In today’s world, Springfield companies need dependable access to The Internet. It is the lifeblood of their company. The business functions of every company, whether it is a small business or on the Fortune 500, from Fortune 500, depends upon fast and reliable access to The net.
In the months and years ahead, people and businesses will become more reliant on access to the net.
From video chat to voice over IP, email to data sharing and data archiving to Internet commerce, the web is everywhere you look. What is the best fix for your needs? Is a cable modem sufficient? Your needs may point to Metro Ethernet as a solution. Would Gigabit Internet suffice? A 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The Internet, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg Internet access point: what is right for your business in Springfield, Missouri?
Your organization must assess its real needs. This must be done before an appropriate service can be chosen. Is the net primarily used for emailing or web surfing? Will Internet usage mainly involve cloud servers and real time data connection? Perhaps you, in Springfield, Missouri, are hosting the data and remote sites depend upon this.
What happens if you have an outage in your high-speed Internet? How will the downtime affect your organization? Is your success dependent on uptime? You must answer these questions before you buy.
Plainly stated, companies require high-speed access to The Internet. When choosing the right broadband for organization, you need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits. While many providers like to spout technical terminologies 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 Springfield require that some or all of their workers have access to the net. The net is required for so many things, whether to order items, look up business information communicate with third parties.
The number of workers you have may be the factor that drives your decision. 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 you have many employees who need to use the net at the same time, you may do better with more.
Do your employees primarily use an intranet system? If so, you may not need much high-speed Internet service. However, employees who must often download documents, images and videos, need that speed.
Do you routinely backup? 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. Enough bandwidth is required to support this function along with every other service.
Depending on where you are, you may want to look into high-speed company access to The net such as Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet. These can usually be found in Springfield, Missouri in “lit buildings” that have already been wired. Adding this high-speed Internet to your office may be surprisingly affordable and easy.
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. Depending on availability, it is often possible to obtain high-speed Internet access with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet in 30 days or less.
Do you have your own company servers that run APIs, websites or feeds for offsite offices or companies? Is your main organization office with a hosted application accessed by 40 or even 50 branch office sites? Perhaps you are in retail and host the point of sale (POS) system for thousands of stores? Are you a legal practice hosting the data for three locations?
Access to data and programs by people outside of your main location becomes necessary when you host information centrally. For those people, no Internet connection means no work gets done. If you need multiple connections to function at the same time from many different places, make sure that your intranet solution can reliably support it.
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 Internet be available at the central company office or headquarters, including gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuits. While fast Internet access is and important, they must also have the capability to handle assorted simultaneous connections. This could probably not be accomplished with a cable modem.
In many cases, installing an inexpensive cable modem comes at a price. There may be a lower monthly rate, but bandwidth is usually shared with many tenants. During peak hours, your connection may slow down, even though you subscribe to a cable modem with a thirty-megabyte connection. Often, within a given community, cable companies may only deliver a particular amount of bandwidth. 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. Is it a problem if you get a quarter or even half of the speed you expected?
You can sign up for dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth from some carriers. With these options, bandwidth is yours. It is not shared with anyone outside of your business. Regardless of neighbors, or other tenants, you should have the full capacity of your circuit at all times.
You can receive guaranteed bandwidth with Metro Ethernet. You can receive it in increments of five, 10, 50 or one hundred megabyte circuits. You can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit Internet providers.
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.
Springfield, Missouri 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?
The answer is redundant circuits.
Redundancy basically comes in two forms.
The first kind of redundancy exists when one carrier provides one customer with many circuits. If there is a problem with a line or a port in your router, circuit redundancy can offer some protection. 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. While offering some protection, it is not without risk.
You can also achieve redundancy by utilizing different providers to bring in and establish 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. Though they may appear as one, you know that they are each individual circuits and redundant to each other. You will get more substantial protection from this diversity redundancy. You will still have a live, fully functioning carrier if one fails.
If you want to maximize redundancy in Springfield, Missouri please consider the following question: Do the providers I am considering use the same physical geographic pathways? Alternatively stated, try to have your circuits enter the building on different sides from one another. The circuits would be attached underground or to telephone poles, in various directions. The circuits would go to different data centers or central offices. What if there is some kind of catastrophic incident such as a fire or accident that impacts circuits within a region? Now, you have redundancy in an alternative physical direction.
The cost to your company if you do not have reliable Internet access will be far greater than you may realize. Please consider these situations:
Are you on a cable modem and your carrier is providing circuits to dozens of other office suites in your building? Any of these tenants may be taking many calls, conducting huge downloads or streaming video during your regular office hours. How will less available bandwidth affect your telephone calls? What about phone call quality? Are calls lost or dropped? Will they be full of static?
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? Is it just irritating? Is it going to cause tremendous problems? Can your satellite offices perform any work at all? Process or take new orders? Share essential data? Before choosing a solution, be sure to assess and really understand what your business requires. Maybe you are a corporation that designs and sells software and you run a hosted solution that is used by hundreds and hundreds of customers. Maybe you offer a service that allows other systems use an application program interface (API) to communicate with you to collect information and data. What will happen when there is a problem connecting to your servers? If you have repeated outages, how long will they remain a customer?
Maybe your business depends entirely on the net. Should your circuits go down, your representatives cannot make outbound calls. No calls could be answered either. You are now, essentially, out of organization. While most call centers that are reputable use redundancy, is it enough? Can you truly rely on your providers? Are they as dependable as they claim? Are you getting quality service so that your calls are clear and consistent?
You clearly have several choices. Your company needs and your budget will have to come into consideration when deciding on your solutions. As a high-level summary:
Sometimes redundancy is not vital to you. For example, If you are a small organization, with just one office location, a single Internet access circuit may be sufficient. You may get by with one 50, 10 or even 5 megabyte circuit. For an office in a lit building, you may find that gigabit service or Metro Ethernet are affordable options for you. Because prices can vary based on the location of your business and the availability of circuits, speak with our engineers to learn your options.
Having a medium or mid-sized company in Springfield, Missouri requires that you have higher-speed access to the web. Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet and other higher speed Internet circuits are options to consider. In a perfect scenario, multiple circuits from different providers 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 and availability vary. Speaking with one of our experts will help you determine the options available in your specific location.
Companies with different sites, whether 5 or 50, are at the highest risk. Redundant circuits are a necessity. Multiple providers or carriers are recommended. You can increase redundancy with switches or routers. Having redundant equipment can also minimize risk. 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. The best mix of carriers and services can maximize the productivity and efficiency of your company.
If you fall into this group, you must have Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet circuits and point-to-point High-speed Internet circuits. You will want to have the greatest protection of your uptime. To accomplish this you must have redundancy: redundant circuits from multiple providers and redundant hardware for your system. You need enough bandwidth. The bandwidth must be adequate 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.
Do you understand how great the risk of failing circuits and insufficient bandwidth really is? It is imperative that the circuit or circuits you choose meet your needs but also keep you within your allowable 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. We will look at your current usage, demand levels and scope out a design to give you the resources you need while keeping your company up and running at a reasonable cost.
Please complete the contact form by clicking here. You may also call our office to set up an appointment for your assessment. We do assessments quickly. It can take as little as 48 hours to complete your analysis.