really understand what your company requires. Maybe your software company runs a hosted solution. Maybe that hosted solution is used by hundreds of your 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 if other systems can’t connect to your office servers? If you have repeated outages, how long will they remain a customer?

You are a call center and you completely rely on VoIP

Does your business completely rely on the web? Your employees or representatives will not be able to make outgoing phone calls if your circuits go down. There would be no way to answer incoming calls of people trying to reach your representatives. Looks like you are now out of business. For competent call centers that already use and understand the problems that can arise, is redundancy enough? Are the providers you currently use as reliable as they should be? Are they as reliable as you need them to be? Is the quality of service sufficient for your calls to be clear and reliable?

The Correct High-Speed Organization Access Circuits for Your Lansing, Michigan Company: How to Choose

Obviously, there are a variety of choices. Your business budget and needs will play a large part in your decision-making. As a wrap-up:

Small Company Internet Access

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. Gigabit service and Metro Ethernet options seem expensive. If you are in a lit building, however, they can be less than you think. Look into it. Prices change based on your location and the availability of circuits. Please speak with our engineers about what options best suit your needs.

Your Single Location Mid Sized Company Needs Internet Access

Mid sized companies with a single office in Lansing, Michigan, need higher speed Internet access. Higher-speed circuits like Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or others may be your best options. Optimally, multiple carriers and multiple circuits will give you the most redundancy. Achieving this may not be as costly as you first thought. For instance, it may be cheaper to utilize two 50 meg circuits in place of one 100 meg circuit. Again, costs and availability vary. In order to find out the options available for you, in your location, you need to speak with one of our seasoned experts.

Mid-Sized Businesses Internet access – Multiple Locations

Any company with more than one location suffers the greatest risk of problems. Redundant circuits must be an essential part of their systems. Multiple providers or carriers are recommended. 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 correct combination of providers and services can keep your organization running smoothly and efficiently.

Larger corporations, enterprising clients and clients who provide services that are delivered via the Internet

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. Having redundant hardware as well as redundant circuits from different providers will ensure your needed uptime. You need to provide sufficient bandwidth to handle usage spikes without slowdowns or interruptions. Having both your hardware and your circuits capable of supporting many different, fast, and simultaneous connections is essential. It cannot be one or the other.

Internet Need Demand Analysis Provided Free of Charge

The danger and risk of failing circuits is tremendous. So is the risk of having less bandwidth than you need. The right circuits must meet your demand while keeping you within your budget. You have to select the optimal combination of hardware and circuits, which is a daunting task.

Our engineers will take the pressure off and develop a free action plan for you by analyzing your needs. We will look at your current usage, demand levels and scope out a design to give you the resources you need while keeping your company up and running at a reasonable cost.

Please click here to complete the contact form on the right side of this page or call our office to schedule an appointment for an assessment. Your assessment may be finished within as little as 48 hours.