The lifeblood of State College ‐ borough companies doing business in the current environment depends upon reliable Internet access. The business functions of all companies, from Fortune 500 to small businesses, depend on fast and reliable access to The net.
Our dependence on access to The web will continue to grow in the coming months and years.
The Internet 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? Can a cable modem suffice? It could be that you need Metro Ethernet. Would Gigabit Internet suffice? Does your company in State College ‐ borough need one of these: 10 Meg Internet access, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?
The needs of your particular organization must be determined before you can select an appropriate service. Is Internet use limited to website surfing or emailing only? Is real time data connection with cloud servers important to your company? You may be hosting the data in State College ‐ borough , Pennsylvania and remote locations rely on this.
What if your high-speed Internet is disrupted by an outage? What will happen to your business? Will your business suffer from the lull? Is the absence of uptime detrimental? Ask yourself these questions before making any purchases. The answers will help you determine what is right for you.
Plainly stated, companies require high-speed access to The net. When picking the correct broadband internet, balancing the costs and benefits to your company is imperative. While various providers will throw around terminology like:
… 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 State College ‐ borough , Pennsylvania require that some or all of their workers have access to the internet. It may be needed for company research, to order office supplies or other reasons.
The solution you choose may be based on the number of employees you have or expect to have. If you have a smaller workforce, you may do fine with a smaller Internet circuit. For example, if you only employ a handful of people, a 5 or 10 Meg circuit may meet your needs. If you have many employees who need to use the net at the same time, you may do better with more.
High-speed Internet may become less important if the majority of your employees primarily use 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.
Are you performing backups? Simultaneous connections to the web, which you need in order to sync your backup data, require support. If you conduct remote backups from every workstation, which you definitely should, this will be important.
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 need to have sufficient bandwidth to support this function while also supporting every other service.
Depending on your location, high-speed organization Internet access, including Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options. These can usually be found in State College ‐ borough in “lit buildings” that have already been wired. The ease and affordability of adding high-speed Internet to your office may surprise you.
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. In fact, in as little as 30 days, you may be able to obtain high-speed access to the net with either gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. It depends upon availability.
Do you have your own company servers that run APIs, websites or feeds for offsite offices or companies? Are your corporate headquarters with a hosted application utilized by 50 branch offices? Are you a retail company with 10, 000 stores? Do you host the POS system for all of them? Are you a law firm? Do you host data for three or more external locations?
If your company hosts its programs and information at a central location, people outside of that location need to have access in order to conduct organization. Those people are not able to work without a solid Internet connection. 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.
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. For headquarters, Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed Internet dedicated circuits is advisable. While fast access to The web is and important, they must also have the capability to handle assorted simultaneous connections. A cable modem would probably not be enough.
In some situations, there is a high price to pay for bringing in an inexpensive circuit or cable modem. Oftentimes, a lower monthly rate comes with the realization that you are sharing bandwidth with many different tenants and offices. 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. Whatever that amount of bandwidth is, it branches into all buildings in the community and to all tenants in those buildings. With a 30-megabyte connection, you may not get to that speed during the working day. Will there be trouble if your expectation is set at 30 but you only get 8 or 10?
Other providers do offer dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. In this scenario, the bandwidth is fully allocated to you and your company or company. No one else uses it. The full capacity of your circuit should be attainable during all hours regardless of neighboring buildings, people or offices.
Five Meg, ten Meg, fifty Meg and 100 Meg circuits of guaranteed bandwidth are available with Metro Ethernet. If you want to reach gigabit speeds from your business out to the net, you can by using a gigabit Internet provider.
In these scenarios, carriers deliver a large quantity of high-speed to a building. The quantity must be enough so that it can split the circuit and deliver to every tenant. Whatever amount has been guaranteed in each tenant’s contract is the amount they receive.
The truth is that circuits can go down in State College ‐ borough even though some providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. The question then becomes, “how do I minimize my chance of an outage? ”
Redundant circuits may be the answer for you.
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. Damage to an external wire or part can cause the failure of all of your circuits. A regional outage experienced by your carrier can have the same result. While there is some protection, there is also some risk.
Utilizing circuits from two different providers is the second kind of redundancy. By using IP address allocations and certain routers, you can bind your connections. By doing this, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. However, despite appearances, they are actually very much separate and are redundant to each other. This redundancy, referred to as diversity redundancy, offers much greater protection. In the event a carrier goes down, you will not have to worry. You will have a perfectly live carrier there to keep things moving.
The providers you choose for your redundant circuits should have different physical pathways in State College ‐ borough , Pennsylvania. This is an important consideration when trying to obtain the most redundancy. Alternatively stated, try to have your circuits enter the building on different sides from one another. Ideally, the circuits will be going in different directions and toward various central organization spaces or data centers. Having redundancy in different physical directions can protect you if there is a serious incident at a data center or some accident that causes a regional circuit issue.
Internet access costs money but the cost of NOT having reliable access to The web is greater. Please think about the following scenarios:
You are on a cable modem with the carrier providing circuits to 14 other tenants in your 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 they use more bandwidth, there is less for available for your needs. What happens to your phone calls? What about phone call quality? Are calls lost or dropped? Will they be full of static?
Your office is the center of your company. You may be a law firm that does file sharing or a retailer operating a POS system. Your primary Internet connection is solely responsible for smoothly granting access and sending data to all of your places whether you have two or two thousand. What happens if your circuit goes down? Would it cause mere annoyance or utter disaster? Are remote offices able to work at all? Take new orders? Service existing ones? Dispense and receive data? Picking the right a solution can be difficult. Before doing so, be sure you fully understand your requirements. Perhaps you are a software company, running a hosted solution used by hundreds of customers. Perhaps you operate a service where other systems speak with yours via an API to calculate freight prices, commodity prices, collect current weather data or receive any other 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?
Does your company completely rely on the web? No outbound calls can be made should your circuits go down. Your reps have no way of answering calls, if they even know they are coming in. Your organization is basically done with. Is redundancy enough? Are your carriers sufficiently reliable? Is the quality of service sufficient? Are your calls clear and reliable?
You have several different options to pick from. The needs and budget of your business will both affect your choices. As a high-level summary:
If your business is small, with one location or office, you are likely not concerned about redundancy. For you, a single 5, 10 or 50 megabyte access to The web circuit may suffice. You may find that if your building is “lit”, gigabit service and Metro Ethernet service may be reasonably cost-effective choices for you. Prices will vary. They are based on your location and circuit availability; speak with our engineers to learn your best options.
You will need higher speed access to The net if you have a medium sized organization in State College ‐ borough . Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and other higher-speed Internet circuits are your options. Ideally, you want to have the greatest redundancy. You can achieve this by using multiple circuits from different carriers. You can sometimes achieve this without doubling costs. For example, one 100-megabyte circuit may cost more than two smaller 50-megabyte circuits. Availability and costs vary. Learn your options by speaking with one of our knowledgeable experts. We can help you determine what is available in your specific location.
If your company has several locations or offices, you are at great risk for failure. They require redundant circuits. It is helpful if they use multiple carriers. Also, redundant equipment such as switches and routers in your facility can minimize the risk of downtime. 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 Internet circuit providers. The correct combination of providers and services can keep your organization running smoothly and efficiently.
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 carriers and redundant hardware for your system. You do not want any slowdowns or interruptions that often occur during spikes in usage. Avoid this by having sufficient bandwidth. Both your hardware and circuits must be capable of supporting a vast number of simultaneous and fast connections.
Do not risk having failing circuits or not enough bandwidth. Your ideal single circuit or multiple circuits should stay within your budget while still meeting your demands. Choosing the right mix of circuits and hardware is a daunting task.
Our engineers can help. We are going to analyze your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. 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 organization 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.