The lifeblood of Phoenix, Arizona companies doing organization in the current environment relies on reliable Internet access. The organization functions of every company, whether it is a small company or on the Fortune 500, from Fortune 500, relies on fast and reliable Internet access.
In the coming months and years, we will become increasingly dependent on our access to the internet.
The net is ubiquitous. From email to data sharing, archiving to commerce and VOIP to video chat, the web is everywhere. How can your needs be met? A cable modem may be satisfactory. Is Metro Ethernet necessary? Gigabit Internet may be required. Your Phoenix organization probably needs a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The web, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg Internet access point but which one is best?
You must, before selecting a service, assess the actual needs of your organization. Perhaps the net is only used for a few things such as email communication or surfing the web. Is it used to network with cloud servers? Do remote locations rely on you hosting the data in Phoenix?
What will happen to your business if your high-speed Internet experiences an outage? How will the downtime affect your organization? Does your organization require uptime? Before making a purchase, these are some of the questions you need to answer.
In all-encompassing terms, businesses need high-speed Internet access. Choosing the correct broadband for your organization requires a cost benefit analysis. You will hear service providers use terms like:
… the real issue is understanding what capability and technical solutions best meet your needs.
Most companies in Phoenix, Arizona require that some or all of their workers have access to the internet. access to The Internet may be needed to conduct research, use third-party applications or to order supplies.
The number of workers you have may be the factor that drives your decision. 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.
Do your employees primarily use an intranet system? If so, you may not need much high-speed Internet service. However, employees who must often download documents, images and videos, need that speed.
Are you performing routine 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.
Do you use a file-sharing service? Perhaps you use Google drive, DropBox or a different service? 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.
Depending on where you are, you may want to look into high-speed business access to The web such as Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet. They are commonly found in “lit buildings” in Phoenix, Arizona that have already been wired by a carrier. The ease and affordability of adding high-speed Internet to your office may surprise you.
Unless you are bringing Metro Ethernet into a new building, it does not have to be an expensive proposition to connect it to a suite within a building. In fact, obtaining high-speed Internet access with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less depending upon availability.
Your company may host its own servers. Do they run websites APIs or data feeds for external offices? Do fifty or so branch offices need access to a hosted application at your company headquarters? Are you a retail company with 10, 000 stores? Do you host the POS system for all of them? Does your legal practice host all of the data for 3, 4 or 5 offices in different sites?
Granting access to outsiders is necessary when you host data and programs at a central location. If the net connection is interrupted or fails, those people are unable to accomplish any work. If you need multiple connections to function at the same time from many different sites, make sure that your intranet solution can reliably support it.
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 Internet access including Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable. 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. While the monthly rate is lower, the bandwidth is generally shared among other tenants. 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. Many cable operators can only deliver a certain amount of bandwidth in a community. Buildings, offices and tenants within the buildings all must share that amount of bandwidth, whatever it may be. The 30-meg speed you are capped out sounds good but it is possible that you will never reach that speed during business hours. Is getting 7 when you expect 30 a problem?
Some providers offer customers dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. With these options, bandwidth is yours. It is not shared with anyone outside of your organization. The full capacity of your circuit should be attainable during all hours regardless of neighboring buildings, people or offices.
For example, with Metro Ethernet, you can receive a guaranteed bandwidth in increments of five Meg circuits, 10 Meg circuits, 50 Meg circuits and 100 Meg circuits. With gigabit Internet providers, you can reach gigabit speeds in your office out to the web.
In these scenarios, carriers deliver a large quantity of high-speed to a building. The quantity must be enough so that it can split the circuit and deliver to every tenant. Whatever amount has been guaranteed in each tenant’s contract is the amount they receive.
Phoenix, Arizona has some providers that offer exceptional Internet bandwidth products and services. However, circuits can still go down and cause disruption. You must ask yourself: “how do I lessen the chance of an outage? ”
Try using redundant circuits.
There are, in essence, two types of redundancy.
The first type is when one single carrier provides you with multiple 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. 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. There is some protection that comes with this but there is risk as well.
Bringing in circuits using two distinct providers is the second form of circuit redundancy. Advanced routers and IP address allocations can be utilized to make it look to your users and the public that you have a single circuit. Though they may appear as one, you know that they are each individual circuits and redundant to each other. You will get more substantial protection from this diversity redundancy. When one carrier has a problem like an outage or some other failure, you have another one that works.
When considering redundant circuits and providers, try to be sure that the carriers you look at in Phoenix have different physical geographic routes or pathways. Doing so will maximize redundancy. In other words, try to obtain circuits entering the building from different sides of the building. 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. By doing this, if there is a significant problem such as a fire at a data center, you have redundancy in an alternative physical direction.
It is true that access to The web costs you money. However, the cost does not come close to what you will pay if the access that is not reliable. Please consider these situations:
You are on a cable modem with the carrier providing circuits to 14 other tenants in your building. It is possible that during normal business hours, those tenants might be downloading large files or watching continuous videos. They might be getting a lot of phone calls. As available bandwidth shrinks, what will happen to your calls? How will the caliber of the call be affected? Are calls dropped? Will the calls be choppy?
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. Whether you have 2 locations, 250, or 2000, they all depend on your primary Internet connection to retrieve data and information. Your circuit goes down, now what will happen? Would it annoy you or destroy you? How much work, if any, can be done by your remote locations? Can they take or process any orders at all? Circulate essential files and data? 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 organization is running. Perhaps you operate a service where other systems talk to yours via an API to calculate freight rates, commodity prices, collect current weather data or receive any other information that you serve up. You may find that they are unable to reach or connect with your organization servers. Customers do not enjoy repeated outages. How long with they put up with them before looking to take their company elsewhere?
Your company is completely dependent on the internet. If your circuits go down, you cannot make calls. Your representatives would also be unable to answer calls. You are essentially out of organization. Even for the most reputable call centers that already know of and use redundancy, is it sufficient? Are your providers sufficiently reliable? You should be getting high quality service that ensures your calls are consistently clear and reliable.
You clearly have many options. Your choices will largely rely 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 Internet access circuit may be all you need. A single fifty, ten or five megabyte circuit might be enough. If you are in a “lit” building, Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be reasonably priced options. Prices vary based on your location and availability of circuits; speak with our engineers to find your best option.
If you have a midsized company in Phoenix, Arizona, you will need higher-speed Internet access. Your choices include: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or other high-speed circuits. Multiple circuits utilizing multiple providers would, ideally, provide you with maximum redundancy. You can sometimes achieve this without doubling costs. For instance, it may be cheaper to utilize two 50 meg circuits in place of one 100 meg circuit. To repeat, availability and prices vary. In order to find out the options available for you, in your location, you need to speak with one of our seasoned experts.
Any company with more than one location suffers the greatest risk of problems. They need redundant circuits. Different carriers are desirable. Also, redundant equipment such as switches and routers in your facility can minimize the risk of downtime. As always, 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 business up and running as efficiently as possible.
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. Having plenty of bandwidth will help avoid interruptions or decreased speed that sometimes occurs during spikes in usage. Your goal is to have hardware and circuits that are more than capable of providing support to a significant number of fast and simultaneous connections.
The risk of insufficient bandwidth or failing circuits is tremendous. Your demand and budget constraints should both be considered when you decide what circuit or combination of circuits you must have. Choosing the right mix of circuits and hardware is a daunting task.
Our engineers can help. We’ll analyze your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. After reviewing your current usage and demand levels, we’ll generate a cost effective plan that provides your business with the resources it needs.
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.