The Internet in Lawrence, Kansas: High-Speed Access

Business Broadband, Gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet: Lawrence High Speed Internet Access

The lifeblood of Lawrence companies doing company in the current environment relies on reliable Internet access. Fast and reliable Internet access is needed for companies to function properly; large corporations and small companies alike.

In the months and years ahead, people and businesses will become more dependent on internet access.

Our uses of the net reach far and wide. From data sharing, video calls, and shopping to VOIP and email, the web has a broad presence. What do you need? A cable modem may be satisfactory. Metro Ethernet? Would Gigabit Internet suffice? What does your Lawrence organization need? Does it require 10 Meg Internet access, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 Meg circuit or a 5 Meg circuit?

Internet Access: Defining the Business Need

Your organization must assess its real needs. This must be done before an appropriate service can be chosen. Are surfing the web and sending email the only uses of the net? Is real time data connection with cloud servers crucial to your organization? Do remote locations rely on you hosting the data in Lawrence?

What if you have a disruption in your high-speed Internet? How will the downtime affect your organization? Is the absence of uptime detrimental? You must answer questions like these so you can make a purchase that actually meets your needs

Evaluating Lawrence High Speed Internet Solutions

High-speed Internet access is required by all businesses. Choosing the correct broadband for your company requires a cost benefit analysis. While you are likely to hear some providers toss around terms such as:

• High-speed Internet access
• Business Internet / Internet for business
• Broadband cable modems are our specialty
• Provider of Metro Ethernet
• GbE or Gigabit Ethernet
• Multiprotocol label switching, also known as MPLS
• Point-to-point circuit protocol
• Internet access circuits-5 Meg
• Internet access circuits- ten megabytes
• 50 Meg Internet access circuits
• Internet access circuits- One hundred Meg
• Leading SIP trunk authority
• Internet access dedicated to your needs
• … and much more

… you must not lose sight of the real issue, which is understanding what technical solutions best meet your needs.

Business Access: Surfing the net at Work

At any company in Lawrence, Kansas some employees, if not all employees, need some type of access to the web if they are to properly perform their job duties. 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. A 5 or 10 megabyte Internet circuit may be perfect if you only have a few employees. 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.

If your employees are merely accessing an intranet system with limited graphics and video, your need for high-speed Internet may be reduced. On the other hand, if your company requires that its employees download many documents or images and videos, Internet speed becomes more important.

Do you routinely backup? If, as recommended, you conduct remote backups from every single desk, you will need to support simultaneous connections out to the web. This will allow you to sync your backup data.

Do you use a file-sharing service? Perhaps you use Google drive, DropBox or a different service? 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 organization Internet access like Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options for you depending on your location. Usually, you can find these in “lit buildings” in Lawrence that have been previously 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. Depending on availability, it is often possible to obtain high-speed access to The net with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet in 30 days or less.

Web Applications Require Fast Internet Access

Consider whether your business hosts its own servers that run APIs, websites and/or data to outside buildings, offices or companies. Are your corporate headquarters with a hosted application utilized by 50 branch offices? Perhaps you are in retail and host the point of sale (POS) system for thousands of 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. If the net 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.

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. Company headquarters should have high-speed Internet access such as gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit. High speed is important but they also must be able to support multiple distinct connections. A cable modem would likely be insufficient.

Shared Cable Circuits V. Dedicated Internet Bandwidth in Lawrence

In many cases, installing an inexpensive cable modem comes at a price. 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. Cable operators are only permitted to establish a certain amount of bandwidth within communities. Buildings, offices and tenants within the buildings all must share that amount of bandwidth, whatever it may be. During crucial working hours, you may not get to the 30-meg speed you have been capped at. 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 scenario, the bandwidth is fully allocated to you and your company or company. No one else uses it. You should receive full capacity of your circuits during all hours. This is true even though you may have many buildings, businesses and tenants nearby.

For example, Metro Ethernet guarantees bandwidth in 5 met circuits, 10 Meg circuits, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. If you want to reach gigabit speeds from your company out to the internet, you can by using a gigabit Internet provider.

In these situations, each tenant receives their contracted high-speed. The carrier delivers enough so they can split their circuit and provide enough to each tenant.

Redundancy With Lawrence, Kansas High Speed Company Internet Circuits

Realistically, while some providers in Lawrence offer excellent Internet bandwidth products, it is possible for a circuit to go down. How can you decrease the chance of an outage?

Try using redundant circuits.

There are, in reality, two kinds of redundancy.

The first kind of redundancy exists when one carrier provides one customer with many circuits. In this situation, the redundancy helps protect you from port issues or physical line issues. 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 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 carriers. 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. Diversity redundancy provides greater assurance, comfort and protection. When one carrier has a problem like an outage or some other failure, you have another one that works.

For maximum redundancy, you should look for redundant circuits from different carriers with different physical geographic pathways in Lawrence. If at all possible, you want to obtain circuits entering the premises on different sides. The circuits would attached to the proper outside source whether a subterranean conduit or a telephone pole. They would be set up in different directions and would lead to different data centers or main office spaces. Having redundancy in different physical directions can protect you if there is a serious incident at a data center or some accident that causes a regional circuit issue.

Not Having Organization Class High Speed-Internet Access Protection May Cost You

access to The net costs money but the cost of NOT having reliable access to The net is greater. Consider these scenarios:

Your company telephone utilizes voice-over Internet Protocol, or VoIP as it is commonly known

You are on a cable modem with the carrier providing circuits to 14 other tenants in your building. During organization hours, any of those tenants could be streaming video, performing massive file downloads, processing large volumes of phone calls and more. What will happen to your telephone calls as the amount of usable bandwidth decreases? What will happen to the strength and quality of that call? Are calls lost or dropped? Will you sound muffled or choppy to your customers?

Multiple places use your organization as the central data point

Whether you are a law firm doing file sharing, an accounting practice sharing databases or a retailer operating a distributed point-of-sale system, your office is the hub for your enterprise. Whether you have 2 locations, 250, or 2000, they all rely on your primary Internet connection to retrieve data and information. If your circuit goes done, what will happen next? Is it just irritating? Is it going to cause tremendous problems? Are remote offices able to work at all? Process or take new orders? Share information? Before choosing a solution, be sure to assess and really understand what your business requires. 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 will happen when there is a problem connecting to your servers? If you have repeated outages, how long will they remain a customer?

The telephone system at your call center relies on VoIP

What if your business could not function at all without the internet? Maybe your business relies on it completely. What if your representatives can make no outgoing telephone calls because your circuits go down? In addition, they will be unable to answer incoming calls. You are essentially out of organization. Is redundancy enough? Are the carriers you currently use as reliable as they should be? Are they as reliable as you need them to be? Are you getting quality service so that your calls are clear and consistent?

In Lawrence: Selecting the Proper High-Speed Company Access Circuits for Your Company

It should be clear by now that you have many different options to select from. Your decision will be based on different factors including your organization needs and your budget. Essentially:

Internet Access for Smaller Businesses

Sometimes redundancy is not essential to you. For example, If you are a small organization, with just one office location, a single access to The Internet circuit may be adequate. You may get by with one 50, 10 or even 5 megabyte circuit. Is your building lit? If so, find out about gigabit or Metro Ethernet services. They may be reasonably priced options. 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

Having a medium or mid-sized company in Lawrence requires that you have higher-speed access to the web. Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet and other higher speed Internet circuits are options to consider. Ideally, you want to have the greatest redundancy. You can achieve this by using multiple circuits from different providers. But can you do this without doubling costs? Sometimes, yes. Using one 100-megabyte circuit instead of two 50-megabyte circuits, is one example. Remember, costs vary. So does availability. Speaking with one of our experts will help you determine the options available in your specific location.

Internet Access for Mid-Sized Businesses with Several Locations

The greatest risk of failure belongs to companies that have multiple places of company or offices. Redundancy is extremely vital to them. Different carriers are desirable. Redundant routers, switches and other equipment can also be helpful to lessen downtime during a problem. Look at all of your options: Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet providers, Metro Ethernet providers and other high-speed circuit providers. The right combination of services and carriers can positively impact the efficiency of your organization.

Bigger corporations, enterprise companies and providers of services that are delivered using 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. You absolutely need redundant circuits from different providers as well as redundant hardware. This is vital to ensuring uptime. Having plenty of bandwidth will help avoid interruptions or decreased speed that sometimes occurs during spikes in usage. 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.

You May Receive an Internet Need and Internet Demand Analysis for Free

There is great risk of failing circuits or insufficient bandwidth. The right circuits must meet your demand while keeping you within your budget. It is crucial to choose the correct mix of hardware and circuits. Figuring out exactly what to put in the mix, can be a daunting task.

Our engineers can analyze your needs and create a free action plan for you. You want your business to run smoothly. We are going to look at your current usage levels and demand levels and design a plan that meets your needs at a cost that makes sense for you.

If you would like to arrange for an assessment, please click here to complete the contact information form to the right. You can call our office as well. We can often provide assessments within 48 hours.