The Net in Springfield, Massachusetts: High-Speed Access

Springfield High Speed Access to The Web: Metro Ethernet Access, Gigabit Internet and Business Broadband Internet

The lifeblood of Springfield companies doing company in the current environment relies on reliable Internet access. All companies, from Fortune 500 to small businesses, have functions that rely on easy, dependable and quick Internet access.

Our dependence on access to The web will continue to grow in the coming months and years.

Our uses of the internet reach far and wide. From data sharing, video calls, and shopping to VOIP and email, the net has a broad presence. How can your needs be met? Is a cable modem enough? Your needs may point to Metro Ethernet as a solution. You may need Gigabit Internet. Your Springfield organization probably needs a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg Internet access, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The net point but which one is best?

Determining your Organization Need for Internet Access

Before choosing an adequate or appropriate service, you must decide what your organization really needs. Perhaps the web is only used for a few things such as email communication or surfing the web. Is connecting with cloud servers and sharing real time data the main use of the internet? You may be hosting the data in Springfield, Massachusetts and remote places rely on this.

What happens to your company if your high-speed Internet experiences an outage? How much downtime can your business withstand? Does your business require uptime? Prior to making any purchases, you must determine the answers to these questions.

Looking at Different High Speed Internet Solutions: Springfield

High-speed access to the net is something all companies need. You need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits to your company before choosing the right broadband internet. While you are likely to hear some providers toss around terms such as:

• Fast access to The net is for you!
• Business Internet service provider
• broadband cable modems
• Metropolitan-area Ethernet
• Gigabit Ethernet services or Gigabit Internet
• MPLS services
• Point-to-point circuit protocol
• 5-megabyte access circuits
• Ten megabyte Internet access
• High-speed 50-megabyte access to The Internet circuits
• Internet access circuits- One hundred Meg
• We provide sip trunks
• dedicated Internet access
• … and countless others

… the actual issue is knowing what technology and capability can satisfy your needs.

Business Access: Surfing the internet at Work

At most businesses including those in Springfield, Massachusetts, some or all employees need access to The Internet. It may be needed for business research, to order office supplies or other reasons.

The best solution may rely upon how many employees you have. 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 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.

Your workforce may simply use an intranet system with limited video and graphics. If this is true, your need for high speed Internet be less than you thought. When employees are often downloading images, videos and documents, however, the need for speed increases significantly.

Are you performing routine 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.

Are you using Google drive, DropBox or another file sharing service? When you save a file it is pushed to the cloud. Then it is synched to the computer or computers of someone else. You need to have sufficient bandwidth to support this function while also supporting every other service.

Depending on your location, high-speed business Internet access, including Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options. They are usually contained in “lit buildings” in Springfield that have already been wired by a carrier. If you’d like to install high-speed Internet in your office, you should know that it might be more affordable than you realize.

While bringing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be an expensive proposition, bringing that connection to a suite within the building is not. In fact, obtaining high-speed access to The web with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less depending upon availability.

Online Applications Need High-Speed access to The Internet

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? Do fifty or so branch offices need access to a hosted application at your company headquarters? Are you hosting the point of sale (POS) system for 15, 000 retail chain stores? Do you run a law office that hosts the data for satellite offices in different cities or states?

Granting access to outsiders is necessary when you host data and programs at a central location. For those people, no Internet connection means no work gets done. 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.

If you have one office using the web, you may get by with a cable modem or a low- cost 10-megabyte circuit. Company headquarters should have high-speed access to The net such as gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit. All offer quick speed but they must also be able to support diverse and multiple connections. This could probably not be accomplished with a cable modem.

Shared Cable Circuits in Springfield Versus Dedicated Internet Bandwidth

Bringing in a less-expensive circuit like a cable modem often comes with a price. Even though you pay less money per month you must consider that the bandwidth you receive may be shared and used by multiple parties in the building. 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. Buildings, offices and tenants within the buildings all must share that amount of bandwidth, whatever it may be. You might be capped at 30-megabyte speed, but may never be able to actually reach that speed during the important hours of your organization day. Will there be trouble if your expectation is set at 30 but you only get 8 or 10?

Some providers offer customers dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. With these options, bandwidth is yours. It is not shared with anyone outside of your business. No matter who is in the building or what buildings surround you, you should always run at full speed.

Metro Ethernet provides guaranteed bandwidth in increments as follows: 5, 10, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. Gigabit Internet providers offer gigabit speeds from your office to the web.

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.

Springfield High Speed Business Internet Circuits: Redundancy

Despite outstanding Internet bandwidth products offered by carriers in Springfield, circuits do go down. What can you do to minimize the chance that you will experience an outage of some kind?

Try using redundant circuits.

Essentially, there are two different ways to look at redundancy.

The first is where you get multiple circuits from one carrier. 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. If that carrier has a wide reaching outage or there is a line broken or damaged outside of your building, both circuits may go down. You get some protection, but also some risk.

The second way to set up circuit redundancy is by using two different carriers to bring in your circuits. 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. But, you know that they are actually separate and redundant. Diversity redundancy provides greater assurance, comfort and 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 providers you look at in Springfield 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 be attached underground or to telephone poles, in various directions. The circuits would go to different data centers or central offices. If you can accomplish this, you are protected from a major catastrophe. For example, if a there is a fire or some other accident that negatively affects circuits in a region, you have redundancy in a physically different direction.

Not Having Adequate Protection for your High-Speed Internet access: What is the Cost to Your Organization?

While access to The web is not free, it pales in comparison with the cost of not having reliable Internet access. Consider these scenarios:

You use VoIP for your organization telephone service

If your company utilizes a cable modem, consider whether your carrier is providing circuits for multiple other tenants within the building. What if any or all of those tenants are huge call centers taking in a massive volume of phone calls, are organization that perform large file downloads or stream many videos? As the amount of available bandwidth diminishes, what will happen to your phone calls? What happens to the quality of that phone call? Are the calls going to be dropped? Will you sound muffled?

Maybe your organization acts as a data center for various other locations

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 company. All of your offices, whether you have 3 or 3, 000, rely on your primary Internet connection to successfully access data. What if your circuit fails? Is it just irritating? Is it going to cause tremendous problems? Can meaningful work be conducted at your remote offices? What will happen to new orders? Can they be taken or processed? Share essential information with anyone? Picking the right a solution can be difficult. Before doing so, be sure you fully understand your requirements. You might have hundreds and hundreds of loyal customers. Perhaps you are a software company running a hosted solution they all depend on. Do you operate a service where other systems speak 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 will happen when there is a problem connecting to your servers? How will repeated outages affect your customers? Will they remain customers?

The telephone system at your call center relies on VoIP

Is the internet integral to the proper function of your organization? Do you count on it entirely? No calls can go out if your circuits fail. In addition, they will be unable to answer incoming calls. You are now, essentially, out of business. Even for the most reputable call centers that already know of and use redundancy, is it sufficient? Make sure your carriers are as reliable as possible. Is the quality of your calls consistently and reliably clear?

Select the Springfield High-Speed Business Access Circuits Best Suited for Your Company

Clearly, there are many choices. Your budget, as well as the needs of your company, will help drive your decisions. Essentially:

Small Organization Internet Access

A single fifty, ten or five megabyte access to The web circuit may be adequate to meet the needs of your small business, particularly if you have only one location and are not worried about redundancy. Metro Ethernet service or gigabit service may also be a reasonably priced option if you are in a lit building. Prices vary based on your location and availability of circuits; speak with our engineers to find your best option.

Mid-Sized Businesses access to The Internet – One Location

Mid-sized businesses in Springfield, Massachusetts should be equipped with higher-speed Internet. Your choices include: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or other high-speed circuits. Optimally, multiple carriers and multiple circuits will give you the most redundancy. Achieving this may not be as costly as you first thought. For instance, it may be cheaper to utilize two 50 meg circuits in place of one 100 meg circuit. Again, costs vary. Availability also varies. You should speak with our experts to learn the options for your particular location.

Access to the internet for the Mid-Sized Business with Several Offices

Companies with multiple places are most at risk for failure. Redundant circuits are essential. Varied providers are optimal. In addition, consider redundant equipment. Redundant routers and switches can minimize risk also. 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 organization run as efficiently as possible.

Providers of services that rely on the net for their delivery, big corporate clients and enterprise customers

For businesses that fit this description, it is essential to have gigabit Internet circuits, point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits and Metro Ethernet Internet circuits. You must have redundant circuits for multiple providers as well as redundant hardware in your office to ensure your uptime. You need enough bandwidth. The bandwidth must be sufficient to handle spikes in usage with no slowdowns or interruptions. Be sure to have the right circuits and hardware. They both must be able to support multiple, fast, concurrent connections.

Free Analysis: Internet Need and Demand

There is great risk of failing circuits or insufficient bandwidth. Your demand and budget constraints should both be considered when you decide what circuit or combination of circuits you must have. The pressure involved in selecting the proper mix of hardware and circuits can be overwhelming.

Our engineers can analyze your needs and create a free action plan for you. We’ll examine your demand levels and current usage. We are going to then design a plan that keeps your costs reasonable while meeting your demand for a smoothly run organization.

If you would like to arrange for an assessment, please click here to complete the contact information form to the right. You can call our office as well. Assessments are done in as few as two days or within 48 hours.