In today’s environment, companies in Oakland depend on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their business. All companies depend on reliable and quick Internet access. This is true no matter how large or small the business.
In the coming months and years, we’ll become increasingly dependent on our access to the net.
From email messaging to information sharing, e-commerce to archiving data, and voice over IP to video conferencing, the net is omnipresent. What is the best solution for you? Perhaps a cable modem is all you need. Metro Ethernet may be what you need. Your needs may be met with Gigabit Internet. Does your company in Oakland, California need one of these: 10 Meg access to The Internet, a 100 Meg access to The web point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?
The needs of your particular business must be determined before you can select an appropriate service. Is the net only used for web surfing and email? Is the internet used for real-time data connection with servers in the cloud? There may be remote locations that rely on you and you are hosting the data in Oakland.
What happens to your business if your high-speed Internet experiences an outage? Will your company suffer from the lull? How much uptime is essential to your business? Ask yourself these questions before making any purchases. The answers will help you determine what is right for you.
In all-encompassing terms, businesses need high-speed access to The Internet. Deciding on the right broadband internet is not easy. It requires a thorough cost-benefit analysis. While many service providers throw around terminologies such as:
… the actual issue is knowing what technology and capability can satisfy your needs.
Workers for most companies in Oakland, California have some need to access the web during the course of their job. Whether it is for company research, to order supplies or to use third-party applications, the internet is required.
The best solution may rely upon how many employees you have. A five or ten megabyte Internet circuit may be all you need if employ a small workforce. 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.
Your need for high-speed Internet may be lessened if your workers are just accessing an intranet systemOn 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? 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.
Do you use a file sharing service like Google drive or DropBox? As a file is saved, it is pushed to the cloud and then synced back to other people’s computers. Enough bandwidth is required to support this function along with every other service.
You may consider high-speed company Internet access if you location warrants it. Gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet may be viable options for you. These can usually be found in Oakland, California in “lit buildings” that have already been wired. You may be surprised by how easy and affordable it is to add high-speed Internet to your business.
While bringing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be an expensive proposition, bringing that connection to a suite within the building is not. In fact, obtaining high-speed access to The web with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less depending upon availability.
Consider whether your organization hosts its own servers that run APIs, websites and/or data to outside buildings, offices or companies. Are your company headquarters with a hosted application accessed 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?
When data and programs are hosted centrally at one main site, people outside that location must gain access. Those people are not able to do their work if the internet connection fails or is unreliable. If you need multiple connections to function at the same time from many different sites, make sure that your intranet solution can reliably support it.
For one office or a small company with just one or two people surfing the web, a less expensive 10 Meg circuit or a cable modem may meet your needs. It is advisable that high-speed Internet access be available at the central company office or headquarters, including gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuits. 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.
Utilizing a cable modem or other less expensive circuit may seem like a good option but can result in unexpected cost. There may be a lower monthly rate, but bandwidth is usually shared with many tenants. During peak use hours, you may not be able to reach proper speeds. Only a certain amount of bandwidth may be available in a community. Many cable companies have limits on the amount they can deliver. That amount of bandwidth must be shared with different buildings and with the tenants housed within. The 30-meg speed you are capped out sounds good but it is possible that you will never reach that speed during company hours. What will the consequences be if you expect 30 but only get half that? What if you get even less?
You can find a carrier who can provide dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. If you want your very own bandwidth that is not used by anyone else, you should consider this. Regardless of neighbors, or other tenants, you should have the full capacity of your circuit at all times.
Metro Ethernet provides guaranteed bandwidth in increments as follows: 5, 10, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. With gigabit Internet providers, you can reach gigabit speeds in your office out to the internet.
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.
Despite outstanding Internet bandwidth products offered by carriers in Oakland, California, circuits do go down. What can you do to minimize the chance that you will experience an outage of some kind?
Try using redundant circuits.
There are, in essence, two types of redundancy.
The first is where you get multiple circuits from one carrier. When there are problems with a physical line or a port or other failures, it can be helpful to have redundant circuits. However, if that carrier has a greater outage to your entire region or there is a line damaged outside of your office building, you may have both or all circuits go down. While offering some protection, it is not without risk.
The second way to set up circuit redundancy is by using two different providers to bring in your circuits. Advanced routers and IP address allocations can be utilized to make it look to your users and the public that you have a single circuit. However, despite appearances, they are actually very much separate and are 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.
For maximum redundancy, you should look for redundant circuits from different carriers with different physical geographic pathways in Oakland. Basically this means that you want your circuits to enter your building on different sides or paths. The circuits would be attached to telephone poles (or underground conduits) in different directions leading to different data centers or central offices. If you can accomplish this, you are protected from a major catastrophe. For example, if a there is a fire or some other accident that negatively affects circuits in a region, you have redundancy in a physically different direction.
While Internet access is not free, it pales in comparison with the cost of not having reliable access to The Internet. Think about the following situations:
If your business utilizes a cable modem, consider whether your carrier is providing circuits for multiple other tenants within the building. Any of these tenants may be taking many calls, conducting huge downloads or streaming video during your regular office hours. How will less available bandwidth affect your telephone calls? What happens to the quality of that phone call? Are calls dropped? Will you sound muffled?
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 locations, whether 2 or 2000, rely on your primary Internet connection to access and retrieve data. How will you be affected if your circuit goes down? Is it simply an irritation or a catastrophe? Are your other offices able to do any work? Process or take new orders? Circulate essential files and data? Picking the right a solution can be difficult. Before doing so, be sure you fully understand your requirements. Perhaps you have hundreds of clients or customers that use a hosted solution that your software business is running. Perhaps you operate a service where other systems communicate with 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? If you have repeated outages, how long will they remain a customer?
Your organization is 100% reliant on the web to properly function. No calls can go out if your circuits fail. In addition, they will be unable to answer incoming calls. You are now officially out of organization. While many of the most reputable call centers are already aware and using the advantages of redundancy, is it sufficiently meeting their needs? Are your current providers as dependable as you would like? Clear and reliable calls are essential. Does your carrier service consistently provide this?
You clearly have many options. Your organization budget and needs will play a large part in your decision-making. As a high-level summary:
You are probably not thinking about redundancy if you have a small organization with a single location. In this case, you can probably get by with a single access to The net circuit of 5, 10 or 50 meg. Is your building lit? If so, find out about gigabit or Metro Ethernet services. They may be reasonably priced options. Prices will vary. They are based on your location and circuit availability; speak with our engineers to learn your best options.
You have a mid-sized Oakland, California company; higher speed access to The net required. You may choose between gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. You may also look into other higher-speed Internet circuits. In a perfect world, you will achieve maximum redundancy by utilizing multiple carriers to provide and service different circuits. But can you do this without doubling costs? Sometimes, yes. For instance, it may be cheaper to utilize two 50 meg circuits in place of one 100 meg circuit. Again, costs and availability vary. You should speak with our experts to learn the options for your particular location.
What companies have the highest risk for failure; those with multiple locations. Redundant circuits are essential. It is helpful if they use multiple providers. Redundant routers, switches and other equipment can also be helpful to lessen downtime during a problem. Here too, 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 carriers and services will help keep your business up and running as efficiently as possible.
Companies such as these require the following: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and point-to-point (PPP) high-speed Internet circuits. You absolutely need redundant circuits from different providers as well as redundant hardware. This is vital to ensuring uptime. Spikes or sudden increase in usage can result in Internet slowdowns or disruptions in service. You can decrease the risk of these events by having sufficient bandwidth. Be sure to have the right circuits and hardware. They both must be able to support multiple, fast, concurrent connections.
Do not risk having failing circuits or not enough bandwidth. You must select the single circuit or multiple circuits that can meet your demands and stay within your budget. You have to select the optimal combination of hardware and circuits, which is a daunting task.
Our expert engineers will review your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. We will formulate a design or plan based partly on your current usage and demand levels. We’ll create something cost effective that gives you the resources your organization needs, while keeping it running smoothly.
You can complete the contact form on the right side of this page by clicking here. If you would prefer, please call our office to set up an appointment for an assessment. Your assessment may be finished within as little as 48 hours.