In today’s world, Royal Oak companies need dependable access to The web. It is the lifeblood of their organization. Fast and reliable Internet access is needed for businesses to function properly; large corporations and small businesses alike.
We will, in the months and years ahead, become more and more dependent on our Internet access.
Our uses of the net reach far and wide. From data sharing, video calls, and shopping to VOIP and email, the web has a broad presence. What is the right solution to meet your needs? Can a cable modem suffice? Metro Ethernet may be the thing you need. Would Gigabit Internet suffice? Will your Royal Oak, Michigan business needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg access to The net or 100 Meg Internet access point?
Your organization must assess its real needs. This must be done before an appropriate service can be chosen. Is Internet use limited to website surfing or emailing only? Is the web used for real-time data connection with servers in the cloud? Perhaps you, in Royal Oak, are hosting the data and remote locations depend upon this.
What will happen to your business if your high-speed Internet experiences an outage? How will the downtime affect your company? Is your success reliant on uptime? Prior to making any purchases, you must determine the answers to these questions.
In the broadest of terms, companies need high-speed Internet access. Deciding on the right broadband is not easy. It requires a thorough cost-benefit analysis. Don’t be distracted by terminology. While you may hear providers throw out words and phrases like:
… the real issue is understanding what capability and technical solutions best meet your needs.
At any company in Royal Oak some employees, if not all employees, need some type of access to the web if they are to properly perform their job duties. Third party applications, organization research or development and e-commerce are just several of the ways the net may be needed.
The number of employees you have may determine your best solution. A five or ten megabyte Internet circuit may be all you need if employ a small workforce. If you have more than that, you may need more.
Your need for high-speed Internet may be lessened if your workers are just accessing an intranet systemOn the other hand, if your company requires that its employees download many documents or images and videos, Internet speed becomes more important.
Does your company regularly conduct backups? It is recommended that you do remote backups from every desk. If you are, you will need to support simultaneous connections out to the web to synchronize the backup data to collect.
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. Running all your services properly, including sharing files, requires that you have the right amount of bandwidth.
High-speed company access to The net like Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options for you depending on your location. These are typically found in “lit buildings” in Royal Oak. Carriers have already wired these buildings. 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. Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet may provide you with high-speed Internet access in thirty days or less, depending on availability.
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 locations?
Access to data and programs by people outside of your main location becomes necessary when you host information centrally. If the net connection is interrupted, those people cannot get their work done. Make sure that when you choose your intranet solution it is reliable enough to support your need for multiple and simultaneous connections for many different places.
A cost friendly 10 Meg circuit or even a cable modem may satisfy the needs of a organization with a single office that needs to surf the web. Company headquarters should have high-speed access to The Internet 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. The support you need could not be provided by a cable modem.
Bringing in a cable modem, which seems to save money, may actually come at a price. You may save money on your monthly bill but the bandwidth you get must be shared among many people. 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. While you may be capped at a 30 Meg speed, you may never be able to reach that speed during business hours. If you expect 30 but only get 6, will you have problems?
You can find a carrier who can provide dedicated and 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.
Five Meg, ten Meg, fifty Meg and 100 Meg circuits of guaranteed bandwidth are available with Metro Ethernet. In your office out to the web you can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit providers
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 providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products in Royal Oak, the reality is that it is possible for a circuit to go down. What can you do to minimize the chance that you will experience an outage of some kind?
Redundant circuits.
There are, in essence, two types of redundancy.
The first type is when one single carrier provides you with multiple circuits. These redundant circuits help protect from certain failures, for example, router port issues or physical line trouble. 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. You get some protection, but also some risk.
The other type of redundancy requires you to utilize circuits from different carriers. 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 fact, they are totally redundant and separate. Diversity redundancy provides greater assurance, comfort and protection. 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.
You want maximum redundancy. In order to achieve this, look for redundant circuits from different carriers with different physical geographic pathways in Royal Oak. In other words, try to obtain circuits entering the building from different sides of the building. Ideally, the circuits will be going in different directions and toward various central business spaces or data centers. 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.
It is true that access to The web costs you money. However, the cost does not come close to what you will pay if the access that is not reliable. Think about the following situations:
If your business utilizes a cable modem, consider whether your carrier is providing circuits for multiple other tenants within the building. What if any or all of those tenants are huge call centers taking in a massive volume of phone calls, are company that perform large file downloads or stream many videos? How will less available bandwidth affect your telephone calls? How will the quality of that phone call be affected? Are the calls going to be dropped? Will you sound muffled?
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 locations, whether 2 or 2000, rely on your primary Internet connection to access and retrieve data. Your circuit goes down, now what happens? 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? Disseminate needed information and data? Picking the right a solution can be difficult. Before doing so, be sure you fully understand your requirements. What if you are a software company? Perhaps you are running a hosted solution and it must be used by multiple customers; maybe even hundreds. Perhaps you operate a service where other systems speak with yours via an API to calculate freight prices, commodity prices, collect current weather data or receive any other information that you serve up. What if you have server problems and they are unable to connect to you? Customers will only take so many repeated outages. How long with they remain with your company?
Is the internet integral to the proper function of your business? Do you depend on it entirely? No calls can go out if your circuits fail. Your representatives would also be unable to answer calls. Your company is basically done with. While most reputable call centers are already aware and using redundancy, is it enough? Are you really getting the dependable service you need form your carriers? Are you using carriers that are truly reliable? Is the quality of service sufficient for your calls to be clear and reliable?
You have several different options to pick from. Your choices will largely count on your budget, in addition to the other requirements of your business. Essentially:
You are probably not thinking about redundancy if you have a small company with a single location. In this case, you can probably get by with a single access to The Internet circuit of 5, 10 or 50 meg. If you are in a “lit” building, Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be reasonably priced options. 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 Royal Oak requires that you have higher-speed access to the web. 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. This may be attainable without doubling your costs. For instance, it may be cheaper to utilize two 50 meg circuits in place of one 100 meg circuit. Availability and costs vary. Call one of our experts to learn what is available in your specific area.
The greatest risk of failure belongs to companies that have multiple places of business or offices. They need redundant circuits. Different providers are desirable. Additionally, you should consider redundant equipment (routers and switches) in your facility to 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. Your organization can benefit from finding the right mix of services and providers.
Companies such as these require the following: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and point-to-point (PPP) high-speed Internet circuits. You must have redundant circuits for multiple providers as well as redundant hardware in your office to ensure your uptime. You need enough bandwidth. The bandwidth must be adequate to handle spikes in usage with no slowdowns or interruptions. It is crucial that not only your circuits have the ability to support a vast number of multiple and simultaneous connects, but your hardware must have the ability to support them as well.
Do not risk having failing circuits or not enough bandwidth. You need to have the right circuit or circuits to meet your demands while staying within your budget. Choosing the right mix of circuits and hardware is a daunting task.
Our engineers will analyze your needs and requirements and develop a free action plan for you. We will examine your demand levels and current usage. We’ll then design a plan that keeps your costs reasonable while meeting your demand for a smoothly run organization.
If you would like to arrange for an assessment, please click here to complete the contact information form to the right. You can call our office as well. It can take as little as 48 hours to provide a complete assessment.