These days, companies in Little Rock depend on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their organization. The organization functions of all companies, from Fortune 500 to small companies, count on fast and reliable Internet access.
In the months and years ahead, people and businesses will become more dependent on access to the net.
Our uses of the internet reach far and wide. From data sharing, video calls, and shopping to VOIP and email, the internet has a broad presence. What can best meet your needs? Can a cable modem suffice? Metro Ethernet may be the thing you need. You may need Gigabit Internet. Does your Little Rock company need a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The web, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg Internet access point?
Before selecting the appropriate service, your organization must assess its needs. Are surfing the web and sending email the only uses of the internet? Will Internet usage mainly involve cloud servers and real time data connection? Perhaps you, in Little Rock, are hosting the data and remote places depend upon this.
What if your high-speed Internet is disrupted by an outage? What will happen to your business? Can your company afford a long pause or lull in productivity? Is your success reliant on uptime? Before you buy anything, you must answer these questions.
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 company. While many providers like to spout technical terminologies such as:
… you must not lose sight of the real issue, which is understanding what technical solutions best meet your needs.
Workers for most companies in Little Rock, Arkansas have some need to access the net during the course of their job. There are countless reasons to need access to the net. Perhaps it is to order materials, to conduct company research or talk to clients.
Perhaps the size of your work force may determine the solution that best fits your needs. A five or ten megabyte Internet circuit may be all you need if employ a small workforce. If you have more than that, you may need more.
You may not need as much high-speed Internet access if your employees work primarily on an intranet system with limited graphics and video. When employees are often downloading images, videos and documents, however, the need for speed increases significantly.
Are you performing routine backups? Synchronizing your backup data after doing remote backups from every desk requires you to support simultaneous connections out to the web.
Does your company require employees to share files using a service like Google drive or DropBox? As a file is saved, it is pushed to the cloud and then synced back to other people’s computers. Running all your services properly, including sharing files, requires that you have the right amount of bandwidth.
Organization high-speed access to The web may interest you. Depending on your location, you may have options such as gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. They are usually contained in “lit buildings” in Little Rock that have already been wired by a carrier. It may be shock you to know that installing high-speed Internet access may not be particularly expensive or inconvenient.
If you have to bring Metro Ethernet into a new building, it can be expensive but bringing that connection to an office or suite within the building is usually not. Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet may provide you with high-speed access to The web 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. Are your corporate headquarters with a hosted application utilized by 50 branch offices? Does your office host the point of sale (POS) system for every single store in a large retail chain? Do you run a law office that hosts the data for satellite offices in different cities or states?
When things are hosted at a central point, parties outside the office must somehow gain access. If the net connection is interrupted, those people cannot get their work done. Can your intranet solution support your needs? Can it support multiple simultaneous connections? Is it stable enough to handle this when they are from various sites?
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. For the headquarters, high-speed Internet access including Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable. High speed is important but they also must be able to support multiple distinct connections. The support you need could not be provided by a cable modem.
Bringing in a less-expensive circuit like a cable modem often comes with a price. Your low monthly bill may mean that the bandwidth is shared among multiple tenants. While you may subscribe to a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection, you may be unable to reach those speeds during 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. Whatever that amount of bandwidth is, it branches into all buildings in the community and to all tenants in those buildings. With a 30-megabyte connection, you may not get to that speed during the working day. Is getting 7 when you expect 30 a problem?
You can sign up for dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth from some providers. With these, bandwidth belongs to you and your organization only; no sharing. The full capacity of your circuit should be attainable during all hours regardless of neighboring buildings, people or offices.
For example, Metro Ethernet guarantees bandwidth in 5 met circuits, 10 Meg circuits, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. Gigabit speeds from your office to the web can be reached if you use a gigabit Internet provider.
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.
The truth is that circuits can go down in Little Rock, Arkansas even though some providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. You must ask yourself: “how do I lessen the chance of an outage? ”
Consider redundant circuits.
Essentially, there are two different ways to look at redundancy.
With the first kind, you receive several circuits but they all come from the same carrier. 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 protection, there is also some risk.
The second way to set up circuit redundancy is by using two different providers to bring in your circuits. You may want your circuits to appear and act as if they are one and come from the same source. If so you can use IP address allocations and advanced routers to do so. Truthfully, they are entirely separate. They are redundant and exist in case one of them fails. You will get more substantial protection from this diversity redundancy. In the event that one carrier goes down, the other will still be alive.
For maximum redundancy, you should look for redundant circuits from different providers with different physical geographic pathways in Little Rock, Arkansas. 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. If a major accident occurs or there is a fire that impedes the function of circuits in a particular region, you have redundancy in a different direction.
While Internet access is not free, it pales in comparison with the cost of not having reliable Internet access. Please think about the following scenarios:
Your company is on a cable modem and your carrier provides circuits to 20 other offices in your building. 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. How will less available bandwidth affect your telephone calls? How will the quality of that phone call be affected? Will calls be cut-off? Will you sound muffled?
Regardless of whether you are part of a legal practice and your firm does file sharing, or an accounting practice sharing databases, your office is the central point or hub of your organization. Your primary Internet connection is responsible for granting access to data to all of your locations. This is true whether you have 3 locations or 2000 sites. What if your circuit fails? Would it annoy you or destroy you? Is work even possible at your other sites? Process new orders? Share essential information with anyone? Make sure you completely understand your needs before you pick a solution. What if you are a software company? Perhaps you are running a hosted solution and it must be used by multiple customers; maybe even hundreds. Perhaps you operate a service where other systems speak with yours via an API to calculate freight rates, commodity prices, collect current weather data or receive any other information that you serve up. What happens when there is a problem connecting to your servers? Multiple outages may annoy your customers.
Your organization is completely reliant on the web. No outbound calls can be made should your circuits go down. Your reps have no way of answering calls, if they even know they are coming in. You are essentially out of organization. While many of the most reputable call centers are already aware and using the advantages of redundancy, is it sufficiently meeting their needs? Are your carriers sufficiently reliable? Are you getting quality service so that your calls are clear and consistent?
It should be clear by now that you have many different options to select from. Your budget, as well as the needs of your company, will help drive your decisions. To recap:
A single fifty, ten or five megabyte access to The net circuit may be sufficient to meet the needs of your small organization, 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. Prices change based on your location and the availability of circuits. Please speak with our engineers about what options best suit your needs.
If you have a midsized business in Little Rock, you will need higher-speed Internet access. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and other higher-speed Internet circuits are your options. Multiple circuits utilizing multiple providers would, ideally, provide you with maximum redundancy. Achieving this may not be as costly as you first thought. For example, choosing two 50 meg circuits versus one 100 meg circuit. Availability and costs vary. In order to find out the options available for you, in your location, you need to speak with one of our seasoned experts.
Businesses with many sites face the greatest risk for failure. Redundant circuits are essential. Multiple providers would be great. You can minimize the risk of downtime at if you also have redundant equipment like routers or switches. 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 right combination of services and carriers can positively impact the efficiency of your organization.
To run efficiently and effectively, corporations and businesses that fall into this category must use point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits, gigabit Internet circuits and Metro Ethernet 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 must have the bandwidth to withstand sharp increases in usage. Doing so will help protect you from 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.
There is great risk of failing circuits or insufficient bandwidth. 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 help. We’ll analyze your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. We are going to formulate a design or plan based partly on your current usage and demand levels. We are going to create something cost effective that gives you the resources your company needs, while keeping it running smoothly.
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. It can take less than 48 hours to complete your assessment.