Today’s environment demands that companies in Port St. Lucie have reliable Internet service in order to run their organization. Fortune 500 companies to small companies and everything in between, rely on reliable and fast Internet access.
We are going to, in the months and years ahead, become more and more dependent on our access to The Internet.
Our uses of the web reach far and wide. From data sharing, video calls, and shopping to VOIP and email, the net has a broad presence. What do you need? Maybe a cable modem is a sufficient solution. Is Metro Ethernet necessary? Is Gigabit Internet right for you? Does your organization in Port St. Lucie need one of these: 10 Meg Internet access, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?
You must, before selecting a service, assess the actual needs of your organization. Why will you need the web? Will you only be web surfing and emailing? Will real-time data connection with servers in the cloud be the primary use of the internet? Perhaps you, in Port St. Lucie, Florida, are hosting the data and remote places rely on this.
What if there is an outage and your high-speed Internet is interrupted? Can your company afford a long pause or lull in productivity? Does your business require uptime? You must answer questions like these so you can make a purchase that actually meets your needs
High-speed access to the web is something all companies need. An analysis of the costs and benefits should be done prior to choosing the broadband that is correct for your organization. Don’t be distracted by terminology. While you may hear providers throw out words and phrases like:
… be sure not to forget what capability and technical solutions meet your business’s specific needs.
Most companies in Port St. Lucie, Florida require that some or all of their workers have access to the net. There are countless reasons to need access to the net. Perhaps it is to order materials, to conduct company research or talk to clients.
Your best course of action may be determined by the size of your work force. If you have a smaller workforce, you may do fine with a smaller Internet circuit. For example, if you only employ a handful of people, a 5 or 10 Meg circuit may meet your needs. If you have a larger workforce, you may want to consider more. This is especially true if they all need to use the net simultaneously.
Your need for high-speed Internet may be lessened if your workers are just accessing an intranet systemIf your organization functions demand the downloading of documents and images or videos on a regular basis, speed becomes a must more important issue.
Are you performing 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.
Are you using Google drive, DropBox or another file sharing service? After a file is saved, it goes to the cloud and then to someone else’s computer. Enough bandwidth is required to support this function along with every other service.
High-speed organization Internet access like Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options for you depending on your location. These can usually be found in Port St. Lucie in “lit buildings” that have already been wired. Installing high-speed Internet may not be as difficult and expensive as you think.
While bringing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be an expensive proposition, bringing that connection to a suite within the building is not. In fact, obtaining high-speed Internet access with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less depending upon availability.
Does your business host its own servers running websites, APIs or data feeds for other offices or companies outside of your own four walls? Maybe your organization requires that dozens of satellite offices have access to a hosted application at your company main headquarters. Perhaps you are in retail and host the point of sale (POS) system for thousands of 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. Those people are not able to do their work if the internet connection fails or is unreliable. When deciding on the right intranet solution for your company, ask yourself: Is the solution going to adequately support simultaneous and multiple connections from my different sites?
If you have one office using the web, you may get by with a cable modem or a low- cost 10-megabyte circuit. For headquarters, Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed Internet dedicated circuits is advisable. High-speed alone is not enough. They must also need to be capable of supporting many diverse connections. A cable modem would not be able to accomplish this.
Bringing in a less-expensive circuit like a cable modem often comes with a price. There may be a lower monthly rate, but bandwidth is usually shared with many tenants. While you may subscribe to a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection, you may be unable to reach those speeds during peak hours. Cable operators differ but many have prescribed limits on the bandwidth amount that they can deliver within a set community. That bandwidth branches off to different buildings and then to various tenants within those buildings. While you may be capped at thirty-megabyte speed, will you ever reach that speed during organization hours? What will the consequences be if you expect 30 but only get half that? What if you get even less?
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 company. 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. You can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit Internet providers.
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 carriers in Port St. Lucie, Florida, circuits do go down. How can you lower the chances that you will experience some kind of outage?
You may be a candidate for redundant circuits.
There are two types of redundancy to consider.
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. You get some protection, but also some risk.
Bringing in circuits using two distinct providers is the second form of circuit 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. Though they may appear as one, you know that they are each individual circuits and redundant to each other. This redundancy, referred to as diversity redundancy, offers much greater protection. If one carrier has a problem, the other likely will not.
To maximize the benefit of redundancy, consider looking for redundant circuits from different providers that have different pathway in Port St. Lucie. 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 sites. Having redundancy in different physical directions can protect you if there is a serious incident at a data center or some accident that causes a regional circuit issue.
While Internet access is not free, it pales in comparison with the cost of not having reliable Internet access. Think about the following situations:
The carrier you use for your cable modem also provides circuits for a dozen or more tenants in the office building. What if any or all of those tenants are huge call centers taking in a massive volume of phone calls, are organization that perform large file downloads or stream many videos? As the amount of accessible bandwidth decreases, what happens to your needs? What will happen to your phone calls? What about phone call quality? Will calls be arbitrarily dropped? Will you sound muffled or choppy to your customers?
Your office is the center of your company. You may be a law firm that does file sharing or a retailer operating a POS system. Whether you have 2 sites, 250, or 2000, they all rely on your primary Internet connection to retrieve data and information. What if your circuit fails? Will it cause disastrous results of just annoy you a little bit? How much work, if any, can be done by your remote locations? What about new orders? Circulate necessary data? Make sure you completely understand your needs before you pick a solution. What if you are a software company? Perhaps you are running a hosted solution and it must be used by multiple customers; maybe even hundreds. Maybe you offer a service that allows other systems use an application program interface (API) to communicate with you to collect information and data. What if these other systems have difficulty connecting your servers? Customers will only take so many repeated outages. How long with they remain with your company?
Your company is completely reliant on the web. No outbound calls can be made should your circuits go down. There would be no way to answer incoming calls of people trying to reach your representatives. Basically, you are out of company. 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 providers? Are you using carriers that are truly reliable? Is the quality of your calls consistently and reliably clear?
Clearly, there are many choices. Your organization needs and your budget will have to come into consideration when deciding on your solutions. Essentially:
If your company is small, with one location or office, you are likely not concerned about redundancy. For you, a single 5, 10 or 50 megabyte access to The net circuit may suffice. Is your building lit? If so, find out about gigabit or Metro Ethernet services. They may be reasonably priced options. Prices will vary. They are based on your location and circuit availability; speak with our engineers to learn your best options.
If you have a midsized company in Port St. Lucie, you will need higher-speed Internet access. Your options are Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and higher speed circuits. Using different circuits and different carriers will, if you choose, provide you with redundancy. You can sometimes achieve this without doubling costs. Two smaller circuits may be cheaper than one. For instance, you may use two 50 meg circuits instead of a single 100 meg circuit. To repeat, availability and prices vary. Call one of our experts to learn what is available in your specific area.
Companies with multiple places are most at risk for failure. They require redundant circuits. Multiple providers are highly desirable. Additionally, you should consider redundant equipment (routers and switches) in your facility to minimize the risk of downtime. Look at all of your options: Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet providers, Metro Ethernet 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 business, you will benefit.
For businesses that fit this description, it is essential to have gigabit Internet circuits, point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits and Metro Ethernet Internet circuits. You absolutely need redundant circuits from different providers as well as redundant hardware. This is important to ensuring uptime. You must have the bandwidth to withstand sharp increases in usage. Doing so will help protect you from slowdowns or interruptions. Your circuits and hardware must be able to support a large 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. Selecting the appropriate mix of circuits and hardware can overwhelm you.
Our engineers will take the pressure off and develop a free action plan for you by analyzing your needs. 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 company needs, while keeping it running smoothly.
Please call our office for an assessment appointment or click here to complete the contact form on the right side of the page. Assessments are done in as few as two days or within 48 hours.