In today’s world, Malden companies need dependable access to The net. It is the lifeblood of their company. All companies, large and small, need fast and reliable Internet access.
We will become increasingly reliant on Internet access as the months and years progress.
From video chat to voice over IP, email to data sharing and data archiving to Internet commerce, the internet is everywhere you look. What solution bet fits your needs? Maybe a cable modem is a sufficient solution. Your needs may point to Metro Ethernet as a solution. Your needs may be met with Gigabit Internet. A 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg Internet access, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The net point: what is right for your business in Malden, Massachusetts?
The needs of your particular company must be determined before you can select an appropriate service. Is Internet use limited to website surfing or emailing only? Is the internet used for real-time data connection with servers in the cloud? Are you hosting the data in Malden that remote places rely on?
What happens if you have an outage in your high-speed Internet? What about the downtime that results? Can your organization afford that? Is your success dependent on uptime? Before you buy anything, you must answer these questions.
In all-encompassing terms, businesses need high-speed Internet access. Choosing the correct broadband for your company requires a cost benefit analysis. While many service providers throw around terminologies such as:
… the actual issue is knowing what technology and capability can satisfy your needs.
For most companies in Malden, some or all of the employees need access to the web. Whether it is for company research, to order supplies or to use third-party applications, the internet is required.
Your best course of action may be determined by the size of your work force. An Internet circuit of 5 -10 megabytes might be enough for your company if you only have a few people working for you. If you have many employees who need to use the internet at the same time, you may do better with more.
Your workforce may simply use an intranet system with limited video and graphics. If this is true, your need for high speed Internet be less than you thought. On the other hand, if your company requires that its employees download many documents or images and videos, Internet speed becomes more important.
Do you backup information? If you are doing remote backups from every desk, which is advisable, you will need to be able to support simultaneous connections out to the web to synchronize your backup data.
Does your company require employees to share files using a service like Google drive or DropBox? When you save a file it is pushed to the cloud. Then it is synched to the computer or computers of someone else. You need to have sufficient bandwidth to support this function while also supporting every other service.
Depending on your location, high-speed business Internet access, including Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options. “Lit buildings” that have already been wired by a carrier, are commonly the site for these. Choosing to add high-speed Internet to your office is a tough decision but it can be less expensive and easier than you think.
While it may be the case that bringing Metro Ethernet into a new building can cause a big dent in your wallet, bringing the connection to a suite or offices within that building does not have to. You can actually get high-speed access with gigabit Internet or even Metro Ethernet quickly. It often takes only 30 days or less, depending on availability.
Your business may host its own servers. Do they run websites APIs or data feeds for external offices? Are your organization headquarters with a hosted application connected to fifty or more satellite offices? Is your organization retail? Do you have thousands of stores? Do you host the point of sale system for the entire chain? Does your legal practice host all of the data for 3, 4 or 5 offices in different places?
If your company hosts its programs and information at a central location, people outside of that location need to have access in order to conduct company. 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 places?
For one office or a small organization with just one or two people surfing the web, a less expensive 10 Meg circuit or a cable modem may meet your needs. High-speed dedicated circuits, Metro Ethernet or gigabit Ethernet are advisable for company headquarters. Multiple diverse connections require support, in addition to high speed. A cable modem would not be able to accomplish this.
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. 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. Many cable operators can only deliver a certain amount of bandwidth in a community. That bandwidth branches off to different buildings and then to various tenants within those buildings. While you may be capped at a 30 Meg speed, you may never be able to reach that speed during business hours. Will there be trouble if your expectation is set at 30 but you only get 8 or 10?
There are providers who offer dedicated and even guaranteed bandwidth. With these, bandwidth belongs to you and your business only; no sharing. 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. Gigabit speeds from your office to the net can be reached if you use a gigabit Internet provider.
The providers in this situation deliver high-speed to a particular building in sufficient quantity to split their circuit among various tenants. Of course, they must ensure that they each get the specific amount of their contracted speed.
Despite outstanding Internet bandwidth products offered by carriers in Malden, Massachusetts, circuits do go down. Ask this question: “what can I do to decrease the likelihood of an outage?
Try using redundant circuits.
There are two types of redundancy to consider.
The first type is when one single carrier provides you with multiple circuits. These redundant circuits help protect from certain failures, for example, router port issues or physical line trouble. Even multiple circuits can fail, such as in the event of a large-scale carrier outage or when there damage to an external line. You get some protection, but also some risk.
In the second type of redundancy, you bring in circuits from two different providers. 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. In reality, they are completely separate and redundant to each other. You will get more substantial protection from this diversity redundancy. You will still have a live, fully functioning carrier if one fails.
If you want to maximize redundancy in Malden, Massachusetts please consider the following question: Do the carriers I am considering use the same physical geographic pathways? Basically this means that you want your circuits to enter your building on different sides or paths. The circuits would be attached underground or to telephone poles, in various directions. The circuits would go to different data centers or central offices. This way, if there is a major catastrophe, such as a fire at a data center or a major accident impacting circuits within a region, you have redundancy in a different physical direction.
It is true that access to The Internet costs you money. However, the cost does not come close to what you will pay if the access that is not reliable. Contemplate these scenarios:
Your office uses a cable modem and, in addition to you, the carrier provides 10-15 additional tenants with circuits. Any of these tenants may be taking many calls, conducting huge downloads or streaming video during your regular office hours. What will happen to your telephone calls as the amount of usable bandwidth decreases? What about phone call quality? Maybe calls will randomly drop? Will the calls be choppy?
Your office is the center of your organization. You may be a law firm that does file sharing or a retailer operating a POS system. Whether you have 2 places, 250, or 2000, they all rely on your primary Internet connection to retrieve data and information. What happens if your circuit goes down? Would it cause mere annoyance or utter disaster? Can your satellite or remote office do any work at all? What happens to new orders? Can they be taken or processed? Dispense and receive data? Do you know what your business needs? Be sure to fully understand your requirements. It will help you choose the correct solution. You might have hundreds and hundreds of loyal customers. Perhaps you are a software company running a hosted solution they all rely on. Do you operate a service where other systems speak with yours by using an application program interface (API)? For example do other systems gain access to yours in order to calculate rates, prices, or to collect information that you serve up? It is possible they will not be able to connect to your servers. Customers will only take so many repeated outages. How long with they remain with your company?
Your business is 100% dependent on the web to properly function. No outbound calls can be made should your circuits go down. Calls coming in would be unanswerable. You might not even know people are trying to reach your office. You are now, essentially, out of business. Is redundancy enough? Are the providers that you are using reliable enough? Is the quality of service sufficient? Are your calls clear and reliable?
You clearly have several choices. The needs and budget of your company will both affect your choices. To summarize:
If you have one location or office and do not feel the need to consider redundancy for your system, a smaller Internet access circuit may be all you need. A single fifty, ten or five megabyte circuit might be enough. Is your building lit? If so, find out about gigabit or Metro Ethernet services. They may be reasonably priced options. Prices vary based on your location and availability of circuits; speak with our engineers to find your best option.
Mid sized companies with a single office in Malden, need higher speed access to The Internet. Higher-speed circuits like Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or others may be your best options. In a perfect scenario, multiple circuits from different providers will give you the most redundancy. But can you do this without doubling costs? Sometimes, yes. For example, you may use 2 fifty meg circuits instead of 1 one hundred meg circuit. Again, costs and availability vary. Learn your options by speaking with one of our knowledgeable experts. We can help you determine what is available in your specific location.
Companies with different places, whether 5 or 50, are at the highest risk. Redundant circuits are a necessity. Different providers are desirable. 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 access to The web circuit providers? You should do so before making a decision. The right combination of services and carriers can positively impact the efficiency of your organization.
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. 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 enough bandwidth. The bandwidth must be adequate to handle spikes in usage with no slowdowns or interruptions. It is crucial that not only your circuits have the ability to support a vast number of multiple and simultaneous connects, but your hardware must have the ability to support them as well.
Your organization faces great risk of less than adequate bandwidth and failing circuits. Your demand and budget constraints should both be considered when you decide what circuit or combination of circuits you must have. Choosing the right combination of hardware and circuits can be complicated and confusing.
Our expert engineers will review your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. We will look at your current usage, demand levels and scope out a design to give you the resources you need while keeping your company up and running at a reasonable cost.
Please call our office for an assessment appointment or click here to complete the contact form on the right side of the page. Your assessment may be finished within as little as 48 hours.