In today’s world, Urbana, Illinois companies need dependable access to The Internet. It is the lifeblood of their business. The company functions of every company, whether it is a small organization or on the Fortune 500, from Fortune 500, relies on fast and reliable Internet access.
Our reliance on access to the internet will become greater in the near and distant future.
From email to data sharing, video chat to VoIP, and data archiving to Internet commerce, the Internet is ubiquitous. What can best meet your needs? Can a cable modem suffice? Is Metro Ethernet necessary? Would Gigabit Internet suffice? Your Urbana, Illinois organization probably needs a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The Internet, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg Internet access point but which one is best?
Your organization must assess its real needs. This must be done before an appropriate service can be chosen. Are surfing the web and sending email the only uses of the internet? Is it used to network with cloud servers? You may be hosting the data in Urbana and remote places rely on this.
What if there is an outage and your high-speed Internet is interrupted? Will your business suffer from the lull? Is your success dependent on uptime? These types of questions must be answered before you make purchase anything.
In the broadest of terms, companies need high-speed access to The net. When choosing the right broadband for business, you need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits. While various providers will throw around terminology like:
… be sure not to forget what capability and technical solutions meet your business’s specific needs.
Most companies in Urbana require that some or all of their workers have access to the net. The Internet is required for so many things, whether to order items, look up company information communicate with third parties.
The solution you choose may be based on the number of employees you have or expect to have. If you have a handful of employees, a 5 or 10 Meg Internet circuit may be sufficient. If you have 50 employees who are using the net simultaneously, you may need more.
Your need for high-speed Internet may be lessened if your workers are just accessing an intranet systemWhen they are frequently downloading things, whether documents, graphics or videos, however, speed is necessary for efficient job performance.
Are you performing backups? If, as recommended, you conduct remote backups from every single desk, you will need to support simultaneous connections out to the web. This will allow you to sync your backup data.
Does your organization use a file sharing service? DropBox? Google drive? As people save files, those files are pushed to the cloud and then synchronized back to other people’s computers. The right amount of capacity or bandwidth is necessary to support this function in conjunction with every other service you have.
You may consider high-speed business access to The Internet if you location warrants it. Gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet may be viable options for you. These are typically found in “lit buildings” in Urbana. Providers have already wired these buildings. If you’d like to install high-speed Internet in your office, you should know that it might be more affordable than you realize.
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. 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 your headquarters have a hosted Internet application that must be accessed regularly by 40 or 50 branch offices? Perhaps you are in retail and host the point of sale (POS) system for thousands of stores? Do you run a law office that hosts the data for satellite offices in different cities or states?
Access to data and programs by people outside of your main location becomes necessary when you host information centrally. Those people are not able to work without a solid 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 sites?
A cost friendly 10 Meg circuit or even a cable modem may satisfy the needs of a business with a single office that needs to surf the web. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable for the headquarters where high-speed Internet access is important. Multiple diverse connections require support, in addition to high speed. A cable modem would probably not be enough.
Utilizing a cable modem or other less expensive circuit may seem like a good option but can result in unexpected cost. You may save money on your monthly bill but the bandwidth you get must be shared among many people. 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. Often, within a given community, cable companies may only deliver a particular amount of bandwidth. 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 business hours. If you expect 30 but only get 6, will you have problems?
Some providers offer customers dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. In this scenario, the bandwidth is fully allocated to you and your company or company. No one else uses it. You should receive full capacity of your circuits during all hours. This is true even though you may have many buildings, businesses and tenants nearby.
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. If you want to reach gigabit speeds from your company out to the net, you can by using a gigabit Internet provider.
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.
Urbana has some providers that offer exceptional Internet bandwidth products and services. However, circuits can still go down and cause disruption. You must ask yourself: “how do I lessen the chance of an outage? ”
Circuits that are redundant may be a good idea.
There are two types of redundancy to consider.
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. It is possible for both circuits to go down. If your carrier has a regional problem like a widespread outage, or there is a broken line outside your building, even your redundant circuits may fail. While there is some security in this, you are still vulnerable under some circumstances.
Utilizing circuits from two different providers is the second kind of redundancy. You may want your circuits to appear and act as if they are one and come from the same source. If so you can use IP address allocations and advanced routers to do so. Though they may appear as one, you know that they are each individual circuits and redundant to each other. This is called diversity redundancy and offers more protection that the first. When one carrier has a problem like an outage or some other failure, you have another one that works.
When considering redundant circuits and carriers, try to be sure that the carriers you look at in Urbana have different physical geographic routes or pathways. Doing so will maximize redundancy. Essentially, this just means that you do not want both of your circuits to enter the building on the same side. They should come in on different sides. Whether they are attached underground or to a telephone pole, your goal should be to have the circuits in different directions leading to different central sites. 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.
Even though access to The net comes with a cost, you will save money if you make sure it is dependable. Unreliable access will end up costing you more in the long run. Contemplate these situations:
You are on a cable modem with the carrier providing circuits to 14 other tenants in your building. It is possible that during normal company hours, those tenants might be downloading large files or watching continuous videos. They might be getting a lot of phone calls. As they use more bandwidth, there is less for available to meet your requirements. What will happen to your phone calls? How will the caliber of the call be affected? Are the calls going to be dropped? Will the calls be choppy?
Your office is the hub of your enterprise: You might be a law practice that shares files, a retail operation that utilizes POS systems or a large accounting firm that needs to share databases. 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 will happen in the event of a circuit failure? Is it just irritating? Is it going to cause tremendous problems? Can meaningful work be conducted at your remote offices? Can they take or process any orders at all? Disseminate needed information and 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. You operate a service that utilizes API in order to grant access to other systems. They may use this to collect whatever data you are offering such as commodity prices, weather data or freight calculations. What will happen when there is a problem connecting to your servers? Will your customers remain loyal to you if they have to withstand multiple outages?
Is the internet integral to the proper function of your company? Do you depend on it entirely? Your employees or representatives will not be able to make outgoing phone calls if your circuits go down. Your reps have no way of answering calls, if they even know they are coming in. Your company is basically done with. 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? Do you consistently get quality service that provides clear and reliable calls?
Obviously, there are a variety of choices. Your company needs and budgets will drive your decisions. As a high-level summary:
A single fifty, ten or five megabyte Internet access circuit may be sufficient to meet the needs of your small organization, particularly if you have only one location and are not worried about redundancy. If you are in a “lit” building, Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be reasonably priced options. Speak with our engineers about what is right for you. Prices vary with location and circuit availability.
Mid sized companies with a single office in Urbana, need higher speed access to The web. Your choices include: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or other high-speed circuits. Multiple circuits utilizing multiple providers would, ideally, provide you with maximum redundancy. It is sometimes possible to reach this without adding ridiculous 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. To repeat, availability and prices vary. Your specific location will determine what options you have. Please speak with one of our experts to find out what those are and how we can meet your needs.
Businesses with many places face the greatest risk for failure. They require redundant circuits. Multiple providers or carriers are recommended. Also, redundant equipment such as switches and routers in your facility can minimize the risk of downtime. Here too, take a careful look and choose the right Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed access to The net 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 must have the bandwidth to withstand sharp increases in usage. Doing so will help protect you from slowdowns or interruptions. The hardware and circuits you choose must both be able to support the following: a great number of concurrent, speedy connections.
Your organization faces great risk of less than adequate bandwidth and failing circuits. 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 take the pressure off and develop a free action plan for you by analyzing your needs. We are going to formulate a design or plan based partly on your current usage and demand levels. We are going to create something cost effective that gives you the resources your business needs, while keeping it running smoothly.
Please call our office for an assessment appointment or click here to complete the contact form on the right side of the page. Your assessment may be finished within as little as 48 hours.