Reliable Internet access is the lifeblood of Meridian companies and their business. All companies depend on reliable and quick Internet access. This is true irrespective of how large or small the company.
We’ll become increasingly dependent on access to The web as the months and years progress.
The use of the web is pervasive. We use it for email and data sharing, video chat and VOIP, archiving and commerce. What can best meet your needs? Will a cable modem be adequate? Your needs may point to Metro Ethernet as a solution. You may need Gigabit Internet. Does your organization in Meridian need one of these: 10 Meg Internet access, a 100 Meg access to The web point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?
Your organization must assess its real needs. This must be done before an appropriate service can be chosen. Are surfing the web and sending email the only uses of the net? Is real time data connection with cloud servers vital to your business? Do remote sites rely on you hosting the data in Meridian?
How would an outage to your high-speed Internet affect your organization? Can your organization afford the downtime? Is uptime essential? Before buying, these are a few of the questions that you must answer.
High-speed Internet access is required by all businesses. Choosing the correct broadband for your company requires a cost benefit analysis. While various providers will throw around terminology 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.
Most companies in Meridian require that some or all of their workers have access to the net. It may be needed for company research, to order office supplies or other reasons.
The number of workers you employ, may be the most important factor in your decision making process. An Internet circuit of 5 -10 megabytes might be enough for your organization if you only have a few people working for you. If you have many employees who need to use the web at the same time, you may do better with more.
Your need for high-speed Internet may be lessened if your workers are just accessing an intranet systemOn the other hand, if your company requires that its employees download many documents or images and videos, Internet speed becomes more important.
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.
Do you use a file sharing service like Google drive or DropBox? 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.
Your business location may cause you to think about high-speed company access to The net such as Metro Ethernet and/or gigabit Internet. These can usually be found in Meridian, Idaho in “lit buildings” that have already been wired. Adding this high-speed Internet to your office may be surprisingly affordable and easy.
Introducing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be expensive. Bringing a connection to a suite within the building is not. Did you know that obtaining high-speed Internet access with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less? Of course, this depends upon availability.
Consider whether your company hosts its own servers that run APIs, websites and/or data to outside buildings, offices or companies. Is your main organization office with a hosted application accessed by 40 or even 50 branch office sites? Perhaps you are in retail and host the point of sale (POS) system for thousands of stores? Do you run a law office that hosts the data for satellite offices in different cities or states?
When data, programs, or information is hosted centrally, those outside your office must gain access. Those people are not able to work without a solid Internet connection. When deciding on the right intranet solution for your business, ask yourself: Is the solution going to adequately support simultaneous and multiple connections from my different locations?
If you have one office using the web, you may get by with a cable modem or a low- cost 10-megabyte circuit. It is advisable that high-speed access to The Internet be available at the central organization office or headquarters, including gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuits. Multiple diverse connections require support, in addition to high speed. 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. The cable modem you subscribe to with the 30 Meg connections may not always reach those speeds, especially during the busiest or “peak” hours of the workday. Only a certain amount of bandwidth may be available in a community. Many cable companies have limits on the amount they can deliver. 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. Do you care if you only get 6 when you were set up to expect 30?
Some providers are available who offer dedicated bandwidth and guaranteed bandwidth. With these, bandwidth belongs to you and your company only; no sharing. The full capacity of your circuit should be attainable during all hours regardless of neighboring buildings, people or offices.
Metro Ethernet provides guaranteed bandwidth in increments as follows: 5, 10, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. You can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit Internet providers.
In these scenarios, providers 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 providers in Meridian, circuits do go down. The question then becomes, “how do I minimize my chance of an outage? ”
Circuits that are redundant may be a good idea.
Redundancy in this situation comes in two forms.
With the first type of redundancy, you receive multiple circuits from the same carrier. 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. However, if that carrier has a greater outage to your entire region or there is a line damaged outside of your office building, you may have both or all circuits go down. While offering some protection, it is not without risk.
Bringing in circuits using two distinct providers is the second form of circuit redundancy. Advanced routers and IP address allocations can be utilized to make it look to your users and the public that you have a single circuit. Though they may appear as one, you know that they are each individual circuits and redundant to each other. This redundancy, referred to as diversity redundancy, offers much greater protection. In the event a carrier goes down, you will not have to worry. You will have a perfectly live carrier there to keep things moving.
When considering redundant circuits and carriers, try to be sure that the providers you look at in Meridian, Idaho have different physical geographic routes or pathways. Doing so will maximize redundancy. Basically this means that you want your circuits to enter your building on different sides or paths. The circuits would be attached to telephone poles (or underground conduits) in different directions leading to different data centers or central offices. This way, if there is a major catastrophe, such as a fire at a data center or a major accident impacting circuits within a region, you have redundancy in a different physical direction.
The cost to your company if you do not have reliable Internet access will be far greater than you may realize. Consider these scenarios:
If your organization utilizes a cable modem, consider whether your carrier is providing circuits for multiple other tenants within the building. It is possible that during normal organization hours, those tenants might be downloading large files or watching continuous videos. They might be getting a lot of phone calls. As they use more bandwidth, there is less for available to meet your requirements. What happens to your phone calls? How will the caliber of the call be affected? Will calls be arbitrarily dropped? Will your voice be inaudible? Will you have difficulty hearing the other end?
Whether you are a law firm doing file sharing, an accounting practice sharing databases or a retailer operating a distributed point-of-sale system, your office is the hub for your enterprise. Your primary Internet connection is responsible for granting access to data to all of your places. This is true whether you have 3 places or 2000 places. If your circuit goes done, what happens next? Will it cause disastrous results of just annoy you a little bit? Can meaningful work be conducted at your remote offices? Can they take or process any orders at all? Circulate necessary data? Make sure you completely understand your needs before you pick a solution. Perhaps you are a software company, running a hosted solution used by hundreds of customers. You operate a service that utilizes API in order to grant access to other systems. They may use this to collect whatever data you are offering such as commodity prices, weather data or freight calculations. You may find that they are unable to reach or connect with your organization servers. Customers do not enjoy repeated outages. How long with they put up with them before looking to take their organization elsewhere?
What if your business could not function at all without the net? Maybe your business relies on it completely. What if your representatives can make no outgoing telephone calls because your circuits go down? No calls could be answered either. Basically, you are out of organization. While most reputable call centers are already aware and using redundancy, is it enough? Can you truly rely on your providers? Are they as dependable as they claim? Is the quality of service sufficient for your calls to be clear and reliable?
Clearly, there are many choices. Your business budget and needs will play a large part in your decision-making. Essentially:
You are probably not thinking about redundancy if you have a small organization with a single location. In this case, you can probably get by with a single access to The Internet circuit of 5, 10 or 50 meg. Is your building lit? If so, find out about gigabit or Metro Ethernet services. They may be reasonably priced options. The availability of circuits and your location determine prices; speak with one of our engineers to learn what your best options are.
If you have a midsized business in Meridian, Idaho, you will need higher-speed access to The net. Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet and other higher speed Internet circuits are options to consider. Ideally, multiple circuits from multiple providers will provide you with the greatest redundancy. Achieving this may not be as costly as you first thought. For instance, it may be cheaper to utilize two 50 meg circuits in place of one 100 meg circuit. Do not forget that you will find variations in price and availability. Speaking with one of our experts will help you determine the options available in your specific location.
Companies with multiple locations are most at risk for failure. They require redundant circuits. Having several providers would afford extra protection. You can increase redundancy with switches or routers. Having redundant equipment can also minimize risk. As always, take a careful look and choose the right Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed Internet access circuit providers. The right combination of services and carriers can positively impact the efficiency of your business.
If you can place yourself in this category, it is essential that you have Metro Ethernet, point-to-point circuits and gigabit Internet circuits. Having redundant hardware as well as redundant circuits from different providers will ensure your needed uptime. Spikes or sudden increase in usage can result in Internet slowdowns or disruptions in service. You can decrease the risk of these events by having sufficient bandwidth. Your circuits and hardware must be able to support a large number of fast and simultaneous connections.
The danger and risk of failing circuits is tremendous. So is the risk of having less bandwidth than you need. 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.
Our engineers can analyze your needs and create a free action plan for you. We’ll examine your current usage and demand levels then create a design that provides you with the resources you need to keep your business running smoothly at a reasonable cost.
Please complete the contact form by clicking here. You may also call our office to set up an appointment for your assessment. We do assessments quickly. It can take as little as 48 hours to complete your analysis.