High Speed Internet Access in Portland

Accessing High Speed Internet in Portland: Gigabit Internet, Company Broadband and Metro Ethernet Access

In today’s world, Portland, Oregon companies need dependable access to The Internet. It is the lifeblood of their organization. The organization functions of all companies, from Fortune 500 to small companies, rely on fast and reliable access to The net.

Our dependence on access to The net will continue to grow in the coming months and years.

The web is ubiquitous. From email to data sharing, archiving to commerce and VOIP to video chat, the net is everywhere. What can best meet your needs? Is a cable modem sufficient? Is Metro Ethernet necessary? Would Gigabit Internet suffice? Your Portland company probably needs a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg Internet access, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The net point but which one is best?

Accessing the web: Ascertaining Your Organization Need

Before choosing an adequate or appropriate service, you must decide what your business really needs. Is Internet use limited to website surfing or emailing only? Is connecting with cloud servers and sharing real time data the main use of the internet? You may be hosting the data in Portland, Oregon and remote locations rely on this.

What if you have a disruption in your high-speed Internet? Can your company afford a long pause or lull in productivity? Is the absence of uptime detrimental? Prior to making any purchases, you must determine the answers to these questions.

Looking at Different High Speed Internet Solutions: Portland

In all-encompassing terms, businesses need high-speed Internet access. Choosing the correct broadband for your business requires a cost benefit analysis. While various providers will throw around terminology like:

• High-speed access to the Internet
• Internet for businesses or Internet corporations
• Cable modems and broadband
• Metropolitan-area Ethernet
• GbE or Gigabit Ethernet
• MPLS services
• PPP- or point-to-point protocol
• five Meg access to The net circuits
• 10 Meg access to The web circuits
• Fifty-megabytes-Internet access circuits
• 100 Meg access to The Internet circuits
• We provide sip trunks
• Internet access dedicated to you and only you
• … and then some

… do not lose sight of the real issues: what are the capabilities and technical solutions you need to best serve your company?

Surfing the Web at Work: Organization Internet Access

Workers for most companies in Portland, Oregon have some need to access the internet during the course of their job. It may be needed for organization research, to order office supplies or other reasons.

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.

Does your company 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.

Are you using a service such as DropBox or Google drive to share files? This is how a file sharing service works: You save a file. Then the file is pushed to the cloud, and is then synchronized with other people’s computers. Running all your services properly, including sharing files, requires that you have the right amount of bandwidth.

Are you interested in high-speed organization Internet? Depending on where you are located, you may want to look into the viability of gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet. These can usually be found in Portland, Oregon in “lit buildings” that have already been wired. It may be shock you to know that installing high-speed Internet access may not be particularly expensive or inconvenient.

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, obtaining high-speed access to The Internet with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less depending upon availability.

Maximize Internet-based Applications With High-Speed Internet Access

Does your organization 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 organization office with a hosted application accessed by 40 or even 50 branch office sites? Are you a retail business 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 locations?

If your company hosts its programs and information at a central location, people outside of that location need to have access in order to conduct business. Those people are not able to work without a solid Internet connection. 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.

The needs of an office with one employee web surfing may not need more than a cable modem or an inexpensive 5-10 megabyte circuit. Company headquarters should have high-speed access to The Internet such as gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit. While high speed is great, you also need support for your multiple diverse connections. A cable modem would not be able to accomplish this.

Which is Better for You in Portland? Dedicated Internet Bandwidth or Shared Cable Circuits?

Bringing in a cable modem, which seems to save money, may actually come at a price. 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. Often, within a given community, cable companies may only deliver a particular amount of bandwidth. Whatever that amount of bandwidth is, it branches into all buildings in the community and to all tenants in those buildings. Will you achieve 30-meg speed during the working day? Is getting 7 when you expect 30 a problem?

There are carriers who offer dedicated and even guaranteed bandwidth. If you want your very own bandwidth that is not used by anyone else, you should consider this. Notwithstanding the existence of tenants, offices or buildings in the area, you should have the full capability of your circuits at all times.

Metro Ethernet provides guaranteed bandwidth in increments as follows: 5, 10, 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.

Backup With Portland High Speed Company Internet Circuits

You can’t control everything. Even with the superior Internet bandwidth products that some carriers offer in Portland, Oregon, problems arise and circuits can fail. What can you do to minimize the chance that you will experience an outage of some kind?

Redundant circuits may be the answer for you.

Redundancy in this situation comes in two forms.

The first is where you get multiple circuits from one carrier. When there are problems with a physical line or a port or other failures, it can be helpful to have redundant circuits. 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. You get some protection, but also some risk.

In the second type of redundancy, you bring in circuits from two different providers. 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. Truthfully, they are entirely separate. They are redundant and exist in case one of them fails. Diversity redundancy offers far greater protection. You will still have a live, fully functioning carrier if one fails.

For maximum redundancy, you should look for redundant circuits from different carriers with different physical geographic pathways in Portland. Your goal should be to get circuits coming into your building on different sides. You do not want them on the same side. The circuits would be attached to telephone poles (or underground conduits) in different directions leading to different data centers or central offices. 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.

What Cost Awaits if you do Not Have Enough High-Speed Internet access Protection for Your Company?

It is true that Internet access 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:

Your company is dependent on VoIP for phone service

Is your organization on a cable modem? How many other tenants is your carrier servicing in your building? Are 14 other offices getting 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 it affect the quality of that telephone call? Will you lose calls? Will they be full of static?

Your office or company is the main location for data and functions in that role for multiple locations

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. All of your locations, you may have 2, you may have 500, you may have 4, 000, depend on your main Internet connection to access and receive data. What will happen if your circuit crashes? Is it simply an irritation or a catastrophe? Is work even possible at your other locations? Process or take new orders? Share essential information with anyone? Make sure you completely understand your needs before you pick a solution. Maybe your software company runs a hosted solution. Maybe that hosted solution is used by hundreds of your customers. Do you operate a service where other systems speak with yours by using an application program interface (API)? For example do other systems gain access to yours in order to calculate prices, prices, or to collect information that you serve up? What happens when they are unable to connect to your servers? Will your customers remain loyal to you if they have to withstand multiple outages?

The phones in your office, which functions as a call center, relies entirely on voice-over Internet protocol (VoIP)

What if your organization could not function at all without the web? Maybe your company depends upon it completely. No outbound calls can be made should your circuits go down. Your representatives would also be unable to answer calls. You are now officially out of organization. Even for the most reputable call centers that already know of and use redundancy, is it sufficient? Are the carriers that you are using reliable enough? Are you getting quality service so that your calls are clear and consistent?

Picking the Right High-Speed Organization Access Circuits for Your Company in Portland, Oregon

It should be clear by now that you have many different options to select from. Your organization needs and budgets will drive your decisions. As a wrap-up:

If You Have a Small Organization That Needs Internet Access

If you are a small company, with just one location and not concerned about redundancy, a single five meg, 10 meg or 50 meg Internet access circuit may be sufficient. Metro Ethernet service or gigabit service may also be a reasonably priced option if you are in a lit building. Prices change based on your location and the availability of circuits. Please speak with our engineers about what options best suit your needs.

Internet Access-One Location- Medium Sized Business

If you have a midsized company in Portland, you will need higher-speed Internet access. Higher-speed circuits like Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or others may be your best options. Multiple circuits utilizing multiple providers would, ideally, provide you with maximum redundancy. Achieving this may not be as costly as you first thought. For example, one 100-megabyte circuit may cost more than two smaller 50-megabyte circuits. Remember, costs vary. So does availability. Learn your options by speaking with one of our knowledgeable experts. We can help you determine what is available in your specific location.

Mid-Sized Company with More than One Location: Access to the Internet

Companies with multiple sites are most at risk for failure. Redundancy is extremely essential to them. Varied providers are optimal. You can decrease risk during downtime by having redundant equipment as well. As always, take a careful look and choose the right Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed access to The net circuit providers. The right mix can help. If you can figure out the best combination of carriers and services for your organization, you will benefit.

If you are a larger company, an enterprise company or a are in the company of providing services using the Internet

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 must have redundant circuits for multiple providers as well as redundant hardware in your office to ensure your uptime. Having plenty of bandwidth will help avoid interruptions or decreased speed that sometimes occurs during spikes in usage. 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.

You Can Get a Free Internet Need and Demand Analysis

Your organization faces great risk of less than adequate bandwidth and failing circuits. The circuit or circuits you have must stay within the parameters of your budget while still meeting your business needs. The pressure involved in selecting the proper mix of hardware and circuits can be overwhelming.

We have engineers that will analyze your needs, look at your company requirements and develop an action plan for you… for free!You want your company to run smoothly. We’ll look at your current usage levels and demand levels and design a plan that meets your needs at a cost that makes sense for you.

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.