Reliable access to The Internet is the lifeblood of Manhattan, New York companies and their business. All companies, big and small, need fast and reliable Internet access.
Our dependence on Internet access will continue to grow in the coming months and years.
The net is ubiquitous. From email to data sharing, archiving to commerce and VOIP to video chat, the internet is everywhere. What can best meet your needs? Maybe a cable modem is a sufficient solution. It could be that you need Metro Ethernet. Your needs may be met with Gigabit Internet. Your Manhattan organization probably needs a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg Internet access, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The web point but which one is best?
The needs of your particular company must be determined before you can select an appropriate service. Why will you need the net? Will you only be web surfing and emailing? Is the net used for real-time data connection with servers in the cloud? There may be remote sites that rely on you and you are hosting the data in Manhattan.
What happens if you have an outage in your high-speed Internet? How much downtime can your company withstand? Is uptime essential to the success of your business? Before you buy anything, you must answer these questions.
High-speed access to the web is something all companies need. Before you choose your broadband internet, look at the costs and benefits. Performing this analysis is an important step in picking the right one for your company. While various providers will throw around terminology like:
… the actual issue is knowing what technology and capability can satisfy your needs.
Workers for most companies in Manhattan have some need to access the net during the course of their job. It may be needed for business research, to order office supplies or other reasons.
The number of employees you have may determine your best solution. 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. You may need more if you have more workers and those workers all need to be on the web during the same hours.
Do your employees primarily use an intranet system? If so, you may not need much high-speed Internet service. When they are frequently downloading things, whether documents, graphics or videos, however, speed is necessary for efficient job performance.
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? The saved files go to the cloud and are then synchronized or “shared” with other people’s computers. Running all your services properly, including sharing files, requires that you have the right amount of bandwidth.
Your organization location may cause you to think about high-speed company access to The Internet such as Metro Ethernet and/or gigabit Internet. Usually, you can find these in “lit buildings” in Manhattan, New York that have been previously wired by a carrier. The ease and affordability of adding high-speed Internet to your office may surprise you.
If you have to bring Metro Ethernet into a new building, it can be expensive but bringing that connection to an office or suite within the building is usually not. 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.
Do you have your own company servers that run APIs, websites or feeds for offsite offices or companies? Are your company headquarters with a hosted application accessed by 50 branch offices? Are you a retail company with 10, 000 stores? Do you host the POS system for all of them? Are you a law firm hosting data for multiple office locations?
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 business. 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.
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. High speed is important but they also must be able to support multiple distinct connections. The support you need could not be provided by a cable modem.
Bringing in a less-expensive circuit like a cable modem often comes with a price. Even though you pay less money per month you must consider that the bandwidth you receive may be shared and used by multiple parties in the building. It is possible that you have a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection but cannot reach proper speeds during peak hours. Many cable operators can only deliver a certain amount of bandwidth in a community. Different buildings and tenants housed or working within those buildings all share that set amount of bandwidth. You might be capped at 30-megabyte speed, but may never be able to actually reach that speed during the important hours of your organization day. What will the consequences be if you expect 30 but only get half that? What if you get even less?
You can sign up for dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth from some carriers. In this case, your company receives full allocation of bandwidth. There is no sharing with any outsiders. 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. Gigabit Internet providers offer gigabit speeds from your office to the internet.
In these cases, the providers deliver high-speed to the building in sufficient quantity that they can then split their circuit to various tenants while guaranteeing each tenant is receiving their contracted speeds.
Manhattan has some providers that offer exceptional Internet bandwidth products and services. However, circuits can still go down and cause disruption. Ask this question: “what can I do to decrease the likelihood of an outage?
Circuits that are redundant may be a good idea.
Redundancy in this situation comes in two forms.
A single carrier, providing multiple circuits, to one customer, characterizes one form of redundancy. 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. 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. 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. By using IP address allocations and certain routers, you can bind your connections. By doing this, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. But, you know that they are actually separate and redundant. This is called diversity redundancy and offers more protection that the first. You will still have a live, fully functioning carrier if one fails.
When considering redundant circuits and providers, try to be sure that the carriers you look at in Manhattan, New York have different physical geographic routes or pathways. Doing so will maximize redundancy. Essentially, this just means that you do not want both of your circuits to enter the building on the same side. They should come in on different sides. The circuits would be attached to telephone poles (or underground conduits) in different directions leading to different data centers or central offices. What if there is some kind of catastrophic incident such as a fire or accident that impacts circuits within a region? Now, you have redundancy in an alternative physical direction.
Although access to The net comes at a price, the price of unreliable Internet access is tremendous. Think about the following situations:
The carrier you use for your cable modem also provides circuits for a dozen or more tenants in the office 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? How will the quality of that phone call be affected? Are calls dropped? Will you sound muffled?
Your office may be the working center of an entire organization enterprise. The kind of organization does not necessarily matter. You may be a law firm doing file sharing, an accounting practice sharing databases or a retailer operating a distributed point-of-sale system. Whether you have 2 locations, 250, or 2000, they all rely on your primary Internet connection to retrieve data and information. Your circuit goes down, now what will happen? Is it a mere annoyance or a catastrophic failure? Are remote offices able to work at all? Can they process transactions or new orders? Circulate essential files and data? Make sure you completely understand your needs before you pick a solution. Maybe your software company runs a hosted solution. Maybe that hosted solution is used by hundreds of your customers. Perhaps you operate a service where other systems talk to yours via an API to calculate freight prices, commodity prices, collect current weather data or receive any other information that you serve up. What if you have server problems and they are unable to connect to you? If you have repeated outages, how long will they remain a customer?
What if your business could not function at all without the net? Maybe your company depends upon it completely. No calls can go out if your circuits fail. They are also unable to answer calls. Basically, you are done. For competent call centers that already use and understand the problems that can arise, is redundancy enough? Make sure your carriers are as reliable as possible. You should be getting high quality service that ensures your calls are consistently clear and reliable.
Clearly, there are many choices. Your organization needs and budgets will drive your decisions. In review:
Sometimes redundancy is not vital to you. For example, If you are a small organization, with just one office location, a single Internet access circuit may be adequate. You may get by with one 50, 10 or even 5 megabyte circuit. If you are in a “lit” building, Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be reasonably priced options. Speak with our engineers about what is right for you. Prices vary with location and circuit availability.
You have a mid-sized Manhattan, New York company; higher speed Internet access required. Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet and other higher speed Internet circuits are options to consider. Using different circuits and different providers will, if you choose, provide you with redundancy. This may be attainable without doubling your costs. For instance, it may be cheaper to utilize two 50 meg circuits in place of one 100 meg circuit. Again, costs vary. Availability also varies. Learn your options by speaking with one of our knowledgeable experts. We can help you determine what is available in your specific location.
The greatest risk of failure belongs to companies that have multiple places of business or offices. They require redundant circuits. Multiple providers or providers are recommended. Redundant routers, switches and other equipment can also be helpful to lessen downtime during a problem. Before you make a decision here too, do your research. Look closely into Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed circuit providers. Your organization can benefit from finding the right mix of services and carriers.
For companies falling in this category, gigabit Internet circuits, Metro Ethernet Internet circuits and point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits are essential. Having redundant hardware as well as redundant circuits from different providers will ensure your needed uptime. The last thing you want is interruptions or slowdowns affecting your organization. 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.
Do you understand how great the risk of failing circuits and insufficient bandwidth really is? You need to have the right circuit or circuits to meet your demands while staying within your budget. It is crucial to choose the correct mix of hardware and circuits. Figuring out exactly what to put in the mix, can be a daunting task.
Our engineers will take the pressure off and develop a free action plan for you by analyzing your needs. You want your business to run smoothly. We will look at your current usage levels and demand levels and design a plan that meets your needs at a cost that makes sense for you.
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.