These days, companies in Tallahassee, Florida depend on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their business. All companies, from Fortune 500 to small companies, have functions that rely on easy, dependable and quick access to The net.
We’ll, in the months and years ahead, become more and more dependent on our access to The Internet.
The use of the internet is pervasive. We use it for email and data sharing, video chat and VOIP, archiving and commerce. What do you need? A cable modem may be satisfactory. Metro Ethernet? Would Gigabit Internet suffice? What is best for your organization in Tallahassee? Will your organization needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg access to The web or 100 Meg Internet access point?
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? Will Internet usage mainly involve cloud servers and real time data connection? Do remote places depend on you hosting the data in Tallahassee, Florida?
What happens to your organization if your high-speed Internet experiences an outage? How might the downtime cause problems for your company? Is the absence of uptime detrimental? Prior to making any purchases, you must determine the answers to these questions.
Speaking broadly, all companies need high-speed access to the web. You need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits to your company before choosing the right broadband internet. 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.
Most companies in Tallahassee require that some or all of their workers have access to the net. It may be needed for business research, to order office supplies or other reasons.
The best solution may depend upon how many employees you have. 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 50 employees who are using the web simultaneously, you may need more.
You may not need as much high-speed Internet access if your employees work primarily on an intranet system with limited graphics and video. When they are frequently downloading things, whether documents, graphics or videos, however, speed is necessary for efficient job performance.
Are you performing routine 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.
Does your business use a file sharing service? DropBox? Google drive? When people save a file, it gets pushed to the cloud. The file is then synched with 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.
High-speed company Internet access like Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options for you depending on your location. These can usually be found in Tallahassee, Florida in “lit buildings” that have already been wired. The ease and affordability of adding high-speed Internet to your office may surprise you.
While bringing Metro Ethernet to a new building can be an expensive proposition, bringing that connection to a suite within the building is not. Also, securing high-speed access to The net using gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet often takes less than 30 days, depending on its availability.
Ask yourself this: Does we host our own servers to run APIs, websites and data feeds to external offices or organization premises? Do your headquarters have a hosted Internet application that must be accessed regularly by 40 or 50 branch offices? Are you hosting the point of sale (POS) system for 15, 000 retail chain stores? Are you a law firm? Do you host data for three or more external places?
When data, programs, or information is hosted centrally, those outside your office must gain access. 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 locations, 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 organization with a single office that needs to surf the web. High-speed Internet access is advisable for the headquarters. Gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit is recommended. All offer quick speed but they must also be able to support diverse and multiple connections. A cable modem would likely not provide the necessary support.
In many scenarios, bringing in an inexpensive circuit, such as a cable modem, comes at a price. There may be a lower monthly rate, but bandwidth is usually shared with many tenants. If you subscribe to a cable modem with a 30-megabyte connection, you would expect to always be able to reach that high speed. However, it is possible that during peak hours, you won’t. Many cable operators can only deliver a certain amount of bandwidth in a community. The bandwidth branches off to the multiple buildings, offices and tenants within them. Will you achieve 30-meg speed during the working day? What will the consequences be if you expect 30 but only get half that? What if you get even less?
Some providers offer customers dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. In this scenario, the bandwidth is fully allocated to you and your company or organization. No one else uses it. Regardless of neighbors, or other tenants, you should have the full capacity of your circuit at all times.
As an example, look at Metro Ethernet. They provide guaranteed bandwidth in various increments. You can receive guaranteed bandwidth in increments of 100, 50, 10 and 5 megabytes. You can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit Internet providers.
Providers 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.
Realistically, while some providers in Tallahassee offer excellent Internet bandwidth products, it is possible for a circuit to go down. What can you do to minimize the chance that you will experience an outage of some kind?
Circuits that are redundant may be a good idea.
Essentially, there are two different ways to look at redundancy.
With the first type of redundancy, you receive multiple circuits from the same carrier. 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. You get some protection, but also some risk.
The other type of redundancy requires you to utilize circuits from different carriers. These connections can be bound together so they act and appear to the public as a single circuit. Using particular routers and IP address allocations, no one would be able to tell that you have multiple providers or circuits. In reality, they are completely separate and redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy provides greater assurance, comfort and protection. If one carrier has a widespread issue, you have a carrier that will still be alive.
You want maximum redundancy. In order to achieve this, look for redundant circuits from different carriers with different physical geographic pathways in Tallahassee, Florida. 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 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.
Internet access costs money but the cost of NOT having reliable Internet access is greater. 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 available bandwidth shrinks, what will happen to your calls? What will happen to the strength and quality of that call? Are the calls going to be dropped? Will you sound muffled?
Your office is the hub of your company, whether you are a retail business operating a distributed point of sale (POS) system, an accounting firm sharing databases or a law firm engaged in file sharing. 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 if your circuit fails? Would it annoy you or destroy you? Are remote offices able to work at all? Take new orders? Service existing ones? Circulate essential files and data? It is important that prior to choosing a solution, you understand the true needs and requirements of your particular organization. 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. Maybe you operate a service that allows other systems to speak with yours via API. This may be to collect miscellaneous data, calculate prices or shipping rates or other information. You may find that they are unable to reach or connect with your company servers. Customers do not enjoy repeated outages. How long with they put up with them before looking to take their business elsewhere?
Your organization is completely dependent on the net. Should your circuits stop working, imagine your people being unable to make any outbound phone calls. Your reps have no way of answering calls, if they even know they are coming in. Basically, you are out of business. Is redundancy enough? Are your current carriers as dependable as you would like? Clear and reliable calls are essential. Does your carrier service consistently provide this?
It should be clear by now that you have many different options to select from. Your organization needs and your budget will have to come into consideration when deciding on your solutions. Essentially:
You are probably not thinking about redundancy if you have a small business with a single location. In this case, you can probably get by with a single Internet access circuit of 5, 10 or 50 meg. 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 organization and the availability of circuits, speak with our engineers to learn your options.
Mid-sized businesses in Tallahassee, Florida should be equipped with higher-speed Internet. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and other higher-speed Internet circuits are your options. Optimally, multiple providers and multiple circuits will give you the most redundancy. This may be attainable without doubling your costs. Two smaller circuits may be cheaper than one. For instance, you may use two 50 meg circuits instead of a single 100 meg circuit. Remember, costs vary. So does availability. You should speak with our experts to learn the options for your particular location.
Any company with more than one location suffers the greatest risk of problems. Redundancy is extremely vital to them. Multiple providers or carriers are recommended. In addition, consider redundant equipment. Redundant routers and switches can minimize risk also. Have you looked at Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed Internet access circuit providers? You should do so before making a decision. Your business can benefit from finding the right mix of services and carriers.
For businesses that fit this description, it is essential to have gigabit Internet circuits, point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits and Metro Ethernet Internet circuits. In order to maximize and protect your uptime, you must have redundancy. You should have redundant circuits from multiple carriers in addition to redundant hardware. 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? Your demand and budget constraints should both be considered when you decide what circuit or combination of circuits you must have. It is crucial to choose the correct mix of hardware and circuits. Figuring out exactly what to put in the mix, can be a daunting task.
Our engineers will take the pressure off and develop a free action plan for you by analyzing your needs. Our experts will examine your current usage and demand. We will then generate a design that gives you the resources you need while keeping your business up and running at a reasonable cost.
An appointment for an assessment can be made by calling our office or clicking here to complete the contact form on the side of this page. It can take less than 48 hours to complete your assessment.