The lifeblood of San Clemente, California companies doing organization in the current environment depends upon reliable access to The Internet. All companies, from Fortune 500 to small companies, have functions that rely on easy, dependable and quick Internet access.
Our reliance on access to the web will become greater in the near and distant future.
The web has a significant presence in our lives. From email to information sharing, data archiving to e-commerce, and VOIP to video chat, the web is certainly ubiquitous. How can your needs be met? Will a cable modem be adequate? Metro Ethernet? Gigabit Internet may be required. What does your San Clemente, California organization need? Does it require 10 Meg access to The web, a 100 Meg access to The Internet point, a 50 Meg circuit or a 5 Meg circuit?
The needs of your particular business must be determined before you can select an appropriate service. Is the internet only used for web surfing and email? Is real time data connection with cloud servers vital to your organization? You may be hosting the data in San Clemente and remote sites rely on this.
What happens if you have an outage in your high-speed Internet? What about the downtime that results? Can your company afford that? Is uptime essential to the success of your company? You must answer questions like these so you can make a purchase that actually meets your needs
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 organization is imperative. Don’t be distracted by terminology. While you may hear service providers throw out words and phrases like:
… focus on what matters: what does your organization need and what are the best services and solutions out there to meet those needs?
Companies in San Clemente need access to the web for their employees. Some companies may need it only for a few people and others may need it for the entire workforce. It may be needed for organization research, to order office supplies or other reasons.
The solution you choose may be based on the number of employees you have or expect to have. A 5 or 10 megabyte Internet circuit may be perfect if you only have a few employees. If you have a larger workforce, you may want to consider more. This is especially true if they all need to use the net simultaneously.
If your employees are merely accessing an intranet system with limited graphics and video, your need for high-speed Internet may be reduced. When employees are often downloading images, videos and documents, however, the need for speed increases significantly.
Do you perform backups at your company? Simultaneous connections to the web, which you need in order to sync your backup data, require support. If you conduct remote backups from every workstation, which you definitely should, this will be important.
Are you using Google drive, DropBox or another file sharing service? When people save a file, it gets pushed to the cloud. The file is then synched with other people’s computers. Enough bandwidth is required to support this function along with every other service.
Are you interested in high-speed business Internet? Depending on where you are located, you may want to look into the viability of gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet. These are typically found in “lit buildings” in San Clemente, California. Carriers have already wired these buildings. 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. You can actually get high-speed access with gigabit Internet or even Metro Ethernet quickly. It often takes only 30 days or less, depending on availability.
Does your company host its own servers running websites, APIs or data feeds for other offices or companies outside of your own four walls? Do your headquarters have a hosted Internet application that must be accessed regularly by 40 or 50 branch offices? Does your office host the point of sale (POS) system for every single store in a large retail chain? You may be a law firm hosting data for three or four different offices.
If you host programs, data or information centrally, people outside of the central location need to have access. For those people, no Internet connection means no work gets done. When deciding on the right intranet solution for your company, ask yourself: Is the solution going to adequately support simultaneous and multiple connections from my different sites?
The needs of an office with one employee web surfing may not need more than a cable modem or an inexpensive 5-10 megabyte circuit. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable for the headquarters where high-speed Internet access is important. While fast Internet access is and important, they must also have the capability to handle assorted simultaneous connections. A cable modem would probably not be enough.
In some situations, there is a high price to pay for bringing in an inexpensive circuit or cable modem. While the monthly rate is lower, the bandwidth is generally shared among other tenants. 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. Cable companies are known to limit or predetermine the amount of bandwidth available for delivery in any particular community. That bandwidth reaches out like branches to every building in the community and the people living and working in those buildings. 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?
Some providers offer customers dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. In this situation, your bandwidth is not shared but is fully allocated to your company. 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.
As an example, look at Metro Ethernet. They provide guaranteed bandwidth in various increments. You can receive guaranteed bandwidth in increments of 100, 50, 10 and 5 megabytes. With gigabit Internet providers, you can reach gigabit speeds in your office out to the internet.
Providers 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.
The truth is that circuits can go down in San Clemente, California even though some providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. What can you do to minimize the chance that you will experience an outage of some kind?
Try using redundant circuits.
Redundancy in this situation comes in two forms.
The first kind of redundancy exists when one carrier provides one customer with many circuits. This provides some protection when there are certain failures. Multiple circuits can help for example, when there is a physical line issue or a problem with a router port. Even multiple circuits can fail, such as in the event of a large-scale carrier outage or when there damage to an external line. You get some protection, but also some risk.
You can also achieve redundancy by utilizing different providers 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. But, you know that they are actually separate and redundant. You will get more substantial protection from this diversity redundancy. If one carrier has a widespread issue, you have a carrier that will still be alive.
The carriers you choose for your redundant circuits should have different physical pathways in San Clemente, California. This is an important consideration when trying to obtain the most redundancy. In other words, try to obtain circuits entering the building from different sides of the building. The circuits would be attached to telephone poles (or underground conduits) in different directions leading to different data centers or central 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.
The cost to your company if you do not have reliable Internet access will be far greater than you may realize. Consider the following:
Is your organization on a cable modem? How many other tenants is your carrier servicing in your building? Are 14 other offices getting circuits? During your working day, those tenants could be conducting massive downloads of information, processing a large amount of calls or streaming endless video. How will less available bandwidth affect your telephone calls? What about the quality of your calls? Will you lose calls? Will the calls be choppy?
Your office may be the working center of an entire business enterprise. The kind of organization does not necessarily matter. You may be a law firm doing file sharing, an accounting practice sharing databases or a retailer operating a distributed point-of-sale system. Your primary Internet connection is solely responsible for smoothly granting access and sending data to all of your locations whether you have two or two thousand. What if your circuit fails? Is it simply an irritation or a catastrophe? Are your other offices able to do any work? What about new orders? Dispense and receive data? Be sure you understand your requirements fully before choosing a solution. 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. You may operate a service like this: other systems communicate with yours via an API to figure out freight rates, stock prices, to compile weather data or receive any other information that you provide. You may find that they are unable to reach or connect with your organization servers. If you have repeated outages, how long will they remain a customer?
Your organization is completely dependent on the internet. No calls can go out if your circuits fail. They are also unable to answer calls. Your organization is basically done with. While many of the most reputable call centers are already aware and using the advantages of redundancy, is it sufficiently meeting their needs? Are the providers you currently use as reliable as they should be? Are they as reliable as you need them to be? You should be getting high quality service that ensures your calls are consistently clear and reliable.
You have several different options to pick from. Your company needs and your budget will have to come into consideration when deciding on your solutions. To recap:
If you are a small company, with one location and you do not worry about redundancy, one five meg, ten meg, or fifty meg Internet access 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. Because prices can vary based on the location of your company and the availability of circuits, speak with our engineers to learn your options.
Mid sized companies with a single office in San Clemente, need higher speed Internet access. You may choose between gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. You may also look into other higher-speed Internet circuits. Ideally, multiple circuits from multiple providers will provide you with the greatest redundancy. Achieving this may not be as costly as you first thought. For example, one 100-megabyte circuit may cost more than two smaller 50-megabyte circuits. As a reminder; availability and costs may vary. Learn your options by speaking with one of our knowledgeable experts. We can help you determine what is available in your specific location.
If your organization has several locations or offices, you are at great risk for failure. Redundancy is crucial. Multiple providers or providers are recommended. In addition, consider redundant equipment. Redundant routers and switches can minimize risk also. 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 best mix of providers and services can maximize the productivity and efficiency of your company.
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. Redundant hardware and redundant circuits will, for these businesses, ensure the greatest uptime. Be sure the circuits are from different providers. You need enough bandwidth. The bandwidth must be sufficient to handle spikes in usage with no slowdowns or interruptions. Your circuits and hardware must be able to support a large number of fast and simultaneous connections.
The danger and risk of failing circuits is tremendous. So is the risk of having less bandwidth than you need. The circuit or circuits you have must stay within the parameters of your budget while still meeting your business needs. You have to select the optimal combination of hardware and circuits, which is a daunting task.
Our engineers will analyze your needs and requirements and develop a free action plan for you. Our experts will examine your current usage and demand. We will then generate a design that gives you the resources you need while keeping your company up and running at a reasonable cost.
Please call our office for an assessment appointment or click here to complete the contact form on the right side of the page. Assessments are completed in as little as 48 hours.