The lifeblood of West Sacramento companies doing business in the current environment depends upon reliable Internet access. The company functions of every company, whether it is a small company or on the Fortune 500, from Fortune 500, depends upon fast and reliable access to The net.
Internet access will become increasingly essential to us in the coming months and years. Our dependence on Internet access will only grow as time goes on.
The web is ubiquitous. From email to data sharing, archiving to commerce and VOIP to video conferencing, the web is everywhere. What is the best solution for you? Maybe a cable modem is a sufficient solution. Do you need Metro Ethernet? Gigabit Internet? Will your West Sacramento, California company needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg Internet access or 100 Meg Internet access point?
Your business must assess its real needs. This must be done before an appropriate service can be chosen. Is Internet use limited to website surfing or emailing only? Is real time data connection with cloud servers essential to your company? Are you hosting the data in West Sacramento that remote sites depend upon?
What if you have a disruption in your high-speed Internet? What about the downtime that results? Can your organization afford that? Does your business require uptime? You must answer these questions before you buy.
In the broadest of terms, companies need high-speed access to The web. When choosing the right broadband for business, you need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits. Don’t be distracted by terminology. While you may hear providers throw out words and phrases like:
… you must not lose sight of the real issue, which is understanding what technical solutions best meet your needs.
For many, if not all, companies in West Sacramento, Internet access is needed for at least some employees. access to The web may be needed to conduct research, use third-party applications or to order supplies.
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 should consider more than that if you have more workers. Also keep in mind whether your workers need to access the internet at the same time.
Your workforce may simply use an intranet system with limited video and graphics. If this is true, your need for high speed Internet be less than you thought. When they are frequently downloading things, whether documents, graphics or videos, however, speed is necessary for efficient job performance.
Does your business regularly conduct backups? 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.
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. Enough bandwidth is required to support this function along with every other service.
Depending on your location, high-speed business access to The web, including Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options. These can usually be found in West Sacramento in “lit buildings” that have already been wired. It may be shock you to know that installing high-speed access to The Internet may not be particularly expensive or inconvenient.
While it may be the case that bringing Metro Ethernet into a new building can cause a big dent in your wallet, bringing the connection to a suite or offices within that building does not have to. 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.
Does your company host its own servers? Does your company use the hosted servers to run data feeds, APIs or websites for offices or businesses located elsewhere? Do fifty or so branch offices need access to a hosted application at your company headquarters? Are you a retail business with 10, 000 stores? Do you host the POS system for all of them? Do you run a law office that hosts the data for satellite offices in different cities or states?
If your company hosts its programs and information at a central location, people outside of that location need to have access in order to conduct company. Those people are not able to work without a solid Internet connection. Are you picking an intranet solution that provides reliability and stability for your multiple, simultaneous connections from various places?
An inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be enough if you have one office that needs to surf the internet. A cable modem may also be adequate in this situation. For the headquarters, high-speed Internet access including Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable. All offer quick speed but they must also be able to support diverse and multiple connections. A cable modem would not be able to accomplish this.
Utilizing a cable modem or other less expensive circuit may seem like a good option but can result in unexpected cost. You may have to share bandwidth in order to secure that low monthly rate. It is possible that you have a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection but cannot reach proper speeds during peak hours. Many cable companies only deliver a set amount of bandwidth within a community. That bandwidth reaches out like branches to every building in the community and the people living and working in those buildings. With a 30-megabyte connection, you may not get to that speed during the working day. What will the consequences be if you expect 30 but only get half that? What if you get even less?
Some providers offer customers dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. With these, bandwidth belongs to you and your company only; no sharing. Regardless of neighbors, or other tenants, you should have the full capacity of your circuit at all times.
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. With gigabit Internet providers, you can reach gigabit speeds in your office out to the internet.
In these scenarios, carriers deliver a large quantity of high-speed to a building. The quantity must be enough so that it can split the circuit and deliver to every tenant. Whatever amount has been guaranteed in each tenant’s contract is the amount they receive.
The truth is that circuits can go down in West Sacramento even though some providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. In what way can you diminish the risk of an outage?
Circuits that are redundant may be a good idea.
Essentially, there are two different ways to look at redundancy.
With the first kind, you receive several circuits but they all come from the same carrier. In this situation, the redundancy helps protect you from port issues or physical line issues. Even multiple circuits can fail, such as in the event of a large-scale carrier outage or when there damage to an external line. While there is some protection, there is also some risk.
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. You will get more substantial protection from this diversity redundancy. In the event a carrier goes down, you will not have to worry. You will have a perfectly live carrier there to keep things moving.
If you want to maximize redundancy in West Sacramento, California please consider the following question: Do the carriers I am considering use the same physical geographic pathways? If at all possible, you want to obtain circuits entering the premises 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 places. If a major accident occurs or there is a fire that impedes the function of circuits in a particular region, you have redundancy in a different direction.
The cost of dependable Internet access pales in comparison to the cost of unreliable access. 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 company that perform large file downloads or stream many videos? As they use more bandwidth, there is less for available to meet your needs. What happens to your phone calls? How will it affect the quality of that telephone call? Are the calls going to be dropped? Inaudible (choppy) to your customers?
Your office is the hub of your company, whether you are a retail organization operating a distributed point of sale (POS) system, an accounting firm sharing databases or a law firm engaged in file sharing. All of your offices, whether you have 3 or 3, 000, rely on your primary Internet connection to successfully access data. What happens if your circuit crashes? Is it a mere annoyance or a catastrophic failure? Can meaningful work be conducted at your remote offices? Can they take or process any orders at all? Dispense and receive data? Do you know what your business needs? Be sure to fully understand your requirements. It will help you choose the correct solution. Perhaps you have hundreds of clients or customers that use a hosted solution that your software business is running. Maybe you offer a service that allows other systems use an application program interface (API) to communicate with you to collect information and data. What if these other systems have difficulty connecting your servers? How long will your customers tolerate repeated outages?
Does your company completely rely on the web? What if your representatives can make no outgoing telephone calls because your circuits go down? In addition, they will be unable to answer incoming calls. You are now officially out of business. For competent call centers that already use and understand the problems that can arise, is redundancy enough? Make sure your providers are as reliable as possible. You should be getting high quality service that ensures your calls are consistently clear and reliable.
Obviously, there are a variety of choices. The needs and budget of your organization will both affect your choices. To summarize:
If your business is small, with one location or office, you are likely not concerned about redundancy. For you, a single 5, 10 or 50 megabyte access to The net circuit may suffice. You may find that if your building is “lit”, gigabit service and Metro Ethernet service may be reasonably cost-effective choices for you. The availability of circuits and your location determine prices; speak with one of our engineers to learn what your best options are.
You will need higher speed access to The net if you have a medium sized company in West Sacramento, California. You may choose between gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. You may also look into other higher-speed Internet circuits. Ideally, multiple circuits from multiple providers will provide you with the greatest redundancy. Achieving this may cost extra but it won’t double your costs. Two 50-megabyte circuits may be more cost effective than a single 100 circuit. Remember, costs vary. So does availability. You need to speak with one of our experts to determine your options in your specific location.
Companies with different sites, whether 5 or 50, are at the highest risk. Redundancy is crucial. Varied providers are optimal. You can increase redundancy with switches or routers. Having redundant equipment can also minimize risk. 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 web circuit providers. Finding the best combination of services, providers and equipment can go a long way toward helping your business run as efficiently as possible.
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. The last thing you want is interruptions or slowdowns affecting your company. You must provide enough bandwidth to avoid these pitfalls that sometimes occur during sudden usage spikes. 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 expert engineers will review your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. After reviewing your current usage and demand levels, we are going to generate a cost effective plan that provides your company with the resources it needs.
Please call our office for an assessment appointment or click here to complete the contact form on the right side of the page. We do assessments quickly. It can take as little as 48 hours to complete your analysis.