These days, companies in Puyallup, Washington count on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their company. The company functions of all companies, from Fortune 500 to small companies, depend on fast and reliable Internet access.
We are going to become increasingly reliant on access to The web as the months and years progress.
From email to data sharing, video conferencing to VoIP, and data archiving to Internet commerce, the web is ubiquitous. How can your needs be met? Maybe a cable modem is a sufficient solution. Your needs may point to Metro Ethernet as a solution. Would Gigabit Internet suffice? Does your Puyallup, Washington organization need a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The net, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The Internet point?
Before selecting an appropriate service for your business, you must first determine what needs you are trying to satisfy. Perhaps the internet is only used for a few things such as email communication or surfing the web. Is the net used for real-time data connection with servers in the cloud? Are you hosting the data in Puyallup, Washington that remote locations rely upon?
What if you have a disruption in your high-speed Internet? How will the downtime affect your company? Is uptime required? You must answer questions like these so you can make a purchase that actually meets your needs
High-speed access to the internet is something all companies need. You need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits to your company before choosing the right broadband. While many providers like to spout technical terminologies such as:
… the real issue is understanding what capability and technical solutions best meet your needs.
At most businesses including those in Puyallup, some or all employees need Internet access. It may be needed for business research, to order office supplies or other reasons.
The solution you choose may be based on the number of employees you have or expect to have. 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 web simultaneously.
High-speed Internet may become less important if the majority of your employees primarily use an intranet system with limited graphics and video. When they are frequently downloading things, whether documents, graphics or videos, however, speed is necessary for efficient job performance.
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? After a file is saved, it goes to the cloud and then to someone else’s computer. In order to ensure that all of your functions work properly, in addition to file sharing, you must have sufficient bandwidth.
Company high-speed Internet access may interest you. Depending on your location, you may have options such as gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. Usually, you can find these in “lit buildings” in Puyallup that have been previously wired by a carrier. Choosing to add high-speed Internet to your office is a tough decision but it can be less expensive and easier than you think.
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. Did you know that obtaining high-speed access to The Internet with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less? Of course, this depends upon availability.
Do you have your own business servers that run APIs, websites or feeds for offsite offices or companies? Are your corporate headquarters with a hosted application utilized by 50 branch offices? Are you hosting the point of sale (POS) system for 15, 000 retail chain stores? Are you an attorney with offices multiple cities or states? Do you have one office hosting data for several places?
If you host programs, data or information centrally, people outside of the central location need to have access. If the net connection is interrupted, those people cannot get their work done. If you need multiple connections to function at the same time from many different places, make sure that your intranet solution can reliably support it.
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. High-speed Internet access is advisable for the headquarters. Gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit is recommended. While high speed is great, you also need support for your multiple diverse connections. A cable modem would probably not be enough.
Bringing in a cable modem, which seems to save money, may actually come at a price. There may be a lower monthly rate, but bandwidth is usually shared with many tenants. During peak hours, your connection may slow down, even though you subscribe to a cable modem with a thirty-megabyte connection. Often, within a given community, cable companies may only deliver a particular amount of bandwidth. Different buildings and tenants housed or working within those buildings all share that set amount of bandwidth. With a 30-megabyte connection, you may not get to that speed during the working day. Do you care if you only get 6 when you were set up to expect 30?
Guaranteed bandwidth and dedicated bandwidth are solutions that some providers offer. If you want your very own bandwidth that is not used by anyone else, you should consider this. No matter who is in the building or what buildings surround you, you should always run at full speed.
For example, Metro Ethernet guarantees bandwidth in 5 met circuits, 10 Meg circuits, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. Gigabit speeds from your office to the net can be reached if you use a gigabit Internet provider.
In these cases, the providers deliver high-speed to the building in sufficient quantity that they can then split their circuit to various tenants while guaranteeing each tenant is receiving their contracted speeds.
While certain carriers offer superior Internet bandwidth products in Puyallup, the reality is that it is possible for a circuit to go down. The question then becomes, “how do I minimize my chance of an outage? ”
Redundant circuits.
Redundancy basically comes in two forms.
With the first type of redundancy, you receive multiple circuits from the same 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.
Utilizing circuits from two different providers 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 carriers or circuits. But, you know that they are actually separate and redundant. This is called diversity redundancy and offers more protection that the first. In the event a carrier goes down, you will not have to worry. You will have a perfectly live carrier there to keep things moving.
To maximize the benefit of redundancy, consider looking for redundant circuits from different providers that have different pathway in Puyallup, Washington. Alternatively stated, try to have your circuits enter the building on different sides from one another. The circuits would be attached underground or to telephone poles, in various directions. The circuits would go 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.
Internet access costs money but the cost of NOT having reliable Internet access is greater. Consider these scenarios:
Are you on a cable modem and your carrier is providing circuits to dozens of other office suites in your 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? How will less available bandwidth affect your telephone calls? How will the caliber of the call be affected? Maybe calls will randomly drop? Will you sound muffled?
Your office is the hub of your company, whether you are a retail organization operating a distributed point of sale (POS) system, an accounting firm sharing databases or a law firm engaged in file sharing. All of your places, you may have 2, you may have 500, you may have 4, 000, rely on your main Internet connection to access and receive data. How will you be affected if your circuit goes down? Is it just irritating? Is it going to cause tremendous problems? Can your satellite offices perform any work at all? Can they take or process any orders at all? Share information? Make sure you completely understand your needs before you pick a solution. Maybe you are a corporation that designs and sells software and you run a hosted solution that is used by hundreds and hundreds of customers. 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 other systems can’t connect to your office servers? How will repeated outages affect your customers? Will they remain customers?
Does your organization completely rely on the net? What if your representatives can make no outgoing telephone calls because your circuits go down? They are also unable to answer calls. You are essentially out of company. Is redundancy enough? Many of the finest call centers with the best reputations already understand and use redundancy. They should consider if they have sufficient protection. Are the carriers you currently use as reliable as they should be? Are they as reliable as you need them to be? Is the quality of your calls consistently and reliably clear?
You clearly have several choices. The needs and budget of your company will both affect your choices. In summary:
If you are a small organization, with just one location and not concerned about redundancy, a single five meg, 10 meg or 50 meg access to The net 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 vary based on your location and availability of circuits; speak with our engineers to find your best option.
If you have a midsized business in Puyallup, you will need higher-speed access to The net. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and other higher-speed Internet circuits are your options. Ideally, you want to have the greatest redundancy. You can achieve this by using multiple circuits from different providers. It is sometimes possible to reach this without adding ridiculous costs. For instance, it may be cheaper to utilize two 50 meg circuits in place of one 100 meg circuit. Again, costs vary. Availability also varies. Learn your options by speaking with one of our knowledgeable experts. We can help you determine what is available in your specific location.
Companies with different locations, whether 5 or 50, are at the highest risk. Redundancy is crucial. Multiple providers or carriers are recommended. Redundant routers, switches and other equipment can also be helpful to lessen downtime during a problem. Here too, take a careful look and choose the right Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed access to The Internet circuit providers. Your organization can benefit from finding the right mix of services and carriers.
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. If you want to ensure your valuable uptime, have redundant circuits from multiple providers as well as redundant hardware. You need enough bandwidth. The bandwidth must be adequate to handle spikes in usage with no slowdowns or interruptions. Be sure to have the right circuits and hardware. They both must be able to support multiple, fast, concurrent connections.
The risk of insufficient bandwidth or failing circuits is tremendous. The right circuits must meet your demand while keeping you within your budget. Choosing the right mix of circuits and hardware is a daunting task.
Our engineers can analyze your needs and create a free action plan for you. We’ll examine your current usage and demand levels then create a design that provides you with the resources you need to keep your business running smoothly at a reasonable cost.
You can complete the contact form on the right side of this page by clicking here. If you would prefer, please call our office to set up an appointment for an assessment. We can often provide assessments within 48 hours.