In today’s environment, companies in Ocoee, Florida count on reliable access to The web as the lifeblood of their company. The business functions of all companies, from Fortune 500 to small companies, depend on fast and reliable access to The net.
We’ll become increasingly dependent on Internet access as the months and years progress.
From email messaging to information sharing, e-commerce to archiving data, and voice over IP to video conferencing, the web is omnipresent. What is the best fix to meet your requirements? Will a cable modem be adequate? 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 net point: what is right for your organization in Ocoee?
Before selecting the appropriate service, your organization must assess its needs. Why will you need the internet? Will you only be web surfing and emailing? Will Internet usage mainly involve cloud servers and real time data connection? Do remote sites depend on you hosting the data in Ocoee?
What happens if you have an outage in your high-speed Internet? How much downtime can your company withstand? Is uptime required? Ask yourself these questions before making any purchases. The answers will help you determine what is right for you.
It is no secret that all companies need high-speed access to the internet. You need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits to your company before choosing the right broadband. Many service providers toss out terms such as:
… the actual issue is knowing what technology and capability can satisfy your needs.
Companies in Ocoee 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. The Internet is required for so many things, whether to order items, look up organization information communicate with third parties.
The number of employees you have may determine your best solution. If you have a smaller workforce, you may do fine with a smaller Internet circuit. For example, if you only employ a handful of people, a 5 or 10 Meg circuit may meet your needs. You should consider more than that if you have more workers. Also keep in mind whether your workers need to access the net at the same time.
If your employees are merely accessing an intranet system with limited graphics and video, your need for high-speed Internet may be reduced. 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? 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.
Does your business use a file sharing service? DropBox? Google drive? As people save files, those files are pushed to the cloud and then synchronized back to other people’s computers. You need to have sufficient bandwidth to support this function while also supporting every other service.
Are you interested in high-speed company Internet? Depending on where you are located, you may want to look into the viability of gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet. These can usually be found in Ocoee in “lit buildings” that have already been wired. The ease and affordability of adding high-speed Internet to your office may surprise you.
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. Depending on availability, it is often possible to obtain high-speed access to The Internet with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet in 30 days or less.
Your business may host its own servers. Do they run websites APIs or data feeds for external offices? Is your main company office with a hosted application accessed by 40 or even 50 branch office sites? Are you hosting the point of sale (POS) system for 15, 000 retail chain stores? Does your legal practice host all of the data for 3, 4 or 5 offices in different sites?
Access to data and programs by people outside of your main location becomes necessary when you host information centrally. 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 locations?
An inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be enough if you have one office that needs to surf the net. A cable modem may also be sufficient in this situation. It is advisable that high-speed access to The web be available at the central business office or headquarters, including gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuits. While high speed is great, you also need support for your multiple diverse connections. A cable modem would likely not provide the necessary support.
In many scenarios, bringing in an inexpensive circuit, such as a cable modem, comes at a price. You may have to share bandwidth in order to secure that low monthly rate. During peak use hours, you may not be able to reach proper speeds. Many cable operators can only deliver a certain amount of bandwidth in a community. That amount of bandwidth must be shared with different buildings and with the tenants housed within. Will you achieve 30-meg speed during the working day? Is it a problem if you get a quarter or even half of the speed you expected?
Some providers offer customers dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. In this scenario, the bandwidth is fully allocated to you and your company or company. No one else uses it. 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. If you want to reach gigabit speeds from your organization out to the internet, you can by using a gigabit Internet provider.
The providers in this situation deliver high-speed to a particular building in sufficient quantity to split their circuit among various tenants. Of course, they must ensure that they each get the specific amount of their contracted speed.
The truth is that circuits can go down in Ocoee even though some providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. How can you decrease the chance of an outage?
Try using redundant circuits.
There are two types of redundancy to consider.
A single carrier, providing multiple circuits, to one customer, characterizes one form of redundancy. Redundant circuits help protect you from certain failures including physical line issues, port issues within routers, and others. 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. While there is some security in this, you are still vulnerable under some circumstances.
Bringing in circuits using two distinct providers is the second form of circuit redundancy. 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. You know the truth: that they are individual circuits and are there to back each other up in case one goes down. While circuit redundancy in general is a good idea, diversity redundancy by using different carriers, offers far better protection. If one carrier has a problem, the other likely will not.
When considering redundant circuits and providers, try to be sure that the carriers you look at in Ocoee, Florida have different physical geographic routes or pathways. Doing so will maximize 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. The circuits would be established either underground or on telephone poles and would be set up in different directions and lead to different 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.
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:
Is your business on a cable modem? How many other tenants is your carrier servicing in your building? Are 14 other offices getting circuits? What if any or all of those tenants are huge call centers taking in a massive volume of phone calls, are business that perform large file downloads or stream many videos? As available bandwidth shrinks, what will happen to your calls? What about phone call quality? Are calls dropped? Perhaps you will sound choppy or will be inaudible.
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 business. All of your sites, you may have 2, you may have 500, you may have 4, 000, rely on your main Internet connection to access and receive data. What happens in the event of a circuit failure? Would you merely be annoyed? Would there be catastrophic consequences? Can your satellite offices perform any work at all? Process or take new orders? Share information? Make sure you completely understand your needs before you pick a solution. Perhaps you have hundreds of clients or customers that use a hosted solution that your software company is running. Maybe you offer a service that allows other systems use an application program interface (API) to talk to you to collect information and data. What if these other systems have difficulty connecting your servers? How will repeated outages affect your customers? Will they remain customers?
Your business is completely dependent on the net. Should your circuits go down, your representatives cannot make outbound calls. Your reps have no way of answering calls, if they even know they are coming in. You are now officially out of business. While many of the most reputable call centers are already aware and using the advantages of redundancy, is it sufficiently meeting their needs? Can you truly rely on your providers? Are they as dependable as they claim? Do you consistently get quality service that provides clear and reliable calls?
Obviously, there are a variety of choices. Your decision will be based on different factors including your business needs and your budget. In review:
If your business is small, with one location or office, you are likely not concerned about redundancy. For you, a single 5, 10 or 50 megabyte Internet access circuit may suffice. You may find that if your building is “lit”, gigabit service and Metro Ethernet service may be reasonably cost-effective choices for you. Speak with our engineers about what is right for you. Prices vary with location and circuit availability.
Mid-sized businesses in Ocoee, Florida should be equipped with higher-speed Internet. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and other higher-speed Internet circuits are your options. In a perfect world, you will achieve maximum redundancy by utilizing multiple carriers to provide and service different circuits. This may be attainable without doubling your costs. For example, choosing two 50 meg circuits versus one 100 meg circuit. Remember, costs vary. So does 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.
Companies with different sites, whether 5 or 50, are at the highest risk. Redundancy is crucial. It is helpful if they use multiple carriers. In addition, consider redundant equipment. Redundant routers and switches can minimize risk also. Look at all of your options: Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet providers, Metro Ethernet providers and other high-speed circuit providers. Finding the best combination of services, providers and equipment can go a long way toward helping your organization run as efficiently as possible.
For companies falling in this category, gigabit Internet circuits, Metro Ethernet Internet circuits and point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits are essential. You must have redundant circuits for multiple providers as well as redundant hardware in your office to ensure your uptime. You do not want any slowdowns or interruptions that often occur during spikes in usage. Avoid this by having sufficient bandwidth. Your circuits and hardware must be able to support a large number of fast and simultaneous connections.
There is great risk of failing circuits or insufficient bandwidth. You need to have the right circuit or circuits to meet your demands while staying within your budget. You have to select the optimal combination of hardware and circuits, which is a daunting task.
Our engineers will analyze your needs and requirements and develop a free action plan for you. We’ll formulate a design or plan based partly on your current usage and demand levels. We are going to create something cost effective that gives you the resources your business needs, while keeping it running smoothly.
Please complete the contact form by clicking here. You may also call our office to set up an appointment for your assessment. It can take as little as 48 hours to provide a complete assessment.