Reliable Internet access is the lifeblood of Olympia, Washington companies and their business. Fortune 500 companies to small businesses and everything in between, rely on reliable and fast access to The web.
In the months and years ahead, people and businesses will become more reliant on internet access.
Our uses of the internet reach far and wide. From data sharing, video calls, and shopping to VOIP and email, the net has a broad presence. What is the best fix to meet your needs? Can a cable modem suffice? Is Metro Ethernet necessary? Your needs may be met with Gigabit Internet. Does your organization in Olympia need one of these: 10 Meg Internet access, a 100 Meg access to The Internet point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?
Before selecting the appropriate service, your organization must assess its needs. Will web surfing and email be your primary use of the internet? Will real-time data connection with servers in the cloud be the primary use of the web? Perhaps you, in Olympia, Washington, are hosting the data and remote sites depend upon this.
What happens to your business if your high-speed Internet experiences an outage? Can your company afford the downtime? Is your success reliant on uptime? You must answer these questions before you buy.
In all-encompassing terms, businesses need high-speed access to The net. When choosing the right broadband internet for company, you need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits. While many providers like to spout technical terminologies such as:
… the actual issue is knowing what technology and capability can satisfy your needs.
At any company in Olympia some employees, if not all employees, need some type of access to the internet if they are to properly perform their job duties. Third party applications, company research or development and e-commerce are just some of the ways the net may be needed.
The solution you choose may be based on the number of employees you have or expect to have. A five or ten megabyte Internet circuit may be all you need if employ a small workforce. If you have a larger workforce, you may want to consider more. This is especially true if they all need to use the web simultaneously.
Perhaps most workers at your company use an intranet system with limited features. High- speed Internet may not be a priority in this case. However, employees who must often download documents, images and videos, need that speed.
Does your company regularly conduct backups? When you do remote backups from every workstation, which you should, you must support multiple and simultaneous connections to the web in order to sync your backup data.
Do you use a file-sharing service? Perhaps you use Google drive, DropBox or a different service? After a file is saved, it goes to the cloud and then to someone else’s computer. In order to ensure that all of your functions work properly, in addition to file sharing, you must have sufficient bandwidth.
Are you interested in high-speed organization Internet? Depending on where you are located, you may want to look into the viability of gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet. Usually, you can find these in “lit buildings” in Olympia that have been previously 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. Did you know that obtaining high-speed access to The web with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less? Of course, this depends upon availability.
Your organization may host its own servers. Do they run websites APIs or data feeds for external offices? Are your organization headquarters with a hosted application connected to fifty or more satellite offices? Are you a retail company hosting the POS system for thousands of chain stores? Are you a law firm? Do you host data for three or more external places?
Granting access to outsiders is necessary when you host data and programs at a central location. If the internet connection is interrupted, those people cannot get their work done. Is the intranet solution you are choosing sufficiently reliable? Is it stable enough to support simultaneous connections from different locations?
If you have one office using the web, you may get by with a cable modem or a low- cost 10-megabyte circuit. It is advisable that high-speed Internet access 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 probably not be enough.
Utilizing a cable modem or other less expensive circuit may seem like a good option but can result in unexpected cost. You may save money on your monthly bill but the bandwidth you get must be shared among many people. If you subscribe to a cable modem with a 30-megabyte connection, you would expect to always be able to reach that high speed. However, it is possible that during peak hours, you won’t. Cable operators differ but many have prescribed limits on the bandwidth amount that they can deliver within a set community. That bandwidth reaches out like branches to every building in the community and the people living and working in those buildings. During crucial working hours, you may not get to the 30-meg speed you have been capped at. Is getting 7 when you expect 30 a problem?
You can sign up for dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth from some providers. With these options, bandwidth is yours. It is not shared with anyone outside of your business. 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. Gigabit speeds from your office to the web can be reached if you use a gigabit Internet provider.
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.
The truth is that circuits can go down in Olympia even though some providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. How can you decrease the chance of an outage?
Consider redundant circuits.
Redundancy basically comes in two forms.
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. However, if that carrier has a regional outage or physical line damaged outside of your building, both circuits may go down. While there is some security in this, you are still vulnerable under some circumstances.
Utilizing circuits from two different carriers is the second kind of redundancy. These connections can be bound together so they act and appear to the public as a single circuit. Using particular routers and IP address allocations, no one would be able to tell that you have multiple carriers or circuits. You know the truth: that they are individual circuits and are there to back each other up in case one goes down. Diversity redundancy offers far greater protection. When one carrier has a problem like an outage or some other failure, you have another one that works.
If you want to maximize redundancy in Olympia, Washington please consider the following question: Do the carriers I am considering use the same physical geographic pathways? 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 locations. If a major accident occurs or there is a fire that impedes the function of circuits in a particular region, you have redundancy in a different direction.
Even though access to The net comes with a cost, you will save money if you make sure it is dependable. Unreliable access will end up costing you more in the long run. Please think about the following scenarios:
Your office uses a cable modem and, in addition to you, the carrier provides 10-15 additional tenants with circuits. During the course of a regular work day, any or all of these other businesses might be performing massive file downloads. Tenants might be taking a large volume of calls or be regularly streaming video. As the amount of accessible bandwidth decreases, what happens to your needs? What happens to your phone calls? How will it affect the quality of that telephone call? Are the calls going to be 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. Your primary Internet connection is solely responsible for smoothly granting access and sending data to all of your sites whether you have two or two thousand. What happens if your circuit goes down? Will it cause disastrous results of just annoy you a little bit? Are your other offices able to do any work? Can they take or process any orders at all? Share essential 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. 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 other systems can’t connect to your office servers? Customers do not enjoy repeated outages. How long with they put up with them before looking to take their organization elsewhere?
What if your business could not function at all without the internet? Maybe your organization relies on it completely. 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 essentially out of business. Even for the most reputable call centers that already know of and use redundancy, is it sufficient? Make sure your carriers are as reliable as possible. You should be getting high quality service that ensures your calls are consistently clear and reliable.
You clearly have many options. Your company needs and budgets will drive your decisions. As a wrap-up:
You are probably not thinking about redundancy if you have a small company 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. The availability of circuits and your location determine prices; speak with one of our engineers to learn what your best options are.
If you have a midsized organization in Olympia, you will need higher-speed access to The net. 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. Achieving this may cost extra but it won’t double your costs. For example, one 100-megabyte circuit may cost more than two smaller 50-megabyte circuits. Availability and costs vary. You need to speak with one of our experts to determine your options in your specific location.
Companies with different sites, whether 5 or 50, are at the highest risk. They require redundant circuits. Different providers are desirable. You can increase redundancy with switches or routers. Having redundant equipment can also minimize risk. 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 right mix can help. If you can figure out the best combination of providers and services for your business, you will benefit.
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 will want to have the greatest protection of your uptime. To accomplish this you must have redundancy: redundant circuits from multiple carriers and redundant hardware for your system. You must have the bandwidth to withstand sharp increases in usage. Doing so will help protect you from slowdowns or interruptions. Be sure to have the right circuits and hardware. They both must be able to support multiple, fast, concurrent connections.
Your company faces great risk of less than adequate bandwidth and failing circuits. It is imperative that the circuit or circuits you choose meet your needs but also keep you within your allowable budget. Choosing the right mix of circuits and hardware is a daunting task.
We have engineers that will analyze your needs, look at your business requirements and develop an action plan for you… for free!Our experts will examine your current usage and demand. We will then generate a design that gives you the resources you need while keeping your organization up and running at a reasonable cost.
Please click here to complete the contact form on the right side of this page or call our office to schedule an appointment for an assessment. It can take as little as 48 hours to provide a complete assessment.