These days, companies in Niagara Falls, New York rely on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their company. The business functions of all companies, from Fortune 500 to small companies, count on fast and reliable Internet access.
In the coming months and years, we’ll become increasingly dependent on our access to the internet.
From video conferencing to voice over IP, email to data sharing and data archiving to Internet commerce, the web is everywhere you look. What is the right solution for your requirements? Maybe a cable modem is a sufficient solution. Is Metro Ethernet necessary? Is Gigabit Internet right for you? A 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg Internet access, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg Internet access point: what is right for your company in Niagara Falls?
The needs of your particular organization must be determined before you can select an appropriate service. Perhaps the internet is only used for a few things such as email communication or surfing the web. Will real-time data connection with servers in the cloud be the primary use of the net? Do remote places depend on you hosting the data in Niagara Falls?
What happens if you have an outage in your high-speed Internet? What about the downtime that results? Can your company afford that? Is uptime required? Ask yourself these questions before making any purchases. The answers will help you determine what is right for you.
High-speed access to the internet is something all companies need. Choosing the correct broadband for your business requires a cost benefit analysis. While many service providers throw around terminologies such as:
… be sure not to forget what capability and technical solutions meet your business’s specific needs.
At any company in Niagara Falls, New York some employees, if not all employees, need some type of access to the web if they are to properly perform their job duties. There are countless reasons to need access to the net. Perhaps it is to order materials, to conduct company research or talk to clients.
Your best course of action may be determined by the size of your work force. An Internet circuit of 5 -10 megabytes might be enough for your company if you only have a few people working for you. If you have more than that, you may need more.
High-speed Internet may become less important if the majority of your employees primarily use an intranet system with limited graphics and video. On the other hand, Internet speed becomes dramatically more important when they are required to regularly download things like documents or videos.
Do you routinely backup? If, as recommended, you conduct remote backups from every single desk, you will need to support simultaneous connections out to the web. This will allow you to sync your backup data.
Are you using Google drive, DropBox or another file sharing service? The saved files go to the cloud and are then synchronized or “shared” with other people’s computers. Enough bandwidth is required to support this function along with every other service.
High-speed organization access to The Internet like Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options for you depending on your location. They are commonly found in “lit buildings” in Niagara Falls that have already been wired by a carrier. It may be shock you to know that installing high-speed Internet access may not be particularly expensive or inconvenient.
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.
Does your company host its own servers to run information feeds, websites or application program interfaces (APIs) with companies or offices located outside of your four walls? Are your corporate headquarters with a hosted application utilized by 50 branch offices? Are you a retail chain hosting the POS system for 12, 000 stores? Does your legal practice host all of the data for 3, 4 or 5 offices in different sites?
If your company hosts its programs and information at a central location, people outside of that location need to have access in order to conduct company. If the net connection is interrupted or fails, those people are unable to accomplish any work. Are you choosing an intranet solution that is sufficiently reliable and stable to support multiple simultaneous connections from varied places?
The needs of an office with one employee web surfing may not need more than a cable modem or an inexpensive 5-10 megabyte circuit. High-speed Internet access is advisable for the headquarters. Gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit is recommended. All offer quick speed but they must also be able to support diverse and multiple connections. The support you need could not be provided by a cable modem.
There is a price that comes along with choosing a cable modem or other lower cost circuit. Even though you pay less money per month you must consider that the bandwidth you receive may be shared and used by multiple parties in the building. 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. Cable operators are only permitted to establish a certain amount of bandwidth within communities. Buildings, offices and tenants within the buildings all must share that amount of bandwidth, whatever it may be. While you may be capped at a 30 Meg speed, you may never be able to reach that speed during organization hours. Is it a problem if you get a quarter or even half of the speed you expected?
You can sign up for dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth from some carriers. If you want your very own bandwidth that is not used by anyone else, you should consider this. The presence of numerous buildings and tenants should have no effect on your speed. You should receive full capacity of your circuits no matter what the time of day.
Five Meg, ten Meg, fifty Meg and 100 Meg circuits of guaranteed bandwidth are available with Metro Ethernet. Gigabit speeds from your office to the web can be reached if you use a gigabit Internet provider.
The providers in this situation deliver high-speed to a particular building in sufficient quantity to split their circuit among various tenants. Of course, they must ensure that they each get the specific amount of their contracted speed.
Despite outstanding Internet bandwidth products offered by carriers in Niagara Falls, circuits do go down. In what way can you diminish the risk of an outage?
Try using redundant circuits.
There are, in reality, two kinds 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. 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. While offering some protection, it is not without risk.
Circuit redundancy can also be achieved in the following way: Import circuits using two different and distinct carriers. 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. In reality, they are completely separate and redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy, as this is called, offers you more protection that you might realize. If one carrier has a problem, the other likely will not.
To maximize the benefit of redundancy, consider looking for redundant circuits from different carriers that have different pathway in Niagara Falls, New York. 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. If a major accident occurs or there is a fire that impedes the function of circuits in a particular region, you have redundancy in a different direction.
While Internet access is not free, it pales in comparison with the cost of not having reliable access to The web. Please consider these situations:
Are you on a cable modem and your carrier is providing circuits to dozens of other office suites in your building? Between 9 and 5, any of those other offices could be downloading huge files, streaming video or taking large volume of phone calls and more. How will less available bandwidth affect your telephone calls? How will it affect the quality of that telephone call? Will calls be cut-off? 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. 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? Is it simply an irritation or a catastrophe? Is work even possible at your other sites? Can they take or process any orders at all? Circulate essential files and data? It is important that prior to choosing a solution, you understand the true needs and requirements of your particular organization. You might have hundreds and hundreds of loyal customers. Perhaps you are a software company running a hosted solution they all count on. Maybe you operate a service that allows other systems to speak with yours via API. This may be to collect miscellaneous data, calculate prices or shipping prices or other information. What if other systems can’t connect to your office servers? If you have repeated outages, how long will they remain a customer?
Your company is entirely Internet based. If your circuits go down, you cannot make calls. No calls could be answered either. You are now, essentially, out of business. For competent call centers that already use and understand the problems that can arise, is redundancy enough? Are the providers you currently use as reliable as they should be? Are they as reliable as you need them to be? Is the quality of service sufficient for your calls to be clear and reliable?
You clearly have several choices. Your organization budget and needs will play a large part in your decision-making. To recap:
If your organization is small, with one location or office, you are likely not concerned about redundancy. For you, a single 5, 10 or 50 megabyte access to The net circuit may suffice. Find out if you are in a lit building. If so, the price of Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be affordable. Because prices can vary based on the location of your business and the availability of circuits, speak with our engineers to learn your options.
You will need higher speed Internet access if you have a medium sized organization in Niagara Falls. You have several choices. Consider the following: Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet or higher-speed Internet access circuits. Ideally, multiple circuits from multiple providers will provide you with the greatest redundancy. You may be able to achieve this in a manner that will not break the bank. For example, choosing two 50 meg circuits versus one 100 meg circuit. Again, costs and availability vary. You should speak with our experts to learn the options for your particular location.
Companies with multiple locations are most at risk for failure. Redundancy is extremely essential to them. Different providers are desirable. 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. Your company can benefit from finding the right mix of services and carriers.
Companies such as these require the following: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and point-to-point (PPP) high-speed Internet circuits. You must have redundant circuits for multiple providers as well as redundant hardware in your office to ensure your uptime. Having plenty of bandwidth will help avoid interruptions or decreased speed that sometimes occurs during spikes in usage. Having both your hardware and your circuits capable of supporting many different, fast, and simultaneous connections is essential. It cannot be one or the other.
Do not risk having failing circuits or not enough bandwidth. Your ideal single circuit or multiple circuits should stay within your budget while still meeting your demands. Choosing the right combination of hardware and circuits can be complicated and confusing.
We have engineers that will analyze your needs, look at your company requirements and develop an action plan for you… for free!We are going to examine your demand levels and current usage. We’ll then design a plan that keeps your costs reasonable while meeting your demand for a smoothly run company.
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. We do assessments quickly. It can take as little as 48 hours to complete your analysis.