The lifeblood of Muskogee, Oklahoma companies doing company in the current environment depends upon reliable access to The net. Fortune 500 companies to small companies and everything in between, rely on reliable and fast Internet access.
We will, in the months and years ahead, become more and more dependent on our Internet access.
Our uses of the net reach far and wide. From data sharing, video calls, and shopping to VOIP and email, the web has a broad presence. What do you need? Perhaps a cable modem is all you need. Do you need Metro Ethernet? Gigabit Internet? What is best for your business in Muskogee? Will your company needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg Internet access or 100 Meg access to The net point?
The needs of your particular organization must be determined before you can select an appropriate service. Is Internet use limited to website surfing or emailing only? Will real-time data connection with servers in the cloud be the primary use of the net? Are you hosting the data in Muskogee, Oklahoma and distant locations or offices rely on you?
What will happen to your business if your high-speed Internet experiences an outage? Can your company afford a long pause or lull in productivity? Is the absence of uptime detrimental? Ask yourself these questions before making any purchases. The answers will help you determine what is right for you.
Speaking broadly, all companies need high-speed access to the internet. Deciding on the right broadband is not easy. It requires a thorough cost-benefit analysis. While various providers will throw around terminology like:
… focus on what matters: what does your organization need and what are the best services and solutions out there to meet those needs?
For many, if not all, companies in Muskogee, Oklahoma, Internet access is needed for at least some employees. The net is required for so many things, whether to order items, look up business information speak with third parties.
Perhaps the size of your work force may determine the solution that best fits your needs. If you only have a few workers, you may be fine with a smaller Internet circuit such as a 5 or 10 megabyte. If your company has nearly 50 people, however, and they all need to use the internet at the same time, you may find that more is better.
Do your employees primarily use an intranet system? If so, you may not need much high-speed Internet service. On the other hand, when they are frequently downloading documents, images and videos, that need for speed increases drastically.
Does your company 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 a service such as DropBox or Google drive to share files? After a file is saved, it goes to the cloud and then to someone else’s computer. You need to have sufficient bandwidth to support this function while also supporting every other service.
Depending on where you are, you may want to look into high-speed business access to The Internet such as Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet. These are typically found in “lit buildings” in Muskogee. Providers have already wired these buildings. It may be shock you to know that installing high-speed access to The net may not be particularly expensive or inconvenient.
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 company host its own servers? Does your company use the hosted servers to run data feeds, APIs or websites for offices or businesses located elsewhere? Maybe your company requires that dozens of satellite offices have access to a hosted application at your company main headquarters. Are you hosting the point of sale (POS) system for 15, 000 retail chain stores? 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. For those people, no Internet connection means no work gets done. 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 sufficient in this situation. For headquarters, Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed Internet dedicated circuits is advisable. All offer quick speed but they must also be able to support diverse and multiple connections. A cable modem would likely not provide the necessary support.
In some situations, there is a high price to pay for bringing in an inexpensive circuit or cable modem. There may be a lower monthly rate, but bandwidth is usually shared with many tenants. It is possible that you have a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection but cannot reach proper speeds during peak hours. Only a certain amount of bandwidth may be available in a community. Many cable companies have limits on the amount they can deliver. 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. Do you care if you only get 6 when you were set up to expect 30?
You can sign up for dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth from some carriers. In this situation, you do not have to share bandwidth. The bandwidth is all yours and is fully allocated to the needs 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. You can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit Internet providers.
Here, carriers 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.
While certain carriers offer superior Internet bandwidth products in Muskogee, the reality is that it is possible for a circuit to go down. How can you decrease the chance of an outage?
Redundant circuits.
There are, in essence, two types of redundancy.
The first type exists when the same carrier gives you multiple circuits. These redundant circuits help protect from certain failures, for example, router port issues or physical line trouble. If your carrier experiences a regional outage or you have a line broken outside of your building, you may lose the use of all of your circuits. This offers some protection and assurance but does not eliminate all threats.
Bringing in circuits using two distinct providers is the second form of circuit redundancy. 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 offers far greater protection. 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.
You should look for redundant circuits from providers in Muskogee that do not have the same physical geographic pathways, in order to get the most redundancy. In other words, try to obtain circuits entering the building from different sides of the building. The circuits would be established either underground or on telephone poles and would be set up in different directions and lead to different offices. 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.
The cost to your company if you do not have reliable access to The Internet will be far greater than you may realize. Think about the following situations:
The carrier you use for your cable modem also provides circuits for a dozen or more tenants in the office building. What if any or all of those tenants are huge call centers taking in a massive volume of phone calls, are business 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 happens to the quality of that phone call? Are calls dropped? Will they be full of static?
Your office may be the working center of an entire business enterprise. The kind of business does not necessarily matter. You may be a law firm doing file sharing, an accounting practice sharing databases or a retailer operating a distributed point-of-sale system. All of your offices, whether you have 3 or 3, 000, rely on your primary Internet connection to successfully access data. How will you be affected if your circuit goes down? Would it annoy you or destroy you? How much work, if any, can be done by your remote locations? Can they take or process any orders at all? Share essential data? Picking the right a solution can be difficult. Before doing so, be sure you fully understand your requirements. Perhaps you have hundreds of clients or customers that use a hosted solution that your software organization is running. Perhaps you operate a service where other systems speak with yours via an API to calculate freight prices, commodity prices, collect current weather data or receive any other information that you serve up. It is possible they will not be able to connect to your servers. Customers will only take so many repeated outages. How long with they remain with your company?
Does your organization completely rely on the internet? Should your circuits go down, your representatives cannot make outbound calls. There would be no way to answer incoming calls of people trying to reach your representatives. You are now, essentially, out of organization. Is redundancy enough? Are you really getting the dependable service you need form your providers? Are you using providers that are truly reliable? You should be getting high quality service that ensures your calls are consistently clear and reliable.
Obviously, there are a variety of choices. Your choices will largely depend on your budget, in addition to the other requirements of your business. As a wrap-up:
If you are a small business, with just one location and not concerned about redundancy, a single five meg, 10 meg or 50 meg Internet access circuit may be adequate. If you are in a “lit” building, Metro Ethernet or gigabit service 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.
You have a midsized company in Muskogee; you will surely need higher-speed Internet. You may choose between gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. You may also look into other higher-speed Internet circuits. Ideally, you want to have the greatest redundancy. You can achieve this by using multiple circuits from different providers. Achieving this may cost extra but it won’t double your costs. Two 50-megabyte circuits may be more cost effective than a single 100 circuit. Again, costs vary. Availability also varies. In order to find out the options available for you, in your location, you need to speak with one of our seasoned experts.
The greatest risk of failure belongs to companies that have multiple places of company or offices. Redundant circuits are essential. Varied providers are optimal. Additionally, you should consider redundant equipment (routers and switches) in your facility to minimize the risk of downtime. 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 combination of services and providers can positively impact the efficiency of your business.
To run efficiently and effectively, corporations and businesses that fall into this category must use point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits, gigabit Internet circuits and Metro Ethernet circuits. Having redundant hardware as well as redundant circuits from different providers will ensure your needed uptime. You need enough bandwidth. The bandwidth must be adequate to handle spikes in usage with no slowdowns or interruptions. Your circuits and hardware must be able to support a large number of fast and simultaneous connections.
Do not risk having failing circuits or not enough bandwidth. It is imperative that the circuit or circuits you choose meet your needs but also keep you within your allowable budget. The pressure involved in selecting the proper mix of hardware and circuits can be overwhelming.
We have engineers that will analyze your needs, look at your organization requirements and develop an action plan for you… for free!After reviewing your current usage and demand levels, we will 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. It can take as little as 48 hours to provide a complete assessment.