Today’s environment demands that companies in Nampa have reliable Internet service in order to run their company. All companies depend on reliable and quick access to The web. This is true irrespective of how large or small the company.
Our dependence on Internet access will continue to grow in the coming months and years.
From video conferencing to voice over IP, email to data sharing and data archiving to Internet commerce, the internet is everywhere you look. What can best meet your needs? Is a cable modem sufficient? Do you need Metro Ethernet? Gigabit Internet may be required. A 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg Internet access, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The Internet point: what is right for your organization in Nampa, Idaho?
You must, before selecting a service, assess the actual needs of your organization. Is the internet primarily used for emailing or web surfing? Is real time data connection with cloud servers essential to your business? Are you hosting data in Nampa? Do remote locations depend upon you?
What if there is an outage and your high-speed Internet is interrupted? Can your organization afford the downtime? Is uptime essential? These types of questions must be answered before you make purchase anything.
In the broadest of terms, companies need high-speed access to The net. Before you choose your broadband, look at the costs and benefits. Performing this analysis is an important step in picking the right one for your business. While many providers throw around terminologies such as:
… be sure not to forget what capability and technical solutions meet your business’s specific needs.
For most companies in Nampa, Idaho, some or all of the employees need access to the net. It may be needed for company research, to order office supplies or other reasons.
The number of workers you have may be the factor that drives your decision. 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 web simultaneously.
Your workforce may simply use an intranet system with limited video and graphics. If this is true, your need for high speed Internet be less than you thought. When employees are often downloading images, videos and documents, however, the need for speed increases significantly.
Does your business regularly conduct backups? You may need to support simultaneous connections to the web in order to sync your backup data. If you conduct remote backups from every workstation, which is advisable, this will be important.
Does your company require employees to share files using a service like Google drive or DropBox? The saved files go to the cloud and are then synchronized or “shared” 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.
Your organization location may cause you to think about high-speed business Internet access such as Metro Ethernet and/or gigabit Internet. Usually, you can find these in “lit buildings” in Nampa, Idaho that have been previously wired by a carrier. Choosing to add high-speed Internet to your office is a tough decision but it can be less expensive and easier than you think.
While bringing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be an expensive proposition, bringing that connection to a suite within the building is not. Did you know that obtaining high-speed access to The Internet with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less? Of course, this depends upon availability.
Ask yourself this: Does we host our own servers to run APIs, websites and data feeds to external offices or organization premises? 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 the internet connection is interrupted or fails, those people are unable to accomplish any 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.
If you have one office using the web, you may get by with a cable modem or a low- cost 10-megabyte circuit. High-speed access to The web is advisable for the headquarters. Gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit is recommended. While high speed is great, you also need support for your multiple diverse connections. A cable modem would not be able to accomplish this.
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. If you subscribe to a cable modem with a 30-megabyte connection, you would expect to always be able to reach that high speed. However, it is possible that during peak hours, you won’t. Many cable companies only deliver a set amount of bandwidth within a community. Whatever that amount of bandwidth is, it branches into all buildings in the community and to all tenants in those buildings. The 30-meg speed you are capped out sounds good but it is possible that you will never reach that speed during company hours. Is it a problem if you get a quarter or even half of the speed you expected?
There are providers who offer dedicated and even guaranteed bandwidth. With these, bandwidth belongs to you and your business only; no sharing. You should receive full capacity of your circuits during all hours. This is true even though you may have many buildings, businesses and tenants nearby.
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.
In these situations, each tenant receives their contracted high-speed. The carrier delivers enough so they can split their circuit and provide enough to each tenant.
The truth is that circuits can go down in Nampa even though some providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. You must ask yourself: “how do I lessen the chance of an outage? ”
Redundant circuits may be the answer for you.
There are two types of redundancy to consider.
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. 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. While offering some protection, it is not without risk.
Utilizing circuits from two different carriers is the second kind of redundancy. You may want your circuits to appear and act as if they are one and come from the same source. If so you can use IP address allocations and advanced routers to do so. You know the truth: that they are individual circuits and are there to back each other up in case one goes down. Diversity redundancy provides greater assurance, comfort and protection. 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.
For maximum redundancy, you should look for redundant circuits from different carriers with different physical geographic pathways in Nampa. Alternatively stated, try to have your circuits enter the building on different sides from one another. Ideally, the circuits will be going in different directions and toward various central company spaces or data centers. This way, if there is a major catastrophe, such as a fire at a data center or a major accident impacting circuits within a region, you have redundancy in a different physical direction.
While Internet access is not free, it pales in comparison with the cost of not having reliable Internet access. Please consider these situations:
Your business is on a cable modem and your carrier provides circuits to 20 other offices in your building. During organization hours, any of those tenants could be streaming video, performing massive file downloads, processing large volumes of phone calls and more. What will happen to your telephone calls as the amount of usable bandwidth decreases? What happens to the quality of that phone call? Are calls dropped? Will they be full of static?
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. Your primary Internet connection is responsible for granting access to data to all of your places. This is true whether you have 3 sites or 2000 locations. Your circuit goes down, now what will happen? Is it a mere annoyance or a catastrophic failure? How much work, if any, can be done by your remote sites? Can they process transactions or new orders? Dispense and receive data? Be sure you understand your requirements fully before choosing a solution. You might have hundreds and hundreds of loyal customers. Perhaps you are a software company running a hosted solution they all rely on. 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. What will happen when there is a problem connecting to your servers? Customers do not enjoy repeated outages. How long with they put up with them before looking to take their organization elsewhere?
What if your company could not function at all without the net? Maybe your organization relies on it completely. 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 company is basically done with. For competent call centers that already use and understand the problems that can arise, is redundancy enough? Are the providers that you are using reliable enough? Do you consistently get quality service that provides clear and reliable calls?
Clearly, there are many choices. Your decision will be based on different factors including your organization needs and your budget. In review:
If you are a small organization, 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. Is your building lit? If so, find out about gigabit or Metro Ethernet services. They 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 companies with a single office in Nampa, need higher speed Internet access. You have several choices. Consider the following: Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet or higher-speed Internet access circuits. In a perfect world, you will achieve maximum redundancy by utilizing multiple carriers to provide and service different circuits. It is sometimes possible to reach this without adding ridiculous 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. Do not forget that you will find variations in price and availability. Learn your options by speaking with one of our knowledgeable experts. We can help you determine what is available in your specific location.
The greatest risk of failure belongs to companies that have multiple places of company or offices. Redundant circuits must be an essential part of their systems. Different providers are desirable. Redundant routers, switches and other equipment can also be helpful to lessen downtime during a problem. Look at all of your options: Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet providers, Metro Ethernet providers and other high-speed circuit providers. The best mix of providers and services can maximize the productivity and efficiency of your company.
For businesses that fit this description, it is essential to have gigabit Internet circuits, point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits and Metro Ethernet Internet circuits. Having redundant hardware as well as redundant circuits from different providers will ensure your needed uptime. You must have the bandwidth to withstand sharp increases in usage. Doing so will help protect you from slowdowns or interruptions. Both your hardware and circuits must be capable of supporting a vast number of simultaneous and fast connections.
The danger and risk of failing circuits is tremendous. So is the risk of having less bandwidth than you need. The circuit or circuits you have must stay within the parameters of your budget while still meeting your company needs. You have to select the optimal combination of hardware and circuits, which is a daunting task.
We have engineers that will analyze your needs, look at your organization requirements and develop an action plan for you… for free!We will formulate a design or plan based partly on your current usage and demand levels. We are going to create something cost effective that gives you the resources your organization needs, while keeping it running smoothly.
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