In today’s world, Torrance companies need dependable Internet access. It is the lifeblood of their business. The business functions of every company, whether it is a small business or on the Fortune 500, from Fortune 500, depends on fast and reliable access to The net.
access to The Internet will become increasingly essential to us in the coming months and years. Our dependence on Internet access will only grow as time goes on.
From email messaging to information sharing, e-commerce to archiving data, and voice over IP to video chat, the web is omnipresent. What can best meet your needs? A cable modem may be satisfactory. Do you need Metro Ethernet? Is Gigabit Internet right for you? Does your business in Torrance need one of these: 10 Meg access to The Internet, a 100 Meg access to The Internet point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?
Before selecting an appropriate service for your organization, you must first determine what needs you are trying to satisfy. Will web surfing and email be your primary use of the web? Is connecting with cloud servers and sharing real time data the main use of the net? Are you hosting the data in Torrance, California that remote locations rely upon?
What will happen to your organization if your high-speed Internet experiences an outage? What about the downtime that results? Can your company afford that? How much uptime is essential to your company? Before you buy anything, you must answer these questions.
Plainly stated, companies require high-speed access to The net. When picking the correct broadband, balancing the costs and benefits to your company is imperative. While many providers like to spout technical terminologies such as:
… the real issue is understanding what capability and technical solutions best meet your needs.
For many, if not all, companies in Torrance, California, Internet access is needed for at least some employees. Third party applications, business research or development and e-commerce are just some of the ways the web may be needed.
The number of employees you have may determine your best solution. 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. You may need more if you have more workers and those workers all need to be on the web during the same hours.
Your need for high-speed Internet may be lessened if your workers are just accessing an intranet systemOn the other hand, Internet speed becomes dramatically more important when they are required to regularly download things like documents or videos.
Are you performing routine backups? You may need to support simultaneous connections to the web in order to sync your backup data. If you conduct remote backups from every workstation, which is advisable, this will be important.
Do you use a file-sharing service? Perhaps you use Google drive, DropBox or a different service? After a file is saved, it goes to the cloud and then to someone else’s computer. Running all your services properly, including sharing files, requires that you have the right amount of bandwidth.
Are you interested in high-speed business Internet? Depending on where you are located, you may want to look into the viability of gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet. They are almost always found in “lit buildings” in Torrance that are already wired by a carrier. Choosing to add high-speed Internet to your office is a tough decision but it can be less expensive and easier than you think.
If you have to bring Metro Ethernet into a new building, it can be expensive but bringing that connection to an office or suite within the building is usually not. Also, securing high-speed Internet access using gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet often takes less than 30 days, depending on its availability.
Your business 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? Are you a retail chain hosting the POS system for 12, 000 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. 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.
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. For the headquarters, high-speed access to The web including Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable. While all offer high speeds, they also need to be capable of supporting multiple diverse connections. A cable modem would not be able to accomplish this.
In some situations, there is a high price to pay for bringing in an inexpensive circuit or cable modem. Your low monthly bill may mean that the bandwidth is shared among multiple tenants. While you may subscribe to a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection, you may be unable to reach those speeds during peak hours. Cable companies are known to limit or predetermine the amount of bandwidth available for delivery in any particular 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 thirty-megabyte speed, will you ever reach that speed during organization hours? Is it a problem if you get a quarter or even half of the speed you expected?
Some providers offer customers dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. In this situation, your bandwidth is not shared but is fully allocated to your company. Regardless of other tenants in your building or neighboring buildings, you should receive the full capacity of your circuit.
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.
In these cases, the carriers deliver high-speed to the building in sufficient quantity that they can then split their circuit to various tenants while guaranteeing each tenant is receiving their contracted speeds.
Circuits can go down in Torrance, California even though certain carriers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. Ask this question: “what can I do to decrease the likelihood of an outage?
You may be a candidate for redundant circuits.
There are two types of redundancy to consider.
With the first type of redundancy, you receive multiple circuits from the same carrier. In this situation, the redundancy helps protect you from port issues or physical line issues. 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. There is some protection that comes with this but there is risk as well.
Bringing in circuits using two distinct providers is the second form of circuit redundancy. If you think it is beneficial, you can bind the connections together in a manner that makes your circuits act and look like a single source. In fact, they are totally redundant and separate. Diversity redundancy provides greater assurance, comfort and protection. If one carrier has a problem, the other likely will not.
To maximize the benefit of redundancy, consider looking for redundant circuits from different carriers that have different pathway in Torrance, California. This means that you should try to have the circuits come into you building from different sides. Ideally, the circuits will be going in different directions and toward various central company spaces or data centers. 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.
It is true that access to The Internet costs you money. However, the cost does not come close to what you will pay if the access that is not reliable. Think about the following situations:
Your organization is on a cable modem and your carrier provides circuits to 20 other offices in your building. What if any or all of those tenants are huge call centers taking in a massive volume of phone calls, are company that perform large file downloads or stream many videos? As they use more bandwidth, there is less for available for your needs. What will happen to your phone calls? What about the quality of your calls? Maybe calls will randomly drop? Perhaps you will sound choppy or will be inaudible.
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. 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? Can your satellite offices perform any work at all? Process new orders? Circulate necessary data? Be sure you understand your requirements fully before choosing a solution. Maybe you are a corporation that designs and sells software and you run a hosted solution that is used by hundreds and 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 rates, prices, or to collect information that you serve up? 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?
Is the net integral to the proper function of your business? Do you rely on it entirely? If your circuits go down, you cannot make calls. There would be no way to answer incoming calls of people trying to reach your representatives. You are now, essentially, out of company. Even for the most reputable call centers that already know of and use redundancy, is it sufficient? Are the providers that you are using reliable enough? Clear and reliable calls are essential. Does your carrier service consistently provide this?
Clearly, there are many choices. Your decision will be based on different factors including your organization needs and your budget. As a wrap-up:
If you have one location or office and do not feel the need to consider redundancy for your system, a smaller access to The net circuit may be all you need. A single fifty, ten or five megabyte circuit might be enough. If you are in a “lit” building, Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be reasonably priced options. The availability of circuits and your location determine prices; speak with one of our engineers to learn what your best options are.
You have a midsized company in Torrance; you will surely need 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. 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. You should speak with our experts to learn the options for your particular location.
What companies have the highest risk for failure; those with multiple locations. Redundancy is extremely important to them. Multiple providers are highly desirable. Additionally, you should consider redundant equipment (routers and switches) in your facility to minimize the risk of downtime. Have you looked at Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed access to The web circuit providers? You should do so before making a decision. The best mix of providers and services can maximize the productivity and efficiency of your company.
To run efficiently and effectively, corporations and businesses that fall into this category must use point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits, gigabit Internet circuits and Metro Ethernet circuits. You must have redundant circuits for multiple providers as well as redundant hardware in your office to ensure your uptime. You need enough bandwidth. The bandwidth must be adequate to handle spikes in usage with no slowdowns or interruptions. It is crucial that not only your circuits have the ability to support a vast number of multiple and simultaneous connects, but your hardware must have the ability to support them as well.
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 combination of hardware and circuits can be complicated and confusing.
Our engineers will analyze your needs and requirements and develop a free action plan for you. We will look at your current usage, demand levels and scope out a design to give you the resources you need while keeping your business up and running at a reasonable cost.
If you would like to arrange for an assessment, please click here to complete the contact information form to the right. You can call our office as well. It can take less than 48 hours to complete your assessment.