Reliable access to The web is the lifeblood of Smyrna companies and their business. Fast and reliable access to The net is needed for companies to function properly; large corporations and small businesses alike.
We are going to become increasingly dependent on access to The net as the months and years progress.
From video chat to voice over IP, email to data sharing and data archiving to Internet commerce, the net is everywhere you look. What is the best solution for you? A cable modem may be satisfactory. Metro Ethernet? Your needs may be met with Gigabit Internet. What does your Smyrna, Georgia organization need? Does it require 10 Meg access to The net, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 Meg circuit or a 5 Meg circuit?
The needs of your particular company must be determined before you can select an appropriate service. Is the web primarily used for emailing or web surfing? Is it used to network with cloud servers? You may be hosting the data in Smyrna and remote places rely on this.
What happens if you have an outage in your high-speed Internet? Can your company afford a long pause or lull in productivity? Is your success dependent on uptime? Ask yourself these questions before making any purchases. The answers will help you determine what is right for you.
Speaking broadly, all companies need high-speed access to the web. When picking the correct broadband, balancing the costs and benefits to your business is imperative. You will hear service providers use terms like:
… the actual issue is knowing what technology and capability can satisfy your needs.
At most businesses including those in Smyrna, some or all employees need Internet access. Whether it is to speak with shippers, do research or place orders, Internet access is required.
The number of workers you have may be the factor that drives your decision. A 5 or 10 megabyte Internet circuit may be perfect if you only have a few employees. If your organization has nearly 50 people, however, and they all need to use the internet at the same time, you may find that more is better.
Perhaps most workers at your company use an intranet system with limited features. High- speed Internet may not be a priority in this case. If your business functions demand the downloading of documents and images or videos on a regular basis, speed becomes a must more important issue.
Are you performing backups? If you are doing remote backups from every desk, which is advisable, you will need to be able to support simultaneous connections out to the web to synchronize your backup data.
Does your company require employees to share files using a service like Google drive or DropBox? 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.
Depending on where you are, you may want to look into high-speed organization access to The web such as Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet. They are usually contained in “lit buildings” in Smyrna, Georgia that have already been wired by a carrier. The ease and affordability of adding high-speed Internet to your office may surprise you.
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. 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.
Ask yourself this: Does we host our own servers to run APIs, websites and data feeds to external offices or business premises? Are your corporate headquarters with a hosted application utilized by 50 branch offices? Are you a retail business with 10, 000 stores? Do you host the POS system for all of them? Are you an attorney with offices multiple cities or states? Do you have one office hosting data for several 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 web connection fails or is unreliable. Are you choosing an intranet solution that is sufficiently reliable and stable to support multiple simultaneous connections from varied places?
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. Company headquarters should have high-speed Internet access such as gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit. High speed is important but they also must be able to support multiple distinct connections. This could probably not be accomplished with a cable modem.
Bringing in a less-expensive circuit like a cable modem often comes with a price. You may save money on your monthly bill but the bandwidth you get must be shared among many people. It is possible that you have a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection but cannot reach proper speeds during peak hours. Cable operators are only permitted to establish a certain amount of bandwidth within communities. That bandwidth branches off to different buildings and then to various tenants within those buildings. During crucial working hours, you may not get to the 30-meg speed you have been capped at. Is this a problem for you if you expect 30 and get 6?
You can sign up for dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth from some carriers. In this case, your organization receives full allocation of bandwidth. There is no sharing with any outsiders. 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. Gigabit speeds from your office to the internet can be reached if you use a gigabit Internet provider.
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.
Smyrna, Georgia has some providers that offer exceptional Internet bandwidth products and services. However, circuits can still go down and cause disruption. How can you lower the chances that you will experience some kind of outage?
You may be a candidate for redundant circuits.
There are, in essence, two types of redundancy.
With the first kind, you receive several circuits but they all come from the same carrier. In this situation, the redundancy helps protect you from port issues or physical line issues. If your carrier experiences a regional outage or you have a line broken outside of your building, you may lose the use of all of your circuits. This offers some protection and assurance but does not eliminate all threats.
In the second type of redundancy, you bring in circuits from two different providers. You may want your circuits to appear and act as if they are one and come from the same source. If so you can use IP address allocations and advanced routers to do so. However, despite appearances, they are actually very much separate and are redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy, as this is called, offers you more protection that you might realize. 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 providers, try to be sure that the providers you look at in Smyrna, Georgia 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. The circuits would attached to the proper outside source whether a subterranean conduit or a telephone pole. They would be set up in different directions and would lead to different data centers or main office spaces. By doing this, if there is a significant problem such as a fire at a data center, you have redundancy in an alternative physical direction.
While access to The web is not free, it pales in comparison with the cost of not having reliable Internet access. Consider these scenarios:
Your office uses a cable modem and, in addition to you, the carrier provides 10-15 additional tenants with circuits. 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? As they use more bandwidth, there is less for available to meet your requirements. What happens to your phone calls? What about the quality of your calls? Are the calls going to be dropped? Will you sound muffled or choppy to your customers?
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. Every single one of your offices, stores and places rely on you and your primary Internet connection to retrieve data. If your circuit goes done, what will happen next? Would it cause mere annoyance or utter disaster? Can your satellite or remote office do any work at all? What about new orders? Circulate essential files 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 talk to yours via API. This may be to collect miscellaneous data, calculate prices or shipping prices or other information. It is possible they will not be able to connect to your servers. Customers will only take so many repeated outages. How long with they remain with your company?
Your company is 100% dependent on the net to properly function. Should your circuits go down, your representatives cannot make outbound calls. No calls could be answered either. You are now officially out of company. Even for the most reputable call centers that already know of and use redundancy, is it sufficient? Are your current carriers as dependable as you would like? Are you getting quality service so that your calls are clear and consistent?
You have no shortage of options. Your decision will be based on different factors including your company needs and your budget. In summary:
If you are a small company, with one location and you do not worry about redundancy, one five meg, ten meg, or fifty meg access to The Internet circuit may very well be enough to meet your needs. Metro Ethernet service or gigabit service may also be a reasonably priced option if you are in a lit building. Costs vary with location and the availability of circuits so speak with our engineers. Together, we can find the best option for you and your business.
You have a midsized company in Smyrna; you will surely need higher-speed Internet. Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet and other higher speed Internet circuits are options to consider. 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. For example, you may use 2 fifty meg circuits instead of 1 one hundred meg circuit. Do not forget that you will find variations in price and availability. 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 sites, whether 5 or 50, are at the highest risk. They need redundant circuits. Multiple providers or providers are recommended. Also, redundant equipment such as switches and routers in your facility can minimize the risk of downtime. Take a careful look at Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers and gigabit Internet providers. Research other high-speed Internet access circuit providers also and make an informed decision. The right mix can help. If you can figure out the best combination of providers and services for your business, you will benefit.
For companies falling in this category, gigabit Internet circuits, Metro Ethernet Internet circuits and point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits are essential. Redundant hardware and redundant circuits will, for these businesses, ensure the greatest uptime. Be sure the circuits are from different providers. Spikes or sudden increase in usage can result in Internet slowdowns or disruptions in service. You can decrease the risk of these events by having sufficient bandwidth. Having both your hardware and your circuits capable of supporting many different, fast, and simultaneous connections is essential. It cannot be one or the other.
The danger and risk of failing circuits is tremendous. So is the risk of having less bandwidth than you need. You must select the single circuit or multiple circuits that can meet your demands and stay within your budget. The pressure involved in selecting the proper mix of hardware and circuits can be overwhelming.
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 company with the resources it needs.
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. We do assessments quickly. It can take as little as 48 hours to complete your analysis.