Today’s environment demands that companies in St. George, Utah have reliable Internet service in order to run their organization. All companies, from Fortune 500 to small businesses, have functions that rely on easy, dependable and quick access to The net.
We’ll become increasingly dependent on access to The Internet as the months and years progress.
The web is ubiquitous. From email to data sharing, archiving to commerce and VOIP to video conferencing, the internet is everywhere. What is the best fix for your requirements? Will a cable modem be sufficient? Do you need Metro Ethernet? Gigabit Internet? What does your St. George, Utah business need? Does it require 10 Meg access to The web, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 Meg circuit or a 5 Meg circuit?
Prior to selecting a service, your organization must figure out its needs. Why will you need the internet? Will you only be web surfing and emailing? Is connecting with cloud servers and sharing real time data the main use of the web? Perhaps you, in St. George, Utah, are hosting the data and remote locations rely upon this.
What if you have a disruption in your high-speed Internet? How might the downtime cause problems for your business? Does your organization require uptime? Before you buy anything, you must answer these questions.
It is no secret that all companies need high-speed access to the web. An analysis of the costs and benefits should be done prior to choosing the broadband that is correct for your company. 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 St. George, Utah require that some or all of their workers have access to the internet. Third party applications, business research or development and e-commerce are just a few of the ways the net may be needed.
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 sufficient. If your organization has nearly 50 people, however, and they all need to use the web at the same time, you may find that more is better.
You may not need as much high-speed access to The Internet if your employees work primarily on an intranet system with limited graphics and video. On the other hand, if your company requires that its employees download many documents or images and videos, Internet speed becomes more important.
Do you perform backups at your company? 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.
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. You must have sufficient bandwidth if you are to successfully support every service including file sharing.
High-speed company Internet access like Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options for you depending on your location. They are almost always found in “lit buildings” in St. George that are already 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.
Unless you are bringing Metro Ethernet into a new building, it does not have to be an expensive proposition to connect it to a suite within a building. In fact, obtaining high-speed Internet access with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less depending upon availability.
Do you have your own organization servers that run APIs, websites or feeds for offsite offices or companies? Do your headquarters have a hosted Internet application that must be accessed regularly by 40 or 50 branch offices? Are you a retail chain hosting the POS system for 12, 000 stores? Are you an attorney with offices multiple cities or states? Do you have one office hosting data for several locations?
Access to data and programs by people outside of your main location becomes necessary when you host information centrally. If your Internet connection goes down, those people are unable to work. Are you picking an intranet solution that provides reliability and stability for your multiple, simultaneous connections from various places?
If you have one office using the web, you may get by with a cable modem or a low- cost 10-megabyte circuit. For the headquarters, high-speed access to The net including Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable. Multiple diverse connections require support, in addition to high speed. A cable modem would likely not provide the necessary support.
In many cases, installing an inexpensive cable modem comes at a price. While the monthly rate is lower, the bandwidth is generally shared among other tenants. It is possible that you have a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection but cannot reach proper speeds during peak hours. Often, within a given community, cable companies may only deliver a particular amount of bandwidth. Whatever that amount of bandwidth is, it branches into all buildings in the community and to all tenants in those buildings. During crucial working hours, you may not get to the 30-meg speed you have been capped at. If you expect 30 but only get 6, will you have problems?
You can sign up for dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth from some carriers. In this situation, your bandwidth is not shared but is fully allocated to your company. Regardless of other tenants in your building or neighboring buildings, you should receive the full capacity of your circuit.
You can receive guaranteed bandwidth with Metro Ethernet. You can receive it in increments of five, 10, 50 or one hundred megabyte circuits. Want to reach gigabit speeds? You can by using a gigabit Internet provider.
The providers in this situation deliver high-speed to a particular building in sufficient quantity to split their circuit among various tenants. Of course, they must ensure that they each get the specific amount of their contracted speed.
Despite outstanding Internet bandwidth products offered by providers in St. George, Utah, circuits do go down. Ask this question: “what can I do to decrease the likelihood of an outage?
You may be a candidate for redundant circuits.
There are, in essence, two types of redundancy.
The first kind of redundancy exists when one carrier provides one customer with many circuits. These redundant circuits help protect from certain failures, for example, router port issues or physical line trouble. However, if that carrier has a regional outage or physical line damaged outside of your building, both circuits may go down. While there is some security in this, you are still vulnerable under some circumstances.
Utilizing circuits from two different providers is the second kind of redundancy. Using advanced routers and IP address allocations, you can bind these connections together so that, to your users and to the public, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. You know the truth: that they are individual circuits and are there to back each other up in case one goes down. This redundancy, referred to as diversity redundancy, offers much greater protection. 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 St. George. This is an important consideration when trying to obtain the most redundancy. Your goal should be to get circuits coming into your building on different sides. You do not want them on the same side. Ideally, the circuits will be going in different directions and toward various central business spaces or data centers. 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.
While Internet access is not free, it pales in comparison with the cost of not having reliable access to The web. Consider the following:
The carrier you use for your cable modem also provides circuits for a dozen or more tenants in the office building. During your working day, those tenants could be conducting massive downloads of information, processing a large amount of calls or streaming endless video. How will less available bandwidth affect your telephone calls? What happens to the quality of that phone call? Maybe calls will randomly drop? Inaudible (choppy) to your customers?
Whether you are a law firm doing file sharing, an accounting practice sharing databases or a retailer operating a distributed point-of-sale system, your office is the hub for your enterprise. All of your places, whether 2 or 2000, count on your primary Internet connection to access and retrieve data. How will you be affected if your circuit goes down? Would you merely be annoyed? Would there be catastrophic consequences? How much work, if any, can be done by your remote places? What will happen to new orders? Can they be taken or processed? Dispense and receive data? Before choosing a solution, be sure to assess and really understand what your business requires. What if you are a software company? Perhaps you are running a hosted solution and it must be used by multiple customers; maybe even hundreds. Perhaps you operate a service where other systems communicate with yours via an API to calculate freight rates, commodity prices, collect current weather data or receive any other information that you serve up. What if these other systems have difficulty connecting your servers? Multiple outages may annoy your customers.
Does your business completely rely on the internet? Your employees or representatives will not be able to make outgoing phone calls if your circuits go down. Your representatives would also be unable to answer calls. Your company is basically done with. 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 your providers sufficiently reliable? Is the quality of service sufficient? Are your calls clear and reliable?
You clearly have several choices. Your choices will largely depend on your budget, in addition to the other requirements of your company. In summary:
A single fifty, ten or five megabyte Internet access circuit may be sufficient to meet the needs of your small organization, particularly if you have only one location and are not worried about redundancy. Is your building lit? If so, find out about gigabit or Metro Ethernet services. They may be reasonably priced options. 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 organization.
You have a mid-sized St. George, Utah company; higher speed access to The Internet required. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and other higher-speed Internet circuits are your options. Multiple circuits utilizing multiple providers would, ideally, provide you with maximum redundancy. You can sometimes achieve this without doubling costs. For example, one 100-megabyte circuit may cost more than two smaller 50-megabyte circuits. As a reminder; availability and costs may vary. You need to speak with one of our experts to determine your options in your specific location.
What companies have the highest risk for failure; those with multiple sites. They need redundant circuits. Different providers are desirable. You can increase redundancy with switches or routers. Having redundant equipment can also minimize risk. Here too, take a careful look and choose the right Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed access to The net 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.
Companies such as these require the following: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and point-to-point (PPP) high-speed Internet circuits. Having redundant hardware as well as redundant circuits from different providers will ensure your needed uptime. Having plenty of bandwidth will help avoid interruptions or decreased speed that sometimes occurs during spikes in usage. Both your hardware and circuits must be capable of supporting a vast number of simultaneous and fast connections.
Your organization faces great risk of less than adequate bandwidth and failing circuits. Your ideal single circuit or multiple circuits should stay within your budget while still meeting your demands. You have to select the optimal combination of hardware and circuits, which is a daunting task.
We have experts to help. Our engineers will do an analysis of your needs and requirements, and develop a free action plan for you based on their findings. Our experts will examine your current usage and demand. We’ll then generate a design that gives 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. It can take as little as 48 hours to provide a complete assessment.