Because of today’s environment, companies in Lompoc rely on the web. Reliable access to the internet is the lifeblood of their company. The organization functions of every company, whether it is a small business or on the Fortune 500, from Fortune 500, relies on fast and reliable access to The net.
Our dependence on access to The Internet will continue to grow in the coming months and years.
The use of the web is pervasive. We use it for email and data sharing, video conferencing and VOIP, archiving and commerce. What is the right solution to meet your requirements? Maybe a cable modem is a sufficient solution. It could be that you need Metro Ethernet. Gigabit Internet may be required. Will your Lompoc, California company needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg access to The Internet or 100 Meg access to The net point?
You must, before selecting a service, assess the actual needs of your business. Will web surfing and email be your primary use of the web? Is real time data connection with cloud servers essential to your business? Are you hosting data in Lompoc? Do remote sites depend upon you?
What if there is an outage and your high-speed Internet is interrupted? How might the downtime cause problems for your business? Is uptime required? You must answer questions like these so you can make a purchase that actually meets your needs
Speaking broadly, all companies need high-speed access to the internet. You need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits to your company before choosing the right broadband internet. You will hear providers use terms like:
… the real issue is understanding what capability and technical solutions best meet your needs.
For many, if not all, companies in Lompoc, access to The web is needed for at least some employees. Whether it is to speak with shippers, do research or place orders, Internet access is required.
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 many employees who need to use the net at the same time, you may do better with more.
Your need for high-speed Internet may be lessened if your workers are just accessing an intranet systemHowever, employees who must often download documents, images and videos, need that speed.
Does your company regularly conduct backups? Synchronizing your backup data after doing remote backups from every desk requires you to support simultaneous connections out to the web.
Do you use a file-sharing service? Perhaps you use Google drive, DropBox or a different service? This is how a file sharing service works: You save a file. Then the file is pushed to the cloud, and is then synchronized with other people’s computers. The right amount of capacity or bandwidth is necessary to support this function in conjunction with every other service you have.
Your business location may cause you to think about high-speed organization access to The web such as Metro Ethernet and/or gigabit Internet. They are commonly found in “lit buildings” in Lompoc, California that have already been wired by a carrier. You may be surprised by how easy and affordable it is to add high-speed Internet to your company.
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. Also, securing high-speed access to The Internet using gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet often takes less than 30 days, depending on its availability.
Ask yourself this: Does we host our own servers to run APIs, websites and data feeds to external offices or company premises? Is your main business office with a hosted application accessed by 40 or even 50 branch office sites? Are you a retail company with 10, 000 stores? Do you host the POS system for all of them? Do you run a law office that hosts the data for satellite offices in different cities or states?
If you host programs, data or information centrally, people outside of the central location need to have access. If the net connection is interrupted or fails, those people are unable to accomplish any work. 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.
A cable modem or fairly cheap 10-megabyte circuit may be enough in certain scenarios. For example, these may meet the needs of a single office surfing the web. For headquarters, Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed Internet dedicated circuits is advisable. While high speed is great, you also need support for your multiple diverse connections. A cable modem would probably not be enough.
Bringing in a cable modem, which seems to save money, may actually come 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 companies are known to limit or predetermine the amount of bandwidth available for delivery in any particular community. That bandwidth reaches out like branches to every building in the community and the people living and working in those buildings. While you may be capped at thirty-megabyte speed, will you ever reach that speed during business hours? Do you care if you only get 6 when you were set up to expect 30?
Some providers offer customers dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. With these, bandwidth belongs to you and your company only; no sharing. 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, 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 web you can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit providers
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.
Realistically, while some providers in Lompoc offer excellent Internet bandwidth products, it is possible for a circuit to go down. How can you decrease the chance of an outage?
Redundant circuits may be the answer for you.
There are two types of redundancy to consider.
The first is where you get multiple circuits from one carrier. When there are problems with a physical line or a port or other failures, it can be helpful to have redundant circuits. 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. This is not foolproof, but does offer some protection.
You can also achieve redundancy by utilizing different carriers to bring in and establish your circuits. If you think it is beneficial, you can bind the connections together in a manner that makes your circuits act and look like a single source. But, you know that they are actually separate and redundant. While circuit redundancy in general is a good idea, diversity redundancy by using different carriers, offers far better protection. You will still have a live, fully functioning carrier if one fails.
You should look for redundant circuits from providers in Lompoc 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. They would be on outside phone poles or underground conduits in different directions and leading to different places. 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.
Internet access costs money but the cost of NOT having reliable access to The net is greater. Contemplate these situations:
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 your working day, those tenants could be conducting massive downloads of information, processing a large amount of calls or streaming endless video. As available bandwidth shrinks, what will happen to your calls? What about phone call quality? Are the calls going to be dropped? Will you sound muffled or choppy to your customers?
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. Every single one of your offices, stores and places rely on you and your primary Internet connection to retrieve data. What will happen in the event of a circuit failure? Will it cause disastrous results of just annoy you a little bit? Can meaningful work be conducted at your remote offices? Process or take new orders? Share information? Be sure you understand your requirements fully before choosing a solution. Maybe your software company runs a hosted solution. Maybe that hosted solution is used by hundreds of your customers. You may operate a service like this: other systems speak with yours via an API to figure out freight rates, stock prices, to compile weather data or receive any other information that you provide. What if other systems can’t connect to your office servers? If you have repeated outages, how long will they remain a customer?
Your business is entirely Internet based. Should your circuits go down, your representatives cannot make outbound calls. No calls could be answered either. Looks like you are now 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? You should be getting high quality service that ensures your calls are consistently clear and reliable.
You clearly have many options. The needs and budget of your business will both affect your choices. As a wrap-up:
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. You may find that if your building is “lit”, gigabit service and Metro Ethernet service may be reasonably cost-effective choices for you. Because prices can vary based on the location of your business and the availability of circuits, speak with our engineers to learn your options.
Having a medium or mid-sized company in Lompoc, California requires that you have higher-speed access to the web. You have several choices. Consider the following: Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet or higher-speed access to The Internet circuits. Ideally, you want to have the greatest redundancy. You can achieve this by using multiple circuits from different carriers. But can you do this without doubling costs? Sometimes, yes. For example, one 100-megabyte circuit may cost more than two smaller 50-megabyte circuits. Remember, costs vary. So does availability. Call one of our experts to learn what is available in your specific area.
If your business has several places or offices, you are at great risk for failure. Redundancy is extremely crucial to them. Multiple providers are highly desirable. Redundant routers, switches and other equipment can also be helpful to lessen downtime during a problem. 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 correct combination of providers and services can keep your organization running smoothly and efficiently.
If you fall into this group, you must have Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet circuits and point-to-point High-speed Internet circuits. Redundant hardware and redundant circuits will, for these businesses, ensure the greatest uptime. Be sure the circuits are from different providers. You need to provide sufficient bandwidth to handle usage spikes without slowdowns or interruptions. The hardware and circuits you choose must both be able to support the following: a great number of concurrent, speedy connections.
Your company faces great risk of less than adequate bandwidth and failing circuits. You need to have the right circuit or circuits to meet your demands while staying within your budget. It is vital to choose the correct mix of hardware and circuits. Figuring out exactly what to put in the mix, can be a daunting task.
We have engineers that will analyze your needs, look at your organization requirements and develop an action plan for you… for free!Our experts will examine your current usage and demand. We will then generate a design that gives you the resources you need while keeping your company up and running at a reasonable cost.
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