High-Speed Rochester, Minnesota Access to The Web

Rochester, Minnesota High Speed Access to the World Wide Web: Accessing Metro Ethernet, Company Broadband Internet and Gigabit Internet

In today’s world, Rochester, Minnesota companies need dependable Internet access. It is the lifeblood of their organization. The company functions of every company, whether it is a small company or on the Fortune 500, from Fortune 500, relies on fast and reliable access to The web.

Our reliance on access to the internet will become greater in the near and distant future.

From email to data sharing, video chat to VoIP, and data archiving to Internet commerce, the net is ubiquitous. What can best meet your needs? A cable modem may be satisfactory. It could be that you need Metro Ethernet. Gigabit Internet may satisfy your needs. Your Rochester, Minnesota business probably needs a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The net, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The web point but which one is best?

Internet Access: Defining the Organization Need

Before selecting an appropriate service for your business, you must first determine what needs you are trying to satisfy. Is the net primarily used for emailing or web surfing? Is real time data connection with cloud servers important to your organization? There may be remote locations that rely on you and you are hosting the data in Rochester.

What if there is an outage and your high-speed Internet is interrupted? Will your business suffer from the lull? How much uptime is essential to your organization? These types of questions must be answered before you make purchase anything.

Looking at Different High Speed Internet Solutions: Rochester, Minnesota

Speaking broadly, all companies need high-speed access to the web. Choosing the correct broadband for your company requires a cost benefit analysis. You will hear service providers use terms like:

• Internet access at high-speeds
• Business Internet service provider
• Provider of broadband cable modems
• Metropolitan-area Ethernet
• Provider of Gigabit Internet service
• MPLS network
• PPP- or point-to-point protocol
• Internet access circuits-five megabyte
• We provide 10 Meg access to The net circuits
• Internet access-50 Meg
• Internet access circuits- One hundred megabytes
• Sip trunking providers
• Internet access dedicated to your needs
• … and more

… do not stray from the real issues. Focus on what your company’s needs are and what capabilities and technical solutions will help satisfy them.

Surfing the Web at Work: Company Internet Access

Most companies in Rochester require that some or all of their workers have access to the net. Third party applications, company research or development and e-commerce are just several of the ways the internet may be needed.

The best solution may rely on how many employees you have. 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. If your organization has nearly 50 people, however, and they all need to use the net at the same time, you may find that more is better.

Your workforce may simply use an intranet system with limited video and graphics. If this is true, your need for high speed Internet be less than you thought. On the other hand, if your company requires that its employees download many documents or images and videos, Internet speed becomes more important.

Do you routinely backup? Synchronizing your backup data after doing remote backups from every desk requires you to support simultaneous connections out to the web.

Do you use a file-sharing service? Perhaps you use Google drive, DropBox or a different service? 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. Supporting file sharing, while supporting every other service, requires sufficient bandwidth.

You may consider high-speed business Internet access if you location warrants it. Gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet may be viable options for you. Usually, you can find these in “lit buildings” in Rochester, Minnesota that have been previously wired by a carrier. 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. Also, securing high-speed Internet access using gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet often takes less than 30 days, depending on its availability.

Hosted Applications Requiring High-Speed Internet Access

Does your business 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 connected to fifty or more satellite offices? Are you a retail company hosting the POS system for thousands of chain stores? You may be a law firm hosting data for three or four different offices.

When things are hosted at a central point, parties outside the office must somehow gain access. People can’t work if you have no 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 a single office surfing the web, a cable modem or inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be sufficient. Company headquarters should have high-speed access to The web such as gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit. While all offer high speeds, they also need to be capable of supporting multiple diverse connections. A cable modem would likely be insufficient.

Dedicated Internet Bandwidth in Rochester, Minnesota V. Shared Cable Circuits

There is a price that comes along with choosing a cable modem or other lower cost circuit. While the monthly rate is lower, the bandwidth is generally shared among other tenants. You may experience slow downs. For example, although you subscribe to a cable modem with a thirty Meg connection, it can be difficult to maintain the maximum speed during busy times and peak hours. Cable companies are known to limit or predetermine the amount of bandwidth available for delivery in any particular community. That amount of bandwidth must be shared with different buildings and with the tenants housed within. With a 30-megabyte connection, you may not get to that speed during the working day. If you expect 30 but only get 6, will you have problems?

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.

For example, with Metro Ethernet, you can receive a guaranteed bandwidth in increments of five Meg circuits, 10 Meg circuits, 50 Meg circuits and 100 Meg circuits. Gigabit speeds from your office to the net can be reached if you use a gigabit Internet provider.

Carriers in these situations deliver enough to cover everyone’s needs. The providers divide their circuit to various tenants while guaranteeing that everyone gets their contracted speed.

Redundancy With Rochester High Speed Organization Internet Circuits

Despite outstanding Internet bandwidth products offered by carriers in Rochester, circuits do go down. In what way can you diminish the risk of an outage?

Try using redundant circuits.

We are primarily talking about two kinds of redundancy.

With the first kind, you receive several circuits but they all come from the same carrier. Redundant circuits help protect you from certain failures including physical line issues, port issues within routers, and others. Even multiple circuits can fail, such as in the event of a large-scale carrier outage or when there damage to an external line. This offers some protection and assurance but does not eliminate all threats.

Utilizing circuits from two different carriers is the second kind of redundancy. By using IP address allocations and certain routers, you can bind your connections. By doing this, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. In reality, they are completely separate and redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy offers far greater protection. In the event that one carrier goes down, the other will still be alive.

When considering redundant circuits and providers, try to be sure that the carriers you look at in Rochester, Minnesota have different physical geographic routes or pathways. Doing so will maximize redundancy. Essentially, this just means that you do not want both of your circuits to enter the building on the same side. They should come in on different sides. They would be on outside phone poles or underground conduits in different directions and leading to different places. This way, if there is a major catastrophe, such as a fire at a data center or a major accident impacting circuits within a region, you have redundancy in a different physical direction.

Not Having Organization Class High Speed-Internet Access Protection May Cost You

While access to The net is not free, it pales in comparison with the cost of not having reliable access to The net. Think about the following situations:

Your organization relies on VoIP for its telephone service

Your office uses a cable modem and, in addition to you, the carrier provides 10-15 additional tenants with circuits. It is possible that during normal business hours, those tenants might be downloading large files or watching continuous videos. They might be getting a lot of phone calls. As they use more bandwidth, there is less for available for your requirements. What happens to your phone calls? How will the caliber of the call be affected? Will calls be arbitrarily dropped? Inaudible (choppy) to your customers?

Your office is the main data point for various other offices

You may be an accounting firm that shares databases, a retail chain company utilizing a point of sale system or a law practice sharing files. Regardless of the specifics, your office is the hub for your enterprise. Your primary Internet connection is solely responsible for smoothly granting access and sending data to all of your sites whether you have two or two thousand. What if your circuit fails? Would you merely be annoyed? Would there be catastrophic consequences? Are remote offices able to work at all? Process new orders? Share essential data? Before choosing a solution, be sure to assess and really understand what your company requires. Perhaps you are a software company, running a hosted solution used by hundreds of customers. You operate a service that utilizes API in order to grant access to other systems. They may use this to collect whatever data you are offering such as commodity prices, weather data or freight calculations. It is possible they will not be able to connect to your servers. Customers do not enjoy repeated outages. How long with they put up with them before looking to take their organization elsewhere?

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

Is the internet integral to the proper function of your business? Do you rely on it entirely? Your employees or representatives will not be able to make outgoing phone calls if your circuits go down. In addition, they will be unable to answer incoming calls. You are essentially out of business. For competent call centers that already use and understand the problems that can arise, is redundancy enough? Are your providers sufficiently reliable? Clear and reliable calls are essential. Does your carrier service consistently provide this?

Choosing the Right Rochester, Minnesota High-Speed Organization Access Circuits for Your Company

Clearly, there are many choices. Your choices will largely rely on your budget, in addition to the other requirements of your business. To recap:

Internet Access for the Small Company Owner

If you are a small business, with one location and you do not worry about redundancy, one five meg, ten meg, or fifty meg access to The net circuit may very well be enough to meet your needs. Is your building lit? If so, find out about gigabit or Metro Ethernet services. They may be reasonably priced options. Speak with our engineers about what is right for you. Prices vary with location and circuit availability.

Your Single Location Mid Sized Company Needs Internet Access

You have a midsized company in Rochester; you will surely need higher-speed Internet. Your choices include: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or other high-speed circuits. Ideally, multiple circuits from multiple providers will provide you with the greatest redundancy. You may be able to achieve this in a manner that will not break the bank. For instance, it may be cheaper to utilize two 50 meg circuits in place of one 100 meg circuit. As a reminder; availability and costs may vary. Your specific location will determine what options you have. Please speak with one of our experts to find out what those are and how we can meet your needs.

Internet Access for Mid-Sized Businesses with Several Locations

Any company with more than one location suffers the greatest risk of problems. Redundant circuits are essential. Different providers are desirable. You can minimize the risk of downtime at if you also have redundant equipment like routers or switches. Before you make a decision here too, do your research. Look closely into Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed circuit providers. The right mix of providers and services will help keep your business up and running as efficiently as possible.

What about enterprise clients and large corporate clients? What about clients who provide services that depend on the web for delivery of said services?

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 crucial to ensuring uptime. Having plenty of bandwidth will help avoid interruptions or decreased speed that sometimes occurs during spikes in usage. Your goal is to have hardware and circuits that are more than capable of providing support to a significant number of fast and simultaneous connections.

Free Internet Demand and Need Analysis

The danger and risk of failing circuits is tremendous. So is the risk of having less bandwidth than you need. It is imperative that the circuit or circuits you choose meet your needs but also keep you within your allowable budget. It is essential to choose the correct mix of hardware and circuits. Figuring out exactly what to put in the mix, can be a daunting task.

Our expert engineers will review your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. After reviewing your current usage and demand levels, we’ll generate a cost effective plan that provides your business with the resources it needs.

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.