Today’s environment demands that companies in Summerville 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 web.
In the months and years ahead, people and businesses will become more dependent on internet access.
Our uses of the web 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? Maybe a cable modem is a sufficient solution. It could be that you need Metro Ethernet. Your needs may be met with Gigabit Internet. What is best for your company in Summerville? Will your business needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg access to The Internet or 100 Meg Internet access point?
Prior to selecting a service, your organization must figure out its needs. Is Internet use limited to website surfing or emailing only? Will Internet usage mainly involve cloud servers and real time data connection? Are you hosting the data in Summerville, South Carolina that remote sites rely on?
What if your high-speed Internet is disrupted by an outage? What will happen to your company? Will your organization suffer from the lull? Is uptime essential to the success of your business? Prior to making any purchases, you must determine the answers to these questions.
In the broadest of terms, companies need high-speed Internet access. Choosing the correct broadband for your business requires a cost benefit analysis. While various providers will throw around terminology like:
… you must not lose sight of the real issue, which is understanding what technical solutions best meet your needs.
For most companies in Summerville, some or all of the employees need access to the internet. Third party applications, business research or development and e-commerce are just several of the ways the web may be needed.
The number of workers you employ, may be the most important factor in your decision making process. If you only have a few workers, you may be fine with a smaller Internet circuit such as a 5 or 10 megabyte. 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. However, employees who must often download documents, images and videos, need that speed.
Are you regularly performing 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.
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.
High-speed organization access to The Internet like Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options for you depending on your location. Usually, you can find these in “lit buildings” in Summerville, South Carolina that have been previously wired by a carrier. The ease and affordability of adding high-speed Internet to your office may surprise you.
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.
Your company may host its own servers. Do they run websites APIs or data feeds for external offices? Do fifty or so branch offices need access to a hosted application at your company headquarters? Perhaps you are in retail and host the point of sale (POS) system for thousands of stores? Does your legal practice host all of the data for 3, 4 or 5 offices in different sites?
When data, programs, or information is hosted centrally, those outside your office must gain access. If your Internet connection goes down, those people are unable to work. If you need multiple connections to function at the same time from many different sites, make sure that your intranet solution can reliably support it.
A cost friendly 10 Meg circuit or even a cable modem may satisfy the needs of a company with a single office that needs to surf the web. It is advisable that high-speed Internet access be available at the central company office or headquarters, including gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuits. While high speed is great, you also need support for your multiple diverse connections. This could probably not be accomplished with a cable modem.
In many scenarios, bringing in an inexpensive circuit, such as a cable modem, comes at a price. Oftentimes, a lower monthly rate comes with the realization that you are sharing bandwidth with many different tenants and offices. 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. Cable operators differ but many have prescribed limits on the bandwidth amount that they can deliver within a set community. 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 company day. Will there be trouble if your expectation is set at 30 but you only get 8 or 10?
You can sign up for dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth from some providers. In this situation, your bandwidth is not shared but is fully allocated to your organization. No matter who is in the building or what buildings surround you, you should always run at full speed.
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. Want to reach gigabit speeds? 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.
Despite outstanding Internet bandwidth products offered by carriers in Summerville, circuits do go down. What can you do to minimize the chance that you will experience an outage of some kind?
Consider redundant circuits.
Essentially, there are two different ways to look at redundancy.
The first type is when one single carrier provides you with multiple circuits. These redundant circuits help protect from certain failures, for example, router port issues or physical line trouble. However, if that carrier has a greater outage to your entire region or there is a line damaged outside of your office building, you may have both or all circuits go down. While there is some security in this, you are still vulnerable under some circumstances.
The second way to set up circuit redundancy is by using two different providers to bring in your circuits. By using IP address allocations and certain routers, you can bind your connections. By doing this, 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. Diversity redundancy provides greater assurance, comfort and protection. You will still have a live, fully functioning carrier if one fails.
For maximum redundancy, you should look for redundant circuits from different providers with different physical geographic pathways in Summerville, South Carolina. 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 established either underground or on telephone poles and would be set up in different directions and lead to different offices. By doing this, if there is a significant problem such as a fire at a data center, you have redundancy in an alternative physical direction.
The cost of dependable access to The net pales in comparison to the cost of unreliable access. Consider the following:
The carrier you use for your cable modem also provides circuits for a dozen or more tenants in the office building. Any of these tenants may be taking many calls, conducting huge downloads or streaming video during your regular office hours. As the amount of accessible bandwidth decreases, what happens to your needs? What will happen to your phone calls? How will it affect the quality of that telephone call? Are calls lost or dropped? Perhaps you will sound choppy or will be inaudible.
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 offices, whether you have 3 or 3, 000, rely on your primary Internet connection to successfully access data. Your circuit goes down, now what happens? Is it a mere annoyance or a catastrophic failure? Are your other offices able to do any work? Process or take new orders? Disseminate needed information and data? Do you know what your business needs? Be sure to fully understand your requirements. It will help you choose the correct solution. You have a software company, and are running a hosted solution for dozens, maybe hundreds, of customers. Is an API utilized in your business so that your customers can access and talk to your system? What happens when they are unable to connect to your servers? Customers will only take so many repeated outages. How long with they remain with your company?
Does your organization completely rely on the internet? What if your representatives can make no outgoing telephone calls because your circuits go down? No calls could be answered either. Basically, you are out of organization. For competent call centers that already use and understand the problems that can arise, is redundancy enough? Are your current providers as dependable as you would like? Is the quality of service sufficient for your calls to be clear and reliable?
Clearly, there are many choices. Your business budget and needs will play a large part in your decision-making. In summary:
If you have one location or office and do not feel the need to consider redundancy for your system, a smaller Internet access circuit may be all you need. A single fifty, ten or five megabyte circuit might be enough. Metro Ethernet service or gigabit service may also be a reasonably priced option if you are in a lit building. Because prices can vary based on the location of your organization and the availability of circuits, speak with our engineers to learn your options.
You have a midsized company in Summerville; you will surely need higher-speed Internet. Higher-speed circuits like Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or others may be your best options. Ideally, multiple circuits from multiple providers will provide you with the greatest redundancy. You may be able to achieve this in a manner that will not break the bank. For example, one 100-megabyte circuit may cost more than two smaller 50-megabyte circuits. As a reminder; availability and costs may vary. Call one of our experts to learn what is available in your specific area.
If your organization has several sites or offices, you are at great risk for failure. Redundant circuits are essential. Having several providers would afford extra protection. 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 Internet access 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. If you want to ensure your valuable uptime, have redundant circuits from multiple carriers as well as redundant hardware. You need to provide sufficient bandwidth to handle usage spikes without slowdowns or interruptions. Be sure to have the right circuits and hardware. They both must be able to support multiple, fast, concurrent connections.
The danger and risk of failing circuits is tremendous. So is the risk of having less bandwidth than you need. You must select the single circuit or multiple circuits that can meet your demands and stay within your budget. Choosing the right mix of circuits and hardware is a daunting task.
Our engineers will analyze your needs and requirements and develop a free action plan for you. We’ll formulate a design or plan based partly on your current usage and demand levels. We’ll create something cost effective that gives you the resources your business needs, while keeping it running smoothly.
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