In today’s environment, companies in Medford, Massachusetts depend on reliable access to The web as the lifeblood of their organization. The company functions of every company, whether it is a small business or on the Fortune 500, from Fortune 500, depends on fast and reliable Internet access.
Our reliance on access to the net will become greater in the near and distant future.
Our uses of the net reach far and wide. From data sharing, video calls, and shopping to VOIP and email, the net has a broad presence. What is the best solution for you? Maybe a cable modem is a sufficient solution. Metro Ethernet may be the thing you need. Gigabit Internet? Does your company in Medford need one of these: 10 Meg Internet access, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?
Before selecting an appropriate service for your organization, you must first determine what needs you are trying to satisfy. Why will you need the net? Will you only be web surfing and emailing? Is real time data connection with cloud servers vital to your organization? Are you hosting the data in Medford, Massachusetts that remote locations depend upon?
What if your high-speed Internet is disrupted by an outage? What will happen to your company? How might the downtime cause problems for your organization? Does your company require uptime? Before you buy anything, you must answer these questions.
High-speed access to the net is something all companies need. When picking the correct broadband, balancing the costs and benefits to your company is imperative. Many service providers toss out terms such as:
… do not lose sight of the real issues: what are the capabilities and technical solutions you need to best serve your company?
Companies in Medford, Massachusetts need access to the net for their employees. Some companies may need it only for a few people and others may need it for the entire workforce. Third party applications, business research or development and e-commerce are just several of the ways the internet may be needed.
Perhaps the size of your work force may determine the solution that best fits your needs. A five or ten megabyte Internet circuit may be all you need if employ a small workforce. If your company has nearly 50 people, however, and they all need to use the internet at the same time, you may find that more is better.
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, when they are frequently downloading documents, images and videos, that need for speed increases drastically.
Are you performing 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 Google drive, DropBox or another file sharing service? As people save files, those files are pushed to the cloud and then synchronized 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.
High-speed business Internet access like Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options for you depending on your location. They are almost always found in “lit buildings” in Medford that are already wired by a carrier. You may be surprised by how easy and affordable it is to add high-speed Internet to your business.
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.
Does your company host its own servers running websites, APIs or data feeds for other offices or companies outside of your own four walls? Are your company headquarters with a hosted application accessed by 50 branch offices? Perhaps you are in retail and host the point of sale (POS) system for thousands of stores? You may be a law firm hosting data for three or four different offices.
When things are hosted at a central point, parties outside the office must somehow gain access. Those people are not able to do their work if the web connection fails or is unreliable. 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?
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. High-speed access to The web is advisable for the headquarters. Gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit is recommended. While fast Internet access is and important, they must also have the capability to handle assorted simultaneous connections. A cable modem would not be able to accomplish this.
In many scenarios, bringing in an inexpensive circuit, such as a cable modem, comes at 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. While you may subscribe to a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection, you may be unable to reach those speeds during peak hours. Only a certain amount of bandwidth may be available in a community. Many cable companies have limits on the amount they can deliver. That amount of bandwidth must be shared with different buildings and with the tenants housed within. While you may be capped at a 30 Meg speed, you may never be able to reach that speed during business hours. Is it a problem if you get a quarter or even half of the speed you expected?
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 organization. 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.
You can receive guaranteed bandwidth with Metro Ethernet. You can receive it in increments of five, 10, 50 or one hundred megabyte circuits. Gigabit speeds from your office to the internet can be reached if you use 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.
Medford has some carriers 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?
The answer is redundant circuits.
There are two types of redundancy to consider.
The first type exists when the same carrier gives you multiple circuits. If there is a problem with a line or a port in your router, circuit redundancy can offer some protection. If your carrier experiences a regional outage or you have a line broken outside of your building, you may lose the use of all of your circuits. While offering some protection, it is not without risk.
You can also achieve redundancy by utilizing different providers to bring in and establish your circuits. 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. But, you know that they are actually separate and redundant. This redundancy, referred to as diversity redundancy, offers much greater protection. In the event that one carrier goes down, the other will still be alive.
The providers you choose for your redundant circuits should have different physical pathways in Medford. This is an important consideration when trying to obtain the most redundancy. Alternatively stated, try to have your circuits enter the building on different sides from one another. Ideally, the circuits will be going in different directions and toward various central business spaces or data centers. If a major accident occurs or there is a fire that impedes the function of circuits in a particular region, you have redundancy in a different direction.
Although Internet access comes at a price, the price of unreliable access to The net is tremendous. 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? During the course of a regular work day, any or all of these other businesses might be performing massive file downloads. Tenants might be taking a large volume of calls or be regularly streaming video. How will your telephone calls be affected as the amount of available bandwidth decreases? What happens to the quality of that phone call? Maybe calls will randomly drop? Inaudible (choppy) to your customers?
Regardless of whether you are part of a legal practice and your firm does file sharing, or an accounting practice sharing databases, your office is the central point or hub of your company. Your primary Internet connection is solely responsible for smoothly granting access and sending data to all of your places whether you have two or two thousand. What will happen in the event of a circuit failure? Is it just irritating? Is it going to cause tremendous problems? How much work, if any, can be done by your remote sites? Take new orders? Service existing ones? Share essential information with anyone? Be sure you understand your requirements fully before choosing a solution. You have a software company, and are running a hosted solution for dozens, maybe hundreds, of customers. Maybe you operate a service that allows other systems to talk to yours via API. This may be to collect miscellaneous data, calculate prices or shipping prices or other information. You may find that they are unable to reach or connect with your business servers. Multiple outages may annoy your customers.
Maybe your business depends entirely on the web. Your employees or representatives will not be able to make outgoing phone calls if your circuits go down. No calls could be answered either. Basically, you are done. For competent call centers that already use and understand the problems that can arise, is redundancy enough? Are the carriers that you are using reliable enough? Is the quality of your calls consistently and reliably clear?
Obviously, there are a variety of choices. Your organization needs and your budget will have to come into consideration when deciding on your solutions. In review:
If your company is small, with one location or office, you are likely not concerned about redundancy. For you, a single 5, 10 or 50 megabyte access to The net circuit may suffice. If you are in a “lit” building, Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be reasonably priced options. Because prices can vary based on the location of your organization and the availability of circuits, speak with our engineers to learn your options.
If you have a midsized organization in Medford, Massachusetts, you will need higher-speed access to The net. Your options are Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and higher speed circuits. Using different circuits and different carriers will, if you choose, provide you with redundancy. You can sometimes achieve this without doubling costs. Two smaller circuits may be cheaper than one. For instance, you may use two 50 meg circuits instead of a single 100 meg circuit. Do not forget that you will find variations in price and availability. In order to find out the options available for you, in your location, you need to speak with one of our seasoned experts.
What companies have the highest risk for failure; those with multiple sites. They require redundant circuits. Different providers are desirable. You can minimize the risk of downtime at if you also have redundant equipment like routers or switches. 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 correct combination of providers and services can keep your business running smoothly and efficiently.
For businesses that fit this description, it is essential to have gigabit Internet circuits, point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits and Metro Ethernet Internet circuits. You absolutely need redundant circuits from different providers as well as redundant hardware. This is important to ensuring uptime. You must have the bandwidth to withstand sharp increases in usage. Doing so will help protect you from slowdowns or interruptions. The hardware and circuits you choose must both be able to support the following: a great number of concurrent, speedy connections.
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. Selecting the appropriate mix of circuits and hardware can overwhelm you.
We have experts to help. Our engineers will do an analysis of your needs and requirements, and develop a free action plan for you based on their findings. After reviewing your current usage and demand levels, we are going to generate a cost effective plan that provides your business with the resources it needs.
You can complete the contact form on the right side of this page by clicking here. If you would prefer, please call our office to set up an appointment for an assessment. We can often provide assessments within 48 hours.