Today’s environment demands that companies in Milwaukee, Wisconsin have reliable Internet service in order to run their organization. Fortune 500 companies to small businesses and everything in between, depend on reliable and fast access to The web.
We’ll, in the months and years ahead, become more and more reliant on our Internet access.
The web is ubiquitous. From email to data sharing, archiving to commerce and VOIP to video chat, the internet is everywhere. What is the best fix for your needs? Is a cable modem enough? Your needs may point to Metro Ethernet as a solution. Gigabit Internet may be required. Your Milwaukee, Wisconsin business probably needs a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The Internet, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg Internet access point but which one is best?
Prior to selecting a service, your business must figure out its needs. Is the web only used for web surfing and email? Is the internet used for real-time data connection with servers in the cloud? Are you hosting data in Milwaukee, Wisconsin? Do remote sites rely on you?
What if your high-speed Internet is disrupted by an outage? What will happen to your organization? How much downtime can your organization withstand? How much uptime is essential to your organization? Before you buy anything, you must answer these questions.
In all-encompassing terms, businesses need high-speed access to The net. You need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits to your company before choosing the right broadband. While many service providers throw around terminologies such as:
… you must not lose sight of the real issue, which is understanding what technical solutions best meet your needs.
Workers for most companies in Milwaukee have some need to access the web during the course of their job. It may be needed for business research, to order office supplies or other reasons.
The solution you choose may be based on the number of employees you have or expect to have. A five or ten megabyte Internet circuit may be all you need if employ a small workforce. If your organization has nearly 50 people, however, and they all need to use the internet 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. When employees are often downloading images, videos and documents, however, the need for speed increases significantly.
Do you routinely backup? Synchronizing your backup data after doing remote backups from every desk requires you to support simultaneous connections out to the web.
Do you use a file-sharing service? Perhaps you use Google drive, DropBox or a different 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. In order to ensure that all of your functions work properly, in addition to file sharing, you must have sufficient bandwidth.
Depending on your location, high-speed organization Internet access, including Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options. They are commonly found in “lit buildings” in Milwaukee that have already been 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.
While it may be the case that bringing Metro Ethernet into a new building can cause a big dent in your wallet, bringing the connection to a suite or offices within that building does not have to. In fact, in as little as 30 days, you may be able to obtain high-speed access to the web with either gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. It depends upon availability.
Do you have your own company servers that run APIs, websites or feeds for offsite offices or companies? Is your main company office with a hosted application accessed by 40 or even 50 branch office sites? Are you a retail chain hosting the POS system for 12, 000 stores? Are you a legal practice hosting the data for three sites?
If you host programs, data or information centrally, people outside of the central location need to have access. If your Internet connection goes down, those people are unable to work. If you need multiple connections to function at the same time from many different locations, make sure that your intranet solution can reliably support it.
A cost friendly 10 Meg circuit or even a cable modem may satisfy the needs of a company with a single office that needs to surf the web. Company headquarters should have high-speed Internet access such as gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit. 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 cable modem, which seems to save money, may actually come at a price. Your low monthly bill may mean that the bandwidth is shared among multiple tenants. You may experience slow downs. For example, although you subscribe to a cable modem with a thirty Meg connection, it can be difficult to maintain the maximum speed during busy times and peak hours. Many cable operators can only deliver a certain amount of bandwidth in a 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 a 30 Meg speed, you may never be able to reach that speed during business hours. What will the consequences be if you expect 30 but only get half that? What if you get even less?
Other providers do offer dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. With these options, bandwidth is yours. It is not shared with anyone outside of your organization. Regardless of other tenants in your building or neighboring buildings, you should receive the full capacity of your circuit.
Metro Ethernet provides guaranteed bandwidth in increments as follows: 5, 10, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. If you want to reach gigabit speeds from your company out to the internet, you can by using a gigabit Internet provider.
Here, providers deliver enough high-speed to the building, so that it can be split among various tenants. The carrier has the right amount so that everyone gets the contracted speed that has been promised.
You can’t control everything. Even with the superior Internet bandwidth products that some carriers offer in Milwaukee, problems arise and circuits can fail. You must ask yourself: “how do I lessen the chance of an outage? ”
The answer is redundant circuits.
We are primarily talking about two kinds of redundancy.
The first kind of redundancy exists when one carrier provides one customer with many circuits. These redundant circuits help protect from certain failures, for example, router port issues or physical line trouble. 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. While there is some protection, there is also some risk.
The other type of redundancy requires you to utilize circuits from different carriers. 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 that one carrier goes down, the other will still be alive.
If you want to maximize redundancy in Milwaukee please consider the following question: Do the carriers I am considering use the same physical geographic pathways? In other words, try to obtain circuits entering the building from different sides of the building. 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. In this way you have redundancy in different physical directions. If there is an event that causes a regional circuit problem, you have an alternative that is unaffected.
access to The Internet costs money but the cost of NOT having reliable Internet access is greater. Consider the following:
If your company utilizes a cable modem, consider whether your carrier is providing circuits for multiple other tenants within the building. What if any or all of those tenants are huge call centers taking in a massive volume of phone calls, are organization that perform large file downloads or stream many videos? As they use more bandwidth, there is less for available for your requirements. What happens to your phone calls? What about phone call quality? Will calls be arbitrarily dropped? Will your voice be inaudible? Will you have difficulty hearing the other end?
Your office is the center of your company. You may be a law firm that does file sharing or a retailer operating a POS system. 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. Your circuit goes down, now what happens? Is it a mere annoyance or a catastrophic failure? Can your satellite offices perform any work at all? Process new orders? Circulate necessary data? It is important that prior to choosing a solution, you understand the true needs and requirements of your particular business. 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. You may operate a service like this: other systems communicate with yours via an API to figure out freight rates, stock prices, to compile weather data or receive any other information that you provide. You may find that they are unable to reach or connect with your company servers. How long will your customers tolerate repeated outages?
Your business is 100% dependent on the web to properly function. No calls can go out if your circuits fail. In addition, they will be unable to answer incoming calls. You are now officially out of business. While most reputable call centers are already aware and using redundancy, is it enough? Are the carriers you currently use as reliable as they should be? Are they as reliable as you need them to be? Are you getting quality service so that your calls are clear and consistent?
You have several different options to pick from. Your choices will largely depend on your budget, in addition to the other requirements of your company. Essentially:
A single fifty, ten or five megabyte access to The Internet circuit may be sufficient to meet the needs of your small organization, particularly if you have only one location and are not worried about redundancy. For an office in a lit building, you may find that gigabit service or Metro Ethernet are affordable options for you. Because prices can vary based on the location of your company and the availability of circuits, speak with our engineers to learn your options.
You will need higher speed Internet access if you have a medium sized organization in Milwaukee. Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet and other higher speed Internet circuits are options to consider. In a perfect scenario, multiple circuits from different providers will give you the most redundancy. You can sometimes achieve this without doubling costs. For example, one 100-megabyte circuit may cost more than two smaller 50-megabyte circuits. 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.
Businesses with many sites face the greatest risk for failure. Redundant circuits are a necessity. Varied providers are optimal. Also, redundant equipment such as switches and routers in your facility can minimize the risk of downtime. Look at all of your options: Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet providers, Metro Ethernet providers and other high-speed circuit providers. Your company can benefit from finding the right mix of services and carriers.
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 essential to ensuring uptime. You do not want any slowdowns or interruptions that often occur during spikes in usage. Avoid this by having sufficient bandwidth. Having both your hardware and your circuits capable of supporting many different, fast, and simultaneous connections is essential. It cannot be one or the other.
Do not risk having failing circuits or not enough bandwidth. Your demand and budget constraints should both be considered when you decide what circuit or combination of circuits you must have. Choosing the right combination of hardware and circuits can be complicated and confusing.
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 organization to run smoothly. We’ll 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 if you wish to complete the contact form on the side of this page. Alternatively, call our office to schedule an assessment. We do assessments quickly. It can take as little as 48 hours to complete your analysis.