In today’s world, Lorain, Ohio companies need dependable Internet access. It is the lifeblood of their business. Fast and reliable access to The net is needed for companies to function properly; large corporations and small companies alike.
Our reliance on access to the internet will become greater in the near and distant future.
The use of the net is pervasive. We use it for email and data sharing, video chat and VOIP, archiving and commerce. What is the best fix to meet your needs? Perhaps a cable modem is all you need. Metro Ethernet? Your needs may be met with Gigabit Internet. Will your Lorain, Ohio organization 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?
Prior to selecting a service, your organization must figure out its needs. Is the internet only used for web surfing and email? Is connecting with cloud servers and sharing real time data the main use of the web? You may be hosting the data in Lorain, Ohio and remote locations rely on this.
What will happen to your organization if your high-speed Internet experiences an outage? Can your company afford a long pause or lull in productivity? Does your organization require uptime? Before you buy anything, you must answer these questions.
High-speed Internet access is required by all businesses. When choosing the right broadband internet for business, you need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits. While various providers will throw around terminology like:
… be sure not to forget what capability and technical solutions meet your business’s specific needs.
At most businesses including those in Lorain, Ohio, some or all employees need Internet access. Whether it is for business research, to order supplies or to use third-party applications, the net is required.
The number of workers you employ, may be the most important factor in your decision making process. If you have a smaller workforce, you may do fine with a smaller Internet circuit. For example, if you only employ a handful of people, a 5 or 10 Meg circuit may meet your needs. If you have 50 employees who are using the net simultaneously, you may need more.
Do your employees primarily use an intranet system? If so, you may not need much high-speed Internet service. However, employees who must often download documents, images and videos, need that speed.
Are you performing backups? 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.
Do you use a file sharing service like Google drive or DropBox? As people save files, those files are pushed to the cloud and then synchronized back to 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.
Business high-speed Internet access may interest you. Depending on your location, you may have options such as gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. These can usually be found in Lorain, Ohio in “lit buildings” that have already been wired. You may be surprised by how easy and affordable it is to add high-speed Internet to your business.
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. In fact, in as little as 30 days, you may be able to obtain high-speed access to the internet with either gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. It depends upon availability.
Does your organization host its own servers to run information feeds, websites or application program interfaces (APIs) with companies or offices located outside of your four walls? Are your corporate headquarters with a hosted application utilized by 50 branch offices? Are you hosting the point of sale (POS) system for 15, 000 retail chain stores? 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. Those people are not able to work without a solid Internet connection. When deciding on the right intranet solution for your company, ask yourself: Is the solution going to adequately support simultaneous and multiple connections from my different locations?
An inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be enough if you have one office that needs to surf the internet. A cable modem may also be adequate in this situation. High-speed access to The net is advisable for the headquarters. Gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit is recommended. While fast Internet access is and important, they must also have the capability to handle assorted simultaneous connections. A cable modem would probably not be enough.
In many cases, installing an inexpensive cable modem comes at a price. There may be a lower monthly rate, but bandwidth is usually shared with many tenants. During peak hours, your connection may slow down, even though you subscribe to a cable modem with a thirty-megabyte connection. Cable operators are only permitted to establish a certain amount of bandwidth within communities. That amount of bandwidth must be shared with different buildings and with the tenants housed within. During crucial working hours, you may not get to the 30-meg speed you have been capped at. Is this a problem for you if you expect 30 and get 6?
There are providers who offer dedicated and even guaranteed bandwidth. In this situation, your bandwidth is not shared but is fully allocated to your organization. No matter who is in the building or what buildings surround you, you should always run at full speed.
Metro Ethernet provides guaranteed bandwidth in increments as follows: 5, 10, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. Gigabit Internet providers offer gigabit speeds from your office to the internet.
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.
The truth is that circuits can go down in Lorain even though some providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. In what way can you diminish the risk of an outage?
Redundant circuits.
We are primarily talking about two kinds of redundancy.
The first type is when one single carrier provides you with multiple circuits. If there is a problem with a line or a port in your router, circuit redundancy can offer some protection. 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 offers some protection and assurance but does not eliminate all threats.
In the second type of redundancy, you bring in circuits from two different providers. Advanced routers and IP address allocations can be utilized to make it look to your users and the public that you have a single circuit. However, despite appearances, they are actually very much separate and are redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy offers far greater protection. You will still have a live, fully functioning carrier if one fails.
When considering redundant circuits and carriers, try to be sure that the providers you look at in Lorain 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. 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. 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.
The cost to your company if you do not have reliable Internet access will be far greater than you may realize. Consider these scenarios:
Are you on a cable modem and your carrier is providing circuits to dozens of other office suites 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 your telephone calls be affected as the amount of available bandwidth decreases? What happens to the quality of that phone call? Will you lose calls? Will the calls be choppy?
Your office is the hub of your company, whether you are a retail company operating a distributed point of sale (POS) system, an accounting firm sharing databases or a law firm engaged in file sharing. All of your sites, whether 2 or 2000, rely on your primary Internet connection to access and retrieve data. Your circuit goes down, now what happens? Would it annoy you or destroy you? Is work even possible at your other locations? Can they take or process any orders at all? Dispense and receive data? Picking the right a solution can be difficult. Before doing so, be sure you fully understand your requirements. 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. 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. It is possible they will not be able to connect to your servers. How will repeated outages affect your customers? Will they remain customers?
Is the web integral to the proper function of your organization? Do you depend on it entirely? Should your circuits go down, your representatives cannot make outbound calls. Calls coming in would be unanswerable. You might not even know people are trying to reach your office. Basically, you are done. Is redundancy enough? Many of the finest call centers with the best reputations already understand and use redundancy. They should consider if they have sufficient protection. Are you really getting the dependable service you need form your carriers? Are you using providers that are truly reliable? Is the quality of your calls consistently and reliably clear?
You clearly have several choices. Your business budget and needs will play a large part in your decision-making. In review:
You are probably not thinking about redundancy if you have a small organization with a single location. In this case, you can probably get by with a single Internet access circuit of 5, 10 or 50 meg. Gigabit service and Metro Ethernet options seem expensive. If you are in a lit building, however, they can be less than you think. Look into it. The availability of circuits and your location determine prices; speak with one of our engineers to learn what your best options are.
Mid sized companies with a single office in Lorain, need higher speed access to The web. You may choose between gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. You may also look into other higher-speed Internet circuits. In a perfect world, you will achieve maximum redundancy by utilizing multiple carriers to provide and service different circuits. You may be able to achieve this in a manner that will not break the bank. For example, choosing two 50 meg circuits versus one 100 meg circuit. Again, costs vary. Availability also varies. In order to find out the options available for you, in your location, you need to speak with one of our seasoned experts.
If your company has several places or offices, you are at great risk for failure. Redundant circuits are a necessity. Different carriers are desirable. You can increase redundancy with switches or routers. Having redundant equipment can also minimize risk. Have you looked at Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed access to The Internet circuit providers? You should do so before making a decision. The correct combination of providers and services can keep your business running smoothly and efficiently.
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. If you want to ensure your valuable uptime, have redundant circuits from multiple providers as well as redundant hardware. 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.
Your company faces great risk of less than adequate bandwidth and failing circuits. You must select the single circuit or multiple circuits that can meet your demands and stay 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 will examine your current usage and demand levels then create a design that provides you with the resources you need to keep your business running smoothly at a reasonable cost.
An appointment for an assessment can be made by calling our office or clicking here to complete the contact form on the side of this page. We do assessments quickly. It can take as little as 48 hours to complete your analysis.