Today’s environment demands that companies in Santa Barbara have reliable Internet service in order to run their organization. All companies, large and small, need fast and reliable Internet access.
We’ll become increasingly dependent on access to The net as the months and years progress.
From email messaging to information sharing, e-commerce to archiving data, and voice over IP to video conferencing, the net is omnipresent. What solution bet fits your needs? Is a cable modem sufficient? Is Metro Ethernet necessary? Is Gigabit Internet right for you? A 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg Internet access, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg Internet access point: what is right for your business in Santa Barbara, California?
You must, before selecting a service, assess the actual needs of your business. Is the web only used for web surfing and email? Is it used for real-time data connection with cloud servers? Are you hosting the data in Santa Barbara and distant places or offices rely on you?
Have you thought about what will happen to your business if your high-speed Internet is interrupted by an outage? Can your organization afford the downtime? Is uptime required? Before making a purchase, these are several of the questions that you must answer.
Plainly stated, companies require high-speed access to The Internet. You need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits to your company before choosing the right broadband. While many service providers throw around terminologies such as:
… you must not lose sight of the real issue, which is understanding what technical solutions best meet your needs.
Most companies in Santa Barbara require that some or all of their workers have access to the internet. Whether it is to speak with shippers, do research or place orders, access to The web is required.
The number of employees you have may determine your best solution. A 5 or 10 megabyte Internet circuit may be perfect if you only have a few employees. You may need more if you have more workers and those workers all need to be on the internet during the same hours.
If your employees are merely accessing an intranet system with limited graphics and video, your need for high-speed Internet may be reduced. However, employees who must often download documents, images and videos, need that speed.
Does your business regularly conduct 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.
Does your business use a file sharing service? DropBox? Google drive? When you save a file it is pushed to the cloud. Then it is synched to the computer or computers of someone else. 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 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 Santa Barbara. Carriers have already wired these buildings. The ease and affordability of adding high-speed Internet to your office may surprise you.
If you have to bring Metro Ethernet into a new building, it can be expensive but bringing that connection to an office or suite within the building is usually not. In fact, in as little as 30 days, you may be able to obtain high-speed access to the internet with either gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. It depends upon availability.
Does your company host its own servers? Does your company use the hosted servers to run data feeds, APIs or websites for offices or businesses located elsewhere? Maybe your business requires that dozens of satellite offices have access to a hosted application at your company main headquarters. Are you a retail chain hosting the POS system for 12, 000 stores? Are you a legal practice hosting the data for three locations?
When data, programs, or information is hosted centrally, those outside your office must gain access. Those people are not able to do their work if the net connection fails or is unreliable. 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 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. It is advisable that high-speed access to The net be available at the central company office or headquarters, including gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuits. High-speed alone is not enough. They must also need to be capable of supporting many diverse connections. A cable modem would likely be insufficient.
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. 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. That bandwidth reaches out like branches to every building in the community and the people living and working in those buildings. You might be capped at 30-megabyte speed, but may never be able to actually reach that speed during the important hours of your business day. Is it a problem if you get a quarter or even half of the speed you expected?
Some providers offer customers dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. With these options, bandwidth is yours. It is not shared with anyone outside of your business. The full capacity of your circuit should be attainable during all hours regardless of neighboring buildings, people or offices.
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. In your office out to the internet you can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit providers
In these situations, each tenant receives their contracted high-speed. The carrier delivers enough so they can split their circuit and provide enough to each tenant.
Santa Barbara has some carriers that offer exceptional Internet bandwidth products and services. However, circuits can still go down and cause disruption. Ask this question: “what can I do to decrease the likelihood of an outage?
Circuits that are redundant may be a good idea.
Redundancy in this situation comes in two forms.
The first type exists when the same carrier gives you multiple 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. It is possible for both circuits to go down. If your carrier has a regional problem like a widespread outage, or there is a broken line outside your building, even your redundant circuits may fail. While there is some protection, there is also some risk.
The second way to set up circuit redundancy is by using two different carriers 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. In reality, they are completely separate 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.
The providers you choose for your redundant circuits should have different physical pathways in Santa Barbara. This is an important consideration when trying to obtain the most redundancy. Alternatively stated, try to have your circuits enter the building on different sides from one another. They would be on outside phone poles or underground conduits in different directions and leading to different 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.
access to The Internet costs money but the cost of NOT having reliable access to The web is greater. Consider these scenarios:
Is your business on a cable modem? How many other tenants is your carrier servicing in your building? Are 14 other offices getting circuits? During business hours, any of those tenants could be streaming video, performing massive file downloads, processing large volumes of phone calls and more. How will less available bandwidth affect your telephone calls? What will happen to the strength and quality of that call? Are the calls going to be dropped? Will you sound muffled or choppy to your customers?
Your office is the center of your organization. You may be a law firm that does file sharing or a retailer operating a POS system. All of your locations, whether 2 or 2000, rely on your primary Internet connection to access and retrieve data. What happens in the event of a circuit failure? Would you merely be annoyed? Would there be catastrophic consequences? Are remote offices able to work at all? What happens to new orders? Can they be taken or processed? Share essential data? Before choosing a solution, be sure to assess and really understand what your company requires. You might have hundreds and hundreds of loyal customers. Perhaps you are a software company running a hosted solution they all rely on. Do you operate a service where other systems communicate with 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? What if these other systems have difficulty connecting your servers? How will repeated outages affect your customers? Will they remain customers?
Your business is completely dependent on the internet. What if your representatives can make no outgoing telephone calls because your circuits go down? Your representatives would also be unable to answer calls. You are now officially out of company. Is redundancy enough? Many of the finest call centers with the best reputations already understand and use redundancy. They should consider if they have sufficient protection. Are you really getting the dependable service you need form your providers? Are you using providers that are truly reliable? Is the quality of your calls consistently and reliably clear?
It should be clear by now that you have many different options to select from. Your choices will largely rely on your budget, in addition to the other requirements of your business. Essentially:
Sometimes redundancy is not essential to you. For example, If you are a small organization, with just one office location, a single access to The web circuit may be adequate. You may get by with one 50, 10 or even 5 megabyte circuit. If you are in a “lit” building, Metro Ethernet or gigabit service 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 have a midsized company in Santa Barbara; you will surely need higher-speed Internet. Higher-speed circuits like Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or others may be your best options. In a perfect world, you will achieve maximum redundancy by utilizing multiple carriers to provide and service different circuits. You may be able to achieve this in a manner that will not break the bank. For instance, it may be cheaper to utilize two 50 meg circuits in place of one 100 meg circuit. Availability and costs 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. They need redundant circuits. Multiple carriers would be great. 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 Internet access circuit providers before choosing the right one. Your organization can benefit from finding the right mix of services and carriers.
If you fall into this group, you must have Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet circuits and point-to-point High-speed Internet circuits. In order to maximize and protect your uptime, you must have redundancy. You should have redundant circuits from multiple carriers in addition to redundant hardware. You need enough bandwidth. The bandwidth must be sufficient 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.
Your business faces great risk of less than adequate bandwidth and failing circuits. You must select the single circuit or multiple circuits that can meet your demands and stay within your budget. You have to select the optimal combination of hardware and circuits, which is a daunting task.
We have engineers that will analyze your needs, look at your business requirements and develop an action plan for you… for free!We are going to formulate a design or plan based partly on your current usage and demand levels. We’ll create something cost effective that gives you the resources your business needs, while keeping it running smoothly.
You can complete the contact form on the right side of this page by clicking here. If you would prefer, please call our office to set up an appointment for an assessment. Assessments are done in as few as two days or within 48 hours.