These days, companies in Temple depend on reliable access to The web as the lifeblood of their business. Fortune 500 companies to small businesses and everything in between, depend on reliable and fast Internet access.
Our reliance on access to the net will become greater in the near and distant future.
Our uses of the web reach far and wide. From data sharing, video calls, and shopping to VOIP and email, the internet has a broad presence. What is the right solution for your needs? Perhaps a cable modem is all you need. Metro Ethernet? You may need Gigabit Internet. Does your Temple, Texas company need a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The web, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The Internet point?
Before selecting the appropriate service, your organization must assess its needs. Why will you need the internet? Will you only be web surfing and emailing? Will Internet usage mainly involve cloud servers and real time data connection? There may be remote sites that rely on you and you are hosting the data in Temple.
Have you thought about what will happen to your business if your high-speed Internet is interrupted by an outage? How much downtime can your company withstand? Is your success dependent on uptime? Before you buy anything, you must answer these questions.
It is no secret that all companies need high-speed access to the internet. Before you choose your broadband internet, look at the costs and benefits. Performing this analysis is an important step in picking the right one for your company. While many providers like to spout technical terminologies such as:
… focus on what matters: what does your business need and what are the best services and solutions out there to meet those needs?
At any company in Temple, Texas some employees, if not all employees, need some type of access to the web if they are to properly perform their job duties. Whether it is for organization research, to order supplies or to use third-party applications, the net is required.
The solution you choose may be based on the number of employees you have or expect to have. A 5 or 10 megabyte Internet circuit may be perfect if you only have a few employees. You should consider more than that if you have more workers. Also keep in mind whether your workers need to access the net at the same time.
Perhaps most workers at your company use an intranet system with limited features. High- speed Internet may not be a priority in this case. On the other hand, when they are frequently downloading documents, images and videos, that need for speed increases drastically.
Do you perform backups at your company? Synchronizing your backup data after doing remote backups from every desk requires you to support simultaneous connections out to the web.
Are you using a service such as DropBox or Google drive to share files? 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.
Your business location may cause you to think about high-speed company access to The Internet such as Metro Ethernet and/or gigabit Internet. Usually, you can find these in “lit buildings” in Temple, Texas that have been previously wired by a carrier. The ease and affordability of adding high-speed Internet to your office may surprise you.
Absent the need to introduce Metro Ethernet into a new building, it is not particularly costly to connect Metro Ethernet to a suite or office within that building. In fact, obtaining high-speed access to The Internet with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less depending upon availability.
Does your organization host its own servers running websites, APIs or data feeds for other offices or companies outside of your own four walls? Are your business headquarters with a hosted application connected to fifty or more satellite offices? Are you a retail company hosting the POS system for thousands of chain stores? Do you run a law office that hosts the data for satellite offices in different cities or states?
Granting access to outsiders is necessary when you host data and programs at a central location. People can’t work if you have no Internet connection. Can your intranet solution support your needs? Can it support multiple simultaneous connections? Is it stable enough to handle this when they are from various places?
A cable modem or fairly cheap 10-megabyte circuit may be enough in certain scenarios. For example, these may meet the needs of a single office surfing the web. For headquarters, Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed Internet dedicated circuits is advisable. While fast Internet access is and important, they must also have the capability to handle assorted simultaneous 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. You may save money on your monthly bill but the bandwidth you get must be shared among many people. During peak hours, your connection may slow down, even though you subscribe to a cable modem with a thirty-megabyte connection. Only a certain amount of bandwidth may be available in a community. Many cable companies have limits on the amount they can deliver. That bandwidth branches off to different buildings and then to various tenants within those buildings. The 30-meg speed you are capped out sounds good but it is possible that you will never reach that speed during organization hours. Is this a problem for you if you expect 30 and get 6?
Some carriers are available who offer dedicated bandwidth and guaranteed bandwidth. If you want your very own bandwidth that is not used by anyone else, you should consider this. Notwithstanding the existence of tenants, offices or buildings in the area, you should have the full capability of your circuits at all times.
For example, Metro Ethernet guarantees bandwidth in 5 met circuits, 10 Meg circuits, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. Gigabit Internet providers offer gigabit speeds from your office to the internet.
In these situations, each tenant receives their contracted high-speed. The carrier delivers enough so they can split their circuit and provide enough to each tenant.
Circuits can go down in Temple, Texas even though certain carriers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. How can you decrease the chance of an outage?
The answer is redundant circuits.
There are, in essence, two types of redundancy.
A single carrier, providing multiple circuits, to one customer, characterizes one form of redundancy. Redundant circuits can help protect against certain problems. They can mitigate the inconveniences when there is a failure of a physical line or a problem with the port into your router. 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. This offers some protection and assurance but does not eliminate all threats.
Utilizing circuits from two different providers is the second kind of redundancy. Advanced routers and IP address allocations can be utilized to make it look to your users and the public that you have a single circuit. However, despite appearances, they are actually very much separate and are redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy offers far greater protection. If one carrier has a problem, the other likely will not.
You should look for redundant circuits from carriers in Temple, Texas that do not have the same physical geographic pathways, in order to get the most redundancy. If at all possible, you want to obtain circuits entering the premises on different sides. The circuits would attached to the proper outside source whether a subterranean conduit or a telephone pole. They would be set up in different directions and would lead to different data centers or main office spaces. If you can accomplish this, you are protected from a major catastrophe. For example, if a there is a fire or some other accident that negatively affects circuits in a region, you have redundancy in a physically different direction.
While access to The web is not free, it pales in comparison with the cost of not having reliable Internet access. Think about the following situations:
The carrier you use for your cable modem also provides circuits for a dozen or more tenants in the office building. It is possible that during normal business hours, those tenants might be downloading large files or watching continuous videos. They might be getting a lot of phone calls. As the amount of available bandwidth diminishes, what will happen to your phone calls? How will it affect the quality of that telephone call? Are calls lost or dropped? Inaudible (choppy) to your customers?
Your office may be the working center of an entire company enterprise. The kind of organization does not necessarily matter. You may be a law firm doing file sharing, an accounting practice sharing databases or a retailer operating a distributed point-of-sale system. Every single one of your offices, stores and locations rely on you and your primary Internet connection to retrieve data. What will happen if your circuit crashes? Is it a mere annoyance or a catastrophic failure? Can your satellite or remote office do any work at all? What will happen to new orders? Can they be taken or processed? Disseminate needed information and data? Do you know what your company 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. Do you operate a service where other systems speak with yours by using an application program interface (API)? For example do other systems gain access to yours in order to calculate prices, prices, or to collect information that you serve up? What if these other systems have difficulty connecting your servers? How long will your customers tolerate repeated outages?
Maybe your business depends entirely on the internet. If your circuits go down, you cannot make calls. In addition, they will be unable to answer incoming calls. Your company is basically done with. While many of the most reputable call centers are already aware and using the advantages of redundancy, is it sufficiently meeting their needs? Are the providers that you are using reliable enough? Do you consistently get quality service that provides clear and reliable calls?
Obviously, there are a variety of choices. Your budget, as well as the needs of your company, will help drive your decisions. To recap:
You are probably not thinking about redundancy if you have a small company with a single location. In this case, you can probably get by with a single Internet access circuit of 5, 10 or 50 meg. 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 business and the availability of circuits, speak with our engineers to learn your options.
You have a mid-sized Temple company; higher speed Internet access required. Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet and other higher speed Internet circuits are options to consider. Optimally, multiple carriers and multiple circuits will give you the most redundancy. You may be able to achieve this in a manner that will not break the bank. For instance, it may be cheaper to utilize two 50 meg circuits in place of one 100 meg circuit. Availability and costs vary. Speaking with one of our experts will help you determine the options available in your specific location.
Businesses with many sites face the greatest risk for failure. They need redundant circuits. Having several providers would afford extra protection. Additionally, you should consider redundant equipment (routers and switches) in your facility to minimize the risk of downtime. Look at all of your options: Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet providers, Metro Ethernet providers and other high-speed circuit providers. The correct combination of providers and services can keep your organization running smoothly and efficiently.
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 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.
The danger and risk of failing circuits is tremendous. So is the risk of having less bandwidth than you need. The circuit or circuits you have must stay within the parameters of your budget while still meeting your company needs. There is tremendous pressure on you to choose the best combination of circuits and hardware.
Our engineers can help. We will analyze your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. We’ll examine your current usage and demand levels then create a design that provides you with the resources you need to keep your organization running smoothly at a reasonable cost.
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