These days, companies in San Luis Obispo, California rely on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their company. All companies depend on reliable and quick Internet access. This is true no matter how large or small the company.
Internet access will become increasingly essential to us in the coming months and years. Our dependence on Internet access will only grow as time goes on.
From video conferencing to voice over IP, email to data sharing and data archiving to Internet commerce, the internet is everywhere you look. What is the best solution for you? Can a cable modem suffice? Maybe you need Metro Ethernet. Would Gigabit Internet suffice? Does your San Luis Obispo company need a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The web, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg Internet access point?
Prior to selecting a service, your organization must figure out its needs. Perhaps the net is only used for a few things such as email communication or surfing the web. Is it used for real-time data connection with cloud servers? Perhaps you, in San Luis Obispo, are hosting the data and remote sites rely upon this.
What happens if you have an outage in your high-speed Internet? How will the downtime affect your company? How much uptime is essential to your company? Prior to making any purchases, you must determine the answers to these questions.
High-speed Internet access is required by all businesses. Choosing the correct broadband for your organization requires a cost benefit analysis. Many service providers toss out terms 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 San Luis Obispo, California require that some or all of their workers have access to the web. Whether it is for company research, to order supplies or to use third-party applications, the net is required.
The number of workers you employ, may be the most important factor in your decision making process. If you have a handful of employees, a 5 or 10 Meg Internet circuit may be adequate. If you have 50 employees who are using the web simultaneously, you may need more.
High-speed Internet may become less important if the majority of your employees primarily use 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 performing routine backups? 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.
Do you use a file-sharing service? Perhaps you use Google drive, DropBox or a different service? The saved files go to the cloud and are then synchronized or “shared” with other people’s computers. The right amount of capacity or bandwidth is necessary to support this function in conjunction with every other service you have.
High-speed organization access to The Internet like Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options for you depending on your location. These are typically found in “lit buildings” in San Luis Obispo. Carriers have already wired these buildings. You may be surprised by how easy and affordable it is to add high-speed Internet to your business.
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 access to The Internet in thirty days or less, depending on availability.
Does your company 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 company headquarters with a hosted application connected to fifty or more satellite offices? Perhaps you are in retail and host the point of sale (POS) system for thousands of stores? Do you run a law office that hosts the data for satellite offices in different cities or states?
Access to data and programs by people outside of your main location becomes necessary when you host information centrally. Those people are not able to work without a solid Internet connection. 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?
A cable modem or fairly cheap 10-megabyte circuit may be enough in certain scenarios. For example, these may meet the needs of a single office surfing the web. For the headquarters, high-speed access to The web including Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable. While all offer high speeds, they also need to be capable of supporting multiple diverse connections. Do you think a cable modem is sufficient? It is probably not.
In some situations, there is a high price to pay for bringing in an inexpensive circuit or cable modem. You may have to share bandwidth in order to secure that low monthly rate. 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. Whatever that amount of bandwidth is, it branches into all buildings in the community and to all tenants in those buildings. While you may be capped at thirty-megabyte speed, will you ever reach that speed during business hours? Is getting 7 when you expect 30 a problem?
Guaranteed bandwidth and dedicated bandwidth are solutions that some carriers offer. In this situation, you do not have to share bandwidth. The bandwidth is all yours and is fully allocated to the needs of 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.
You can receive guaranteed bandwidth with Metro Ethernet. You can receive it in increments of five, 10, 50 or one hundred megabyte circuits. With gigabit Internet providers, you can reach gigabit speeds in your office out to the web.
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.
The truth is that circuits can go down in San Luis Obispo even though some providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. How can you decrease the chance of an outage?
You may be a candidate for redundant circuits.
Redundancy basically comes in two forms.
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. 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.
The second way to set up circuit redundancy is by using two different providers to bring in your circuits. For users and the public, you can make it look like you have one cohesive circuit. You can also make the connections act as a single circuit. You can do this with various advanced routers and IP address allocations. However, despite appearances, they are actually very much separate and are redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy offers far greater protection. Should one carrier have some trouble that extends to a greater area and is out of your control, you are backed up with a different carrier.
When considering redundant circuits and carriers, try to be sure that the carriers you look at in San Luis Obispo, California have different physical geographic routes or pathways. Doing so will maximize redundancy. Your goal should be to get circuits coming into your building on different sides. You do not want them on the same side. Whether they are attached underground or to a telephone pole, your goal should be to have the circuits in different directions leading to different central places. If a major accident occurs or there is a fire that impedes the function of circuits in a particular region, you have redundancy in a different direction.
It is true that Internet access costs you money. However, the cost does not come close to what you will pay if the access that is not reliable. Please consider these situations:
You are on a cable modem with the carrier providing circuits to 14 other tenants in your building. Any of these tenants may be taking many calls, conducting huge downloads or streaming video during your regular office hours. As available bandwidth shrinks, what will happen to your calls? What will happen to the strength and quality of that call? Will you lose calls? Will the calls be choppy?
Your office is the hub of your enterprise: You might be a law practice that shares files, a retail operation that utilizes POS systems or a large accounting firm that needs to share databases. Whether you have 2 locations, 250, or 2000, they all depend on your primary Internet connection to retrieve data and information. What happens if your circuit crashes? Would it cause mere annoyance or utter disaster? Is work even possible at your other places? What will happen to new orders? Can they be taken or processed? Disseminate needed information and data? Picking the right a solution can be difficult. Before doing so, be sure you fully understand your requirements. You have a software company, and are running a hosted solution for dozens, maybe hundreds, of customers. 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 prices or other information. What if other systems can’t connect to your office servers? If you have repeated outages, how long will they remain a customer?
Is the net integral to the proper function of your company? Do you rely on it entirely? Should your circuits stop working, imagine your people being unable to make any outbound phone calls. No calls could be answered either. Looks like you are now out of company. While many of the most reputable call centers are already aware and using the advantages of redundancy, is it sufficiently meeting their needs? Can you truly rely on your carriers? Are they as dependable as they claim? You should be getting high quality service that ensures your calls are consistently clear and reliable.
You have several different options to pick from. The needs and budget of your company will both affect your choices. As a wrap-up:
Sometimes redundancy is not crucial to you. For example, If you are a small company, with just one office location, a single access to The web circuit may be sufficient. You may get by with one 50, 10 or even 5 megabyte circuit. 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.
Having a medium or mid-sized company in San Luis Obispo, California requires that you have higher-speed access to the web. Your options are Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and higher speed circuits. Optimally, multiple providers and multiple circuits will give you the most redundancy. Achieving this may cost extra but it won’t double your costs. For example, one 100-megabyte circuit may cost more than two smaller 50-megabyte circuits. Again, costs vary. Availability also varies. Learn your options by speaking with one of our knowledgeable experts. We can help you determine what is available in your specific location.
Companies with different places, whether 5 or 50, are at the highest risk. Redundancy is crucial. Multiple providers would be great. You can minimize the risk of downtime at if you also have redundant equipment like routers or switches. As always, take a careful look and choose the right Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed access to The web circuit providers. Finding the best combination of services, providers and equipment can go a long way toward helping your business run as efficiently as possible.
Companies such as these require the following: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and point-to-point (PPP) high-speed Internet circuits. You absolutely need redundant circuits from different providers as well as redundant hardware. This is important to ensuring uptime. You need enough bandwidth. The bandwidth must be adequate to handle spikes in usage with no slowdowns or interruptions. Both your hardware and circuits must be capable of supporting a vast number of simultaneous and fast connections.
Do not risk having failing circuits or not enough bandwidth. It is imperative that the circuit or circuits you choose meet your needs but also keep you within your allowable budget. You have to select the optimal combination of hardware and circuits, which is 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 organization with the resources it needs.
An appointment for an assessment can be made by calling our office or clicking here to complete the contact form on the side of this page. Assessments are completed in as little as 48 hours.