In today’s environment, companies in Norwalk rely on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their company. All companies rely on reliable and quick Internet access. This is true no matter how large or small the organization.
We’ll, in the months and years ahead, become more and more reliant on our Internet access.
From video conferencing to voice over IP, email to data sharing and data archiving to Internet commerce, the web is everywhere you look. What can best meet your needs? A cable modem may be satisfactory. Maybe you need Metro Ethernet. Gigabit Internet may satisfy your needs. What is best for your organization in Norwalk? Will your company needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg access to The net or 100 Meg Internet access point?
The needs of your particular company must be determined before you can select an appropriate service. Why will you need the net? Will you only be web surfing and emailing? Is it used for real-time data connection with cloud servers? Are you hosting the data in Norwalk that remote sites depend upon?
What if your high-speed Internet is disrupted by an outage? What will happen to your organization? Can your company afford a long pause or lull in productivity? How much uptime is essential to your organization? Before buying, these are a few of the questions that you need to answer.
In the broadest of terms, companies need high-speed access to The Internet. Deciding on the right broadband internet is not easy. It requires a thorough cost-benefit analysis. You will hear service providers use terms like:
… be sure not to forget what capability and technical solutions meet your business’s specific needs.
Companies in Norwalk 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. Whether it is for organization research, to order supplies or to use third-party applications, the net is required.
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 many employees who need to use the web 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. On the other hand, if your company requires that its employees download many documents or images and videos, Internet speed becomes more important.
Do you perform backups at your company? 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.
Does your company require employees to share files using a service like Google drive or DropBox? As people save files, those files are pushed to the cloud and then synchronized back to 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.
You may consider high-speed business access to The Internet if you location warrants it. Gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet may be viable options for you. They are commonly found in “lit buildings” in Norwalk that have already been wired by a carrier. Adding this high-speed Internet to your office may be surprisingly affordable and easy.
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. Also, securing high-speed access to The net using gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet often takes less than 30 days, depending on its availability.
Consider whether your company hosts its own servers that run APIs, websites and/or data to outside buildings, offices or companies. Maybe your organization requires that dozens of satellite offices have access to a hosted application at your company main headquarters. Perhaps you are in retail and host the point of sale (POS) system for thousands of stores? Are you a law firm hosting data for multiple office places?
When data and programs are hosted centrally at one main site, people outside that location must gain access. For those people, no Internet connection means no work gets done. Are you choosing an intranet solution that is sufficiently reliable and stable to support multiple simultaneous connections from varied places?
A cost friendly 10 Meg circuit or even a cable modem may satisfy the needs of a business with a single office that needs to surf the web. Company headquarters should have high-speed Internet access such as gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit. While high speed is great, you also need support for your multiple diverse connections. This could probably not be accomplished with 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. It is possible that you have a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection but cannot reach proper speeds during peak hours. Often, within a given community, cable companies may only deliver a particular amount of bandwidth. Different buildings and tenants housed or working within those buildings all share that set amount of bandwidth. During crucial working hours, you may not get to the 30-meg speed you have been capped at. Is getting 7 when you expect 30 a problem?
Guaranteed bandwidth and dedicated bandwidth are solutions that some carriers offer. In this scenario, the bandwidth is fully allocated to you and your company or company. No one else uses it. 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.
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 Internet providers offer gigabit speeds from your office to the web.
In these cases, the carriers deliver high-speed to the building in sufficient quantity that they can then split their circuit to various tenants while guaranteeing each tenant is receiving their contracted speeds.
The truth is that circuits can go down in Norwalk, California even though some providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. In what way can you diminish the risk of an outage?
You may be a candidate for redundant circuits.
Redundancy basically comes in two forms.
The first is where you get multiple circuits from one carrier. These redundant circuits help protect from certain failures, for example, router port issues or physical line trouble. It is possible for both circuits to go down. If your carrier has a regional problem like a widespread outage, or there is a broken line outside your building, even your redundant circuits may fail. There is some protection that comes with this but there is risk as well.
You can also achieve redundancy by utilizing different carriers to bring in and establish your circuits. Using advanced routers and IP address allocations, you can bind these connections together so that, to your users and to the public, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. But, you know that they are actually separate and redundant. Diversity redundancy offers far greater protection. In the event that one carrier goes down, the other will still be alive.
The providers you choose for your redundant circuits should have different physical pathways in Norwalk. This is an important consideration when trying to obtain the most redundancy. Basically this means that you want your circuits to enter your building on different sides or paths. They would be on outside phone poles or underground conduits in different directions and leading to different places. 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.
Internet access costs money but the cost of NOT having reliable access to The Internet is greater. Consider these scenarios:
Is your organization on a cable modem? How many other tenants is your carrier servicing in your building? Are 14 other offices getting circuits? It is possible that during normal organization hours, those tenants might be downloading large files or watching continuous videos. They might be getting a lot of phone calls. What will happen to your telephone calls as the amount of usable bandwidth decreases? What happens to the strength and quality of that call? Are the calls going to be dropped? Will you sound muffled or choppy to your customers?
You may be an accounting firm that shares databases, a retail chain company utilizing a point of sale system or a law practice sharing files. Regardless of the specifics, your office is the hub for your enterprise. All of your offices, whether you have 3 or 3, 000, rely on your primary Internet connection to successfully access data. What happens if your circuit goes down? Would you merely be annoyed? Would there be catastrophic consequences? Can your satellite offices perform any work at all? What happens to new orders? Can they be taken or processed? Dispense and receive data? Do you know what your business needs? Be sure to fully understand your requirements. It will help you choose the correct solution. Perhaps you have hundreds of clients or customers that use a hosted solution that your software company 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. What if other systems can’t connect to your office servers? How will repeated outages affect your customers? Will they remain customers?
Is the internet integral to the proper function of your company? Do you count on it entirely? Should your circuits stop working, imagine your people being unable to make any outbound phone calls. Calls coming in would be unanswerable. You might not even know people are trying to reach your office. You are essentially out of company. While most reputable call centers are already aware and using redundancy, is it enough? Are the carriers that you are using reliable enough? Is the quality of service sufficient for your calls to be clear and reliable?
Clearly, there are many choices. Your budget, as well as the needs of your company, will help drive your decisions. As a wrap-up:
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 sufficient. Find out if you are in a lit building. If so, the price of Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be affordable. The availability of circuits and your location determine prices; speak with one of our engineers to learn what your best options are.
You will need higher speed Internet access if you have a medium sized organization in Norwalk, California. You have several choices. Consider the following: Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet or higher-speed access to The net circuits. In a perfect world, you will achieve maximum redundancy by utilizing multiple providers to provide and service different circuits. But can you do this without doubling costs? Sometimes, yes. For example, choosing two 50 meg circuits versus one 100 meg circuit. To repeat, availability and prices 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.
If your business has several locations or offices, you are at great risk for failure. They need redundant circuits. Varied providers are optimal. Redundant routers, switches and other equipment can also be helpful to lessen downtime during a problem. As always, take a careful look and choose the right Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed Internet access circuit providers. The right mix of providers and services will help keep your organization up and running as efficiently as possible.
If you can place yourself in this category, it is essential that you have Metro Ethernet, point-to-point circuits and gigabit 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. The hardware and circuits you choose must both be able to support the following: a great number of concurrent, speedy connections.
Do you understand how great the risk of failing circuits and insufficient bandwidth really is? The circuit or circuits you have must stay within the parameters of your budget while still meeting your business needs. Selecting the appropriate mix of circuits and hardware can overwhelm you.
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 business up and running at a reasonable cost.
Please call our office for an assessment appointment or click here to complete the contact form on the right side of the page. It can take less than 48 hours to complete your assessment.