The lifeblood of McAllen, Texas companies doing company in the current environment relies on reliable access to The web. All companies, big and small, need fast and reliable access to The net.
Our dependence on Internet access will continue to grow in the coming months and years.
From email to data sharing, video chat to VoIP, and data archiving to Internet commerce, the Internet is ubiquitous. What is the best fix for your needs? A cable modem may be satisfactory. Metro Ethernet may be what you need. Your needs may be met with Gigabit Internet. Does your business in McAllen need one of these: 10 Meg access to The net, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?
Before choosing an adequate or appropriate service, you must decide what your company really needs. Is the internet primarily used for emailing or web surfing? Is it used to network with cloud servers? Are you hosting data in McAllen? Do remote places depend upon you?
What happens if you have an outage in your high-speed Internet? How will the downtime affect your company? How much uptime is essential to your company? Prior to making any purchases, you must determine the answers to these questions.
High-speed access to the internet is something all companies need. Deciding on the right broadband is not easy. It requires a thorough cost-benefit analysis. You will hear providers use terms like:
… do not stray from the real issues. Focus on what your company’s needs are and what capabilities and technical solutions will help satisfy them.
At most businesses including those in McAllen, some or all employees need Internet access. Third party applications, organization research or development and e-commerce are just several of the ways the web may be needed.
The best solution may rely upon how many employees you have. If you have a handful of employees, a 5 or 10 Meg Internet circuit may be adequate. If you have 50 employees who are using the web simultaneously, you may need more.
If your employees are merely accessing an intranet system with limited graphics and video, your need for high-speed Internet may be reduced. However, employees who must often download documents, images and videos, need that speed.
Are you performing routine backups? It is recommended that you do remote backups from every desk. If you are, you will need to support simultaneous connections out to the web to synchronize the backup data to collect.
Are you using a service such as DropBox or Google drive to share files? As a file is saved, it is pushed to the cloud and then synced back to other people’s computers. In order to ensure that all of your functions work properly, in addition to file sharing, you must have sufficient bandwidth.
Depending on your location, high-speed organization Internet access, including Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options. These can usually be found in McAllen, Texas 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 company.
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. In fact, obtaining high-speed access to The net with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less depending upon availability.
Does your company host its own servers? Does your company use the hosted servers to run data feeds, APIs or websites for offices or businesses located elsewhere? Is your main company 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 a legal practice hosting the data for three sites?
If you host programs, data or information centrally, people outside of the central location need to have access. If your Internet connection goes down, those people are unable to work. Are you picking an intranet solution that provides reliability and stability for your multiple, simultaneous connections from various sites?
A cable modem or fairly cheap 10-megabyte circuit may be enough in certain scenarios. For example, these may meet the needs of a single office surfing the web. For the headquarters, high-speed access to The web including Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable. High-speed alone is not enough. They must also need to be capable of supporting many diverse connections. Do you think a cable modem is sufficient? It is probably not.
In some situations, there is a high price to pay for bringing in an inexpensive circuit or cable modem. There may be a lower monthly rate, but bandwidth is usually shared with many tenants. It is possible that you have a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection but cannot reach proper speeds during peak hours. Many cable companies only deliver a set amount of bandwidth within a community. Whatever that amount of bandwidth is, it branches into all buildings in the community and to all tenants in those buildings. While you may be capped at a 30 Meg speed, you may never be able to reach that speed during business hours. Do you care if you only get 6 when you were set up to expect 30?
Some providers offer customers dedicated and 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 Internet providers offer gigabit speeds from your office to the web.
Carriers in these situations deliver enough to cover everyone’s needs. The carriers divide their circuit to various tenants while guaranteeing that everyone gets their contracted speed.
While certain providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products in McAllen, Texas, the reality is that it is possible for a circuit to go down. In what way can you diminish the risk of an outage?
Circuits that are redundant may be a good idea.
There are two types of redundancy to consider.
A single carrier, providing multiple circuits, to one customer, characterizes one form of redundancy. Redundant circuits help protect you from certain failures including physical line issues, port issues within routers, and others. Even multiple circuits can fail, such as in the event of a large-scale carrier outage or when there damage to an external line. This is not foolproof, but does offer some protection.
Circuit redundancy can also be achieved in the following way: Import circuits using two different and distinct providers. 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. Though they may appear as one, you know that they are each individual circuits and redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy offers far greater protection. If one carrier has a problem, the other likely will not.
For maximum redundancy, you should look for redundant circuits from different providers with different physical geographic pathways in McAllen, Texas. 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 established either underground or on telephone poles and would be set up in different directions and lead to different offices. If you can accomplish this, you are protected from a major catastrophe. For example, if a there is a fire or some other accident that negatively affects circuits in a region, you have redundancy in a physically different direction.
The cost to your company if you do not have reliable Internet access will be far greater than you may realize. Contemplate these scenarios:
Is your company on a cable modem? How many other tenants is your carrier servicing in your building? Are 14 other offices getting circuits? It is possible that during normal business hours, those tenants might be downloading large files or watching continuous videos. They might be getting a lot of phone calls. How will your telephone calls be affected as the amount of available bandwidth decreases? How will it affect the quality of that telephone call? Will calls be cut-off? Will they be full of static?
Your office is the hub of your enterprise: You might be a law practice that shares files, a retail operation that utilizes POS systems or a large accounting firm that needs to share databases. All of your locations, whether 2 or 2000, count on your primary Internet connection to access and retrieve data. Your circuit goes down, now what happens? Would it cause mere annoyance or utter disaster? Can your satellite offices perform any work at all? Process new orders? Share information? It is important that prior to choosing a solution, you understand the true needs and requirements of your particular organization. Perhaps you are a software company, running a hosted solution used by hundreds of customers. Is an API utilized in your business so that your customers can access and communicate with your system? What happens when they are unable to connect to your servers? Customers do not enjoy repeated outages. How long with they put up with them before looking to take their business elsewhere?
Maybe your organization depends entirely on the web. No outbound calls can be made should your circuits go down. In addition, they will be unable to answer incoming calls. You are now, essentially, out of organization. Is redundancy enough? Are the providers you currently use as reliable as they should be? Are they as reliable as you need them to be? Is the quality of your calls consistently and reliably clear?
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:
A single fifty, ten or five megabyte Internet access circuit may be sufficient to meet the needs of your small organization, particularly if you have only one location and are not worried about redundancy. Is your building lit? If so, find out about gigabit or Metro Ethernet services. They may be reasonably priced options. Costs vary with location and the availability of circuits so speak with our engineers. Together, we can find the best option for you and your company.
Mid-sized businesses in McAllen, Texas should be equipped with higher-speed Internet. You may choose between gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. You may also look into other higher-speed Internet circuits. Using different circuits and different carriers will, if you choose, provide you with redundancy. It is sometimes possible to reach this without adding ridiculous costs. Using one 100-megabyte circuit instead of two 50-megabyte circuits, is one example. Availability and costs vary. Call one of our experts to learn what is available in your specific area.
Companies with multiple places are most at risk for failure. They require redundant circuits. Multiple providers are highly desirable. You can minimize the risk of downtime at if you also have redundant equipment like routers or switches. Here too, take a careful look and choose the right Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed access to The net circuit providers. The right mix can help. If you can figure out the best combination of providers and services for your company, you will benefit.
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. You must have redundant circuits for multiple providers as well as redundant hardware in your office to ensure your uptime. You must have the bandwidth to withstand sharp increases in usage. Doing so will help protect you from slowdowns or interruptions. Be sure to have the right circuits and hardware. They both must be able to support multiple, fast, concurrent connections.
Do you understand how great the risk of failing circuits and insufficient bandwidth really is? Your ideal single circuit or multiple circuits should stay within your budget while still meeting your demands. 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. You want your business to run smoothly. We’ll 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.
Please complete the contact form by clicking here. You may also call our office to set up an appointment for your assessment. It can take less than 48 hours to complete your assessment.