In today’s environment, companies in Lees Summit, Missouri rely on reliable access to The Internet as the lifeblood of their company. All companies, from Fortune 500 to small businesses, have functions that rely on easy, dependable and quick Internet access.
We are going to become increasingly reliant on Internet access as the months and years progress.
The net has a significant presence in our lives. From email to information sharing, data archiving to e-commerce, and VOIP to video chat, the web is certainly ubiquitous. What is the right solution to meet your requirements? Perhaps a cable modem is all you need. Metro Ethernet? Gigabit Internet? What is best for your company in Lees Summit? Will your organization needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg Internet access or 100 Meg Internet access point?
Prior to selecting a service, your organization must figure out its needs. Why will you need the net? Will you only be web surfing and emailing? Is the net used for real-time data connection with servers in the cloud? Do remote locations depend on you hosting the data in Lees Summit, Missouri?
Have you thought about what will happen to your organization if your high-speed Internet is interrupted by an outage? How will the downtime affect your business? Is uptime required? Before you buy anything, you must answer these questions.
High-speed access to the web is something all companies need. Before you choose your broadband internet, look at the costs and benefits. Performing this analysis is an important step in picking the right one for your company. While many providers throw around terminologies such as:
… you must not lose sight of the real issue, which is understanding what technical solutions best meet your needs.
Most companies in Lees Summit require that some or all of their workers have access to the internet. Whether it is for organization research, to order supplies or to use third-party applications, the net is required.
Perhaps the size of your work force may determine the solution that best fits your needs. 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 internet simultaneously, you may need more.
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.
Are you performing routine 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.
Do you use a file-sharing service? Perhaps you use Google drive, DropBox or a different service? When you save a file it is pushed to the cloud. Then it is synched to the computer or computers of someone else. You must have sufficient bandwidth if you are to successfully support every service including file sharing.
Organization high-speed Internet access may interest you. Depending on your location, you may have options such as gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. Usually, you can find these in “lit buildings” in Lees Summit, Missouri that have been previously wired by a carrier. If you’d like to install high-speed Internet in your office, you should know that it might be more affordable than you realize.
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. Did you know that obtaining high-speed access to The Internet with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less? Of course, this depends upon availability.
Ask yourself this: Does we host our own servers to run APIs, websites and data feeds to external offices or business premises? Is your main organization office with a hosted application accessed by 40 or even 50 branch office sites? Are you a retail company hosting the POS system for thousands of chain stores? Are you a law firm hosting data for multiple office sites?
Access to data and programs by people outside of your main location becomes necessary when you host information centrally. 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 places?
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. For headquarters, Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed Internet dedicated circuits is advisable. While fast access to The web is and important, they must also have the capability to handle assorted simultaneous connections. The support you need could not be provided by a cable modem.
Bringing in a cable modem, which seems to save money, may actually come at a price. Oftentimes, a lower monthly rate comes with the realization that you are sharing bandwidth with many different tenants and offices. 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. 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. You might be capped at 30-megabyte speed, but may never be able to actually reach that speed during the important hours of your company day. Is getting 7 when you expect 30 a problem?
Some carriers are available who offer dedicated bandwidth and guaranteed bandwidth. In this case, your business receives full allocation of bandwidth. There is no sharing with any outsiders. Regardless of other tenants in your building or neighboring buildings, you should receive the full capacity of your circuit.
For example, Metro Ethernet guarantees bandwidth in 5 met circuits, 10 Meg circuits, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. Want to reach gigabit speeds? You can by using a gigabit Internet provider.
The providers in this situation deliver high-speed to a particular building in sufficient quantity to split their circuit among various tenants. Of course, they must ensure that they each get the specific amount of their contracted speed.
While certain providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products in Lees Summit, Missouri, the reality is that it is possible for a circuit to go down. In what way can you diminish the risk of an outage?
Circuits that are redundant may be a good idea.
There are, in reality, two kinds of redundancy.
A single carrier, providing multiple circuits, to one customer, characterizes one form of redundancy. Redundant circuits help protect you from certain failures including physical line issues, port issues within routers, and others. 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. 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. Truthfully, they are entirely separate. They are redundant and exist in case one of them fails. This is called diversity redundancy and offers more protection that the first. In the event a carrier goes down, you will not have to worry. You will have a perfectly live carrier there to keep things moving.
When considering redundant circuits and carriers, try to be sure that the carriers you look at in Lees Summit, Missouri have different physical geographic routes or pathways. Doing so will maximize redundancy. If at all possible, you want to obtain circuits entering the premises on different sides. They would be on outside phone poles or underground conduits in different directions and leading to different places. 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.
The cost to your company if you do not have reliable Internet access will be far greater than you may realize. Consider the following:
Is your company on a cable modem? How many other tenants is your carrier servicing in your building? Are 14 other offices getting circuits? During company hours, any of those tenants could be streaming video, performing massive file downloads, processing large volumes of phone calls and more. How will your telephone calls be affected as the amount of available bandwidth decreases? What happens to the strength and quality of that call? Are calls lost or dropped? Will you sound muffled or choppy to your customers?
Your office is the hub of your company, whether you are a retail business operating a distributed point of sale (POS) system, an accounting firm sharing databases or a law firm engaged in file sharing. Every single one of your offices, stores and places rely on you and your primary Internet connection to retrieve data. What happens if your circuit crashes? Would it cause mere annoyance or utter disaster? Is work even possible at your other sites? What about new orders? Circulate essential files and data? It is important that prior to choosing a solution, you understand the true needs and requirements of your particular business. Perhaps you are a software company, running a hosted solution used by 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. You may find that they are unable to reach or connect with your business servers. How will repeated outages affect your customers? Will they remain customers?
Is the net integral to the proper function of your organization? Do you count on it entirely? Should your circuits go down, your representatives cannot make outbound calls. No calls could be answered either. You are essentially out of business. While most reputable call centers are already aware and using redundancy, is it enough? Make sure your providers are as reliable as possible. Is the quality of service sufficient for your calls to be clear and reliable?
You clearly have many options. Your organization budget and needs will play a large part in your decision-making. To summarize:
A single fifty, ten or five megabyte access to The Internet circuit may be adequate to meet the needs of your small business, particularly if you have only one location and are not worried about redundancy. If you are in a “lit” building, Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be reasonably priced options. Because prices can vary based on the location of your business and the availability of circuits, speak with our engineers to learn your options.
You have a mid-sized Lees Summit, Missouri company; higher speed access to The Internet required. You may choose between gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. You may also look into other higher-speed Internet circuits. Optimally, multiple carriers and multiple circuits will give you the most redundancy. You may be able to achieve this in a manner that will not break the bank. For example, you may use 2 fifty meg circuits instead of 1 one hundred meg circuit. Do not forget that you will find variations in price and availability. Call one of our experts to learn what is available in your specific area.
Any company with more than one location suffers the greatest risk of problems. Redundant circuits are essential. Different providers are desirable. Additionally, you should consider redundant equipment (routers and switches) in your facility to minimize the risk of downtime. As always, take a careful look and choose the right Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed Internet access circuit providers. The right combination of services and carriers can positively impact the efficiency of your company.
Gigabit Internet circuits, point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits are essential and Metro Ethernet Internet circuits must be utilized by companies in any of these categories. 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 do not want any slowdowns or interruptions that often occur during spikes in usage. Avoid this by having sufficient bandwidth. Both your hardware and circuits must be capable of supporting a vast number of simultaneous and fast connections.
The danger and risk of failing circuits is tremendous. So is the risk of having less bandwidth than you need. You need to have the right circuit or circuits to meet your demands while staying within your budget. Choosing the right mix of circuits and hardware is a daunting task.
Our engineers can analyze your needs and create a free action plan for you. We are going to examine your current usage and demand levels then create a design that provides you with the resources you need to keep your organization running smoothly at a reasonable cost.
You can complete the contact form on the right side of this page by clicking here. If you would prefer, please call our office to set up an appointment for an assessment. Assessments are done in as few as two days or within 48 hours.