In today’s environment, companies in Middletown, Ohio count on reliable access to The web as the lifeblood of their business. Fast and reliable Internet access is needed for companies to function properly; large corporations and small companies alike.
Internet access will become increasingly crucial to us in the coming months and years. Our dependence on Internet access will only grow as time goes on.
The use of the net is pervasive. We use it for email and data sharing, video conferencing and VOIP, archiving and commerce. What do you need? A cable modem may be satisfactory. Do you need Metro Ethernet? Gigabit Internet may satisfy your needs. Your Middletown, Ohio company probably needs a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg Internet access, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The web point but which one is best?
Your organization must assess its real needs. This must be done before an appropriate service can be chosen. Is Internet use limited to website surfing or emailing only? Is it used for real-time data connection with cloud servers? Do remote locations count on you hosting the data in Middletown?
What if you have a disruption in your high-speed Internet? Can your company afford a long pause or lull in productivity? Is uptime essential? Before you buy anything, you must answer these questions.
It is no secret that all companies need high-speed access to the web. An analysis of the costs and benefits should be done prior to choosing the broadband that is correct for your company. Don’t be distracted by terminology. While you may hear service providers throw out words and phrases like:
… do not lose sight of the real issues: what are the capabilities and technical solutions you need to best serve your company?
At any company in Middletown, Ohio some employees, if not all employees, need some type of access to the internet if they are to properly perform their job duties. It may be needed for business research, to order office supplies or other reasons.
Perhaps the size of your work force may determine the solution that best fits your needs. If you have a smaller workforce, you may do fine with a smaller Internet circuit. For example, if you only employ a handful of people, a 5 or 10 Meg circuit may meet your needs. If your business has nearly 50 people, however, and they all need to use the web at the same time, you may find that more is better.
If your employees are merely accessing an intranet system with limited graphics and video, your need for high-speed Internet may be reduced. On the other hand, if your company requires that its employees download many documents or images and videos, Internet speed becomes more important.
Does your organization regularly conduct 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.
Are you using Google drive, DropBox or another file sharing service? This is how a file sharing service works: You save a file. Then the file is pushed to the cloud, and is then synchronized with other people’s computers. Running all your services properly, including sharing files, requires that you have the right amount of bandwidth.
High-speed company 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 Middletown, Ohio that are already wired by a carrier. Adding this high-speed Internet to your office may be surprisingly affordable and easy.
If you have to bring Metro Ethernet into a new building, it can be expensive but bringing that connection to an office or suite within the building is usually not. In fact, in as little as 30 days, you may be able to obtain high-speed access to the net with either gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. It depends upon availability.
Does your business 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 corporate headquarters with a hosted application utilized by 50 branch offices? Are you a retail company hosting the POS system for thousands of chain stores? Does your legal practice host all of the data for 3, 4 or 5 offices in different places?
If your company hosts its programs and information at a central location, people outside of that location need to have access in order to conduct business. Those people are not able to do their work if the web connection fails or is unreliable. Make sure that when you choose your intranet solution it is reliable enough to support your need for multiple and simultaneous connections for many different places.
An inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be enough if you have one office that needs to surf the net. A cable modem may also be adequate in this situation. For headquarters, Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed Internet dedicated circuits is advisable. While all offer high speeds, they also need to be capable of supporting multiple diverse connections. A cable modem would not be able to accomplish this.
In many cases, installing an inexpensive 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. During peak hours, your connection may slow down, even though you subscribe to a cable modem with a thirty-megabyte connection. Cable companies are known to limit or predetermine the amount of bandwidth available for delivery in any particular community. That amount of bandwidth must be shared with different buildings and with the tenants housed within. During crucial working hours, you may not get to the 30-meg speed you have been capped at. If you expect 30 but only get 6, will you have problems?
Some providers are available who offer dedicated bandwidth and guaranteed bandwidth. In this situation, your bandwidth is not shared but is fully allocated to your company. Regardless of neighbors, or other tenants, you should have the full capacity of your circuit at all times.
As an example, look at Metro Ethernet. They provide guaranteed bandwidth in various increments. You can receive guaranteed bandwidth in increments of 100, 50, 10 and 5 megabytes. You can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit Internet providers.
The providers in this situation deliver high-speed to a particular building in sufficient quantity to split their circuit among various tenants. Of course, they must ensure that they each get the specific amount of their contracted speed.
Despite outstanding Internet bandwidth products offered by carriers in Middletown, Ohio, circuits do go down. You must ask yourself: “how do I lessen the chance of an outage? ”
Try using redundant circuits.
There are, in reality, two kinds of redundancy.
A single carrier, providing multiple circuits, to one customer, characterizes one form of redundancy. 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. This is not foolproof, but does offer some protection.
In the second type of redundancy, you bring in circuits from two different providers. If you think it is beneficial, you can bind the connections together in a manner that makes your circuits act and look like a single source. However, despite appearances, they are actually very much separate and are redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy, as this is called, offers you more protection that you might realize. If one carrier has a problem, the other likely will not.
If you want to maximize redundancy in Middletown, Ohio please consider the following question: Do the providers I am considering use the same physical geographic pathways? Basically this means that you want your circuits to enter your building on different sides or paths. The circuits would attached to the proper outside source whether a subterranean conduit or a telephone pole. They would be set up in different directions and would lead to different data centers or main office spaces. Having redundancy in different physical directions can protect you if there is a serious incident at a data center or some accident that causes a regional circuit issue.
access to The Internet costs money but the cost of NOT having reliable Internet access is greater. Contemplate these situations:
Your business is on a cable modem and your carrier provides circuits to 20 other offices 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. What will happen to your telephone calls as the amount of usable bandwidth decreases? What about phone call quality? Are calls dropped? Perhaps you will sound choppy or will be inaudible.
Your office is the center of your business. You may be a law firm that does file sharing or a retailer operating a POS system. Whether you have 2 locations, 250, or 2000, they all depend on your primary Internet connection to retrieve data and information. What happens in the event of a circuit failure? Would it cause mere annoyance or utter disaster? Can meaningful work be conducted at your remote offices? Can they process transactions or new orders? Share information? Picking the right a solution can be difficult. Before doing so, be sure you fully understand your requirements. You might have hundreds and hundreds of loyal customers. Perhaps you are a software company running a hosted solution they all count on. Is an API utilized in your organization so that your customers can access and speak with your system? What if you have server problems and they are unable to connect to you? If you have repeated outages, how long will they remain a customer?
Does your business completely rely on the web? What if your representatives can make no outgoing telephone calls because your circuits go down? Your reps have no way of answering calls, if they even know they are coming in. Basically, you are out of company. While most reputable call centers are already aware and using redundancy, is it enough? Are your current carriers as dependable as you would like? Clear and reliable calls are essential. Does your carrier service consistently provide this?
You clearly have several choices. Your decision will be based on different factors including your organization needs and your budget. To recap:
If your organization 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 Internet circuit may suffice. Metro Ethernet service or gigabit service may also be a reasonably priced option if you are in a lit building. 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 organization.
Having a medium or mid-sized company in Middletown, Ohio requires that you have higher-speed access to the internet. Higher-speed circuits like Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or others may be your best options. Ideally, multiple circuits from multiple providers will provide you with the greatest redundancy. Achieving this may cost extra but it won’t double your 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. Again, costs vary. Availability also varies. Speaking with one of our experts will help you determine the options available in your specific location.
Businesses with many locations face the greatest risk for failure. Redundant circuits are a necessity. It is helpful if they use multiple providers. Redundant routers, switches and other equipment can also be helpful to lessen downtime during a problem. As always, take a careful look and choose the right Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed access to The Internet circuit providers. The right mix of carriers and services will help keep your organization up and running as efficiently as possible.
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 absolutely need redundant circuits from different providers as well as redundant hardware. This is important to ensuring uptime. You need enough bandwidth. The bandwidth must be adequate to handle spikes in usage with no slowdowns or interruptions. The hardware and circuits you choose must both be able to support the following: a great number of concurrent, speedy connections.
Insufficient bandwidth and failing circuits are present tremendous risk to your organization. You must select the single circuit or multiple circuits that can meet your demands and stay within your budget. Choosing the right combination of hardware and circuits can be complicated and confusing.
Our engineers can help. We’ll analyze your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. You want your business to run smoothly. We will 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.
An appointment for an assessment can be made by calling our office or clicking here to complete the contact form on the side of this page. Assessments are completed in as little as 48 hours.