Because of today’s environment, companies in Peoria rely on the net. Reliable access to the internet is the lifeblood of their business. All companies, big and small, need fast and reliable Internet access.
Our reliance on access to the internet will become greater in the near and distant future.
From email to data sharing, video conferencing to VoIP, and data archiving to Internet commerce, the web is ubiquitous. What do you need? Perhaps a cable modem is all you need. Do you need Metro Ethernet? Is Gigabit Internet right for you? Your Peoria, Illinois organization probably needs a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg Internet access, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg Internet access point but which one is best?
Prior to selecting a service, your company must figure out its needs. Perhaps the web is only used for a few things such as email communication or surfing the web. Is it used for real-time data connection with cloud servers? Are you hosting the data in Peoria and distant sites or offices rely on you?
What if there is an outage and your high-speed Internet is interrupted? What about the downtime that results? Can your business afford that? Is your success dependent on uptime? Before making a purchase, these are several of the questions that you must answer.
In the broadest of terms, companies need high-speed Internet access. When picking the correct broadband, balancing the costs and benefits to your company is imperative. While many service providers throw around terminologies such as:
… do not lose sight of the real issues: what are the capabilities and technical solutions you need to best serve your company?
For most companies in Peoria, some or all of the employees need access to the web. Whether it is for business research, to order supplies or to use third-party applications, the web is required.
Your best course of action may be determined by the size of your work force. A 5 or 10 megabyte Internet circuit may be perfect if you only have a few employees. If you have more than that, you may need more.
High-speed Internet may become less important if the majority of your employees primarily use an intranet system with limited graphics and video. On the other hand, when they are frequently downloading documents, images and videos, that need for speed increases drastically.
Do you perform backups at your company? If, as recommended, you conduct remote backups from every single desk, you will need to support simultaneous connections out to the web. This will allow you to sync your backup data.
Do you use a file sharing service like Google drive or DropBox? As a file is saved, it is pushed to the cloud and then synced back to other people’s computers. Supporting file sharing, while supporting every other service, requires sufficient bandwidth.
Are you interested in high-speed business 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 Peoria that have been previously wired by a carrier. Adding this high-speed Internet to your office may be surprisingly affordable and easy.
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. In fact, in as little as 30 days, you may be able to obtain high-speed access to the web with either gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. It depends upon availability.
Does your company host its own servers to run information feeds, websites or application program interfaces (APIs) with companies or offices located outside of your four walls? Are your business headquarters with a hosted application connected to fifty or more satellite offices? Is your business retail? Do you have thousands of stores? Do you host the point of sale system for the entire chain? Are you a law firm? Do you host data for three or more external sites?
Granting access to outsiders is necessary when you host data and programs at a central location. If the internet connection is interrupted or fails, those people are unable to accomplish any work. Can your intranet solution support your needs? Can it support multiple simultaneous connections? Is it stable enough to handle this when they are from various sites?
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 adequate in this situation. For headquarters, Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed Internet dedicated circuits is advisable. While all offer high speeds, they also need to be capable of supporting multiple diverse connections. A cable modem would not be able to accomplish this.
Bringing in a cable modem, which seems to save money, may actually come at a price. Your low monthly bill may mean that the bandwidth is shared among multiple tenants. During peak use hours, you may not be able to reach proper speeds. Many cable companies only deliver a set amount of bandwidth within a community. Different buildings and tenants housed or working within those buildings all share that set amount of bandwidth. You might be capped at 30-megabyte speed, but may never be able to actually reach that speed during the important hours of your organization day. Is getting 7 when you expect 30 a problem?
Some providers offer customers dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. With these, bandwidth belongs to you and your company only; no sharing. No matter who is in the building or what buildings surround you, you should always run at full speed.
With Metro Ethernet, for example, you can receive a guaranteed bandwidth in various increments including 5 and 10 Meg circuits, and 50 and 100 Meg circuits. Gigabit Internet providers offer gigabit speeds from your office to the web.
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.
While certain carriers offer superior Internet bandwidth products in Peoria, Illinois, the reality is that it is possible for a circuit to go down. You must ask yourself: “how do I lessen the chance of an outage? ”
Circuits that are redundant may be a good idea.
Redundancy in this situation comes in two forms.
The first type is when one single carrier provides you with multiple circuits. When there are problems with a physical line or a port or other failures, it can be helpful to have redundant circuits. However, if that carrier has a regional outage or physical line damaged outside of your building, both circuits may go down. While offering some protection, it is not without risk.
Bringing in circuits using two distinct carriers is the second form of circuit redundancy. For users and the public, you can make it look like you have one cohesive circuit. You can also make the connections act as a single circuit. You can do this with various advanced routers and IP address allocations. In reality, they are completely separate and redundant to each other. You will get more substantial protection from this diversity redundancy. If one carrier has a problem, the other likely will not.
To maximize the benefit of redundancy, consider looking for redundant circuits from different carriers that have different pathway in Peoria, Illinois. This means that you should try to have the circuits come into you building from different sides. The circuits would be attached to telephone poles (or underground conduits) in different directions leading to different data centers or central offices. This way, if there is a major catastrophe, such as a fire at a data center or a major accident impacting circuits within a region, you have redundancy in a different physical direction.
While Internet access is not free, it pales in comparison with the cost of not having reliable Internet access. Please consider these situations:
Your office uses a cable modem and, in addition to you, the carrier provides 10-15 additional tenants with circuits. Between 9 and 5, any of those other offices could be downloading huge files, streaming video or taking large volume of phone calls and more. As available bandwidth shrinks, what will happen to your calls? How will the quality of that phone call be affected? Are calls lost or 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. Every single one of your offices, stores and locations rely on you and your primary Internet connection to retrieve data. What happens if your circuit goes down? Would it annoy you or destroy you? Is work even possible at your other sites? What about new orders? Disseminate needed information and data? It is important that prior to choosing a solution, you understand the true needs and requirements of your particular business. Perhaps you are a software company, running a hosted solution used by hundreds of customers. Perhaps you operate a service where other systems speak with yours via an API to calculate freight rates, commodity prices, collect current weather data or receive any other information that you serve up. What if you have server problems and they are unable to connect to you? Multiple outages may annoy your customers.
Your organization is 100% reliant on the internet to properly function. What if your representatives can make no outgoing telephone calls because your circuits go down? They are also unable to answer calls. Basically, you are out of company. Is redundancy enough? Are the carriers that you are using reliable enough? Is the quality of service sufficient for your calls to be clear and reliable?
You clearly have several choices. Your choices will largely depend on your budget, in addition to the other requirements of your organization. As a high-level summary:
If you have one location or office and do not feel the need to consider redundancy for your system, a smaller access to The web circuit may be all you need. A single fifty, ten or five megabyte circuit might be enough. Find out if you are in a lit building. If so, the price of Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be affordable. Prices vary based on your location and availability of circuits; speak with our engineers to find your best option.
Mid-sized businesses in Peoria, Illinois should be equipped with higher-speed Internet. Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet and other higher speed Internet circuits are options to consider. Ideally, multiple circuits from multiple providers will provide you with the greatest redundancy. It is sometimes possible to reach this without adding ridiculous costs. For example, choosing two 50 meg circuits versus one 100 meg circuit. Again, costs vary. Availability also varies. You should speak with our experts to learn the options for your particular location.
If your business has several sites or offices, you are at great risk for failure. Redundant circuits must be an essential part of their systems. It is helpful if they use multiple providers. Also, redundant equipment such as switches and routers in your facility can minimize the risk of downtime. Here too, take a careful look and choose the right Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed Internet access circuit providers. The right mix of carriers and services will help keep your company up and running as efficiently as possible.
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. Redundant hardware and redundant circuits will, for these businesses, ensure the greatest uptime. Be sure the circuits are from different providers. You need enough bandwidth. The bandwidth must be adequate to handle spikes in usage with no 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.
The danger and risk of failing circuits is tremendous. So is the risk of having less bandwidth than you need. The right circuits must meet your demand while keeping you within your budget. The pressure involved in selecting the proper mix of hardware and circuits can be overwhelming.
Our engineers can analyze your needs and create a free action plan for you. We will formulate a design or plan based partly on your current usage and demand levels. We’ll create something cost effective that gives you the resources your organization needs, while keeping it running smoothly.
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