Reliable access to The net is the lifeblood of Medford, Oregon companies and their business. The company functions of all companies, from Fortune 500 to small businesses, depend on fast and reliable access to The net.
Our reliance on access to the web will become greater in the near and distant future.
From email messaging to information sharing, e-commerce to archiving data, and voice over IP to video conferencing, the net is omnipresent. What do you need? Perhaps a cable modem is all you need. Maybe you need Metro Ethernet. Would Gigabit Internet suffice? A 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg Internet access, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg Internet access point: what is right for your company in Medford, Oregon?
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? Will real-time data connection with servers in the cloud be the primary use of the net? Do remote locations rely on you hosting the data in Medford, Oregon?
How would an outage to your high-speed Internet affect your organization? 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.
Plainly stated, companies require high-speed Internet access. When choosing the right broadband for organization, you need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits. While many providers throw around terminologies such as:
… do not lose sight of the real issues: what are the capabilities and technical solutions you need to best serve your company?
At most businesses including those in Medford, Oregon, some or all employees need Internet access. The web is required for so many things, whether to order items, look up company information communicate with third parties.
The best solution may rely upon how many employees you have. An Internet circuit of 5 -10 megabytes might be enough for your business if you only have a few people working for you. You should consider more than that if you have more workers. Also keep in mind whether your workers need to access the net at the same time.
High-speed Internet may become less important if the majority of your employees primarily use an intranet system with limited graphics and video. 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.
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. Enough bandwidth is required to support this function along with every other service.
Depending on where you are, you may want to look into high-speed organization Internet access such as Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet. These can usually be found in Medford, Oregon in “lit buildings” that have already been wired. 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 bringing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be an expensive proposition, bringing that connection to a suite within the building is not. In fact, obtaining high-speed access to The web with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less depending upon availability.
Does your company host its own servers to run information feeds, websites or application program interfaces (APIs) with companies or offices located outside of your four walls? Are your company headquarters with a hosted application accessed by 50 branch offices? Is your company retail? Do you have thousands of stores? Do you host the point of sale system for the entire chain? Are you an attorney with offices multiple cities or states? Do you have one office hosting data for several locations?
Granting access to outsiders is necessary when you host data and programs at a central location. Those people are not able to work without a solid Internet connection. Are you picking an intranet solution that provides reliability and stability for your multiple, simultaneous connections from various places?
If you have one office using the web, you may get by with a cable modem or a low- cost 10-megabyte circuit. High-speed dedicated circuits, Metro Ethernet or gigabit Ethernet are advisable for company headquarters. 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.
Utilizing a cable modem or other less expensive circuit may seem like a good option but can result in unexpected cost. While the monthly rate is lower, the bandwidth is generally shared among other tenants. If you subscribe to a cable modem with a 30-megabyte connection, you would expect to always be able to reach that high speed. However, it is possible that during peak hours, you won’t. Often, within a given community, cable companies may only deliver a particular amount of bandwidth. Buildings, offices and tenants within the buildings all must share that amount of bandwidth, whatever it may be. You might be capped at 30-megabyte speed, but may never be able to actually reach that speed during the important hours of your company day. Is this a problem for you if you expect 30 and get 6?
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 business. You should receive full capacity of your circuits during all hours. This is true even though you may have many buildings, businesses and tenants nearby.
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 web can be reached if you use a gigabit Internet provider.
In these situations, each tenant receives their contracted high-speed. The carrier delivers enough so they can split their circuit and provide enough to each tenant.
Medford, Oregon has some providers that offer exceptional Internet bandwidth products and services. However, circuits can still go down and cause disruption. How can you decrease the chance of an outage?
The answer is redundant circuits.
There are two types of redundancy to consider.
With the first kind, you receive several circuits but they all come from the same carrier. These redundant circuits help protect from certain failures, for example, router port issues or physical line trouble. 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. You get some protection, but also some risk.
Utilizing circuits from two different carriers is the second kind of redundancy. 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. In fact, they are totally redundant and separate. Diversity redundancy offers far greater protection. 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 Medford have different physical geographic routes or pathways. Doing so will maximize redundancy. If at all possible, you want to obtain circuits entering the premises on different sides. The circuits would be attached underground or to telephone poles, in various directions. The circuits would go to different data centers or central 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 of dependable access to The web pales in comparison to the cost of unreliable access. Consider these scenarios:
Your office uses a cable modem and, in addition to you, the carrier provides 10-15 additional tenants with circuits. Between 9 and 5, any of those other offices could be downloading huge files, streaming video or taking large volume of phone calls and more. How will your telephone calls be affected as the amount of available bandwidth decreases? What happens to the quality of that phone call? Are calls dropped? Will your voice be inaudible? Will you have difficulty hearing the other end?
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 offices, whether you have 3 or 3, 000, rely on your primary Internet connection to successfully access data. What happens if your circuit goes down? Is it a mere annoyance or a catastrophic failure? Can your satellite offices perform any work at all? What about new orders? Dispense and receive data? Before choosing a solution, be sure to assess and really understand what your organization requires. 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 rates or other information. What if other systems can’t connect to your office servers? If you have repeated outages, how long will they remain a customer?
Is the internet integral to the proper function of your organization? Do you depend on it entirely? Should your circuits go down, your representatives cannot make outbound calls. There would be no way to answer incoming calls of people trying to reach your representatives. You are essentially out of business. While many of the most reputable call centers are already aware and using the advantages of redundancy, is it sufficiently meeting their needs? Are the providers that you are using reliable enough? Do you consistently get quality service that provides clear and reliable calls?
Obviously, there are a variety of choices. Your organization needs and budgets will drive your decisions. To recap:
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. For an office in a lit building, you may find that gigabit service or Metro Ethernet are affordable options for you. Prices will vary. They are based on your location and circuit availability; speak with our engineers to learn your best options.
Having a medium or mid-sized company in Medford requires that you have higher-speed access to the net. Higher-speed circuits like Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or others may be your best options. Using different circuits and different providers will, if you choose, provide you with redundancy. Achieving this may cost extra but it won’t double your costs. Using one 100-megabyte circuit instead of two 50-megabyte circuits, is one example. To repeat, availability and prices 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. Different carriers are desirable. You can increase redundancy with switches or routers. Having redundant equipment can also minimize risk. 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 right combination of services and carriers can positively impact the efficiency of your business.
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. 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. The last thing you want is interruptions or slowdowns affecting your business. You must provide enough bandwidth to avoid these pitfalls that sometimes occur during sudden usage spikes. 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.
There is great risk of failing circuits or insufficient bandwidth. You must select the single circuit or multiple circuits that can meet your demands and stay within your budget. Choosing the right mix of circuits and hardware is a daunting task.
Our engineers can help. We are going to analyze your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. After reviewing your current usage and demand levels, we’ll generate a cost effective plan that provides your business with the resources it needs.
Please click here to complete the contact form on the right side of this page or call our office to schedule an appointment for an assessment. Assessments are completed in as little as 48 hours.