These days, companies in Marietta depend on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their organization. The business functions of every company, whether it is a small organization or on the Fortune 500, from Fortune 500, relies on fast and reliable access to The net.
Our dependence on Internet access will continue to grow in the coming months and years.
The web has a significant presence in our lives. From email to information sharing, data archiving to e-commerce, and VOIP to video chat, the internet is certainly ubiquitous. What do you need? Maybe a cable modem is a sufficient solution. Maybe you need Metro Ethernet. Is Gigabit Internet right for you? Does your Marietta, Georgia business need a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The Internet, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The net point?
Your organization must assess its real needs. This must be done before an appropriate service can be chosen. 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? Do remote places rely on you hosting the data in Marietta?
What if there is an outage and your high-speed Internet is interrupted? How will the downtime affect your organization? Is uptime essential to the success of your organization? You must answer questions like these so you can make a purchase that actually meets your needs
It is no secret that all companies need high-speed access to the net. Deciding on the right broadband is not easy. It requires a thorough cost-benefit analysis. While various providers will throw around terminology like:
… the real issue is understanding what capability and technical solutions best meet your needs.
For many, if not all, companies in Marietta, Internet access is needed for at least some employees. Whether it is for company research, to order supplies or to use third-party applications, the internet is required.
The number of workers you employ, may be the most important factor in your decision making process. A five or ten megabyte Internet circuit may be all you need if employ a small workforce. You should consider more than that if you have more workers. Also keep in mind whether your workers need to access the web at the same time.
Do your employees primarily use an intranet system? If so, you may not need much high-speed Internet service. When employees are often downloading images, videos and documents, however, the need for speed increases significantly.
Are you performing routine backups? Simultaneous connections to the web, which you need in order to sync your backup data, require support. If you conduct remote backups from every workstation, which you definitely should, this will be important.
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 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.
Are you interested in high-speed company Internet? Depending on where you are located, you may want to look into the viability of gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet. These are typically found in “lit buildings” in Marietta, Georgia. Providers have already wired these buildings. Choosing to add high-speed Internet to your office is a tough decision but it can be less expensive and easier than you think.
Unless you are bringing Metro Ethernet into a new building, it does not have to be an expensive proposition to connect it to a suite within a 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.
Ask yourself this: Does we host our own servers to run APIs, websites and data feeds to external offices or company premises? Are your company headquarters with a hosted application accessed by 50 branch offices? Is your business retail? Do you have thousands of stores? Do you host the point of sale system for the entire chain? Are you a law firm? Do you host data for three or more external sites?
When things are hosted at a central point, parties outside the office must somehow gain access. Those people are not able to work without a solid Internet connection. If you need multiple connections to function at the same time from many different sites, make sure that your intranet solution can reliably support it.
For one office or a small company with just one or two people surfing the web, a less expensive 10 Meg circuit or a cable modem may meet your needs. 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. This could probably not be accomplished with a cable modem.
Bringing in a cable modem, which seems to save money, may actually come at a price. While the monthly rate is lower, the bandwidth is generally shared among other tenants. During peak hours, your connection may slow down, even though you subscribe to a cable modem with a thirty-megabyte connection. Often, within a given community, cable companies may only deliver a particular amount of bandwidth. Different buildings and tenants housed or working within those buildings all share that set amount of bandwidth. With a 30-megabyte connection, you may not get to that speed during the working day. Will there be trouble if your expectation is set at 30 but you only get 8 or 10?
Some providers offer customers dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. With these options, bandwidth is yours. It is not shared with anyone outside of your business. Regardless of other tenants in your building or neighboring buildings, you should receive the full capacity of your circuit.
Metro Ethernet provides guaranteed bandwidth in increments as follows: 5, 10, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. Want to reach gigabit speeds? You can by using a gigabit Internet provider.
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.
Despite outstanding Internet bandwidth products offered by carriers in Marietta, circuits do go down. Ask this question: “what can I do to decrease the likelihood of an outage?
You may be a candidate for redundant circuits.
Redundancy basically comes in two forms.
The first kind of redundancy exists when one carrier provides one customer with many 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. Damage to an external wire or part can cause the failure of all of your circuits. A regional outage experienced by your carrier can have the same result. 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 carriers. These connections can be bound together so they act and appear to the public as a single circuit. Using particular routers and IP address allocations, no one would be able to tell that you have multiple carriers or circuits. But, you know that they are actually separate and redundant. While circuit redundancy in general is a good idea, diversity redundancy by using different carriers, offers far better protection. If one carrier has a problem, the other likely will not.
You want maximum redundancy. In order to achieve this, look for redundant circuits from different carriers with different physical geographic pathways in Marietta. Your goal should be to get circuits coming into your building on different sides. You do not want them on the same side. They would be on outside phone poles or underground conduits in different directions and leading to different places. 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.
Even though access to The Internet 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. Please consider these situations:
Are you on a cable modem and your carrier is providing circuits to dozens of other office suites in your 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. As available bandwidth shrinks, what will happen to your calls? How will it affect the quality of that telephone call? Are calls lost or dropped? Inaudible (choppy) to your customers?
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. Every single one of your offices, stores and sites rely on you and your primary Internet connection to retrieve data. What will happen if your circuit crashes? Would it annoy you or destroy you? How much work, if any, can be done by your remote places? Process new orders? Dispense and receive data? Before choosing a solution, be sure to assess and really understand what your business requires. You might have hundreds and hundreds of loyal customers. Perhaps you are a software company running a hosted solution they all rely on. You may operate a service like this: other systems talk to yours via an API to figure out freight rates, stock prices, to compile weather data or receive any other information that you provide. What if other systems can’t connect to your office servers? If you have repeated outages, how long will they remain a customer?
Your company is entirely Internet based. No calls can go out if your circuits fail. They are also unable to answer 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 providers that are truly reliable? Do you consistently get quality service that provides clear and reliable calls?
It should be clear by now that you have many different options to select from. Your business budget and needs will play a large part in your decision-making. As a wrap-up:
If you are a small company, with just one location and not concerned about redundancy, a single five meg, 10 meg or 50 meg Internet access circuit may be sufficient. For an office in a lit building, you may find that gigabit service or Metro Ethernet are affordable options for you. The availability of circuits and your location determine prices; speak with one of our engineers to learn what your best options are.
You have a mid-sized Marietta company; higher speed access to The net required. Higher-speed circuits like Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or others may be your best options. Ideally, you want to have the greatest redundancy. You can achieve this by using multiple circuits from different providers. Achieving this may not be as costly as you first thought. Two 50-megabyte circuits may be more cost effective than a single 100 circuit. As a reminder; availability and costs may vary. You need to speak with one of our experts to determine your options in your specific location.
Companies with multiple sites are most at risk for failure. Redundancy is crucial. Having several providers would afford extra protection. You can increase redundancy with switches or routers. Having redundant equipment can also minimize risk. 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. The right combination of services and carriers can positively impact the efficiency of your company.
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. You must have the bandwidth to withstand sharp increases in usage. Doing so will help protect you from 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.
Do not risk having failing circuits or not enough bandwidth. Your ideal single circuit or multiple circuits should stay within your budget while still meeting your demands. You have to select the optimal combination of hardware and circuits, which is a daunting task.
Our engineers will analyze your needs and requirements and develop a free action plan for you. We will 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.
Please call our office for an assessment appointment or click here to complete the contact form on the right side of the page. It can take less than 48 hours to complete your assessment.