In today’s environment, companies in Pontiac count on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their business. All companies, large and small, need fast and reliable access to The Internet.
Our reliance on access to the net will become greater in the near and distant future.
From email to data sharing, video chat to VoIP, and data archiving to Internet commerce, the web is ubiquitous. How can your needs be met? A cable modem may be satisfactory. Maybe you need Metro Ethernet. Is Gigabit Internet right for you? Does your Pontiac, Michigan company need a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The Internet, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The Internet point?
Your business 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? Is the net used for real-time data connection with servers in the cloud? Are you hosting the data in Pontiac, Michigan and distant places or offices rely on you?
What happens if you have an outage in your high-speed Internet? How will the downtime affect your organization? Is uptime required? Before buying, these are some of the questions that you need to answer.
In all-encompassing terms, businesses need high-speed access to The web. When choosing the right broadband internet for business, you need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits. While many service providers throw around terminologies such as:
… be sure not to forget what capability and technical solutions meet your business’s specific needs.
Workers for most companies in Pontiac have some need to access the internet during the course of their job. access to The web may be needed to conduct research, use third-party applications or to order supplies.
Your best course of action may be determined by the size of your work force. A smaller Internet circuit may be enough if you only have a handful of workers. Perhaps a 5 or 10 megabyte is all you need. 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. 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? 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.
Does your business use a file sharing service? DropBox? Google drive? When you save a file it is pushed to the cloud. Then it is synched to the computer or computers of someone else. Running all your services properly, including sharing files, requires that you have the right amount of bandwidth.
High-speed company Internet access like Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options for you depending on your location. They are almost always found in “lit buildings” in Pontiac, Michigan that are already 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.
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. 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 running websites, APIs or data feeds for other offices or companies outside of your own four walls? Are your corporate headquarters with a hosted application utilized by 50 branch offices? Are you a retail company hosting the POS system for thousands of chain stores? Do you run a law office that hosts the data for satellite offices in different cities or states?
When things are hosted at a central point, parties outside the office must somehow gain access. Those people are not able to work without a solid Internet connection. Is the intranet solution you are choosing sufficiently reliable? Is it stable enough to support simultaneous connections from different places?
For a single office surfing the web, a cable modem or inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be adequate. It is advisable that high-speed access to The web be available at the central organization office or headquarters, including gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuits. While fast access to The Internet is and important, they must also have the capability to handle assorted simultaneous connections. A cable modem would likely not provide the necessary support.
In some situations, there is a high price to pay for bringing in an inexpensive circuit or cable modem. Oftentimes, a lower monthly rate comes with the realization that you are sharing bandwidth with many different tenants and offices. While you may subscribe to a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection, you may be unable to reach those speeds during peak hours. Only a certain amount of bandwidth may be available in a community. Many cable companies have limits on the amount they can deliver. That bandwidth branches off to different buildings and then to various tenants within those buildings. With a 30-megabyte connection, you may not get to that speed during the working day. Is this a problem for you if you expect 30 and get 6?
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 business. No one else uses it. Regardless of other tenants in your building or neighboring buildings, you should receive the full capacity of your circuit.
As an example, look at Metro Ethernet. They provide guaranteed bandwidth in various increments. You can receive guaranteed bandwidth in increments of 100, 50, 10 and 5 megabytes. With gigabit Internet providers, you can reach gigabit speeds in your office out to the net.
In these scenarios, providers 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.
Despite outstanding Internet bandwidth products offered by providers in Pontiac, Michigan, circuits do go down. The question then becomes, “how do I minimize my chance of an outage? ”
Consider redundant circuits.
We are primarily talking about two kinds of redundancy.
The first type exists when the same carrier gives you multiple circuits. In this situation, the redundancy helps protect you from port issues or physical line issues. 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 there is some protection, there is also some risk.
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 providers or circuits. However, despite appearances, they are actually very much separate and are redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy, as this is called, offers you more protection that you might realize. In the event that one carrier goes down, the other will still be alive.
When considering redundant circuits and providers, try to be sure that the carriers you look at in Pontiac have different physical geographic routes or pathways. Doing so will maximize redundancy. This means that you should try to have the circuits come into you building from different sides. 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. 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.
Internet access costs money but the cost of NOT having reliable access to The Internet is greater. Contemplate these situations:
If your company utilizes a cable modem, consider whether your carrier is providing circuits for multiple other tenants within the building. 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 they use more bandwidth, there is less for available for your needs. What will happen to your phone calls? What about the quality of your calls? Are calls lost or 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. All of your locations, you may have 2, you may have 500, you may have 4, 000, count on your main Internet connection to access and receive data. What if your circuit fails? Is it just irritating? Is it going to cause tremendous problems? Can your satellite or remote office do any work at all? Process or take new orders? Dispense and receive data? Do you know what your company needs? Be sure to fully understand your requirements. It will help you choose the correct solution. You have a software company, and are running a hosted solution for dozens, maybe hundreds, of customers. 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 happens when there is a problem connecting to your servers? Customers do not enjoy repeated outages. How long with they put up with them before looking to take their organization elsewhere?
Your business is completely dependent on the web. No outbound calls can be made should your circuits go down. Calls coming in would be unanswerable. You might not even know people are trying to reach your office. You are now, essentially, out of business. For competent call centers that already use and understand the problems that can arise, is redundancy enough? Are you really getting the dependable service you need form your carriers? Are you using carriers that are truly reliable? Is the quality of service sufficient for your calls to be clear and reliable?
It should be clear by now that you have many different options to select from. Your business needs and your budget will have to come into consideration when deciding on your solutions. Essentially:
A single fifty, ten or five megabyte Internet access circuit may be sufficient to meet the needs of your small organization, particularly if you have only one location and are not worried about redundancy. 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.
You will need higher speed Internet access if you have a medium sized business in Pontiac, Michigan. Your options are Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and higher speed circuits. Ideally, you want to have the greatest redundancy. You can achieve this by using multiple circuits from different providers. You may be able to achieve this in a manner that will not break the bank. Two smaller circuits may be cheaper than one. For instance, you may use two 50 meg circuits instead of a single 100 meg circuit. Again, costs and availability vary. In order to find out the options available for you, in your location, you need to speak with one of our seasoned experts.
What companies have the highest risk for failure; those with multiple sites. Redundancy is extremely vital to them. It is helpful if they use multiple providers. You can increase redundancy with switches or routers. Having redundant equipment can also minimize risk. 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 right mix can help. If you can figure out the best combination of providers and services for your organization, you will benefit.
Gigabit Internet circuits, point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits are essential and Metro Ethernet Internet circuits must be utilized by companies in any of these categories. If you want to ensure your valuable uptime, have redundant circuits from multiple providers as well as redundant hardware. You need to provide sufficient bandwidth to handle usage spikes without slowdowns or interruptions. It is crucial that not only your circuits have the ability to support a vast number of multiple and simultaneous connects, but your hardware must have the ability to support them as well.
There is great risk of failing circuits or insufficient bandwidth. The right circuits must meet your demand while keeping you within your budget. There is tremendous pressure on you to choose the best combination of circuits and hardware.
Our engineers will take the pressure off and develop a free action plan for you by analyzing your needs. Our experts will examine your current usage and demand. We’ll then generate a design that gives you the resources you need while keeping your business up and running at a reasonable cost.
Please call our office for an assessment appointment or click here to complete the contact form on the right side of the page. We can often provide assessments within 48 hours.