Obtaining High-Speed Internet Access in St. Louis Park, Minnesota

High Speed Internet access in St. Louis Park: Company Broadband Internet, Gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet Access

These days, companies in St. Louis Park depend on reliable access to The Internet as the lifeblood of their business. All companies rely on reliable and quick Internet access. This is true no matter how large or small the organization.

Our reliance on access to the net will become greater in the near and distant future.

The Internet has a significant presence in our lives. From email to information sharing, data archiving to e-commerce, and VOIP to video conferencing, the internet is certainly ubiquitous. What can best meet your needs? Will a cable modem be sufficient? Metro Ethernet? Your needs may be met with Gigabit Internet. Does your business in St. Louis Park need one of these: 10 Meg access to The net, a 100 Meg access to The Internet point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?

How to Define your Company Need for Internet Access

The needs of your particular company must be determined before you can select an appropriate service. Is the internet only used for web surfing and email? Is it used for real-time data connection with cloud servers? Are you hosting the data in St. Louis Park and distant sites or offices rely on you?

What happens if you have an outage in your high-speed Internet? How much downtime can your organization withstand? Is your success reliant on uptime? Prior to making any purchases, you must determine the answers to these questions.

Evaluating Different High-Speed Internet Solutions in St. Louis Park, Minnesota

Speaking broadly, all companies need high-speed access to the net. When choosing the right broadband internet for company, you need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits. You will hear providers use terms like:

• High-speed access to The web provider
• Corporate Internet
• What about broadband cable modems?
• Metropolitan-area Ethernet provider
• Provider of Gigabit Internet service
• Multiprotocol label switching, also known as MPLS
• Point to point data circuits
• Five megabyte Internet access
• 10 megabyte Internet access
• We have fifty-megabyte access to The Internet circuits
• Internet access circuits- One hundred megabytes
• Sip trunking providers
• Internet access dedicated to you and only you
• … and then some

… do not lose sight of the real issues: what are the capabilities and technical solutions you need to best serve your company?

Business Internet access for Web Surfing

For many, if not all, companies in St. Louis Park, access to The net is needed for at least some employees. Third party applications, business research or development and e-commerce are just some of the ways the net may be needed.

Perhaps the size of your work force may determine the solution that best fits your needs. A five or ten megabyte Internet circuit may be all you need if employ a small workforce. If you have more than that, you may need more.

Perhaps most workers at your company use an intranet system with limited features. High- speed Internet may not be a priority in this case. When employees are often downloading images, videos and documents, however, the need for speed increases significantly.

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.

Do you use a file sharing service like Google drive or DropBox? As a file is saved, it is pushed to the cloud and then synced back to other people’s computers. In order to ensure that all of your functions work properly, in addition to file sharing, you must have sufficient bandwidth.

You may consider high-speed organization Internet access if you location warrants it. Gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet may be viable options for you. They are almost always found in “lit buildings” in St. Louis Park, Minnesota 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.

Introducing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be expensive. Bringing a connection to a suite within the building is not. 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.

Internet-based Applications That Need Access to High-Speed 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? Are your corporate headquarters with a hosted application utilized by 50 branch offices? Are you a retail company hosting the POS system for thousands of chain stores? Are you a law firm? Do you host data for three or more external places?

If you host programs, data or information centrally, people outside of the central location need to have access. 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 sites?

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. High-speed dedicated circuits, Metro Ethernet or gigabit Ethernet are advisable for company headquarters. Multiple diverse connections require support, in addition to high speed. A cable modem would not be able to accomplish this.

Dedicated Bandwidth Versus St. Louis Park Shared Cable Circuits

In some situations, there is a high price to pay for bringing in an inexpensive circuit or cable modem. You may have to share bandwidth in order to secure that low monthly rate. The cable modem you subscribe to with the 30 Meg connections may not always reach those speeds, especially during the busiest or “peak” hours of the workday. Many cable operators can only deliver a certain amount of bandwidth in a community. Whatever that amount of bandwidth is, it branches into all buildings in the community and to all tenants in those buildings. While you may be capped at a 30 Meg speed, you may never be able to reach that speed during company hours. Is getting 7 when you expect 30 a problem?

Some providers offer customers dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. If you want your very own bandwidth that is not used by anyone else, you should consider this. 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. With gigabit Internet providers, you can reach gigabit speeds in your office out to the internet.

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.

Redundant High Speed Business Internet in St. Louis Park: Why More Circuits?

Circuits can go down in St. Louis Park even though certain carriers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. You must ask yourself: “how do I lessen the chance of an outage? ”

Try using 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. 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. While there is some security in this, you are still vulnerable under some circumstances.

Circuit redundancy can also be achieved in the following way: Import circuits using two different and distinct providers. By using IP address allocations and certain routers, you can bind your connections. By doing this, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. Truthfully, they are entirely separate. They are redundant and exist in case one of them fails. You will get more substantial protection from this diversity redundancy. 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 carriers you look at in St. Louis Park, Minnesota have different physical geographic routes or pathways. Doing so will maximize redundancy. Essentially, this just means that you do not want both of your circuits to enter the building on the same side. They should come in on different sides. Whether they are attached underground or to a telephone pole, your goal should be to have the circuits in different directions leading to different central locations. 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.

What Will Not Having Enough Protection for Your Business Class High Speed Internet Cost You?

access to The web costs money but the cost of NOT having reliable access to The net is greater. Please think about the following scenarios:

The phone service in your office relies on Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP)

Are you on a cable modem and your carrier is providing circuits to dozens of other office suites in your building? Between 9 and 5, any of those other offices could be downloading huge files, streaming video or taking large volume of phone calls and more. As available bandwidth shrinks, what will happen to your calls? What about the quality of your calls? Maybe calls will randomly drop? Inaudible (choppy) to your customers?

Is your organization the central data location for multiple offices?

You may be an accounting firm that shares databases, a retail chain company utilizing a point of sale system or a law practice sharing files. Regardless of the specifics, your office is the hub for your enterprise. Your primary Internet connection is solely responsible for smoothly granting access and sending data to all of your locations whether you have two or two thousand. Your circuit goes down, now what will happen? Would you merely be annoyed? Would there be catastrophic consequences? Can your satellite offices perform any work at all? Can they take or process any orders at all? Share essential information with anyone? Do you know what your organization needs? Be sure to fully understand your requirements. It will help you choose the correct solution. You might have hundreds and hundreds of loyal customers. Perhaps you are a software company running a hosted solution they all rely on. You operate a service that utilizes API in order to grant access to other systems. They may use this to collect whatever data you are offering such as commodity prices, weather data or freight calculations. What if these other systems have difficulty connecting your servers? How long will your customers tolerate repeated outages?

You have a large call center that is completely reliant on voice over Internet protocol

Your organization is 100% dependent on the web to properly function. Should your circuits go down, your representatives cannot make outbound calls. Your reps have no way of answering calls, if they even know they are coming in. You are now officially out of company. While most reputable call centers are already aware and using redundancy, is it enough? Are the carriers that you are using reliable enough? Is the quality of service sufficient? Are your calls clear and reliable?

In St. Louis Park: Selecting the Proper High-Speed Business Access Circuits for Your Company

You have several different options to pick from. Your organization needs and your budget will have to come into consideration when deciding on your solutions. Essentially:

Internet Access for the Small Business Owner

If you are a small business, with just one location and not concerned about redundancy, a single five meg, 10 meg or 50 meg access to The web circuit may be sufficient. If you are in a “lit” building, Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be reasonably priced options. Prices will vary. They are based on your location and circuit availability; speak with our engineers to learn your best options.

Medium Sized Company in One Location: Access to the Internet

Mid sized companies with a single office in St. Louis Park, need higher speed access to The web. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and other higher-speed Internet circuits are your options. Ideally, multiple circuits from multiple providers will provide you with the greatest redundancy. Achieving this may not be as costly as you first thought. Two 50-megabyte circuits may be more cost effective than a single 100 circuit. Do not forget that you will find variations in price and availability. You need to speak with one of our experts to determine your options in your specific location.

Mid-Sized Company with More than One Location: Access to the Internet

Companies with multiple sites are most at risk for failure. Redundancy is extremely important to them. Multiple providers or carriers are recommended. You can increase redundancy with switches or routers. Having redundant equipment can also minimize risk. Take a careful look at Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers and gigabit Internet providers. Research other high-speed access to The web circuit providers also and make an informed decision. The best mix of providers and services can maximize the productivity and efficiency of your company.

What about enterprise clients and large corporate clients? What about clients who provide services that count on the internet for delivery of said services?

Gigabit Internet circuits, point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits are essential and Metro Ethernet Internet circuits must be utilized by companies in any of these categories. You absolutely need redundant circuits from different providers as well as redundant hardware. This is essential to ensuring uptime. 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.

Internet Need Demand Analysis Provided Free of Charge

Do not risk having failing circuits or not enough bandwidth. You must select the single circuit or multiple circuits that can meet your demands and stay within your budget. It is essential to choose the correct mix of hardware and circuits. Figuring out exactly what to put in the mix, can be a daunting task.

Our expert engineers will review your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. We will formulate a design or plan based partly on your current usage and demand levels. We are going to create something cost effective that gives you the resources your business needs, while keeping it running smoothly.

Please click here if you wish to complete the contact form on the side of this page. Alternatively, call our office to schedule an assessment. We do assessments quickly. It can take as little as 48 hours to complete your analysis.