These days, companies in Norwich count on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their organization. All companies, big and small, need fast and reliable access to The Internet.
In the months and years ahead, people and businesses will become more dependent on internet access.
From email messaging to information sharing, e-commerce to archiving data, and voice over IP to video chat, the net is omnipresent. What is the best solution for you? Will a cable modem be adequate? Do you need Metro Ethernet? You may need Gigabit Internet. Your Norwich company probably needs a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg Internet access, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg Internet access point but which one is best?
Before choosing an adequate or appropriate service, you must decide what your company really needs. Why will you need the web? Will you only be web surfing and emailing? Will real-time data connection with servers in the cloud be the primary use of the net? Perhaps you, in Norwich, Connecticut, are hosting the data and remote locations rely upon this.
What if there is an outage and your high-speed Internet is interrupted? Will your organization suffer from the lull? Is your success dependent on uptime? Prior to making any purchases, you must determine the answers to these questions.
High-speed access to The net is required by all businesses. 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 company. Don’t be distracted by terminology. While you may hear providers throw out words and phrases like:
… you must not lose sight of the real issue, which is understanding what technical solutions best meet your needs.
At any company in Norwich, Connecticut some employees, if not all employees, need some type of access to the net if they are to properly perform their job duties. There are countless reasons to need access to the internet. Perhaps it is to order materials, to conduct company research or communicate with clients.
The number of workers you have may be the factor that drives your decision. A 5 or 10 megabyte Internet circuit may be perfect if you only have a few employees. If your business has nearly 50 people, however, and they all need to use the net 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. When employees are often downloading images, videos and documents, however, the need for speed increases significantly.
Are you performing backups? 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 organization use a file sharing service? DropBox? Google drive? After a file is saved, it goes to the cloud and then to someone else’s computer. In order to ensure that all of your functions work properly, in addition to file sharing, you must have sufficient bandwidth.
High-speed organization Internet access like Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options for you depending on your location. These are typically found in “lit buildings” in Norwich, Connecticut. Providers have already wired these buildings. You may be surprised by how easy and affordable it is to add high-speed Internet to your organization.
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. 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 running websites, APIs or data feeds for other offices or companies outside of your own four walls? Is your main business office with a hosted application accessed by 40 or even 50 branch office sites? Is your business retail? Do you have thousands of stores? Do you host the point of sale system for the entire chain? Do you run a law office that hosts the data for satellite offices in different cities or states?
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 internet connection fails or is unreliable. When deciding on the right intranet solution for your company, ask yourself: Is the solution going to adequately support simultaneous and multiple connections from my different sites?
For a single office surfing the web, a cable modem or inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be sufficient. High-speed access to The Internet is advisable for the headquarters. Gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit is recommended. Multiple diverse connections require support, in addition to high speed. A cable modem would not be able to accomplish this.
In many scenarios, bringing in an inexpensive circuit, such as a cable modem, comes at a price. Oftentimes, a lower monthly rate comes with the realization that you are sharing bandwidth with many different tenants and offices. The cable modem you subscribe to with the 30 Meg connections may not always reach those speeds, especially during the busiest or “peak” hours of the workday. Many cable companies only deliver a set amount of bandwidth within a community. That bandwidth reaches out like branches to every building in the community and the people living and working in those buildings. During crucial working hours, you may not get to the 30-meg speed you have been capped at. Is this a problem for you if you expect 30 and get 6?
Other carriers do offer dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. With these options, bandwidth is yours. It is not shared with anyone outside of your business. No matter who is in the building or what buildings surround you, you should always run at full speed.
You can receive guaranteed bandwidth with Metro Ethernet. You can receive it in increments of five, 10, 50 or one hundred megabyte circuits. Want to reach gigabit speeds? You can by using 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.
Despite outstanding Internet bandwidth products offered by carriers in Norwich, Connecticut, circuits do go down. How can you lower the chances that you will experience some kind of outage?
You may be a candidate for redundant circuits.
Redundancy basically comes in two forms.
With the first type of redundancy, you receive multiple circuits from the same carrier. This provides some protection when there are certain failures. Multiple circuits can help for example, when there is a physical line issue or a problem with a router port. If your carrier experiences a regional outage or you have a line broken outside of your building, you may lose the use of all of your circuits. This is not foolproof, but does offer some protection.
Utilizing circuits from two different carriers is the second kind of 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. You know the truth: that they are individual circuits and are there to back each other up in case one goes down. You will get more substantial protection from this diversity redundancy. If one carrier has a problem, the other likely will not.
If you want to maximize redundancy in Norwich please consider the following question: Do the carriers I am considering use the same physical geographic pathways? Basically this means that you want your circuits to enter your building on different sides or paths. The circuits would be attached underground or to telephone poles, in various directions. The circuits would go 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.
Although Internet access comes at a price, the price of unreliable Internet access is tremendous. Contemplate 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. As the amount of accessible bandwidth decreases, what happens to your needs? What will happen to your phone calls? How will it affect the quality of that telephone call? Will you lose calls? Inaudible (choppy) to your customers?
Regardless of whether you are part of a legal practice and your firm does file sharing, or an accounting practice sharing databases, your office is the central point or hub of your organization. Every single one of your offices, stores and sites rely on you and your primary Internet connection to retrieve data. What if your circuit fails? Is it just irritating? Is it going to cause tremendous problems? Can your satellite or remote office do any work at all? Can they take or process any orders at all? Share essential data? Make sure you completely understand your needs before you pick a solution. Maybe you are a corporation that designs and sells software and you run a hosted solution that is used by hundreds and hundreds of customers. Perhaps you operate a service where other systems talk to yours via an API to calculate freight rates, commodity prices, collect current weather data or receive any other information that you serve up. What if these other systems have difficulty connecting your servers? Customers will only take so many repeated outages. How long with they remain with your company?
Maybe your business depends entirely on the web. If your circuits go down, you cannot make calls. They are also unable to answer calls. Looks like you are now out of business. While most reputable call centers are already aware and using redundancy, is it enough? Can you truly rely on your carriers? Are they as dependable as they claim? Is the quality of service sufficient for your calls to be clear and reliable?
You clearly have several choices. Your business needs and your budget will have to come into consideration when deciding on your solutions. As a high-level summary:
A single fifty, ten or five megabyte Internet access circuit may be sufficient to meet the needs of your small organization, particularly if you have only one location and are not worried about redundancy. Find out if you are in a lit building. If so, the price of Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be affordable. Speak with our engineers about what is right for you. Prices vary with location and circuit availability.
Mid sized companies with a single office in Norwich, Connecticut, need higher speed Internet access. Higher-speed circuits like Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or others may be your best options. Ideally, you want to have the greatest redundancy. You can achieve this by using multiple circuits from different providers. Achieving this may not be as costly as you first thought. Using one 100-megabyte circuit instead of two 50-megabyte circuits, is one example. Again, costs and availability vary. In order to find out the options available for you, in your location, you need to speak with one of our seasoned experts.
The greatest risk of failure belongs to companies that have multiple places of business or offices. 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. Your business can benefit from finding the right mix of services and providers.
Companies such as these require the following: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and point-to-point (PPP) high-speed Internet circuits. In order to maximize and protect your uptime, you must have redundancy. You should have redundant circuits from multiple carriers in addition to redundant hardware. 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. 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 company requirements and develop an action plan for you… for free!After reviewing your current usage and demand levels, we are going to generate a cost effective plan that provides your business with the resources it needs.
Please call our office for an assessment appointment or click here to complete the contact form on the right side of the page. We do assessments quickly. It can take as little as 48 hours to complete your analysis.