Obtaining High-Speed Internet Access in New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans High Speed Access to the World Wide Web: Accessing Metro Ethernet, Business Broadband Internet and Gigabit Internet

Reliable access to The Internet is the lifeblood of New Orleans companies and their organization. All companies, large and small, need fast and reliable Internet access.

Our dependence on access to The net will continue to grow in the coming months and years.

The web has a significant presence in our lives. From email to information sharing, data archiving to e-commerce, and VOIP to video chat, the internet is certainly ubiquitous. How can your needs be met? Is a cable modem sufficient? Metro Ethernet may be the thing you need. Gigabit Internet? Your New Orleans, Louisiana company probably needs a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg Internet access, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The web point but which one is best?

Determining your Company Need for Internet Access

Before selecting the appropriate service, your business must assess its needs. Is the net only used for web surfing and email? Is it used for real-time data connection with cloud servers? Are you hosting the data in New Orleans that remote locations depend upon?

What if there is an outage and your high-speed Internet is interrupted? How might the downtime cause problems for your company? How much uptime is essential to your company? You must answer these questions before you buy.

Looking at Different High Speed Internet Solutions: New Orleans

It is no secret that 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 company. While many providers like to spout technical terminologies such as:

• High-speed Internet access
• Business Internet or commercial Internet
• Cable modems and broadband
• Metropolitan-area Ethernet provider
• Provider of Gigabit Internet service
• MPLS services
• PPP- or point-to-point protocol
• Internet access circuits-five megabyte
• Ten megabyte Internet access
• High-speed 50-megabyte Internet access circuits
• 100 Meg Internet access circuits
• We provide sip trunks
• Direct or dedicated Internet access
• … and that is only a few

… the actual issue is knowing what technology and capability can satisfy your needs.

Surfing the Web: Business Internet Access

Companies in New Orleans need access to the internet for their employees. Some companies may need it only for a few people and others may need it for the entire workforce. The web is required for so many things, whether to order items, look up organization information speak with third parties.

The number of workers you employ, may be the most important factor in your decision making process. A five or ten megabyte Internet circuit may be all you need if employ a small workforce. 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.

Perhaps most workers at your company use an intranet system with limited features. High- speed Internet may not be a priority in this case. On the other hand, if your company requires that its employees download many documents or images and videos, Internet speed becomes more important.

Does your business regularly conduct backups? 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.

Do you use a file-sharing service? Perhaps you use Google drive, DropBox or a different service? As people save files, those files are pushed to the cloud and then synchronized back to other people’s computers. You must have sufficient bandwidth if you are to successfully support every service including file sharing.

You may consider high-speed company Internet access if you location warrants it. Gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet may be viable options for you. They are usually contained in “lit buildings” in New Orleans, Louisiana that have already been wired by a carrier. It may be shock you to know that installing high-speed access to The Internet may not be particularly expensive or inconvenient.

Absent the need to introduce Metro Ethernet into a new building, it is not particularly costly to connect Metro Ethernet to a suite or office within that building. Also, securing high-speed access to The Internet using gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet often takes less than 30 days, depending on its availability.

Hosted Applications Requiring High-Speed Internet Access

Does your business host its own servers running websites, APIs or data feeds for other offices or companies outside of your own four walls? Are your company headquarters with a hosted application accessed by 50 branch offices? 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.

If you host programs, data or information centrally, people outside of the central location need to have access. Those people are not able to do their work if the web connection fails or is unreliable. Is the intranet solution you are choosing sufficiently reliable? Is it stable enough to support simultaneous connections from different places?

A cable modem or fairly cheap 10-megabyte circuit may be enough in certain scenarios. For example, these may meet the needs of a single office surfing the web. High-speed Internet access is advisable for the headquarters. Gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit is recommended. High-speed alone is not enough. They must also need to be capable of supporting many diverse connections. The support you need could not be provided by a cable modem.

Which is Better for You in New Orleans, Louisiana? Dedicated Internet Bandwidth or Shared Cable Circuits?

Bringing in a less-expensive circuit like a cable modem often comes with a price. There may be a lower monthly rate, but bandwidth is usually shared with many 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. Only a certain amount of bandwidth may be available in a community. Many cable companies have limits on the amount they can deliver. 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 company day. Is getting 7 when you expect 30 a problem?

Guaranteed bandwidth and dedicated bandwidth are solutions that some carriers offer. In this situation, your bandwidth is not shared but is fully allocated to your company. 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.

For example, Metro Ethernet guarantees bandwidth in 5 met circuits, 10 Meg circuits, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. Gigabit speeds from your office to the net can be reached if you use a gigabit Internet provider.

Providers in these situations deliver enough to cover everyone’s needs. The providers divide their circuit to various tenants while guaranteeing that everyone gets their contracted speed.

Incorporating Redundancy Into Your High Speed Company Internet Circuits in New Orleans, Louisiana

The truth is that circuits can go down in New Orleans, Louisiana even though some carriers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. You must ask yourself: “how do I lessen the chance of an outage? ”

You may be a candidate for redundant circuits.

There are two types of redundancy to consider.

A single carrier, providing multiple circuits, to one customer, characterizes one form of redundancy. In this situation, the redundancy helps protect you from port issues or physical line issues. Damage to an external wire or part can cause the failure of all of your circuits. A regional outage experienced by your carrier can have the same result. You get some protection, but also some risk.

In the second type of redundancy, you bring in circuits from two different providers. By using IP address allocations and certain routers, you can bind your connections. By doing this, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. 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. 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 want maximum redundancy. In order to achieve this, look for redundant circuits from different providers with different physical geographic pathways in New Orleans, Louisiana. In other words, try to obtain circuits entering the building from different sides of the building. The circuits would be attached to telephone poles (or underground conduits) in different directions leading to different data centers or central offices. 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.

What is the Cost of Not Having Adequate Protection for Your Company Class High-Speed Internet access?

It is true that Internet access costs you money. However, the cost does not come close to what you will pay if the access that is not reliable. Contemplate these situations:

You use VoIP for your business telephone service

Your office uses a cable modem and, in addition to you, the carrier provides 10-15 additional tenants with circuits. During your working day, those tenants could be conducting massive downloads of information, processing a large amount of calls or streaming endless video. As they use more bandwidth, there is less for available for your requirements. What will happen to your phone calls? How will the caliber of the call be affected? Will calls be cut-off? Perhaps you will sound choppy or will be inaudible.

Your office is the main data point for various other offices

Your office may be the working center of an entire company enterprise. The kind of company 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. Whether you have 2 sites, 250, or 2000, they all rely on your primary Internet connection to retrieve data and information. What happens if your circuit goes down? Would you merely be annoyed? Would there be catastrophic consequences? Are your other offices able to do any work? What about new orders? Share essential information with anyone? It is important that prior to choosing a solution, you understand the true needs and requirements of your particular business. You have a software company, and are running a hosted solution for dozens, maybe hundreds, of customers. You may operate a service like this: other systems talk to yours via an API to figure out freight rates, stock prices, to compile weather data or receive any other information that you provide. What if you have server problems and they are unable to connect to you? Will your customers remain loyal to you if they have to withstand multiple outages?

Your call center uses VoIP

Your business is completely dependent on the web. If your circuits go down, you cannot make calls. They are also unable to answer calls. You are now officially out of organization. Is redundancy enough? Many of the finest call centers with the best reputations already understand and use redundancy. They should consider if they have sufficient protection. Make sure your carriers are as reliable as possible. Do you consistently get quality service that provides clear and reliable calls?

In New Orleans: Selecting the Proper High-Speed Company Access Circuits for Your Company

It should be clear by now that you have many different options to select from. Your business needs and your budget will have to come into consideration when deciding on your solutions. As a high-level summary:

Internet Access for Smaller Businesses

If you are a small company, with just one location and not concerned about redundancy, a single five meg, 10 meg or 50 meg access to The web circuit may be adequate. Is your building lit? If so, find out about gigabit or Metro Ethernet services. They may be reasonably priced options. Because prices can vary based on the location of your company and the availability of circuits, speak with our engineers to learn your options.

Medium Sized Company in One Location: Access to the Internet

Mid-sized businesses in New Orleans, Louisiana should be equipped with higher-speed Internet. You may choose between gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. You may also look into other higher-speed Internet circuits. In a perfect scenario, multiple circuits from different providers will give you the most redundancy. You can sometimes achieve this without doubling costs. For instance, it may be cheaper to utilize two 50 meg circuits in place of one 100 meg circuit. Availability and costs vary. Speaking with one of our experts will help you determine the options available in your specific location.

Mid-Sized Businesses Internet access – Multiple Locations

If your company has several locations or offices, you are at great risk for failure. Redundant circuits are a necessity. Having several providers would afford extra protection. You can minimize the risk of downtime at if you also have redundant equipment like routers or switches. Take a careful look at Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers and gigabit Internet providers. Research other high-speed access to The net circuit providers also and make an informed decision. The correct combination of providers and services can keep your organization running smoothly and efficiently.

Clients who provide services delivered via Internet, large corporate and enterprise clientele

For companies falling in this category, gigabit Internet circuits, Metro Ethernet Internet circuits and point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits are essential. If you want to ensure your valuable uptime, have redundant circuits from multiple providers as well as redundant hardware. You must have the bandwidth to withstand sharp increases in usage. Doing so will help protect you from slowdowns or interruptions. Your circuits and hardware must be able to support a large number of fast and simultaneous connections.

You Can Get a Free Internet Need and Demand Analysis

Do you understand how great the risk of failing circuits and insufficient bandwidth really is? Your demand and budget constraints should both be considered when you decide what circuit or combination of circuits you must have. 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 company requirements and develop an action plan for you… for free!We will look at your current usage, demand levels and scope out a design to give you the resources you need while keeping your company up and running at a reasonable cost.

If you would like to arrange for an assessment, please click here to complete the contact information form to the right. You can call our office as well. It can take less than 48 hours to complete your assessment.