These days, companies in Minot, North Dakota count on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their organization. The business functions of every company, whether it is a small company or on the Fortune 500, from Fortune 500, depends upon fast and reliable access to The net.
Our reliance on access to the net 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 internet is omnipresent. What is the right solution for your requirements? Is a cable modem sufficient? Maybe you need Metro Ethernet. Would Gigabit Internet suffice? Does your Minot business need a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The web, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The web point?
Before selecting an appropriate service for your company, you must first determine what needs you are trying to satisfy. Will web surfing and email be your primary use of the internet? Is connecting with cloud servers and sharing real time data the main use of the internet? Perhaps you, in Minot, North Dakota, are hosting the data and remote places depend upon this.
What happens if you have an outage in your high-speed Internet? How might the downtime cause problems for your organization? Is uptime required? These types of questions must be answered before you make purchase anything.
Speaking broadly, all companies need high-speed access to the net. An analysis of the costs and benefits should be done prior to choosing the broadband internet that is correct for your business. You will hear service providers use terms like:
… do not lose sight of the real issues: what are the capabilities and technical solutions you need to best serve your company?
Companies in Minot, North Dakota need access to the web for their employees. Some companies may need it only for a few people and others may need it for the entire workforce. 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 5 or 10 megabyte Internet circuit may be perfect if you only have a few employees. If you have more than that, you may need more.
You may not need as much high-speed Internet access if your employees work primarily on an intranet system with limited graphics and video. However, employees who must often download documents, images and videos, need that speed.
Do you backup information? 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.
Does your organization use a file sharing service? DropBox? Google drive? As people save files, those files are pushed to the cloud and then synchronized 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.
High-speed business Internet access like Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options for you depending on your location. “Lit buildings” that have already been wired by a carrier, are commonly the site for these. If you’d like to install high-speed Internet in your office, you should know that it might be more affordable than you realize.
Unless you are bringing Metro Ethernet into a new building, it does not have to be an expensive proposition to connect it to a suite within a building. 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.
Do you have your own company servers that run APIs, websites or feeds for offsite offices or companies? Do fifty or so branch offices need access to a hosted application at your company headquarters? Is your business retail? Do you have thousands of stores? Do you host the point of sale system for the entire chain? You may be a law firm hosting data for three or four different offices.
Granting access to outsiders is necessary when you host data and programs at a central location. If the web connection is interrupted or fails, those people are unable to accomplish any work. Is the intranet solution you are choosing sufficiently reliable? Is it stable enough to support simultaneous connections from different sites?
For a single office surfing the web, a cable modem or inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be adequate. For headquarters, Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed Internet dedicated circuits is advisable. High-speed alone is not enough. They must also need to be capable of supporting many diverse connections. A cable modem would probably not be enough.
In many scenarios, bringing in an inexpensive circuit, such as a cable modem, comes at 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 companies are known to limit or predetermine the amount of bandwidth available for delivery in any particular community. Buildings, offices and tenants within the buildings all must share that amount of bandwidth, whatever it may be. With a 30-megabyte connection, you may not get to that speed during the working day. Will there be trouble if your expectation is set at 30 but you only get 8 or 10?
You can find a carrier who can provide dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. If you want your very own bandwidth that is not used by anyone else, you should consider this. The full capacity of your circuit should be attainable during all hours regardless of neighboring buildings, people or offices.
You can receive guaranteed bandwidth with Metro Ethernet. You can receive it in increments of five, 10, 50 or one hundred megabyte circuits. If you want to reach gigabit speeds from your business out to the net, you can by using a gigabit Internet provider.
Providers in these situations deliver enough to cover everyone’s needs. The carriers divide their circuit to various tenants while guaranteeing that everyone gets their contracted speed.
Despite outstanding Internet bandwidth products offered by carriers in Minot, circuits do go down. Ask this question: “what can I do to decrease the likelihood of an outage?
Consider redundant circuits.
Redundancy in this situation comes in two forms.
The first kind of redundancy exists when one carrier provides one customer with many circuits. If there is a problem with a line or a port in your router, circuit redundancy can offer some protection. 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. There is some protection that comes with this but there is risk as well.
In the second type of redundancy, you bring in circuits from two 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. But, you know that they are actually separate and redundant. You will get more substantial protection from this diversity redundancy. 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.
To maximize the benefit of redundancy, consider looking for redundant circuits from different providers that have different pathway in Minot. Basically this means that you want your circuits to enter your building on different sides or paths. They would be on outside phone poles or underground conduits in different directions and leading to different places. What if there is some kind of catastrophic incident such as a fire or accident that impacts circuits within a region? Now, you have redundancy in an alternative physical direction.
The cost of dependable Internet access pales in comparison to the cost of unreliable access. Consider the following:
If your business utilizes a cable modem, consider whether your carrier is providing circuits for multiple other tenants within the building. During business hours, any of those tenants could be streaming video, performing massive file downloads, processing large volumes of phone calls and more. As available bandwidth shrinks, what will happen to your calls? What about phone call quality? Will calls be arbitrarily dropped? Will you sound muffled?
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 company. All of your sites, whether 2 or 2000, depend on your primary Internet connection to access and retrieve data. Your circuit goes down, now what happens? Will it cause disastrous results of just annoy you a little bit? Is work even possible at your other places? What about new orders? Disseminate needed information and data? It is important that prior to choosing a solution, you understand the true needs and requirements of your particular business. Perhaps you are a software company, running a hosted solution used by hundreds of customers. Perhaps you operate a service where other systems talk to yours via an API to calculate freight rates, commodity prices, collect current weather data or receive any other information that you serve up. You may find that they are unable to reach or connect with your business servers. Will your customers remain loyal to you if they have to withstand multiple outages?
Your organization is 100% reliant on the internet to properly function. Your employees or representatives will not be able to make outgoing phone calls if your circuits go down. No calls could be answered either. Your organization is basically done with. While most reputable call centers are already aware and using redundancy, is it enough? Make sure your providers are as reliable as possible. Clear and reliable calls are essential. Does your carrier service consistently provide this?
It should be clear by now that you have many different options to select from. The needs and budget of your organization will both affect your choices. Essentially:
If you are a small business, with one location and you do not worry about redundancy, one five meg, ten meg, or fifty meg Internet access circuit may very well be enough to meet your needs. Metro Ethernet service or gigabit service may also be a reasonably priced option if you are in a lit building. Speak with our engineers about what is right for you. Prices vary with location and circuit availability.
If you have a midsized company in Minot, North Dakota, you will need higher-speed Internet access. Your choices include: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or other high-speed circuits. In a perfect scenario, multiple circuits from different providers will give you the most redundancy. Achieving this may cost extra but it won’t double your costs. For example, you may use 2 fifty meg circuits instead of 1 one hundred meg circuit. Availability and costs vary. Learn your options by speaking with one of our knowledgeable experts. We can help you determine what is available in your specific location.
If your company has several sites or offices, you are at great risk for failure. They require redundant circuits. Having several providers would afford extra protection. Additionally, you should consider redundant equipment (routers and switches) in your facility to minimize the risk of downtime. Have you looked at Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed access to The net circuit providers? You should do so before making a decision. Finding the best combination of services, providers and equipment can go a long way toward helping your organization run as efficiently as possible.
Companies such as these require the following: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and point-to-point (PPP) high-speed Internet circuits. Having redundant hardware as well as redundant circuits from different providers will ensure your needed uptime. The last thing you want is interruptions or slowdowns affecting your company. You must provide enough bandwidth to avoid these pitfalls that sometimes occur during sudden usage spikes. Your goal is to have hardware and circuits that are more than capable of providing support to a significant number of fast and simultaneous connections.
Insufficient bandwidth and failing circuits are present tremendous risk to your company. 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.
Our expert engineers will review 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 company with the resources it needs.
Please complete the contact form by clicking here. You may also call our office to set up an appointment for your assessment. Assessments are done in as few as two days or within 48 hours.