In today’s world, Redondo Beach companies need dependable access to The net. It is the lifeblood of their company. All companies, from Fortune 500 to small companies, have functions that rely on easy, dependable and quick Internet access.
In the months and years ahead, people and businesses will become more dependent on access to the web.
The net has a significant presence in our lives. From email to information sharing, data archiving to e-commerce, and VOIP to video conferencing, the internet is certainly ubiquitous. How can your needs be met? Maybe a cable modem is a sufficient solution. Metro Ethernet? Would Gigabit Internet suffice? Does your organization in Redondo Beach, California need one of these: 10 Meg Internet access, a 100 Meg access to The net point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?
Before selecting the appropriate service, your organization must assess its needs. Will web surfing and email be your primary use of the internet? Is real time data connection with cloud servers crucial to your organization? Do remote sites depend on you hosting the data in Redondo Beach?
What if there is an outage and your high-speed Internet is interrupted? Will your business suffer from the lull? Is your success reliant on uptime? You must answer questions like these so you can make a purchase that actually meets your needs
It is no secret that all companies need high-speed access to the internet. When picking the correct broadband, balancing the costs and benefits to your organization is imperative. While you are likely to hear some service providers toss around terms such as:
… focus on what matters: what does your business need and what are the best services and solutions out there to meet those needs?
At any company in Redondo Beach, California some employees, if not all employees, need some type of access to the web if they are to properly perform their job duties. The net is required for so many things, whether to order items, look up organization information communicate with third parties.
The solution you choose may be based on the number of employees you have or expect to have. If you only have a few workers, you may be fine with a smaller Internet circuit such as a 5 or 10 megabyte. If you have many employees who need to use the web at the same time, you may do better with more.
You may not need as much high-speed access to The net if your employees work primarily on 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.
Are you performing 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? When you save a file it is pushed to the cloud. Then it is synched to the computer or computers of someone else. You must have sufficient bandwidth if you are to successfully support every service including file sharing.
Your company location may cause you to think about high-speed company access to The Internet such as Metro Ethernet and/or gigabit Internet. Usually, you can find these in “lit buildings” in Redondo Beach, California that have been previously 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.
Absent the need to introduce Metro Ethernet into a new building, it is not particularly costly to connect Metro Ethernet to a suite or office within that building. In fact, obtaining high-speed Internet access with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less depending upon availability.
Ask yourself this: Does we host our own servers to run APIs, websites and data feeds to external offices or organization premises? Do your headquarters have a hosted Internet application that must be accessed regularly by 40 or 50 branch offices? Are you hosting the point of sale (POS) system for 15, 000 retail chain stores? Does your legal practice host all of the data for 3, 4 or 5 offices in different places?
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. When deciding on the right intranet solution for your organization, ask yourself: Is the solution going to adequately support simultaneous and multiple connections from my different locations?
If you have one office using the web, you may get by with a cable modem or a low- cost 10-megabyte circuit. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable for the headquarters where high-speed Internet access is important. High-speed alone is not enough. They must also need to be capable of supporting many diverse connections. A cable modem would likely be insufficient.
In many cases, installing an inexpensive cable modem comes at a price. Your low monthly bill may mean that the bandwidth is shared among multiple tenants. During peak use hours, you may not be able to reach proper speeds. 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 reaches out like branches to every building in the community and the people living and working in those buildings. The 30-meg speed you are capped out sounds good but it is possible that you will never reach that speed during organization hours. Do you care if you only get 6 when you were set up to expect 30?
Some providers offer customers dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. In this situation, your bandwidth is not shared but is fully allocated to your organization. Notwithstanding the existence of tenants, offices or buildings in the area, you should have the full capability of your circuits at all times.
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. If you want to reach gigabit speeds from your business out to the internet, you can by using a gigabit Internet provider.
In these situations, each tenant receives their contracted high-speed. The carrier delivers enough so they can split their circuit and provide enough to each tenant.
Redondo Beach, California has some carriers that offer exceptional Internet bandwidth products and services. However, circuits can still go down and cause disruption. In what way can you diminish the risk of an outage?
You may be a candidate for redundant circuits.
There are, in reality, two kinds of redundancy.
The first kind of redundancy exists when one carrier provides one customer with many circuits. Redundant circuits help protect you from certain failures including physical line issues, port issues within routers, and others. Damage to an external wire or part can cause the failure of all of your circuits. A regional outage experienced by your carrier can have the same result. This is not foolproof, but does offer some protection.
The second way to set up circuit redundancy is by using two different carriers to bring in your circuits. 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. You will get more substantial protection from this diversity redundancy. You will still have a live, fully functioning carrier if one fails.
The providers you choose for your redundant circuits should have different physical pathways in Redondo Beach. This is an important consideration when trying to obtain the most redundancy. If at all possible, you want to obtain circuits entering the premises on different sides. Ideally, the circuits will be going in different directions and toward various central business spaces or data centers. What if there is some kind of catastrophic incident such as a fire or accident that impacts circuits within a region? Now, you have redundancy in an alternative physical direction.
While access to The Internet is not free, it pales in comparison with the cost of not having reliable Internet access. Consider these scenarios:
Is your organization on a cable modem? How many other tenants is your carrier servicing in your building? Are 14 other offices getting circuits? During the course of a regular work day, any or all of these other businesses might be performing massive file downloads. Tenants might be taking a large volume of calls or be regularly streaming video. What will happen to your telephone calls as the amount of usable bandwidth decreases? What happens to the strength and quality of that call? Maybe calls will randomly drop? Will the calls be choppy?
Your office may be the working center of an entire company enterprise. The kind of organization does not necessarily matter. You may be a law firm doing file sharing, an accounting practice sharing databases or a retailer operating a distributed point-of-sale system. Whether you have 2 sites, 250, or 2000, they all rely on your primary Internet connection to retrieve data and information. What happens if your circuit goes down? Is it a mere annoyance or a catastrophic failure? How much work, if any, can be done by your remote locations? Take new orders? Service existing ones? Circulate necessary data? It is important that prior to choosing a solution, you understand the true needs and requirements of your particular organization. You might have hundreds and hundreds of loyal customers. Perhaps you are a software company running a hosted solution they all rely on. Maybe you operate a service that allows other systems to speak with yours via API. This may be to collect miscellaneous data, calculate prices or shipping rates or other information. What if you have server problems and they are unable to connect to you? Will your customers remain loyal to you if they have to withstand multiple outages?
Your company is 100% reliant on the web to properly function. If your circuits go down, you cannot make calls. They are also unable to answer calls. You are now, essentially, out of business. Even for the most reputable call centers that already know of and use redundancy, is it sufficient? Make sure your carriers are as reliable as possible. Clear and reliable calls are essential. Does your carrier service consistently provide this?
You have no shortage of options. Your budget, as well as the needs of your company, will help drive your decisions. In review:
Sometimes redundancy is not crucial to you. For example, If you are a small business, with just one office location, a single Internet access circuit may be adequate. You may get by with one 50, 10 or even 5 megabyte circuit. Metro Ethernet service or gigabit service may also be a reasonably priced option if you are in a lit building. Prices will vary. They are based on your location and circuit availability; speak with our engineers to learn your best options.
Having a medium or mid-sized company in Redondo Beach, California requires that you have higher-speed access to the internet. 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 carriers. Achieving this may cost extra but it won’t double your costs. Using one 100-megabyte circuit instead of two 50-megabyte circuits, is one example. Again, costs and availability vary. Call one of our experts to learn what is available in your specific area.
Companies with multiple locations are most at risk for failure. Redundant circuits must be an essential part of their systems. It is helpful if they use multiple providers. Redundant routers, switches and other equipment can also be helpful to lessen downtime during a problem. 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 best mix of providers and services can maximize the productivity and efficiency of your company.
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. You must have redundant circuits for multiple providers as well as redundant hardware in your office to ensure your 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.
Insufficient bandwidth and failing circuits are present tremendous risk to your organization. It is imperative that the circuit or circuits you choose meet your needs but also keep you within your allowable budget. You have to select the optimal combination of hardware and circuits, which is a daunting task.
Our expert engineers will review your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. We’ll formulate a design or plan based partly on your current usage and demand levels. We are going to 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. Your assessment may be finished within as little as 48 hours.