The Web in Lowell: High-Speed Access

Access to High Speed Internet in Lowell, Massachusetts: Metro Ethernet Access, Organization Broadband and Gigabit Internet

In today’s world, Lowell companies need dependable access to The web. It 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 Internet.

Our dependence on Internet access will continue to grow in the coming months and years.

From video chat to voice over IP, email to data sharing and data archiving to Internet commerce, the internet is everywhere you look. What can best meet your needs? Perhaps a cable modem is all you need. Is Metro Ethernet necessary? Gigabit Internet may be required. Does your Lowell, Massachusetts company need a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The Internet, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg Internet access point?

Access to the internet: Determining Your Business’s Needs

Before selecting an appropriate service for your organization, you must first determine what needs you are trying to satisfy. Why will you need the internet? Will you only be web surfing and emailing? Will Internet usage mainly involve cloud servers and real time data connection? Are you hosting the data in Lowell, Massachusetts that remote sites rely on?

What if there is an outage and your high-speed Internet is interrupted? Will your company suffer from the lull? How much uptime is essential to your business? These types of questions must be answered before you make purchase anything.

High-Speed Internet in Lowell, Massachusetts: Explaining Different Solutions

Plainly stated, companies require high-speed access to The Internet. Deciding on the right broadband internet is not easy. It requires a thorough cost-benefit analysis. Don’t be distracted by terminology. While you may hear providers throw out words and phrases like:

• Fastest Internet access
• Internet for businesses or Internet corporations
• We provide broadband cable modems
• Metropolitan-area Ethernet provider
• GbE or Gigabit Ethernet
• Multiprotocol label switching (MPLS)
• Services related to point-to-point circuits
• 5-megabyte access circuits
• Ten megabyte Internet access
• Internet access-50 Meg
• Internet access circuits- One hundred Meg
• Sip trunking specialists
• Internet access dedicated to your needs
• … and so many more

… the actual issue is knowing what technology and capability can satisfy your needs.

Surfing the Web at Work: Company Internet Access

Workers for most companies in Lowell have some need to access the web during the course of their job. It may be needed for organization research, to order office supplies or other reasons.

The number of workers you employ, may be the most important factor in your decision making process. A 5 or 10 megabyte Internet circuit may be perfect if you only have a few employees. You may need more if you have more workers and those workers all need to be on the net during the same hours.

High-speed Internet may become less important if the majority of your employees primarily use an intranet system with limited graphics and video. When they are frequently downloading things, whether documents, graphics or videos, however, speed is necessary for efficient job performance.

Are you regularly performing backups? If, as recommended, you conduct remote backups from every single desk, you will need to support simultaneous connections out to the web. This will allow you to sync your backup data.

Are you using a service such as DropBox or Google drive to share files? 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.

Your company location may cause you to think about high-speed company access to The Internet such as Metro Ethernet and/or gigabit Internet. They are almost always found in “lit buildings” in Lowell that are already wired by a carrier. Choosing to add high-speed Internet to your office is a tough decision but it can be less expensive and easier than you think.

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. Depending on availability, it is often possible to obtain high-speed Internet access with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet in 30 days or less.

Web Applications Require Fast Internet Access

Do you have your own company servers that run APIs, websites or feeds for offsite offices or companies? Is your main organization office with a hosted application accessed by 40 or even 50 branch office sites? Does your office host the point of sale (POS) system for every single store in a large retail chain? Are you an attorney with offices multiple cities or states? Do you have one office hosting data for several places?

When data, programs, or information is hosted centrally, those outside your office must gain access. If the net connection is interrupted, those people cannot get their work done. When deciding on the right intranet solution for your business, ask yourself: Is the solution going to adequately support simultaneous and multiple connections from my different places?

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 sufficient in this situation. For headquarters, Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed Internet dedicated circuits is advisable. All offer quick speed but they must also be able to support diverse and multiple connections. The support you need could not be provided by a cable modem.

Shared Cable Circuits in Lowell Versus Dedicated Internet Bandwidth

In many cases, installing an inexpensive cable modem comes at a price. Your low monthly bill may mean that the bandwidth is shared among multiple tenants. The cable modem you subscribe to with the 30 Meg connections may not always reach those speeds, especially during the busiest or “peak” hours of the workday. Cable operators differ but many have prescribed limits on the bandwidth amount that they can deliver within a set community. The bandwidth branches off to the multiple buildings, offices and tenants within them. The 30-meg speed you are capped out sounds good but it is possible that you will never reach that speed during company hours. Is this a problem for you if you expect 30 and get 6?

You can find a carrier who can provide dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. In this situation, your bandwidth is not shared but is fully allocated to your business. No matter who is in the building or what buildings surround you, you should always run at full speed.

With Metro Ethernet, for example, you can receive a guaranteed bandwidth in various increments including 5 and 10 Meg circuits, and 50 and 100 Meg circuits. You can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit Internet providers.

Here, carriers deliver enough high-speed to the building, so that it can be split among various tenants. The carrier has the right amount so that everyone gets the contracted speed that has been promised.

Redundant High Speed Business Internet in Lowell: Why More Circuits?

The truth is that circuits can go down in Lowell even though some carriers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. In what way can you diminish the risk of an outage?

Circuits that are redundant may be a good idea.

Redundancy in this situation comes in two forms.

The first type is when one single carrier provides you with multiple circuits. Redundant circuits can help protect against certain problems. They can mitigate the inconveniences when there is a failure of a physical line or a problem with the port into your router. 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.

The second way to set up circuit redundancy is by using two different carriers to bring in your circuits. Using advanced routers and IP address allocations, you can bind these connections together so that, to your users and to the public, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. You know the truth: that they are individual circuits and are there to back each other up in case one goes down. You will get more substantial protection from this diversity redundancy. 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.

If you want to maximize redundancy in Lowell, Massachusetts please consider the following question: Do the providers I am considering use the same physical geographic pathways? This means that you should try to have the circuits come into you building from different sides. The circuits would be established either underground or on telephone poles and would be set up in different directions and lead to different offices. 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.

What Cost Awaits if you do Not Have Enough High-Speed access to The Internet Protection for Your Company?

Although access to The web comes at a price, the price of unreliable Internet access is tremendous. Please consider these situations:

The phone service in your office relies on Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP)

Are you on a cable modem and your carrier is providing circuits to dozens of other office suites in your building? Any of these tenants may be taking many calls, conducting huge downloads or streaming video during your regular office hours. As available bandwidth shrinks, what will happen to your calls? What about the quality of your calls? Will calls be arbitrarily dropped? Will your voice be inaudible? Will you have difficulty hearing the other end?

Your office is the main data point for various other offices

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. Your primary Internet connection is solely responsible for smoothly granting access and sending data to all of your locations whether you have two or two thousand. What if your circuit fails? Will it cause disastrous results of just annoy you a little bit? Can meaningful work be conducted at your remote offices? Can they take or process any orders at all? Share information? Choosing the right solution depends largely on assessing and understanding the specific needs of your business. Perhaps you are a software company, running a hosted solution used by hundreds of customers. Maybe you offer a service that allows other systems use an application program interface (API) to communicate with you to collect information and data. It is possible they will not be able to connect to your servers. How will repeated outages affect your customers? Will they remain customers?

You are a call center and you completely count on VoIP

Your organization is entirely Internet based. No calls can go out if your circuits fail. Calls coming in would be unanswerable. You might not even know people are trying to reach your office. Basically, you are out of organization. While most reputable call centers are already aware and using redundancy, is it enough? Make sure your carriers are as reliable as possible. Is the quality of your calls consistently and reliably clear?

The Correct High-Speed Organization Access Circuits for Your Lowell Company: How to Choose

It should be clear by now that you have many different options to select from. The needs and budget of your business will both affect your choices. In review:

Internet Access and the Small Business

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 access to The Internet 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. Because prices can vary based on the location of your organization and the availability of circuits, speak with our engineers to learn your options.

Single Location Mid-Sized Company and Internet Access

You have a midsized company in Lowell; you will surely need higher-speed Internet. Your options are Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and higher speed circuits. Optimally, multiple providers and multiple circuits will give you the most redundancy. 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. You need to speak with one of our experts to determine your options in your specific location.

Access to the net for the Mid-Sized Company with Several Offices

Companies with different places, whether 5 or 50, are at the highest risk. Redundant circuits must be an essential part of their systems. Multiple providers or providers are recommended. Also, redundant equipment such as switches and routers in your facility can minimize the risk of downtime. Have you looked at Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed Internet access circuit providers? You should do so before making a decision. The right combination of services and providers can positively impact the efficiency of your company.

Bigger corporations, enterprise companies and providers of services that are delivered using 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. 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 need to provide sufficient bandwidth to handle usage spikes without slowdowns or interruptions. Your goal is to have hardware and circuits that are more than capable of providing support to a significant number of fast and simultaneous connections.

Internet Need Demand Analysis Provided Free of Charge

The danger and risk of failing circuits is tremendous. So is the risk of having less bandwidth than you need. It is imperative that the circuit or circuits you choose meet your needs but also keep you within your allowable budget. Choosing the right mix of circuits and hardware is a daunting task.

Our expert engineers will review your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. We’ll formulate a design or plan based partly on your current usage and demand levels. We will create something cost effective that gives you the resources your business needs, while keeping it running smoothly.

Please complete the contact form by clicking here. You may also call our office to set up an appointment for your assessment. We can often provide assessments within 48 hours.