These days, companies in Orland Park rely on reliable access to The Internet as the lifeblood of their business. All companies, from Fortune 500 to small companies, have functions that rely on easy, dependable and quick Internet access.
Our dependence on Internet access will continue to grow in the coming months and years.
From email to data sharing, video conferencing to VoIP, and data archiving to Internet commerce, the Internet is ubiquitous. What is the best fix for your needs? A cable modem may be satisfactory. Metro Ethernet? Your needs may be met with Gigabit Internet. Does your Orland Park, Illinois business need a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg Internet access, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg Internet access point?
Your company must assess its real needs. This must be done before an appropriate service can be chosen. Is the net only used for web surfing and email? Will real-time data connection with servers in the cloud be the primary use of the internet? There may be remote locations that rely on you and you are hosting the data in Orland Park, Illinois.
What if you have a disruption in your high-speed Internet? Can your company afford a long pause or lull in productivity? How much uptime is essential to your company? Before making a purchase, these are several of the questions you need to answer.
In all-encompassing terms, businesses need high-speed Internet access. When picking the correct broadband internet, balancing the costs and benefits to your company is imperative. Don’t be distracted by terminology. While you may hear service providers throw out words and phrases like:
… do not stray from the real issues. Focus on what your company’s needs are and what capabilities and technical solutions will help satisfy them.
At any company in Orland Park, Illinois some employees, if not all employees, need some type of access to the internet if they are to properly perform their job duties. There are countless reasons to need access to the net. Perhaps it is to order materials, to conduct business research or talk to clients.
The number of employees you have may determine your best solution. If you only have a few workers, you may be fine with a smaller Internet circuit such as a 5 or 10 megabyte. If you have many employees who need to use the internet at the same time, you may do better with more.
Your workforce may simply use an intranet system with limited video and graphics. If this is true, your need for high speed Internet be less than you thought. However, employees who must often download documents, images and videos, need that speed.
Does your business regularly conduct backups? You may need to support simultaneous connections to the web in order to sync your backup data. If you conduct remote backups from every workstation, which is advisable, this will be important.
Google drive and DropBox are two popular sharing services. Are you using one of these or some other service that allows you to share files? After a file is saved, it goes to the cloud and then to someone else’s computer. You need to have sufficient bandwidth to support this function while also supporting every other service.
Your organization location may cause you to think about high-speed company Internet access such as Metro Ethernet and/or gigabit Internet. They are almost always found in “lit buildings” in Orland Park, Illinois that are already wired by a carrier. Choosing to add high-speed Internet to your office is a tough decision but it can be less expensive and easier than you think.
While it may be the case that bringing Metro Ethernet into a new building can cause a big dent in your wallet, bringing the connection to a suite or offices within that building does not have to. 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.
Does your business host its own servers to run information feeds, websites or application program interfaces (APIs) with companies or offices located outside of your four walls? Is your main company office with a hosted application accessed by 40 or even 50 branch office sites? Are you a retail chain hosting the POS system for 12, 000 stores? Do you run a law office that hosts the data for satellite offices in different cities or states?
Granting access to outsiders is necessary when you host data and programs at a central location. If the net connection is interrupted, those people cannot get their work done. Make sure that when you choose your intranet solution it is reliable enough to support your need for multiple and simultaneous connections for many different places.
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. For headquarters, Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed Internet dedicated circuits is advisable. High speed is important but they also must be able to support multiple distinct connections. The support you need could not be provided by a cable modem.
Bringing in a cable modem, which seems to save money, may actually come at a price. You may have to share bandwidth in order to secure that low monthly rate. 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. Different buildings and tenants housed or working within those buildings all share that set amount of bandwidth. 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 carriers. In this case, your organization receives full allocation of bandwidth. There is no sharing with any outsiders. Regardless of other tenants in your building or neighboring buildings, you should receive the full capacity of your circuit.
For example, Metro Ethernet guarantees bandwidth in 5 met circuits, 10 Meg circuits, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. 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 providers offer in Orland Park, problems arise and circuits can fail. The question then becomes, “how do I minimize my chance of an outage? ”
Consider redundant circuits.
Redundancy in this situation comes in two forms.
The first kind of redundancy exists when one carrier provides one customer with many circuits. Redundant circuits can help protect against certain problems. They can mitigate the inconveniences when there is a failure of a physical line or a problem with the port into your router. Even multiple circuits can fail, such as in the event of a large-scale carrier outage or when there damage to an external line. While there is some protection, there is also some risk.
The second way to set up circuit redundancy is by using two different carriers to bring in your circuits. Using advanced routers and IP address allocations, you can bind these connections together so that, to your users and to the public, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. In reality, they are completely separate and redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy provides greater assurance, comfort and protection. If one carrier has a widespread issue, you have a carrier that will still be alive.
For maximum redundancy, you should look for redundant circuits from different carriers with different physical geographic pathways in Orland Park, Illinois. 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 attached to the proper outside source whether a subterranean conduit or a telephone pole. They would be set up in different directions and would lead to different data centers or main office spaces. 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 Internet access will be far greater than you may realize. Please consider these situations:
If your business utilizes a cable modem, consider whether your carrier is providing circuits for multiple other tenants within the building. During your working day, those tenants could be conducting massive downloads of information, processing a large amount of calls or streaming endless video. As the amount of accessible bandwidth decreases, what happens to your needs? What will happen to your phone calls? What happens to the strength and quality of that call? Are calls dropped? Will your voice be inaudible? Will you have difficulty hearing the other end?
Your office is the hub of your company, whether you are a retail business operating a distributed point of sale (POS) system, an accounting firm sharing databases or a law firm engaged in file sharing. 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 sites. Your circuit goes down, now what will happen? Is it just irritating? Is it going to cause tremendous problems? Are your other offices able to do any work? Take new orders? Service existing ones? Disseminate needed information and data? Before choosing a solution, be sure to assess and really understand what your business requires. You might have hundreds and hundreds of loyal customers. Perhaps you are a software company running a hosted solution they all rely on. Do you operate a service where other systems talk to yours by using an application program interface (API)? For example do other systems gain access to yours in order to calculate rates, prices, or to collect information that you serve up? What if these other systems have difficulty connecting your servers? Customers do not enjoy repeated outages. How long with they put up with them before looking to take their company elsewhere?
Your business is entirely Internet based. Should your circuits stop working, imagine your people being unable to make any outbound phone calls. In addition, they will be unable to answer incoming calls. You are now officially out of business. Even for the most reputable call centers that already know of and use redundancy, is it sufficient? Are the carriers you currently use as reliable as they should be? Are they as reliable as you need them to be? Are you getting quality service so that your calls are clear and consistent?
Clearly, there are many choices. The needs and budget of your business will both affect your choices. As a wrap-up:
Sometimes redundancy is not essential to you. For example, If you are a small company, with just one office location, a single Internet access circuit may be sufficient. You may get by with one 50, 10 or even 5 megabyte circuit. For an office in a lit building, you may find that gigabit service or Metro Ethernet are affordable options for you. Speak with our engineers about what is right for you. Prices vary with location and circuit availability.
Mid-sized businesses in Orland Park should be equipped with higher-speed Internet. Your choices include: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or other high-speed circuits. Optimally, multiple carriers and multiple circuits will give you the most redundancy. Achieving this may not be as costly as you first thought. Two smaller circuits may be cheaper than one. For instance, you may use two 50 meg circuits instead of a single 100 meg circuit. Availability and costs vary. You should speak with our experts to learn the options for your particular location.
If your company has several sites or offices, you are at great risk for failure. Redundant circuits must be an essential part of their systems. Multiple providers or carriers are recommended. You can minimize the risk of downtime at if you also have redundant equipment like routers or switches. Take a careful look at Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers and gigabit Internet providers. Research other high-speed access to The net circuit providers also and make an informed decision. The right mix of carriers and services will help keep your business up and running as efficiently as possible.
If you can place yourself in this category, it is essential that you have Metro Ethernet, point-to-point circuits and gigabit Internet circuits. You must have redundant circuits for multiple providers as well as redundant hardware in your office to ensure your uptime. You need to provide sufficient bandwidth to handle usage spikes without slowdowns or interruptions. 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.
Your company faces great risk of less than adequate bandwidth and failing circuits. You must select the single circuit or multiple circuits that can meet your demands and stay within your budget. It is vital 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 can analyze your needs and create a free action plan for you. We’ll examine your demand levels and current usage. We will then design a plan that keeps your costs reasonable while meeting your demand for a smoothly run organization.
Please complete the contact form by clicking here. You may also call our office to set up an appointment for your assessment. We do assessments quickly. It can take as little as 48 hours to complete your analysis.