The lifeblood of Westminster companies doing company in the current environment relies on reliable Internet access. All companies rely on reliable and quick Internet access. This is true regardless how large or small the business.
In the months and years ahead, people and businesses will become more reliant on access to the internet.
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 enough? Metro Ethernet may be what you need. Your needs may be met with Gigabit Internet. A 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg Internet access, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg Internet access point: what is right for your company in Westminster?
Before selecting an appropriate service for your organization, you must first determine what needs you are trying to satisfy. Is the internet only used for web surfing and email? Will real-time data connection with servers in the cloud be the primary use of the net? You may be hosting the data in Westminster, Colorado and remote sites rely on this.
What if your high-speed Internet is disrupted by an outage? What will happen to your business? Will your organization suffer from the lull? Does your business require uptime? Prior to making any purchases, you must determine the answers to these questions.
It is no secret that all companies need high-speed access to the net. When choosing the right broadband internet for organization, you need to analyze and balance the costs and benefits. While many service providers throw around terminologies such as:
… focus on what matters: what does your company need and what are the best services and solutions out there to meet those needs?
Workers for most companies in Westminster, Colorado have some need to access the net during the course of their job. Third party applications, business research or development and e-commerce are just several of the ways the internet may be needed.
Your best course of action may be determined by the size of your work force. If you have a handful of employees, a 5 or 10 Meg Internet circuit may be adequate. If you have more than that, you may need more.
You may not need as much high-speed access to The Internet if your employees work primarily on an intranet system with limited graphics and video. On the other hand, if your company requires that its employees download many documents or images and videos, Internet speed becomes more important.
Are you performing backups? When you do remote backups from every workstation, which you should, you must support multiple and simultaneous connections to the web in order to sync your backup data.
Google drive and DropBox are two popular sharing services. Are you using one of these or some other service that allows you to share files? When you save a file it is pushed to the cloud. Then it is synched to the computer or computers of someone else. You must have sufficient bandwidth if you are to successfully support every service including file sharing.
High-speed business access to The web like Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options for you depending on your location. They are usually contained in “lit buildings” in Westminster that have already been wired by a carrier. If you’d like to install high-speed Internet in your office, you should know that it might be more affordable than you realize.
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. Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet may provide you with high-speed access to The web in thirty days or less, depending on availability.
Does your organization host its own servers to run information feeds, websites or application program interfaces (APIs) with companies or offices located outside of your four walls? Are your company headquarters with a hosted application accessed by 50 branch offices? Are you a retail company hosting the POS system for thousands of chain stores? You may be a law firm hosting data for three or four different offices.
Granting access to outsiders is necessary when you host data and programs at a central location. If the web connection is interrupted, those people cannot get their work done. 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?
For one office or a small organization 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 net is important. 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.
Utilizing a cable modem or other less expensive circuit may seem like a good option but can result in unexpected cost. Oftentimes, a lower monthly rate comes with the realization that you are sharing bandwidth with many different tenants and offices. 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. Buildings, offices and tenants within the buildings all must share that amount of bandwidth, whatever it may be. You might be capped at 30-megabyte speed, but may never be able to actually reach that speed during the important hours of your business day. What will the consequences be if you expect 30 but only get half that? What if you get even less?
There are providers who offer dedicated and even guaranteed bandwidth. With these, bandwidth belongs to you and your company only; no sharing. No matter who is in the building or what buildings surround you, you should always run at full speed.
You can receive guaranteed bandwidth with Metro Ethernet. You can receive it in increments of five, 10, 50 or one hundred megabyte circuits. Gigabit Internet providers offer gigabit speeds from your office to the net.
The providers in this situation deliver high-speed to a particular building in sufficient quantity to split their circuit among various tenants. Of course, they must ensure that they each get the specific amount of their contracted speed.
While certain carriers offer superior Internet bandwidth products in Westminster, the reality is that it is possible for a circuit to go down. What can you do to minimize the chance that you will experience an outage of some kind?
Redundant circuits may be the answer for you.
We are primarily talking about two kinds of redundancy.
The first kind of redundancy exists when one carrier provides one customer with many circuits. These redundant circuits help protect from certain failures, for example, router port issues or physical line trouble. 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. While there is some security in this, you are still vulnerable under some circumstances.
In the second type of redundancy, you bring in circuits from two different carriers. Using advanced routers and IP address allocations, you can bind these connections together so that, to your users and to the public, it appears and behaves as a single circuit. Truthfully, they are entirely separate. They are redundant and exist in case one of them fails. This redundancy, referred to as diversity redundancy, offers much greater protection. If one carrier has a widespread issue, you have a carrier that will still be alive.
If you want to maximize redundancy in Westminster, Colorado please consider the following question: Do the providers I am considering use the same physical geographic pathways? 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.
The cost of dependable access to The Internet pales in comparison to the cost of unreliable access. Consider the following:
Your office uses a cable modem and, in addition to you, the carrier provides 10-15 additional tenants with circuits. During your working day, those tenants could be conducting massive downloads of information, processing a large amount of calls or streaming endless video. As available bandwidth shrinks, what will happen to your calls? What about phone call quality? Will calls be arbitrarily dropped? Will your voice be inaudible? Will you have difficulty hearing the other end?
Regardless of whether you are part of a legal practice and your firm does file sharing, or an accounting practice sharing databases, your office is the central point or hub of your business. Your primary Internet connection is responsible for granting access to data to all of your locations. This is true whether you have 3 sites or 2000 locations. If your circuit goes done, what will happen next? Is it a mere annoyance or a catastrophic failure? Can meaningful work be conducted at your remote offices? Process new orders? Share essential data? Before choosing a solution, be sure to assess and really understand what your company requires. You might have hundreds and hundreds of loyal customers. Perhaps you are a software company running a hosted solution they all count on. 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 will happen when there is a problem connecting to your servers? Multiple outages may annoy your customers.
What if your organization could not function at all without the internet? Maybe your business depends upon it completely. Your employees or representatives will not be able to make outgoing phone calls if your circuits go down. There would be no way to answer incoming calls of people trying to reach your representatives. You are now officially out of organization. For competent call centers that already use and understand the problems that can arise, is redundancy enough? Are the carriers you currently use as reliable as they should be? Are they as reliable as you need them to be? Are you getting quality service so that your calls are clear and consistent?
You have several different options to pick from. Your decision will be based on different factors including your business needs and your budget. As a high-level summary:
You are probably not thinking about redundancy if you have a small company with a single location. In this case, you can probably get by with a single Internet access circuit of 5, 10 or 50 meg. Is your building lit? If so, find out about gigabit or Metro Ethernet services. They may be reasonably priced options. Prices vary based on your location and availability of circuits; speak with our engineers to find your best option.
You will need higher speed access to The net if you have a medium sized company in Westminster. Your choices include: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or other high-speed circuits. Optimally, multiple carriers and multiple circuits will give you the most redundancy. But can you do this without doubling costs? Sometimes, yes. For example, you may use 2 fifty meg circuits instead of 1 one hundred meg circuit. Do not forget that you will find variations in price and availability. Learn your options by speaking with one of our knowledgeable experts. We can help you determine what is available in your specific location.
If your company has several places or offices, you are at great risk for failure. Redundancy is crucial. Different carriers are desirable. In addition, consider redundant equipment. Redundant routers and switches can minimize risk also. Look at all of your options: Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet providers, Metro Ethernet providers and other high-speed circuit providers. The right mix can help. If you can figure out the best combination of carriers and services for your business, you will benefit.
For companies falling in this category, gigabit Internet circuits, Metro Ethernet Internet circuits and point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits are essential. 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 to provide sufficient bandwidth to handle usage spikes without slowdowns or interruptions. Be sure to have the right circuits and hardware. They both must be able to support multiple, fast, concurrent connections.
The danger and risk of failing circuits is tremendous. So is the risk of having less bandwidth than you need. You must select the single circuit or multiple circuits that can meet your demands and stay within your budget. Selecting the appropriate mix of circuits and hardware can overwhelm you.
Our engineers will analyze your needs and requirements and develop a free action plan for you. We’ll examine your demand levels and current usage. We will then design a plan that keeps your costs reasonable while meeting your demand for a smoothly run organization.
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. Assessments are done in as few as two days or within 48 hours.