High-Speed Roanoke, Virginia Access to The Web

Roanoke High Speed Internet access: Business Broadband Internet, Metro Ethernet Access and Gigabit Internet

Because of today’s environment, companies in Roanoke, Virginia rely on the internet. Reliable access to the net is the lifeblood of their business. All companies, big and small, need fast and reliable Internet access.

We will become increasingly dependent on Internet access as the months and years progress.

From email messaging to information sharing, e-commerce to archiving data, and voice over IP to video conferencing, the web is omnipresent. What solution bet fits your needs? Maybe a cable modem is a sufficient solution. It could be that you need Metro Ethernet. Would Gigabit Internet suffice? A 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg Internet access, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The net point: what is right for your company in Roanoke, Virginia?

How to Define your Company Need for Internet Access

Before selecting the appropriate service, your company must assess its needs. Perhaps the internet is only used for a few things such as email communication or surfing the web. Is real time data connection with cloud servers vital to your organization? Perhaps you, in Roanoke, Virginia, are hosting the data and remote sites rely upon this.

What happens if you have an outage in your high-speed Internet? Can your organization afford the downtime? Is uptime required? Before making a purchase, these are some of the questions that you must answer.

Appraising Various High-Speed Internet Solutions in Roanoke, Virginia

Plainly stated, companies require high-speed access to The net. When choosing the right broadband for business, you need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits. While you are likely to hear some service providers toss around terms such as:

• High-speed Internet access
• Provider of Internet for Businesses
• What about broadband cable modems?
• Metro Ethernet service
• GbE services or Gigabit Internet
• Multiprotocol label switching, also known as MPLS
• Point to point data circuits
• Five megabyte Internet access circuit
• Internet access circuits- ten megabytes
• Fifty-megabytes-Internet access circuits
• One hundred Meg Internet access circuits provided
• sip trunking / sip trunks
• dedicated Internet access
• … and more

… focus on what matters: what does your business need and what are the best services and solutions out there to meet those needs?

Business access to The Internet for Web Surfing

Most companies in Roanoke require that some or all of their workers have access to the web. It may be needed for company research, to order office supplies or other reasons.

The number of workers you have may be the factor that drives your decision. 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. You should consider more than that if you have more workers. Also keep in mind whether your workers need to access the net at the same time.

Your need for high-speed Internet may be lessened if your workers are just accessing an intranet systemIf your company functions demand the downloading of documents and images or videos on a regular basis, speed becomes a must more important issue.

Are you performing routine 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? The saved files go to the cloud and are then synchronized or “shared” with other people’s computers. In order to ensure that all of your functions work properly, in addition to file sharing, you must have sufficient bandwidth.

Depending on your location, high-speed business access to The net, including Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options. “Lit buildings” that have already been wired by a carrier, are commonly the site for these. The ease and affordability of adding high-speed Internet to your office may surprise you.

While bringing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be an expensive proposition, bringing that connection to a suite within the building is not. 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.

Web Applications Require Fast Internet Access

Does your organization host its own servers running websites, APIs or data feeds for other offices or companies outside of your own four walls? Are your company headquarters with a hosted application accessed by 50 branch offices? Are you a retail company hosting the POS system for thousands of chain stores? Does your legal practice host all of the data for 3, 4 or 5 offices in different sites?

If you host programs, data or information centrally, people outside of the central location need to have access. Those people are not able to work without a solid Internet connection. If you need multiple connections to function at the same time from many different locations, make sure that your intranet solution can reliably support it.

For one office or a small company with just one or two people surfing the web, a less expensive 10 Meg circuit or a cable modem may meet your needs. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable for the headquarters where high-speed access to The web is important. High speed is important but they also must be able to support multiple distinct connections. A cable modem would likely not provide the necessary support.

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

In many scenarios, bringing in an inexpensive circuit, such as a cable modem, comes 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. Only a certain amount of bandwidth may be available in a community. Many cable companies have limits on the amount they can deliver. Different buildings and tenants housed or working within those buildings all share that set amount of bandwidth. You might be capped at 30-megabyte speed, but may never be able to actually reach that speed during the important hours of your organization day. Is it a problem if you get a quarter or even half of the speed you expected?

You can sign up for dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth from some carriers. With these options, bandwidth is yours. It is not shared with anyone outside of your organization. You should receive full capacity of your circuits during all hours. This is true even though you may have many buildings, businesses and tenants nearby.

You can receive guaranteed bandwidth with Metro Ethernet. You can receive it in increments of five, 10, 50 or one hundred megabyte circuits. With gigabit Internet providers, you can reach gigabit speeds in your office out to the net.

In these cases, the carriers 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.

Redundant High Speed Company Internet in Roanoke: Why More Circuits?

The truth is that circuits can go down in Roanoke even though some providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. In what way can you diminish the risk of an outage?

Consider redundant circuits.

Redundancy in this situation comes in two forms.

The first is where you get multiple circuits from one carrier. Redundant circuits can help protect against certain problems. They can mitigate the inconveniences when there is a failure of a physical line or a problem with the port into your router. Even multiple circuits can fail, such as in the event of a large-scale carrier outage or when there damage to an external line. There is some protection that comes with this but there is risk as well.

Utilizing circuits from two different carriers is the second kind of redundancy. Using advanced routers and IP address allocations, you can bind these connections together so that, to your users and to the public, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. In reality, they are completely separate and redundant to each other. 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.

For maximum redundancy, you should look for redundant circuits from different providers with different physical geographic pathways in Roanoke, Virginia. Your goal should be to get circuits coming into your building on different sides. You do not want them on the same side. Ideally, the circuits will be going in different directions and toward various central business spaces or data centers. If you can accomplish this, you are protected from a major catastrophe. For example, if a there is a fire or some other accident that negatively affects circuits in a region, you have redundancy in a physically different direction.

What Will Not Having Enough Protection for Your Business Class High Speed Internet Cost You?

The cost to your company if you do not have reliable access to The web will be far greater than you may realize. Consider the following:

Does your company rely on Voice-over Internet Protocol for telephone service?

If your company utilizes a cable modem, consider whether your carrier is providing circuits for multiple other tenants within the building. During organization hours, any of those tenants could be streaming video, performing massive file downloads, processing large volumes of phone calls and more. As available bandwidth shrinks, what will happen to your calls? How will the caliber of the call be affected? Will you lose calls? Will you sound muffled or choppy to your customers?

Your business functions as the primary data center for multiple external locations

Your office is the hub of your company, whether you are a retail company 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. If your circuit goes done, what will happen next? Is it a mere annoyance or a catastrophic failure? Can your satellite or remote office do any work at all? What happens to new orders? Can they be taken or processed? Circulate necessary data? Picking the right a solution can be difficult. Before doing so, be sure you fully understand your requirements. Maybe your software company runs a hosted solution. Maybe that hosted solution is used by hundreds of your customers. Perhaps you operate a service where other systems talk to yours via an API to calculate freight prices, commodity prices, collect current weather data or receive any other information that you serve up. What happens when they are unable to connect to your servers? How will repeated outages affect your customers? Will they remain customers?

You are call center reliant on VoIP

Your organization is completely dependent on the internet. Should your circuits go down, your representatives cannot make outbound calls. No calls could be answered either. You are essentially out of company. While most call centers that are reputable use redundancy, is it enough? Can you truly rely on your providers? Are they as dependable as they claim? You should be getting high quality service that ensures your calls are consistently clear and reliable.

Select the Roanoke, Virginia High-Speed Business Access Circuits Best Suited for Your Company

You have no shortage of options. Your organization needs and your budget will have to come into consideration when deciding on your solutions. To summarize:

Internet Access and the Small Business

If you are a small company, with just one location and not concerned about redundancy, a single five meg, 10 meg or 50 meg access to The Internet circuit may be adequate. Metro Ethernet service or gigabit service may also be a reasonably priced option if you are in a lit building. The availability of circuits and your location determine prices; speak with one of our engineers to learn what your best options are.

Medium Sized Company in One Location: Access to the Internet

If you have a midsized company in Roanoke, Virginia, you will need higher-speed Internet access. You have several choices. Consider the following: Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet or higher-speed Internet access circuits. Optimally, multiple carriers and multiple circuits will give you the most redundancy. 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. As a reminder; availability and costs may vary. You need to speak with one of our experts to determine your options in your specific location.

Midsized Businesses with Multiple Places: Internet Access

The greatest risk of failure belongs to companies that have multiple places of organization or offices. They need redundant circuits. Multiple providers would be great. You can minimize the risk of downtime at if you also have redundant equipment like routers or switches. Have you looked at Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed Internet access circuit providers? You should do so before making a decision. Finding the best combination of services, providers and equipment can go a long way toward helping your company run as efficiently as possible.

Larger corporations, enterprising clients and clients who provide services that are delivered via the Internet

If you can place yourself in this category, it is essential that you have Metro Ethernet, point-to-point circuits and gigabit Internet circuits. If you want to ensure your valuable uptime, have redundant circuits from multiple carriers as well as redundant hardware. 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.

You Can Get a Free Internet Need and Demand Analysis

The risk of insufficient bandwidth or failing circuits is tremendous. Your ideal single circuit or multiple circuits should stay within your budget while still meeting your demands. 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 look at your current usage, demand levels and scope out a design to give you the resources you need while keeping your company up and running at a reasonable cost.

Please click here if you wish to complete the contact form on the side of this page. Alternatively, call our office to schedule an assessment. Your assessment may be finished within as little as 48 hours.