Because of today’s environment, companies in Oklahoma City rely on the net. Reliable access to the net is the lifeblood of their business. The organization functions of all companies, from Fortune 500 to small businesses, count on fast and reliable Internet access.
access to The web will become increasingly essential to us in the coming months and years. Our dependence on access to The web will only grow as time goes on.
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 right solution to meet your needs? Is a cable modem sufficient? Your needs may point to Metro Ethernet as a solution. Your needs may be met with Gigabit Internet. Your Oklahoma City organization probably needs a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg Internet access, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The net point but which one is best?
Prior to selecting a service, your organization must figure out its needs. Is Internet use limited to website surfing or emailing only? Will Internet usage mainly involve cloud servers and real time data connection? There may be remote locations that rely on you and you are hosting the data in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
What happens if you have an outage in your high-speed Internet? Can your company afford a long pause or lull in productivity? Is uptime essential? Before making a purchase, these are a few of the questions you need to answer.
Plainly stated, companies require high-speed access to The web. Choosing the correct broadband for your organization requires a cost benefit analysis. Many providers toss out terms such as:
… the actual issue is knowing what technology and capability can satisfy your needs.
Workers for most companies in Oklahoma City have some need to access the internet during the course of their job. It may be needed for organization research, to order office supplies or other reasons.
The best solution may rely on how many employees you have. If you have a handful of employees, a 5 or 10 Meg Internet circuit may be sufficient. If you have a larger workforce, you may want to consider more. This is especially true if they all need to use the internet simultaneously.
Your need for high-speed Internet may be lessened if your workers are just accessing an intranet systemOn the other hand, when they are frequently downloading documents, images and videos, that need for speed increases drastically.
Are you regularly 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.
Do you use a file sharing service like Google drive or DropBox? The saved files go to the cloud and are then synchronized or “shared” with other people’s computers. Supporting file sharing, while supporting every other service, requires sufficient bandwidth.
Organization high-speed Internet access may interest you. Depending on your location, you may have options such as gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. These are typically found in “lit buildings” in Oklahoma City. Providers have already wired these buildings. If you’d like to install high-speed Internet in your office, you should know that it might be more affordable than you realize.
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. You can actually get high-speed access with gigabit Internet or even Metro Ethernet quickly. It often takes only 30 days or less, depending on availability.
Does your company host its own servers? Does your company use the hosted servers to run data feeds, APIs or websites for offices or businesses located elsewhere? Are your corporate headquarters with a hosted application utilized by 50 branch offices? Does your office host the point of sale (POS) system for every single store in a large retail chain? Are you a law firm? Do you host data for three or more external sites?
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. 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 places?
If you have one office using the web, you may get by with a cable modem or a low- cost 10-megabyte circuit. For the headquarters, high-speed access to The web including Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable. While all offer high speeds, they also need to be capable of supporting multiple diverse connections. A cable modem would likely not provide the necessary support.
Bringing in a less-expensive circuit like a cable modem often comes with a price. While the monthly rate is lower, the bandwidth is generally shared among other tenants. It is possible that you have a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection but cannot reach proper speeds during peak hours. Cable companies are known to limit or predetermine the amount of bandwidth available for delivery in any particular community. That bandwidth branches off to different buildings and then to various tenants within those buildings. Will you achieve 30-meg speed during the working day? 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. In this scenario, the bandwidth is fully allocated to you and your company or company. No one else uses it. No matter who is in the building or what buildings surround you, you should always run at full speed.
Five Meg, ten Meg, fifty Meg and 100 Meg circuits of guaranteed bandwidth are available with Metro Ethernet. You can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit Internet providers.
In these situations, each tenant receives their contracted high-speed. The carrier delivers enough so they can split their circuit and provide enough to each tenant.
You can’t control everything. Even with the superior Internet bandwidth products that some carriers offer in Oklahoma City, problems arise and circuits can fail. Ask this question: “what can I do to decrease the likelihood of an outage?
Try using redundant circuits.
Essentially, there are two different ways to look at redundancy.
The first type is when one single carrier provides you with multiple circuits. Redundant circuits help protect you from certain failures including physical line issues, port issues within routers, and others. If that carrier has a wide reaching outage or there is a line broken or damaged outside of your building, both circuits may go down. While offering some protection, it is not without risk.
You can also achieve redundancy by utilizing different providers to bring in and establish your circuits. By using IP address allocations and certain routers, you can bind your connections. By doing this, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. But, you know that they are actually separate and redundant. Diversity redundancy, as this is called, offers you more protection that you might realize. In the event a carrier goes down, you will not have to worry. You will have a perfectly live carrier there to keep things moving.
The carriers you choose for your redundant circuits should have different physical pathways in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. This is an important consideration when trying to obtain the most redundancy. Your goal should be to get circuits coming into your building on different sides. You do not want them on the same side. Whether they are attached underground or to a telephone pole, your goal should be to have the circuits in different directions leading to different central sites. 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 of dependable Internet access pales in comparison to the cost of unreliable access. Please consider these situations:
Is your business on a cable modem? How many other tenants is your carrier servicing in your building? Are 14 other offices getting circuits? During organization hours, any of those tenants could be streaming video, performing massive file downloads, processing large volumes of phone calls and more. As available bandwidth shrinks, what will happen to your calls? What about the quality of your calls? Are calls dropped? Will they be full of static?
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. Whether you have 2 sites, 250, or 2000, they all depend on your primary Internet connection to retrieve data and information. How will you be affected if your circuit goes down? Will it cause disastrous results of just annoy you a little bit? Are remote offices able to work at all? Take new orders? Service existing ones? Share information? Before choosing a solution, be sure to assess and really understand what your organization requires. Perhaps you are a software company, running a hosted solution used by hundreds of customers. Maybe you operate a service that allows other systems to talk to yours via API. This may be to collect miscellaneous data, calculate prices or shipping rates or other information. It is possible they will not be able to connect to your servers. How will repeated outages affect your customers? Will they remain customers?
Maybe your company depends entirely on the net. Your employees or representatives will not be able to make outgoing phone calls if your circuits go down. There would be no way to answer incoming calls of people trying to reach your representatives. Looks like you are now out of organization. Is redundancy enough? Are you really getting the dependable service you need form your carriers? Are you using carriers that are truly reliable? You should be getting high quality service that ensures your calls are consistently clear and reliable.
It should be clear by now that you have many different options to select from. Your organization budget and needs will play a large part in your decision-making. In review:
A single fifty, ten or five megabyte Internet access circuit may be adequate to meet the needs of your small business, particularly if you have only one location and are not worried about redundancy. For an office in a lit building, you may find that gigabit service or Metro Ethernet are affordable options for you. The availability of circuits and your location determine prices; speak with one of our engineers to learn what your best options are.
You will need higher speed access to The Internet if you have a medium sized business in Oklahoma City. Your choices include: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or other high-speed circuits. Ideally, multiple circuits from multiple providers will provide you with the greatest redundancy. It is sometimes possible to reach this without adding ridiculous costs. Using one 100-megabyte circuit instead of two 50-megabyte circuits, is one example. Availability and costs vary. Call one of our experts to learn what is available in your specific area.
The greatest risk of failure belongs to companies that have multiple places of organization or offices. Redundant circuits are essential. Having several providers would afford extra protection. 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 best mix of providers and services can maximize the productivity and efficiency of your company.
Companies such as these require the following: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and point-to-point (PPP) high-speed Internet circuits. Having redundant hardware as well as redundant circuits from different providers will ensure your needed uptime. The last thing you want is interruptions or slowdowns affecting your company. You must provide enough bandwidth to avoid these pitfalls that sometimes occur during sudden usage spikes. 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.
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. It is important to choose the correct mix of hardware and circuits. Figuring out exactly what to put in the mix, can be a daunting task.
Our engineers will take the pressure off and develop a free action plan for you by analyzing your needs. You want your company to run smoothly. We’ll look at your current usage levels and demand levels and design a plan that meets your needs at a cost that makes sense for you.
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. Assessments are completed in as little as 48 hours.