Reliable access to The net is the lifeblood of Sacramento, California companies and their business. Fortune 500 companies to small companies and everything in between, depend on reliable and fast access to The web.
Our dependence on Internet access will continue to grow in the coming months and years.
Our uses of the web reach far and wide. From data sharing, video calls, and shopping to VOIP and email, the web has a broad presence. How can your needs be met? Is a cable modem enough? Do you need Metro Ethernet? Gigabit Internet may satisfy your needs. Does your company in Sacramento need one of these: 10 Meg Internet access, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?
Before choosing an adequate or appropriate service, you must decide what your company really needs. Are surfing the web and sending email the only uses of the web? Is real time data connection with cloud servers important to your organization? Do remote places depend on you hosting the data in Sacramento, California?
How would an outage to your high-speed Internet affect your organization? Can your company afford a long pause or lull in productivity? Is the absence of uptime detrimental? Prior to making any purchases, you must determine the answers to these questions.
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 company is imperative. While many providers throw around terminologies such as:
… do not lose sight of the real issues: what are the capabilities and technical solutions you need to best serve your company?
Most companies in Sacramento, California require that some or all of their workers have access to the net. The web is required for so many things, whether to order items, look up organization information communicate with third parties.
Your best course of action may be determined by the size of your work force. 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 you have more than that, you may need more.
You may not need as much high-speed access to The web if your employees work primarily on an intranet system with limited graphics and video. 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, as recommended, you conduct remote backups from every single desk, you will need to support simultaneous connections out to the web. This will allow you to sync your backup data.
Do you use a file-sharing service? Perhaps you use Google drive, DropBox or a different service? When people save a file, it gets pushed to the cloud. The file is then synched 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 where you are, you may want to look into high-speed business access to The web such as Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet. “Lit buildings” that have already been wired by a carrier, are commonly the site for these. It may be shock you to know that installing high-speed access to The Internet may not be particularly expensive or inconvenient.
The introduction of Metro Ethernet into a new building can be quite costly. However, bringing that connection into office space within that building is usually less so. In fact, obtaining high-speed Internet access with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less depending upon availability.
Consider whether your company hosts its own servers that run APIs, websites and/or data to outside buildings, offices or companies. Are your corporate headquarters with a hosted application utilized by 50 branch offices? Does your office host the point of sale (POS) system for every single store in a large retail chain? Are you a legal practice hosting the data for three places?
Granting access to outsiders is necessary when you host data and programs at a central location. If the web connection is interrupted, those people cannot get their work done. If you need multiple connections to function at the same time from many different sites, make sure that your intranet solution can reliably support it.
A cost friendly 10 Meg circuit or even a cable modem may satisfy the needs of a company with a single office that needs to surf the web. High-speed dedicated circuits, Metro Ethernet or gigabit Ethernet are advisable for company headquarters. 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 have to share bandwidth in order to secure that low monthly rate. If you subscribe to a cable modem with a 30-megabyte connection, you would expect to always be able to reach that high speed. However, it is possible that during peak hours, you won’t. Often, within a given community, cable companies may only deliver a particular amount of bandwidth. Different buildings and tenants housed or working within those buildings all share that set amount of bandwidth. With a 30-megabyte connection, you may not get to that speed during the working day. Do you care if you only get 6 when you were set up to expect 30?
There are providers who offer dedicated and even guaranteed bandwidth. In this scenario, the bandwidth is fully allocated to you and your company or company. No one else uses it. Notwithstanding the existence of tenants, offices or buildings in the area, you should have the full capability of your circuits at all times.
Five Meg, ten Meg, fifty Meg and 100 Meg circuits of guaranteed bandwidth are available with Metro Ethernet. With gigabit Internet providers, you can reach gigabit speeds in your office out to the web.
In these scenarios, providers deliver a large quantity of high-speed to a building. The quantity must be enough so that it can split the circuit and deliver to every tenant. Whatever amount has been guaranteed in each tenant’s contract is the amount they receive.
The truth is that circuits can go down in Sacramento even though some carriers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. The question then becomes, “how do I minimize my chance of an outage? ”
The answer is redundant circuits.
There are, in reality, two kinds of redundancy.
A single carrier, providing multiple circuits, to one customer, characterizes one form of redundancy. When there are problems with a physical line or a port or other failures, it can be helpful to have redundant circuits. However, if that carrier has a greater outage to your entire region or there is a line damaged outside of your office building, you may have both or all circuits go down. This offers some protection and assurance but does not eliminate all threats.
You can also achieve redundancy by utilizing different carriers to bring in and establish your circuits. Advanced routers and IP address allocations can be utilized to make it look to your users and the public that you have a single circuit. Though they may appear as one, you know that they are each individual circuits and redundant to each other. This is called diversity redundancy and offers more protection that the first. You will still have a live, fully functioning carrier if one fails.
When considering redundant circuits and carriers, try to be sure that the carriers you look at in Sacramento, California 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. Ideally, the circuits will be going in different directions and toward various central organization spaces or data centers. In this way you have redundancy in different physical directions. If there is an event that causes a regional circuit problem, you have an alternative that is unaffected.
access to The Internet costs money but the cost of NOT having reliable Internet access is greater. Please think about the following scenarios:
Your office uses a cable modem and, in addition to you, the carrier provides 10-15 additional tenants with circuits. Between 9 and 5, any of those other offices could be downloading huge files, streaming video or taking large volume of phone calls and more. As the amount of available bandwidth diminishes, what will happen to your phone calls? How will the quality of that phone call be affected? Will you lose calls? Will your voice be inaudible? Will you have difficulty hearing the other end?
Regardless of whether you are part of a legal practice and your firm does file sharing, or an accounting practice sharing databases, your office is the central point or hub of your organization. Whether you have 2 locations, 250, or 2000, they all rely on your primary Internet connection to retrieve data and information. Your circuit goes down, now what happens? Would it cause mere annoyance or utter disaster? Is work even possible at your other sites? Process new orders? Share essential data? Be sure you understand your requirements fully before choosing a solution. Perhaps you have hundreds of clients or customers that use a hosted solution that your software organization is running. Maybe you operate a service that allows other systems to communicate with yours via API. This may be to collect miscellaneous data, calculate prices or shipping rates or other information. What will happen when there is a problem connecting to your servers? Customers do not enjoy repeated outages. How long with they put up with them before looking to take their business elsewhere?
Is the internet integral to the proper function of your organization? Do you count on it entirely? Your employees or representatives will not be able to make outgoing phone calls if your circuits go down. No calls could be answered either. Basically, you are done. For competent call centers that already use and understand the problems that can arise, is redundancy enough? Can you truly rely on your providers? Are they as dependable as they claim? Do you consistently get quality service that provides clear and reliable calls?
You have no shortage of options. Your company needs and your budget will have to come into consideration when deciding on your solutions. As a high-level summary:
If your organization is small, with one location or office, you are likely not concerned about redundancy. For you, a single 5, 10 or 50 megabyte Internet access circuit may suffice. Is your building lit? If so, find out about gigabit or Metro Ethernet services. They may be reasonably priced options. 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 net if you have a medium sized business in Sacramento, California. Higher-speed circuits like Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or others may be your best options. Ideally, you want to have the greatest redundancy. You can achieve this by using multiple circuits from different providers. Achieving this may cost extra but it won’t double your costs. Two 50-megabyte circuits may be more cost effective than a single 100 circuit. To repeat, availability and prices vary. In order to find out the options available for you, in your location, you need to speak with one of our seasoned experts.
Any company with more than one location suffers the greatest risk of problems. Redundancy is crucial. It is helpful if they use multiple providers. You can minimize the risk of downtime at if you also have redundant equipment like routers or switches. Here also, examine the Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet providers. Take a careful look at other high-speed access to The web circuit providers before choosing the right one. The correct combination of providers and services can keep your company running smoothly and efficiently.
Companies such as these require the following: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and point-to-point (PPP) high-speed Internet circuits. Redundant hardware and redundant circuits will, for these businesses, ensure the greatest uptime. Be sure the circuits are from different providers. The last thing you want is interruptions or slowdowns affecting your organization. You must provide enough bandwidth to avoid these pitfalls that sometimes occur during sudden usage spikes. 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. The right circuits must meet your demand while keeping you within your budget. Selecting the appropriate mix of circuits and hardware can overwhelm you.
Our engineers will analyze your needs and requirements and develop a free action plan for you. After reviewing your current usage and demand levels, we are going to generate a cost effective plan that provides your company with the resources it needs.
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