In today’s world, Wausau, Wisconsin companies need dependable access to The net. It is the lifeblood of their business. All companies depend on reliable and quick access to The web. This is true no matter how large or small the company.
Our reliance on access to the internet will become greater in the near and distant future.
The web has a significant presence in our lives. From email to information sharing, data archiving to e-commerce, and VOIP to video conferencing, the internet is certainly ubiquitous. What is the best solution for you? Is a cable modem enough? Do you need Metro Ethernet? Your needs may be met with Gigabit Internet. Does your organization in Wausau need one of these: 10 Meg access to The web, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?
Prior to selecting a service, your business must figure out its needs. Perhaps the internet is only used for a few things such as email communication or surfing the web. Is real time data connection with cloud servers essential to your company? Perhaps you, in Wausau, Wisconsin, are hosting the data and remote places depend upon this.
What will happen to your company if your high-speed Internet experiences an outage? How might the downtime cause problems for your company? Is uptime required? You must answer these questions before you buy.
In all-encompassing terms, businesses need high-speed Internet access. Deciding on the right broadband is not easy. It requires a thorough cost-benefit analysis. Many service providers toss out terms such as:
… do not stray from the real issues. Focus on what your company’s needs are and what capabilities and technical solutions will help satisfy them.
For most companies in Wausau, Wisconsin, some or all of the employees need access to the web. The net is required for so many things, whether to order items, look up business information speak with third parties.
The number of workers you have may be the factor that drives your decision. 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 a larger workforce, you may want to consider more. This is especially true if they all need to use the net simultaneously.
Your need for high-speed Internet may be lessened if your workers are just accessing an intranet systemHowever, employees who must often download documents, images and videos, need that speed.
Are you performing backups? Synchronizing your backup data after doing remote backups from every desk requires you to support simultaneous connections out to the web.
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. Enough bandwidth is required to support this function along with every other service.
Your organization location may cause you to think about high-speed business Internet access such as Metro Ethernet and/or gigabit Internet. “Lit buildings” that have already been wired by a carrier, are commonly the site for these. The ease and affordability of adding high-speed Internet to your office may surprise you.
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.
Ask yourself this: Does we host our own servers to run APIs, websites and data feeds to external offices or organization premises? Maybe your organization requires that dozens of satellite offices have access to a hosted application at your company main headquarters. Does your office host the point of sale (POS) system for every single store in a large retail chain? Are you an attorney with offices multiple cities or states? Do you have one office hosting data for several locations?
When things are hosted at a central point, parties outside the office must somehow gain access. Those people are not able to do their work if the web connection fails or is unreliable. Are you picking an intranet solution that provides reliability and stability for your multiple, simultaneous connections from various locations?
For one office or a small business with just one or two people surfing the web, a less expensive 10 Meg circuit or a cable modem may meet your needs. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable for the headquarters where high-speed access to The Internet is important. Multiple diverse connections require support, in addition to high speed. This could probably not be accomplished with a cable modem.
In some situations, there is a high price to pay for bringing in an inexpensive circuit or cable modem. You may save money on your monthly bill but the bandwidth you get must be shared among many people. 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. Cable operators differ but many have prescribed limits on the bandwidth amount that they can deliver within a set community. That amount of bandwidth must be shared with different buildings and with the tenants housed within. While you may be capped at thirty-megabyte speed, will you ever reach that speed during company hours? Is getting 7 when you expect 30 a problem?
Some providers are available who offer dedicated bandwidth and guaranteed bandwidth. In this case, your company receives full allocation of bandwidth. There is no sharing with any outsiders. The full capacity of your circuit should be attainable during all hours regardless of neighboring buildings, people or offices.
Metro Ethernet provides guaranteed bandwidth in increments as follows: 5, 10, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. Gigabit speeds from your office to the net can be reached if you use a gigabit Internet provider.
Carriers in these situations deliver enough to cover everyone’s needs. The carriers divide their circuit to various tenants while guaranteeing that everyone gets their contracted speed.
Despite outstanding Internet bandwidth products offered by providers in Wausau, circuits do go down. Ask this question: “what can I do to decrease the likelihood of an outage?
The answer is redundant circuits.
There are, in essence, two types of redundancy.
The first type exists when the same carrier gives you multiple circuits. In this situation, the redundancy helps protect you from port issues or physical line issues. 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 second way to set up circuit redundancy is by using two different providers to bring in your circuits. For users and the public, you can make it look like you have one cohesive circuit. You can also make the connections act as a single circuit. You can do this with various advanced routers and IP address allocations. Though they may appear as one, you know that they are each individual circuits and redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy offers far greater protection. If one carrier has a problem, the other likely will not.
When considering redundant circuits and providers, try to be sure that the providers you look at in Wausau, Wisconsin have different physical geographic routes or pathways. Doing so will maximize redundancy. In other words, try to obtain circuits entering the building from different sides of the building. They would be on outside phone poles or underground conduits in different directions and leading to different places. 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.
Even though Internet access 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. Please think about the following scenarios:
Your office uses a cable modem and, in addition to you, the carrier provides 10-15 additional tenants with circuits. What if any or all of those tenants are huge call centers taking in a massive volume of phone calls, are organization that perform large file downloads or stream many videos? What will happen to your telephone calls as the amount of usable bandwidth decreases? What happens to the quality of that phone call? Will you lose calls? Will you sound muffled or choppy to your customers?
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. Every single one of your offices, stores and locations rely on you and your primary Internet connection to retrieve data. What if your circuit fails? Is it simply an irritation or a catastrophe? Can your satellite offices perform any work at all? Process new orders? Dispense and receive data? Choosing the right solution depends largely on assessing and understanding the specific needs of your company. 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. What if other systems can’t connect to your office servers? How will repeated outages affect your customers? Will they remain customers?
Your company is 100% reliant on the net to properly function. If your circuits go down, you cannot make calls. In addition, they will be unable to answer incoming calls. Basically, you are out of business. Even for the most reputable call centers that already know of and use redundancy, is it sufficient? Make sure your carriers are as reliable as possible. Is the quality of service sufficient for your calls to be clear and reliable?
Obviously, there are a variety of choices. Your company needs and your budget will have to come into consideration when deciding on your solutions. In summary:
A single fifty, ten or five megabyte Internet access circuit may be adequate to meet the needs of your small business, particularly if you have only one location and are not worried about redundancy. Gigabit service and Metro Ethernet options seem expensive. If you are in a lit building, however, they can be less than you think. Look into it. Prices will vary. They are based on your location and circuit availability; speak with our engineers to learn your best options.
Having a medium or mid-sized company in Wausau requires that you have higher-speed access to the web. You have several choices. Consider the following: Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet or higher-speed Internet access circuits. Optimally, multiple carriers and multiple circuits will give you the most redundancy. But can you do this without doubling costs? Sometimes, yes. Two 50-megabyte circuits may be more cost effective than a single 100 circuit. Availability and costs vary. You should speak with our experts to learn the options for your particular location.
Businesses with many sites face the greatest risk for failure. Redundant circuits must be an essential part of their systems. Multiple providers or carriers are recommended. Also, redundant equipment such as switches and routers in your facility can minimize the risk of downtime. As always, take a careful look and choose the right Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed access to The Internet circuit providers. Your company can benefit from finding the right mix of services and providers.
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 absolutely need redundant circuits from different providers as well as redundant hardware. This is crucial to ensuring uptime. You need to provide sufficient bandwidth to handle usage spikes without slowdowns or interruptions. 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. You need to have the right circuit or circuits to meet your demands while staying within your budget. Choosing the right combination of hardware and circuits can be complicated and confusing.
Our engineers will take the pressure off and develop a free action plan for you by analyzing your needs. 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.
Please call our office for an assessment appointment or click here to complete the contact form on the right side of the page. It can take as little as 48 hours to provide a complete assessment.