The lifeblood of Midland companies doing company in the current environment relies on reliable Internet access. Fortune 500 companies to small companies and everything in between, rely on reliable and fast access to The Internet.
Our reliance on access to the net will become greater in the near and distant future.
The use of the internet is pervasive. We use it for email and data sharing, video conferencing and VOIP, archiving and commerce. What is the right solution to meet your needs? Perhaps a cable modem is all you need. Is Metro Ethernet necessary? Gigabit Internet may be required. Will your Midland, Texas organization needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg Internet access or 100 Meg Internet access point?
Before selecting the appropriate service, your organization must assess its needs. Why will you need the internet? Will you only be web surfing and emailing? Is the web used for real-time data connection with servers in the cloud? Are you hosting the data in Midland that remote places depend upon?
How would an outage to your high-speed Internet affect your organization? How might the downtime cause problems for your organization? Is your success dependent on uptime? Before you buy anything, you must answer these questions.
It is no secret that all companies need high-speed access to the internet. When picking the correct broadband, balancing the costs and benefits to your company is imperative. You will hear providers use terms like:
… you must not lose sight of the real issue, which is understanding what technical solutions best meet your needs.
For many, if not all, companies in Midland, access to The web is needed for at least some employees. Internet access may be needed to conduct research, use third-party applications or to order supplies.
Perhaps the size of your work force may determine the solution that best fits your needs. A smaller Internet circuit may be enough if you only have a handful of workers. Perhaps a 5 or 10 megabyte is all you need. If you have a larger workforce, you may want to consider more. This is especially true if they all need to use the net simultaneously.
Your need for high-speed Internet may be lessened if your workers are just accessing an intranet systemOn the other hand, when they are frequently downloading documents, images and videos, that need for speed increases drastically.
Are you performing routine backups? If you are doing remote backups from every desk, which is advisable, you will need to be able to support simultaneous connections out to the web to synchronize your backup data.
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. Enough bandwidth is required to support this function along with every other service.
High-speed business Internet access like Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options for you depending on your location. Usually, you can find these in “lit buildings” in Midland that have been previously wired by a carrier. If you’d like to install high-speed Internet in your office, you should know that it might be more affordable than you realize.
Absent the need to introduce Metro Ethernet into a new building, it is not particularly costly to connect Metro Ethernet to a suite or office within that building. Depending on availability, it is often possible to obtain high-speed Internet access with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet in 30 days or less.
Your company may host its own servers. Do they run websites APIs or data feeds for external offices? Maybe your company requires that dozens of satellite offices have access to a hosted application at your company main headquarters. Perhaps you are in retail and host the point of sale (POS) system for thousands of stores? Are you a law firm? Do you host data for three or more external locations?
Granting access to outsiders is necessary when you host data and programs at a central location. If the net connection is interrupted, those people cannot get their work done. Are you picking an intranet solution that provides reliability and stability for your multiple, simultaneous connections from various places?
For one office or a small company with just one or two people surfing the web, a less expensive 10 Meg circuit or a cable modem may meet your needs. 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. While all offer high speeds, they also need to be capable of supporting multiple diverse connections. A cable modem would probably not be enough.
Bringing in a less-expensive circuit like a cable modem often comes with a price. You may save money on your monthly bill but the bandwidth you get must be shared among many people. 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. Cable operators differ but many have prescribed limits on the bandwidth amount that they can deliver within a set 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 thirty-megabyte speed, will you ever reach that speed during organization hours? Will there be trouble if your expectation is set at 30 but you only get 8 or 10?
You can sign up for dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth from some providers. With these options, bandwidth is yours. It is not shared with anyone outside of your business. Notwithstanding the existence of tenants, offices or buildings in the area, you should have the full capability of your circuits at all times.
For example, Metro Ethernet guarantees bandwidth in 5 met circuits, 10 Meg circuits, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. With gigabit Internet providers, you can reach gigabit speeds in your office out to the net.
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.
You can’t control everything. Even with the superior Internet bandwidth products that some providers offer in Midland, problems arise and circuits can fail. In what way can you diminish the risk of an outage?
Redundant circuits may be the answer for you.
There are, in essence, two types of redundancy.
The first is where you get multiple circuits from one 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. If that carrier has a wide reaching outage or there is a line broken or damaged outside of your building, both circuits may go down. There is some protection that comes with this but there is risk as well.
Utilizing circuits from two different carriers is the second kind of redundancy. For users and the public, you can make it look like you have one cohesive circuit. You can also make the connections act as a single circuit. You can do this with various advanced routers and IP address allocations. In fact, they are totally redundant and separate. Diversity redundancy, as this is called, offers you more protection that you might realize. Should one carrier have some trouble that extends to a greater area and is out of your control, you are backed up with a different carrier.
To maximize the benefit of redundancy, consider looking for redundant circuits from different providers that have different pathway in Midland, 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. They would be on outside phone poles or underground conduits in different directions and leading to different places. 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.
Internet access costs money but the cost of NOT having reliable access to The Internet is greater. Contemplate these situations:
Are you on a cable modem and your carrier is providing circuits to dozens of other office suites in your 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 the amount of available bandwidth diminishes, what happens to your phone calls? What about phone call quality? Are calls lost or dropped? Will the calls be choppy?
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 organization. All of your locations, you may have 2, you may have 500, you may have 4, 000, depend on your main Internet connection to access and receive data. What if your circuit fails? Would it cause mere annoyance or utter disaster? Can your satellite or remote office do any work at all? Can they take or process any orders at all? Share information? Be sure you understand your requirements fully before choosing a solution. What if you are a software company? Perhaps you are running a hosted solution and it must be used by multiple customers; maybe even hundreds. Do you operate a service where other systems talk to yours by using an application program interface (API)? For example do other systems gain access to yours in order to calculate prices, prices, or to collect information that you serve up? It is possible they will not be able to connect to your servers. If you have repeated outages, how long will they remain a customer?
Your business is entirely Internet based. No calls can go out if your circuits fail. Your reps have no way of answering calls, if they even know they are coming in. You are now, essentially, out of business. While most call centers that are reputable use redundancy, is it enough? Can you truly rely on your carriers? 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. The needs and budget of your company will both affect your choices. In review:
You are probably not thinking about redundancy if you have a small company with a single location. In this case, you can probably get by with a single Internet access circuit of 5, 10 or 50 meg. If you are in a “lit” building, Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be reasonably priced options. Prices will vary. They are based on your location and circuit availability; speak with our engineers to learn your best options.
Mid-sized businesses in Midland should be equipped with higher-speed Internet. Higher-speed circuits like Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or others may be your best options. Multiple circuits utilizing multiple providers would, ideally, provide you with maximum redundancy. Achieving this may not be as costly as you first thought. Using one 100-megabyte circuit instead of two 50-megabyte circuits, is one example. To repeat, availability and prices vary. Your specific location will determine what options you have. Please speak with one of our experts to find out what those are and how we can meet your needs.
Companies with different locations, whether 5 or 50, are at the highest risk. Redundant circuits are essential. Varied providers are optimal. Redundant routers, switches and other equipment can also be helpful to lessen downtime during a problem. Before you make a decision here too, do your research. Look closely into Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed circuit providers. The right mix can help. If you can figure out the best combination of carriers and services for your business, you will benefit.
If you can place yourself in this category, it is essential that you have Metro Ethernet, point-to-point circuits and gigabit Internet circuits. Redundant hardware and redundant circuits will, for these businesses, ensure the greatest uptime. Be sure the circuits are from different providers. You need to provide sufficient bandwidth to handle usage spikes without slowdowns or interruptions. Both your hardware and circuits must be capable of supporting a vast number of simultaneous and fast connections.
There is great risk of failing circuits or insufficient bandwidth. Your ideal single circuit or multiple circuits should stay within your budget while still meeting your demands. Choosing the right mix of circuits and hardware is a daunting task.
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. You want your business to run smoothly. We are going to 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 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. Your assessment may be finished within as little as 48 hours.