Reliable access to The Internet is the lifeblood of Nashville-Davidson, Tennessee companies and their business. All companies count on reliable and quick Internet access. This is true regardless how large or small the company.
We’ll become increasingly dependent on Internet access as the months and years progress.
The use of the net is pervasive. We use it for email and data sharing, video conferencing and VOIP, archiving and commerce. What do you need? Is a cable modem enough? Do you need Metro Ethernet? Is Gigabit Internet right for you? What is best for your business in Nashville-Davidson? Will your company needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg Internet access or 100 Meg Internet access point?
Before choosing an adequate or appropriate service, you must decide what your business really needs. Why will you need the internet? Will you only be web surfing and emailing? Is real time data connection with cloud servers essential to your company? There may be remote sites that rely on you and you are hosting the data in Nashville-Davidson.
What if your high-speed Internet is disrupted by an outage? What will happen to your company? Can your business afford the downtime? Does your company require uptime? You must answer questions like these so you can make a purchase that actually meets your needs
Plainly stated, companies require high-speed Internet access. When picking the correct broadband internet, balancing the costs and benefits to your organization is imperative. You will hear service providers use terms like:
… you must not lose sight of the real issue, which is understanding what technical solutions best meet your needs.
Most companies in Nashville-Davidson require that some or all of their workers have access to the web. access to The net may be needed to conduct research, use third-party applications or to order supplies.
The number of employees you have may determine your best solution. 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 many employees who need to use the net at the same time, you may do better with more.
High-speed Internet may become less important if the majority of your employees primarily use an intranet system with limited graphics and video. When they are frequently downloading things, whether documents, graphics or videos, however, speed is necessary for efficient job performance.
Are you performing routine backups? When you do remote backups from every workstation, which you should, you must support multiple and simultaneous connections to the web in order to sync your backup data.
Do you use a file-sharing service? Perhaps you use Google drive, DropBox or a different service? The saved files go to the cloud and are then synchronized or “shared” with other people’s computers. Supporting file sharing, while supporting every other service, requires sufficient bandwidth.
Depending on your location, high-speed business access to The net, including Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options. They are almost always found in “lit buildings” in Nashville-Davidson, Tennessee that are already 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.
The introduction of Metro Ethernet into a new building can be quite costly. However, bringing that connection into office space within that building is usually less so. 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? Do fifty or so branch offices need access to a hosted application at your company headquarters? Are you a retail company with 10, 000 stores? Do you host the POS system for all of them? Are you an attorney with offices multiple cities or states? Do you have one office hosting data for several sites?
If you host programs, data or information centrally, people outside of the central location need to have access. Those people are not able to work without a solid Internet connection. Is the intranet solution you are choosing sufficiently reliable? Is it stable enough to support simultaneous connections from different places?
For a single office surfing the web, a cable modem or inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be adequate. Company headquarters should have high-speed Internet access such as gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit. 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.
There is a price that comes along with choosing a cable modem or other lower cost circuit. You may have to share bandwidth in order to secure that low monthly rate. 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. 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. You might be capped at 30-megabyte speed, but may never be able to actually reach that speed during the important hours of your organization day. What will the consequences be if you expect 30 but only get half that? What if you get even less?
Guaranteed bandwidth and dedicated bandwidth are solutions that some providers offer. 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.
With Metro Ethernet, for example, you can receive a guaranteed bandwidth in various increments including 5 and 10 Meg circuits, and 50 and 100 Meg circuits. Gigabit speeds from your office to the web can be reached if you use 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 Nashville-Davidson 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 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. Even multiple circuits can fail, such as in the event of a large-scale carrier outage or when there damage to an external line. This offers some protection and assurance but does not eliminate all threats.
Bringing in circuits using two distinct carriers is the second form of circuit redundancy. These connections can be bound together so they act and appear to the public as a single circuit. Using particular routers and IP address allocations, no one would be able to tell that you have multiple providers or circuits. Though they may appear as one, you know that they are each individual circuits and redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy offers far greater protection. In the event that one carrier goes down, the other will still be alive.
If you want to maximize redundancy in Nashville-Davidson, Tennessee 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.
The cost to your company if you do not have reliable Internet access will be far greater than you may realize. Contemplate these situations:
Your office uses a cable modem and, in addition to you, the carrier provides 10-15 additional tenants with circuits. It is possible that during normal company hours, those tenants might be downloading large files or watching continuous videos. They might be getting a lot of phone calls. As available bandwidth shrinks, what will happen to your calls? How will it affect the quality of that telephone 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. What if your circuit fails? Would it annoy you or destroy you? Can meaningful work be conducted at your remote offices? What happens to new orders? Can they be taken or processed? Share essential 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 depend on. 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 rates, 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?
What if your company could not function at all without the internet? Maybe your organization depends upon it completely. Your employees or representatives will not be able to make outgoing phone calls if your circuits go down. Your representatives would also be unable to answer calls. You are essentially out of company. While many of the most reputable call centers are already aware and using the advantages of redundancy, is it sufficiently meeting their needs? Are you really getting the dependable service you need form your providers? Are you using providers that are truly reliable? Is the quality of your calls consistently and reliably clear?
Clearly, there are many choices. Your budget, as well as the needs of your company, will help drive your decisions. To recap:
You are probably not thinking about redundancy if you have a small business with a single location. In this case, you can probably get by with a single access to The Internet circuit of 5, 10 or 50 meg. Is your building lit? If so, find out about gigabit or Metro Ethernet services. They may be reasonably priced options. Speak with our engineers about what is right for you. Prices vary with location and circuit availability.
If you have a midsized organization in Nashville-Davidson, Tennessee, you will need higher-speed access to The net. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and other higher-speed Internet circuits are your options. Optimally, multiple carriers and multiple circuits 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. Again, costs and availability 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.
Businesses with many places face the greatest risk for failure. They require redundant circuits. Multiple providers are highly desirable. You can minimize the risk of downtime at if you also have redundant equipment like routers or switches. 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 best mix of carriers and services can maximize the productivity and efficiency of your company.
For companies falling in this category, gigabit Internet circuits, Metro Ethernet Internet circuits and point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits are essential. You will want to have the greatest protection of your uptime. To accomplish this you must have redundancy: redundant circuits from multiple providers and redundant hardware for your system. You do not want any slowdowns or interruptions that often occur during spikes in usage. Avoid this by having sufficient bandwidth. Both your hardware and circuits must be capable of supporting a vast number of simultaneous and fast connections.
Insufficient bandwidth and failing circuits are present tremendous risk to your company. Your demand and budget constraints should both be considered when you decide what circuit or combination of circuits you must have. There is tremendous pressure on you to choose the best combination of circuits and hardware.
Our engineers will take the pressure off and develop a free action plan for you by analyzing your needs. After reviewing your current usage and demand levels, we’ll generate a cost effective plan that provides your company with the resources it needs.
An appointment for an assessment can be made by calling our office or clicking here to complete the contact form on the side of this page. Your assessment may be finished within as little as 48 hours.