In today’s environment, companies in Ocala, Florida count on reliable access to The Internet as the lifeblood of their organization. All companies, big and small, need fast and reliable Internet access.
Internet access will become increasingly important to us in the coming months and years. Our dependence on Internet access will only grow as time goes on.
From email messaging to information sharing, e-commerce to archiving data, and voice over IP to video chat, the internet is omnipresent. What can best meet your needs? Is a cable modem sufficient? Metro Ethernet? Is Gigabit Internet right for you? A 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg Internet access, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The Internet point: what is right for your organization in Ocala?
Before selecting the appropriate service, your business must assess its needs. Is the internet primarily used for emailing or web surfing? Is real time data connection with cloud servers vital to your business? There may be remote places that rely on you and you are hosting the data in Ocala.
What happens if you have an outage in your high-speed Internet? Will your organization suffer from the lull? Is your success dependent on uptime? Before you buy anything, you must answer these questions.
Plainly stated, companies require high-speed Internet access. When choosing the right broadband for organization, you need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits. While you are likely to hear some service providers toss around terms such as:
… you must not lose sight of the real issue, which is understanding what technical solutions best meet your needs.
Most companies in Ocala require that some or all of their workers have access to the web. Whether it is to communicate with shippers, do research or place orders, access to The web is required.
The best solution may depend upon how many employees you have. An Internet circuit of 5 -10 megabytes might be enough for your business if you only have a few people working for you. You may need more if you have more workers and those workers all need to be on the internet during the same hours.
Your need for high-speed Internet may be lessened if your workers are just accessing an intranet systemIf your company functions demand the downloading of documents and images or videos on a regular basis, speed becomes a must more important issue.
Are you regularly performing backups? Synchronizing your backup data after doing remote backups from every desk requires you to support simultaneous connections out to the web.
Are you using a service such as DropBox or Google drive to share files? When people save a file, it gets pushed to the cloud. The file is then synched with other people’s computers. Supporting file sharing, while supporting every other service, requires sufficient bandwidth.
High-speed business 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 Ocala, Florida that have already been wired by a carrier. If you’d like to install high-speed Internet in your office, you should know that it might be more affordable than you realize.
The introduction of Metro Ethernet into a new building can be quite costly. However, bringing that connection into office space within that building is usually less so. Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet may provide you with high-speed Internet access in thirty days or less, depending on availability.
Your organization may host its own servers. Do they run websites APIs or data feeds for external offices? Are your corporate headquarters with a hosted application utilized by 50 branch offices? Are you a retail company hosting the POS system for thousands of chain stores? Are you a law firm hosting data for multiple office sites?
If you host programs, data or information centrally, people outside of the central location need to have access. Those people are not able to work without a solid Internet connection. Are you choosing an intranet solution that is sufficiently reliable and stable to support multiple simultaneous connections from varied sites?
A cable modem or fairly cheap 10-megabyte circuit may be enough in certain scenarios. For example, these may meet the needs of a single office surfing the web. It is advisable that high-speed access to The Internet be available at the central business office or headquarters, including gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuits. Multiple diverse connections require support, in addition to high speed. A cable modem would probably not be enough.
In many cases, installing an inexpensive cable modem comes at a price. While the monthly rate is lower, the bandwidth is generally shared among other tenants. You may experience slow downs. For example, although you subscribe to a cable modem with a thirty Meg connection, it can be difficult to maintain the maximum speed during busy times and peak hours. Many cable operators can only deliver a certain amount of bandwidth in a community. The bandwidth branches off to the multiple buildings, offices and tenants within them. You might be capped at 30-megabyte speed, but may never be able to actually reach that speed during the important hours of your business day. What will the consequences be if you expect 30 but only get half that? What if you get even less?
Some providers offer customers dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. In this scenario, the bandwidth is fully allocated to you and your company or business. No one else uses it. Regardless of other tenants in your building or neighboring buildings, you should receive the full capacity of your circuit.
You can receive guaranteed bandwidth with Metro Ethernet. You can receive it in increments of five, 10, 50 or one hundred megabyte circuits. In your office out to the web you can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit providers
Carriers 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.
You can’t control everything. Even with the superior Internet bandwidth products that some carriers offer in Ocala, Florida, problems arise and circuits can fail. How can you decrease the chance of an outage?
Redundant circuits may be the answer for you.
Redundancy in this situation comes in two forms.
With the first kind, you receive several circuits but they all come from the same carrier. Redundant circuits help protect you from certain failures including physical line issues, port issues within routers, and others. Even multiple circuits can fail, such as in the event of a large-scale carrier outage or when there damage to an external line. There is some protection that comes with this but there is risk as well.
Bringing in circuits using two distinct carriers is the second form of circuit redundancy. By using IP address allocations and certain routers, you can bind your connections. By doing this, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. Though they may appear as one, you know that they are each individual circuits and 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.
You should look for redundant circuits from providers in Ocala that do not have the same physical geographic pathways, in order to get the most redundancy. Essentially, this just means that you do not want both of your circuits to enter the building on the same side. They should come in on different sides. Ideally, the circuits will be going in different directions and toward various central organization spaces or data centers. 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.
The cost to your company if you do not have reliable access to The web will be far greater than you may realize. Please think about the following scenarios:
Is your company 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 company hours, those tenants might be downloading large files or watching continuous videos. They might be getting a lot of phone calls. As available bandwidth shrinks, what will happen to your calls? How will the quality of that phone call be affected? Are the calls going to be dropped? 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 company. Your primary Internet connection is responsible for granting access to data to all of your locations. This is true whether you have 3 locations or 2000 locations. If your circuit goes done, what will happen next? Would you merely be annoyed? Would there be catastrophic consequences? Are your other offices able to do any work? Take new orders? Service existing ones? Share essential data? Choosing the right solution depends largely on assessing and understanding the specific needs of your business. 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. Is an API utilized in your organization so that your customers can access and communicate with your system? It is possible they will not be able to connect to your servers. Multiple outages may annoy your customers.
Does your organization completely rely on the internet? No outbound calls can be made should your circuits go down. Your reps have no way of answering calls, if they even know they are coming in. You are now, essentially, out of organization. While most call centers that are reputable use redundancy, is it enough? Are you really getting the dependable service you need form your providers? Are you using providers that are truly reliable? Clear and reliable calls are essential. Does your carrier service consistently provide this?
You have no shortage of options. Your organization needs and budgets will drive your decisions. To recap:
A single fifty, ten or five megabyte Internet access circuit may be sufficient to meet the needs of your small business, particularly if you have only one location and are not worried about redundancy. If you are in a “lit” building, Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be reasonably priced options. Prices vary based on your location and availability of circuits; speak with our engineers to find your best option.
You have a mid-sized Ocala, Florida 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. Ideally, you want to have the greatest redundancy. You can achieve this by using multiple circuits from different providers. You may be able to achieve this in a manner that will not break the bank. Two smaller circuits may be cheaper than one. For instance, you may use two 50 meg circuits instead of a single 100 meg circuit. Do not forget that you will find variations in price and availability. 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.
Businesses with many locations face the greatest risk for failure. They require redundant circuits. Varied providers are optimal. Redundant routers, switches and other equipment can also be helpful to lessen downtime during a problem. Have you looked at Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed Internet access circuit providers? You should do so before making a decision. The best mix of providers and services can maximize the productivity and efficiency of your company.
To run efficiently and effectively, corporations and businesses that fall into this category must use point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits, gigabit Internet circuits and Metro Ethernet circuits. You must have redundant circuits for multiple providers as well as redundant hardware in your office to ensure your uptime. The last thing you want is interruptions or slowdowns affecting your business. You must provide enough bandwidth to avoid these pitfalls that sometimes occur during sudden usage spikes. Your circuits and hardware must be able to support a large number of fast and simultaneous 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 company needs. There is tremendous pressure on you to choose the best combination of circuits and hardware.
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 company up and running at a reasonable cost.
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