In today’s world, Round Rock, Texas companies need dependable Internet access. It is the lifeblood of their company. All companies, big and small, need fast and reliable Internet access.
In the months and years ahead, people and businesses will become more reliant on access to the web.
From video chat to voice over IP, email to data sharing and data archiving to Internet commerce, the net is everywhere you look. How can your needs be met? Maybe a cable modem is a sufficient solution. Metro Ethernet? Would Gigabit Internet suffice? What does your Round Rock, Texas business need? Does it require 10 Meg access to The Internet, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 Meg circuit or a 5 Meg circuit?
Before selecting the appropriate service, your company must assess its needs. Perhaps the net is only used for a few things such as email communication or surfing the web. Will real-time data connection with servers in the cloud be the primary use of the net? Are you hosting the data in Round Rock, Texas that remote places rely on?
What if your high-speed Internet is disrupted by an outage? What will happen to your company? Can your business afford the downtime? How much uptime is essential to your business? Before you buy anything, you must answer these questions.
High-speed access to the internet is something all companies need. Before you choose your broadband internet, look at the costs and benefits. Performing this analysis is an important step in picking the right one for your organization. Don’t be distracted by terminology. While you may hear service providers throw out words and phrases like:
… the actual issue is knowing what technology and capability can satisfy your needs.
For many, if not all, companies in Round Rock, access to The net is needed for at least some employees. There are countless reasons to need access to the net. Perhaps it is to order materials, to conduct company research or communicate with clients.
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 many employees who need to use the net at the same time, you may do better with more.
Perhaps most workers at your company use an intranet system with limited features. High- speed Internet may not be a priority in this case. On the other hand, Internet speed becomes dramatically more important when they are required to regularly download things like documents or videos.
Are you regularly performing backups? If you are doing remote backups from every desk, which is advisable, you will need to be able to support simultaneous connections out to the web to synchronize your backup data.
Are you using Google drive, DropBox or another file sharing service? When you save a file it is pushed to the cloud. Then it is synched to the computer or computers of someone else. Enough bandwidth is required to support this function along with every other service.
Depending on where you are, you may want to look into high-speed business access to The Internet such as Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet. They are usually contained in “lit buildings” in Round Rock that have already been 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.
While it may be the case that bringing Metro Ethernet into a new building can cause a big dent in your wallet, bringing the connection to a suite or offices within that building does not have to. In fact, obtaining high-speed Internet access with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less depending upon availability.
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? Are your corporate headquarters with a hosted application utilized by 50 branch offices? Is your company retail? Do you have thousands of stores? Do you host the point of sale system for the entire chain? Are you a law firm? Do you host data for three or more external sites?
When data and programs are hosted centrally at one main site, people outside that location must gain access. Those people are not able to do their work if the net connection fails or is unreliable. Are you picking an intranet solution that provides reliability and stability for your multiple, simultaneous connections from various sites?
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. 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. This could probably not be accomplished with a cable modem.
Bringing in a less-expensive circuit like a cable modem often comes with a price. While the monthly rate is lower, the bandwidth is generally shared among other tenants. The cable modem you subscribe to with the 30 Meg connections may not always reach those speeds, especially during the busiest or “peak” hours of the workday. Cable operators are only permitted to establish a certain amount of bandwidth within communities. That bandwidth branches off to different buildings and then to various tenants within those buildings. During crucial working hours, you may not get to the 30-meg speed you have been capped at. Is it a problem if you get a quarter or even half of the speed you expected?
There are providers who offer dedicated and even guaranteed bandwidth. In this scenario, the bandwidth is fully allocated to you and your company or business. No one else uses it. Regardless of neighbors, or other tenants, you should have the full capacity of your circuit 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. If you want to reach gigabit speeds from your business out to the net, you can by using a gigabit Internet provider.
Here, providers deliver enough high-speed to the building, so that it can be split among various tenants. The carrier has the right amount so that everyone gets the contracted speed that has been promised.
Round Rock has some carriers that offer exceptional Internet bandwidth products and services. However, circuits can still go down and cause disruption. You must ask yourself: “how do I lessen the chance of an outage? ”
Try using redundant circuits.
There are, in reality, two kinds of redundancy.
The first type exists when the same carrier gives you multiple circuits. 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. 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. While there is some security in this, you are still vulnerable under some circumstances.
The second way to set up circuit redundancy is by using two different providers to bring in your circuits. If you think it is beneficial, you can bind the connections together in a manner that makes your circuits act and look like a single source. You know the truth: that they are individual circuits and are there to back each other up in case one goes down. While circuit redundancy in general is a good idea, diversity redundancy by using different providers, offers far better protection. When one carrier has a problem like an outage or some other failure, you have another one that works.
If you want to maximize redundancy in Round Rock please consider the following question: Do the providers I am considering use the same physical geographic pathways? If at all possible, you want to obtain circuits entering the premises on different sides. The circuits would be established either underground or on telephone poles and would be set up in different directions and lead to different offices. 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.
Internet access costs money but the cost of NOT having reliable access to The Internet is greater. Contemplate these situations:
You are on a cable modem with the carrier providing circuits to 14 other tenants in your building. During your working day, those tenants could be conducting massive downloads of information, processing a large amount of calls or streaming endless video. What will happen to your telephone calls as the amount of usable bandwidth decreases? How will the caliber of the call be affected? Will calls be arbitrarily dropped? Will they be full of static?
Whether you are a law firm doing file sharing, an accounting practice sharing databases or a retailer operating a distributed point-of-sale system, your office is the hub for your enterprise. All of your places, you may have 2, you may have 500, you may have 4, 000, count on your main Internet connection to access and receive data. What happens if your circuit goes down? Is it just irritating? Is it going to cause tremendous problems? Can your satellite or remote office do any work at all? Can they process transactions or new orders? Share information? Make sure you completely understand your needs before you pick a solution. You have a software company, and are running a hosted solution for dozens, maybe hundreds, of customers. Do you operate a service where other systems talk to yours by using an application program interface (API)? For example do other systems gain access to yours in order to calculate rates, prices, or to collect information that you serve up? You may find that they are unable to reach or connect with your company servers. If you have repeated outages, how long will they remain a customer?
Your business is entirely Internet based. No outbound calls can be made should your circuits go down. No calls could be answered either. You are essentially out of company. While most reputable call centers are already aware and using redundancy, is it enough? Are your providers sufficiently reliable? Are you getting quality service so that your calls are clear and consistent?
Clearly, there are many choices. Your organization budget and needs will play a large part in your decision-making. Essentially:
A single fifty, ten or five megabyte Internet access circuit may be adequate to meet the needs of your small organization, particularly if you have only one location and are not worried about redundancy. You may find that if your building is “lit”, gigabit service and Metro Ethernet service may be reasonably cost-effective choices for you. The availability of circuits and your location determine prices; speak with one of our engineers to learn what your best options are.
You will need higher speed access to The Internet if you have a medium sized business in Round Rock, Texas. Your choices include: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or other high-speed circuits. In a perfect scenario, multiple circuits from different providers will give you the most redundancy. Achieving this may not be as costly as you first thought. For instance, it may be cheaper to utilize two 50 meg circuits in place of one 100 meg circuit. Do not forget that you will find variations in price and availability. Speaking with one of our experts will help you determine the options available in your specific location.
Companies with multiple places are most at risk for failure. They need redundant circuits. Having several providers would afford extra protection. Also, redundant equipment such as switches and routers in your facility can minimize the risk of downtime. 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. Finding the best combination of services, providers and equipment can go a long way toward helping your organization run as efficiently as possible.
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 absolutely need redundant circuits from different providers as well as redundant hardware. This is important to ensuring uptime. You need to provide sufficient bandwidth to handle usage spikes without slowdowns or interruptions. 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.
Do you understand how great the risk of failing circuits and insufficient bandwidth really is? It is imperative that the circuit or circuits you choose meet your needs but also keep you within your allowable budget. Choosing the right combination of hardware and circuits can be complicated and confusing.
Our engineers can analyze your needs and create a free action plan for you. Our experts will examine your current usage and demand. We’ll then generate a design that gives you the resources you need while keeping your business up and running at a reasonable cost.
Please click here to complete the contact form on the right side of this page or call our office to schedule an appointment for an assessment. It can take less than 48 hours to complete your assessment.