The lifeblood of Novato, California companies doing organization in the current environment depends upon reliable Internet access. All companies, from Fortune 500 to small companies, have functions that rely on easy, dependable and quick access to The web.
Our reliance on access to the web will become greater in the near and distant future.
Our uses of the web reach far and wide. From data sharing, video calls, and shopping to VOIP and email, the web has a broad presence. What is the best fix for your requirements? A cable modem may be satisfactory. Do you need Metro Ethernet? Gigabit Internet may be required. Your Novato organization probably needs a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The Internet, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg Internet access point but which one is best?
The needs of your particular organization must be determined before you can select an appropriate service. Are surfing the web and sending email the only uses of the internet? Is real time data connection with cloud servers crucial to your company? There may be remote places that rely on you and you are hosting the data in Novato.
What happens to your business if your high-speed Internet experiences an outage? What about the downtime that results? Can your business afford that? How much uptime is essential to your organization? Ask yourself these questions before making any purchases. The answers will help you determine what is right for you.
Plainly stated, companies require high-speed Internet access. Deciding on the right broadband is not easy. It requires a thorough cost-benefit analysis. You will hear service providers use terms like:
… the actual issue is knowing what technology and capability can satisfy your needs.
For many, if not all, companies in Novato, access to The web is needed for at least some employees. Third party applications, organization research or development and e-commerce are just a few of the ways the internet may be needed.
The number of workers you employ, may be the most important factor in your decision making process. If you have a handful of employees, a 5 or 10 Meg Internet circuit may be adequate. You may need more if you have more workers and those workers all need to be on the net during the same hours.
You may not need as much high-speed Internet access if your employees work primarily on an intranet system with limited graphics and video. If your company functions demand the downloading of documents and images or videos on a regular basis, speed becomes a must more important issue.
Do you backup information? 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 like Google drive or DropBox? When you save a file it is pushed to the cloud. Then it is synched to the computer or computers of someone else. You need to have sufficient bandwidth to support this function while also supporting every other service.
High-speed company access to The Internet like Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options for you depending on your location. “Lit buildings” that have already been wired by a carrier, are commonly the site for these. You may be surprised by how easy and affordable it is to add high-speed Internet to your company.
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. In fact, in as little as 30 days, you may be able to obtain high-speed access to the internet with either gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. It depends upon availability.
Does your organization host its own servers running websites, APIs or data feeds for other offices or companies outside of your own four walls? Maybe your organization requires that dozens of satellite offices have access to a hosted application at your company main headquarters. Are you hosting the point of sale (POS) system for 15, 000 retail chain stores? Are you an attorney with offices multiple cities or states? Do you have one office hosting data for several locations?
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, those people cannot get their work done. Are you picking an intranet solution that provides reliability and stability for your multiple, simultaneous connections from various locations?
A cost friendly 10 Meg circuit or even a cable modem may satisfy the needs of a company 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 fast Internet access is and important, they must also have the capability to handle assorted simultaneous connections. A cable modem would not be able to accomplish this.
Bringing in a less-expensive circuit like a cable modem often comes with a price. Oftentimes, a lower monthly rate comes with the realization that you are sharing bandwidth with many different tenants and offices. It is possible that you have a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection but cannot reach proper speeds during 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. The bandwidth branches off to the multiple buildings, offices and tenants within them. The 30-meg speed you are capped out sounds good but it is possible that you will never reach that speed during business hours. 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. With these, bandwidth belongs to you and your organization only; no sharing. 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.
In these scenarios, carriers deliver a large quantity of high-speed to a building. The quantity must be enough so that it can split the circuit and deliver to every tenant. Whatever amount has been guaranteed in each tenant’s contract is the amount they receive.
Realistically, while some carriers in Novato, California offer excellent Internet bandwidth products, it is possible for a circuit to go down. How can you decrease the chance of an outage?
Consider redundant circuits.
Redundancy in this situation comes in two forms.
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. 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. This is not foolproof, but does offer some protection.
You can also achieve redundancy by utilizing different providers to bring in and establish your circuits. If you think it is beneficial, you can bind the connections together in a manner that makes your circuits act and look like a single source. But, you know that they are actually separate and redundant. You will get more substantial protection from this diversity redundancy. 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.
For maximum redundancy, you should look for redundant circuits from different carriers with different physical geographic pathways in Novato. Alternatively stated, try to have your circuits enter the building on different sides from one another. They would be on outside phone poles or underground conduits in different directions and leading to different places. What if there is some kind of catastrophic incident such as a fire or accident that impacts circuits within a region? Now, you have redundancy in an alternative physical direction.
The cost to your company if you do not have reliable Internet access will be far greater than you may realize. Please think about the following scenarios:
The carrier you use for your cable modem also provides circuits for a dozen or more tenants in the office building. Any of these tenants may be taking many calls, conducting huge downloads or streaming video during your regular office hours. How will your telephone calls be affected as the amount of available bandwidth decreases? What happens to the quality of that phone call? Will you lose calls? Inaudible (choppy) to your customers?
Your office is the hub of your company, whether you are a retail company operating a distributed point of sale (POS) system, an accounting firm sharing databases or a law firm engaged in file sharing. All of your sites, you may have 2, you may have 500, you may have 4, 000, depend on your main Internet connection to access and receive data. How will you be affected if your circuit goes down? Would it cause mere annoyance or utter disaster? Is work even possible at your other places? What about new orders? Share information? Make sure you completely understand your needs before you pick a solution. What if you are a software company? Perhaps you are running a hosted solution and it must be used by multiple customers; maybe even hundreds. Is an API utilized in your business so that your customers can access and speak with your system? What happens when there is a problem connecting to your servers? Will your customers remain loyal to you if they have to withstand multiple outages?
What if your organization could not function at all without the web? Maybe your business relies on it completely. What if your representatives can make no outgoing telephone calls because your circuits go down? There would be no way to answer incoming calls of people trying to reach your representatives. Your business is basically done with. For competent call centers that already use and understand the problems that can arise, is redundancy enough? Are you really getting the dependable service you need form your carriers? Are you using providers that are truly reliable? Are you getting quality service so that your calls are clear and consistent?
You clearly have many options. The needs and budget of your company will both affect your choices. As a wrap-up:
A single fifty, ten or five megabyte Internet access circuit may be sufficient to meet the needs of your small company, particularly if you have only one location and are not worried about redundancy. Metro Ethernet service or gigabit service may also be a reasonably priced option if you are in a lit building. Prices will vary. They are based on your location and circuit availability; speak with our engineers to learn your best options.
You have a midsized company in Novato, California; you will surely need higher-speed Internet. Your options are Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and higher speed circuits. Optimally, multiple carriers and multiple circuits will give you the most redundancy. Achieving this may cost extra but it won’t double your costs. For example, choosing two 50 meg circuits versus one 100 meg circuit. Availability and costs 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 company or offices. Redundant circuits must be an essential part of their systems. Varied providers are optimal. 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 correct combination of providers and services can keep your business running smoothly and efficiently.
For companies falling in this category, gigabit Internet circuits, Metro Ethernet Internet circuits and point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits are essential. In order to maximize and protect your uptime, you must have redundancy. You should have redundant circuits from multiple providers in addition to redundant hardware. You do not want any slowdowns or interruptions that often occur during spikes in usage. Avoid this by having sufficient bandwidth. Your goal is to have hardware and circuits that are more than capable of providing support to a significant number of fast and simultaneous connections.
Do not risk having failing circuits or not enough bandwidth. The right circuits must meet your demand while keeping you within your budget. It is essential to choose the correct mix of hardware and circuits. Figuring out exactly what to put in the mix, can be 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!We will examine your demand levels and current usage. We are going to then design a plan that keeps your costs reasonable while meeting your demand for a smoothly run organization.
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.