Because of today’s environment, companies in West Allis, Wisconsin count on the net. Reliable access to the internet is the lifeblood of their organization. Fast and reliable access to The Internet is needed for businesses to function properly; large corporations and small businesses alike.
We’ll, in the months and years ahead, become more and more reliant on our Internet access.
From video conferencing to voice over IP, email to data sharing and data archiving to Internet commerce, the internet is everywhere you look. How can your needs be met? Is a cable modem sufficient? Maybe you need Metro Ethernet. Gigabit Internet? Does your company in West Allis need one of these: 10 Meg Internet access, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?
Before selecting an appropriate service for your company, you must first determine what needs you are trying to satisfy. Why will you need the net? Will you only be web surfing and emailing? Is real time data connection with cloud servers vital to your company? Are you hosting data in West Allis? Do remote locations depend upon you?
Have you thought about what will happen to your business if your high-speed Internet is interrupted by an outage? Will your company suffer from the lull? Is uptime essential to the success of your organization? You must answer questions like these so you can make a purchase that actually meets your needs
High-speed access to the internet is something all companies need. You need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits to your company before choosing the right broadband internet. While you are likely to hear some providers toss around terms such as:
… the real issue is understanding what capability and technical solutions best meet your needs.
Workers for most companies in West Allis, Wisconsin have some need to access the internet during the course of their job. Whether it is to talk to shippers, do research or place orders, access to The net is required.
Your best course of action may be determined by the size of your work force. A five or ten megabyte Internet circuit may be all you need if employ a small workforce. If you have many employees who need to use the web at the same time, you may do better with more.
You may not need as much high-speed access to The net if your employees work primarily on an intranet system with limited graphics and video. On the other hand, Internet speed becomes dramatically more important when they are required to regularly download things like documents or videos.
Do you routinely backup? It is recommended that you do remote backups from every desk. If you are, you will need to support simultaneous connections out to the web to synchronize the backup data to collect.
Do you use a file sharing service like Google drive or DropBox? When people save a file, it gets pushed to the cloud. The file is then synched with other people’s computers. Enough bandwidth is required to support this function along with every other service.
Are you interested in high-speed organization Internet? Depending on where you are located, you may want to look into the viability of gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet. They are usually contained in “lit buildings” in West Allis that have already been 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.
The introduction of Metro Ethernet into a new building can be quite costly. However, bringing that connection into office space within that building is usually less so. Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet may provide you with high-speed access to The Internet in thirty days or less, depending on availability.
Does your company host its own servers running websites, APIs or data feeds for other offices or companies outside of your own four walls? Maybe your company requires that dozens of satellite offices have access to a hosted application at your company main headquarters. Are you hosting the point of sale (POS) system for 15, 000 retail chain stores? Does your legal practice host all of the data for 3, 4 or 5 offices in different places?
When data, programs, or information is hosted centrally, those outside your office must gain access. If the web connection is interrupted, those people cannot get their work done. 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.
If you have one office using the web, you may get by with a cable modem or a low- cost 10-megabyte circuit. It is advisable that high-speed access to The web be available at the central business office or headquarters, including gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuits. High speed is important but they also must be able to support multiple distinct connections. This could probably not be accomplished with a cable modem.
In many cases, installing an inexpensive cable modem comes at a price. While the monthly rate is lower, the bandwidth is generally shared among other tenants. 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. 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 reaches out like branches to every building in the community and the people living and working in those buildings. The 30-meg speed you are capped out sounds good but it is possible that you will never reach that speed during company hours. Do you care if you only get 6 when you were set up to expect 30?
There are carriers who offer dedicated and even guaranteed bandwidth. With these, bandwidth belongs to you and your organization only; no sharing. 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 web can be reached if you use a gigabit Internet provider.
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.
Despite outstanding Internet bandwidth products offered by carriers in West Allis, Wisconsin, circuits do go down. How can you lower the chances that you will experience some kind of outage?
The answer is redundant circuits.
We are primarily talking about two kinds of redundancy.
The first type exists when the same carrier gives you multiple circuits. This provides some protection when there are certain failures. Multiple circuits can help for example, when there is a physical line issue or a problem with a router port. 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. There is some protection that comes with this but there is risk as well.
The second way to set up circuit redundancy is by using two different carriers to bring in your circuits. By using IP address allocations and certain routers, you can bind your connections. By doing this, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. Truthfully, they are entirely separate. They are redundant and exist in case one of them fails. Diversity redundancy offers far greater protection. Should one carrier have some trouble that extends to a greater area and is out of your control, you are backed up with a different carrier.
The providers you choose for your redundant circuits should have different physical pathways in West Allis. This is an important consideration when trying to obtain the most redundancy. If at all possible, you want to obtain circuits entering the premises on different sides. The circuits would be attached underground or to telephone poles, in various directions. The circuits would go to different data centers or central offices. 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.
access to The web costs money but the cost of NOT having reliable Internet access is greater. Please consider these situations:
Your organization is on a cable modem and your carrier provides circuits to 20 other offices in your building. During the course of a regular work day, any or all of these other businesses might be performing massive file downloads. Tenants might be taking a large volume of calls or be regularly streaming video. As the amount of available bandwidth diminishes, what will happen to your phone calls? How will it affect the quality of that telephone call? Maybe calls will randomly drop? Inaudible (choppy) to your customers?
Your office is the center of your business. You may be a law firm that does file sharing or a retailer operating a POS system. All of your locations, whether 2 or 2000, rely on your primary Internet connection to access and retrieve data. What will happen in the event of a circuit failure? Would it cause mere annoyance or utter disaster? Can your satellite offices perform any work at all? Process new orders? Dispense and receive data? Be sure you understand your requirements fully before choosing a solution. 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. Perhaps you operate a service where other systems speak with yours via an API to calculate freight prices, commodity prices, collect current weather data or receive any other information that you serve up. What if these other systems have difficulty connecting your servers? Customers do not enjoy repeated outages. How long with they put up with them before looking to take their organization elsewhere?
Is the web integral to the proper function of your company? Do you count on it entirely? 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. Looks like you are now out of company. Even for the most reputable call centers that already know of and use redundancy, is it sufficient? Are your carriers sufficiently reliable? You should be getting high quality service that ensures your calls are consistently clear and reliable.
You clearly have several choices. Your decision will be based on different factors including your company needs and your budget. Essentially:
A single fifty, ten or five megabyte access to The web circuit may be adequate to meet the needs of your small company, particularly if you have only one location and are not worried about redundancy. For an office in a lit building, you may find that gigabit service or Metro Ethernet are affordable options for you. The availability of circuits and your location determine prices; speak with one of our engineers to learn what your best options are.
Mid-sized businesses in West Allis should be equipped with higher-speed Internet. You may choose between gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. You may also look into other higher-speed Internet circuits. Optimally, multiple providers and multiple circuits will give you the most redundancy. Achieving this may cost extra but it won’t double your costs. For example, you may use 2 fifty meg circuits instead of 1 one hundred meg circuit. Again, costs vary. Availability also varies. In order to find out the options available for you, in your location, you need to speak with one of our seasoned experts.
If your organization has several places or offices, you are at great risk for failure. Redundancy is extremely crucial to them. Having several providers would afford extra protection. Also, redundant equipment such as switches and routers in your facility can minimize the risk of downtime. Here also, examine the Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet providers. Take a careful look at other high-speed access to The net circuit providers before choosing the right one. The right mix of providers and services will help keep your organization up and running as efficiently as possible.
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. In order to maximize and protect your uptime, you must have redundancy. You should have redundant circuits from multiple providers in addition to redundant hardware. You need enough bandwidth. The bandwidth must be adequate to handle spikes in usage with no slowdowns or interruptions. Having both your hardware and your circuits capable of supporting many different, fast, and simultaneous connections is essential. It cannot be one or the other.
The risk of insufficient bandwidth or failing circuits is tremendous. The circuit or circuits you have must stay within the parameters of your budget while still meeting your company needs. You have to select the optimal combination of hardware and circuits, which 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’ll create something cost effective that gives you the resources your organization needs, while keeping it running smoothly.
Please complete the contact form by clicking here. You may also call our office to set up an appointment for your assessment. We do assessments quickly. It can take as little as 48 hours to complete your analysis.