Obtaining High-Speed Internet Access in Longview

Accessing High Speed Internet in Longview, Texas: Gigabit Internet, Organization Broadband and Metro Ethernet Access

Because of today’s environment, companies in Longview rely on the web. Reliable access to the net 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, depends on fast and reliable access to The net.

access to The Internet will become increasingly crucial to us in the coming months and years. Our dependence on Internet access will only grow as time goes on.

The web has a significant presence in our lives. From email to information sharing, data archiving to e-commerce, and VOIP to video conferencing, the internet is certainly ubiquitous. What do you need? Is a cable modem enough? Do you need Metro Ethernet? Is Gigabit Internet right for you? Will your Longview, Texas company needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg Internet access or 100 Meg Internet access point?

How to Define your Organization Need for Internet Access

You must, before selecting a service, assess the actual needs of your organization. Is the internet only used for web surfing and email? Will Internet usage mainly involve cloud servers and real time data connection? Are you hosting the data in Longview that remote locations rely on?

What happens to your organization if your high-speed Internet experiences an outage? How much downtime can your company withstand? Is uptime required? Prior to making any purchases, you must determine the answers to these questions.

Evaluating Longview, Texas High Speed Internet Solutions

High-speed access to the internet is something all companies need. You need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits to your company before choosing the right broadband. While you are likely to hear some providers toss around terms such as:

• High-speed access to The net provider
• Internet for companies or Internet corporations
• What about broadband cable modems?
• Metro Ethernet service provider
• Gigabit Internet services
• MPLS service provider
• Point-to-point circuit services
• Five megabyte Internet access circuit
• Internet access circuits- ten megabytes
• 50 Meg access to The Internet circuits
• High-speed Internet access circuits-100 megabytes
• Session Initiation Protocol/ Sip trunk
• Internet access dedicated to you and only you
• … and more

… the real issue is understanding what capability and technical solutions best meet your needs.

Business Internet access for Surfing the Worldwide Web

At most businesses including those in Longview, Texas, some or all employees need access to The web. The web is required for so many things, whether to order items, look up organization information talk to third parties.

The number of employees you have may determine your best solution. If you have a handful of employees, a 5 or 10 Meg Internet circuit may be sufficient. You may need more if you have more workers and those workers all need to be on the internet during the same hours.

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, when they are frequently downloading documents, images and videos, that need for speed increases drastically.

Do you routinely backup? When you do remote backups from every workstation, which you should, you must support multiple and simultaneous connections to the web in order to sync 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? 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.

Depending on where you are, you may want to look into high-speed business Internet access such as Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet. Usually, you can find these in “lit buildings” in Longview that have been previously wired by a carrier. You may be surprised by how easy and affordable it is to add high-speed Internet to your organization.

While bringing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be an expensive proposition, bringing that connection to a suite within the building is not. In fact, obtaining high-speed Internet access with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less depending upon availability.

Online Applications Need High-Speed Internet access

Your company may host its own servers. Do they run websites APIs or data feeds for external offices? Do your headquarters have a hosted Internet application that must be accessed regularly by 40 or 50 branch offices? Is your company retail? Do you have thousands of stores? Do you host the point of sale system for the entire chain? You may be a law firm hosting data for three or four different offices.

When things are hosted at a central point, parties outside the office must somehow gain access. For those people, no Internet connection means no work gets done. When deciding on the right intranet solution for your organization, ask yourself: Is the solution going to adequately support simultaneous and multiple connections from my different sites?

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. 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 not provide the necessary support.

Which is Better for You in Longview? Dedicated Internet Bandwidth or Shared Cable Circuits?

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. Only a certain amount of bandwidth may be available in a community. Many cable companies have limits on the amount they can deliver. That amount of bandwidth must be shared with different buildings and with the tenants housed within. Will you achieve 30-meg speed during the working day? 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 carriers. In this situation, your bandwidth is not shared but is fully allocated to your business. The presence of numerous buildings and tenants should have no effect on your speed. You should receive full capacity of your circuits no matter what the time of day.

Five Meg, ten Meg, fifty Meg and 100 Meg circuits of guaranteed bandwidth are available with Metro Ethernet. With gigabit Internet providers, you can reach gigabit speeds in your office out to the web.

In these scenarios, carriers deliver a large quantity of high-speed to a building. The quantity must be enough so that it can split the circuit and deliver to every tenant. Whatever amount has been guaranteed in each tenant’s contract is the amount they receive.

High Speed Business Internet Circuits in Longview, Texas: How About Redundancy?

You can’t control everything. Even with the superior Internet bandwidth products that some carriers offer in Longview, problems arise and circuits can fail. You must ask yourself: “how do I lessen the chance of an outage? ”

Try using redundant circuits.

Essentially, there are two different ways to look at redundancy.

The first type is when one single carrier provides you with multiple circuits. This provides some protection when there are certain failures. Multiple circuits can help for example, when there is a physical line issue or a problem with a router port. Even multiple circuits can fail, such as in the event of a large-scale carrier outage or when there damage to an external line. While there is some protection, there is also some risk.

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. However, despite appearances, they are actually very much separate and are redundant to each other. While circuit redundancy in general is a good idea, diversity redundancy by using different providers, offers far better protection. When one carrier has a problem like an outage or some other failure, you have another one that works.

When considering redundant circuits and providers, try to be sure that the carriers you look at in Longview, Texas 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. In this way you have redundancy in different physical directions. If there is an event that causes a regional circuit problem, you have an alternative that is unaffected.

What Are the Costs Associated With Not Adequately Protecting Your Organization High-Speed Internet access?

Even though Internet access comes with a cost, you will save money if you make sure it is dependable. Unreliable access will end up costing you more in the long run. Consider the following:

Does your organization rely on Voice-over Internet Protocol for telephone service?

The carrier you use for your cable modem also provides circuits for a dozen or more tenants in the office building. It is possible that during normal company hours, those tenants might be downloading large files or watching continuous videos. They might be getting a lot of phone calls. How will less available bandwidth affect your telephone calls? What about the quality of your calls? Are calls lost or dropped? Inaudible (choppy) to your customers?

Your office or company is the main location for data and functions in that role for multiple locations

Your office is the hub of your company, whether you are a retail organization operating a distributed point of sale (POS) system, an accounting firm sharing databases or a law firm engaged in file sharing. All of your locations, you may have 2, you may have 500, you may have 4, 000, depend on your main Internet connection to access and receive data. What if your circuit fails? Would you merely be annoyed? Would there be catastrophic consequences? Are your other offices able to do any work? Take new orders? Service existing ones? Share essential information with anyone? Do you know what your organization needs? Be sure to fully understand your requirements. It will help you choose the correct solution. 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. Maybe you operate a service that allows other systems to communicate with yours via API. This may be to collect miscellaneous data, calculate prices or shipping rates or other information. It is possible they will not be able to connect to your servers. How long will your customers tolerate repeated outages?

The telephone system at your call center relies on VoIP

Your business is 100% reliant on the internet to properly function. Should your circuits stop working, imagine your people being unable to make any outbound phone calls. In addition, they will be unable to answer incoming calls. Looks like you are now out of organization. While most reputable call centers are already aware and using redundancy, is it enough? Are you really getting the dependable service you need form your carriers? Are you using carriers that are truly reliable? Are you getting quality service so that your calls are clear and consistent?

Considering the Best Longview High-Speed Business Access Circuits for Your Company

You have no shortage of options. Your organization needs and your budget will have to come into consideration when deciding on your solutions. In review:

Internet Access Needs for Small Company

If you are a small company, 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. If you are in a “lit” building, Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be reasonably priced options. Prices will vary. They are based on your location and circuit availability; speak with our engineers to learn your best options.

Mid-Sized Company Internet access: One Location

Mid sized companies with a single office in Longview, need higher speed access to The Internet. You may choose between gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. You may also look into other higher-speed Internet circuits. Ideally, multiple circuits from multiple providers will provide you with the greatest redundancy. Achieving this may cost extra but it won’t double your costs. Using one 100-megabyte circuit instead of two 50-megabyte circuits, is one example. Remember, costs vary. So does availability. You should speak with our experts to learn the options for your particular location.

Mid-Sized Businesses access to The Internet – Multiple Locations

Companies with different locations, whether 5 or 50, are at the highest risk. Redundant circuits must be an essential part of their systems. Varied providers are optimal. In addition, consider redundant equipment. Redundant routers and switches can minimize risk also. Here also, examine the Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet providers. Take a careful look at other high-speed access to The web circuit providers before choosing the right one. Your business can benefit from finding the right mix of services and providers.

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

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. You will want to have the greatest protection of your uptime. To accomplish this you must have redundancy: redundant circuits from multiple carriers and redundant hardware for your system. The last thing you want is interruptions or slowdowns affecting your company. You must provide enough bandwidth to avoid these pitfalls that sometimes occur during sudden usage spikes. 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

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. Choosing the right mix of circuits and hardware is a daunting task.

We have engineers that will analyze your needs, look at your business requirements and develop an action plan for you… for free!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.

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. Your assessment may be finished within as little as 48 hours.