In today’s world, Whittier companies need dependable Internet access. It is the lifeblood of their organization. The business functions of every company, whether it is a small business or on the Fortune 500, from Fortune 500, depends upon fast and reliable Internet access.
We will, in the months and years ahead, become more and more reliant on our access to The Internet.
From email messaging to information sharing, e-commerce to archiving data, and voice over IP to video conferencing, the net is omnipresent. What solution bet fits your needs? Is a cable modem enough? Is Metro Ethernet necessary? Would Gigabit Internet suffice? 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 business in Whittier, California?
Your company must assess its real needs. This must be done before an appropriate service can be chosen. Is the internet only used for web surfing and email? Is it used for real-time data connection with cloud servers? Perhaps you, in Whittier, California, are hosting the data and remote locations rely on this.
How would an outage to your high-speed Internet affect your company? Can your organization afford the downtime? Is uptime essential to the success of your company? 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 web. An analysis of the costs and benefits should be done prior to choosing the broadband internet that is correct for your company. Don’t be distracted by terminology. While you may hear providers throw out words and phrases like:
… do not lose sight of the real issues: what are the capabilities and technical solutions you need to best serve your company?
For many, if not all, companies in Whittier, California, access to The web is needed for at least some employees. Whether it is for company research, to order supplies or to use third-party applications, the web is required.
The number of workers you have may be the factor that drives your decision. A five or ten megabyte Internet circuit may be all you need if employ a small workforce. If you have a larger workforce, you may want to consider more. This is especially true if they all need to use the web simultaneously.
Your need for high-speed Internet may be lessened if your workers are just accessing an intranet systemOn the other hand, when they are frequently downloading documents, images and videos, that need for speed increases drastically.
Do you backup information? Synchronizing your backup data after doing remote backups from every desk requires you to support simultaneous connections out to the web.
Are you using Google drive, DropBox or another file sharing service? This is how a file sharing service works: You save a file. Then the file is pushed to the cloud, and is then synchronized with other people’s computers. Enough bandwidth is required to support this function along with every other service.
You may consider high-speed organization access to The web if you location warrants it. Gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet may be viable options for you. They are usually contained in “lit buildings” in Whittier that have already been wired by a carrier. It may be shock you to know that installing high-speed access to The Internet may not be particularly expensive or inconvenient.
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. In fact, obtaining high-speed access to The net with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less depending upon availability.
Does your company 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 organization headquarters with a hosted application connected to fifty or more satellite offices? Perhaps you are in retail and host the point of sale (POS) system for thousands of stores? Are you a law firm hosting data for multiple office places?
If you host programs, data or information centrally, people outside of the central location need to have access. If the net connection is interrupted or fails, those people are unable to accomplish any work. Is the intranet solution you are choosing sufficiently reliable? Is it stable enough to support simultaneous connections from different locations?
If you have one office using the web, you may get by with a cable modem or a low- cost 10-megabyte circuit. High-speed dedicated circuits, Metro Ethernet or gigabit Ethernet are advisable for company headquarters. High-speed alone is not enough. They must also need to be capable of supporting many diverse connections. This could probably not be accomplished with a cable modem.
Bringing in a less-expensive circuit like a cable modem often comes with a price. You may save money on your monthly bill but the bandwidth you get must be shared among many people. During peak use hours, you may not be able to reach proper speeds. 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 branches off to different buildings and then to various tenants within those buildings. With a 30-megabyte connection, you may not get to that speed during the working day. Is getting 7 when you expect 30 a problem?
Guaranteed bandwidth and dedicated bandwidth are solutions that some providers offer. If you want your very own bandwidth that is not used by anyone else, you should consider this. No matter who is in the building or what buildings surround you, you should always run at full speed.
Metro Ethernet provides guaranteed bandwidth in increments as follows: 5, 10, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. Gigabit Internet providers offer gigabit speeds from your office to the web.
Here, carriers deliver enough high-speed to the building, so that it can be split among various tenants. The carrier has the right amount so that everyone gets the contracted speed that has been promised.
Realistically, while some providers in Whittier, California offer excellent Internet bandwidth products, it is possible for a circuit to go down. In what way can you diminish the risk of an outage?
The answer is redundant circuits.
Redundancy basically comes in two forms.
A single carrier, providing multiple circuits, to one customer, characterizes one form of redundancy. 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. If your carrier experiences a regional outage or you have a line broken outside of your building, you may lose the use of all of your circuits. You get some protection, but also some risk.
In the second type of redundancy, you bring in circuits from two different carriers. 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. In fact, they are totally redundant and separate. Diversity redundancy provides greater assurance, comfort and protection. 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.
The carriers you choose for your redundant circuits should have different physical pathways in Whittier. This is an important consideration when trying to obtain the most redundancy. This means that you should try to have the circuits come into you building from different sides. Ideally, the circuits will be going in different directions and toward various central business spaces or data centers. In this way you have redundancy in different physical directions. If there is an event that causes a regional circuit problem, you have an alternative that is unaffected.
The cost to your company if you do not have reliable Internet access will be far greater than you may realize. Please consider these situations:
You are on a cable modem with the carrier providing circuits to 14 other tenants in your building. During company hours, any of those tenants could be streaming video, performing massive file downloads, processing large volumes of phone calls and more. As the amount of accessible bandwidth decreases, what will happen to your needs? What happens to your phone calls? What happens to the quality of that phone call? Will calls be arbitrarily dropped? Will you sound muffled or choppy to your customers?
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. All of your places, you may have 2, you may have 500, you may have 4, 000, rely on your main Internet connection to access and receive data. What happens in the event of a circuit failure? Will it cause disastrous results of just annoy you a little bit? Is work even possible at your other places? What about new orders? Share essential information with anyone? Do you know what your organization needs? Be sure to fully understand your requirements. It will help you choose the correct solution. Maybe you are a corporation that designs and sells software and you run a hosted solution that is used by hundreds and hundreds of customers. 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 prices or other information. What if these other systems have difficulty connecting your servers? How long will your customers tolerate repeated outages?
What if your business could not function at all without the web? Maybe your company depends upon it completely. If your circuits go down, you cannot make calls. In addition, they will be unable to answer incoming calls. You are now officially out of organization. While many of the most reputable call centers are already aware and using the advantages of redundancy, is it sufficiently meeting their needs? Are you really getting the dependable service you need form your carriers? Are you using providers that are truly reliable? Is the quality of service sufficient for your calls to be clear and reliable?
You clearly have several choices. Your business needs and your budget will have to come into consideration when deciding on your solutions. As a wrap-up:
Sometimes redundancy is not vital to you. For example, If you are a small business, with just one office location, a single access to The net circuit may be sufficient. You may get by with one 50, 10 or even 5 megabyte circuit. Metro Ethernet service or gigabit service may also be a reasonably priced option if you are in a lit building. Prices will vary. They are based on your location and circuit availability; speak with our engineers to learn your best options.
Mid-sized businesses in Whittier 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. Using different circuits and different carriers will, if you choose, provide you with redundancy. You may be able to achieve this in a manner that will not break the bank. For example, one 100-megabyte circuit may cost more than two smaller 50-megabyte circuits. Again, costs vary. Availability also varies. You should speak with our experts to learn the options for your particular location.
The greatest risk of failure belongs to companies that have multiple places of organization or offices. Redundancy is crucial. Multiple carriers would be great. Redundant routers, switches and other equipment can also be helpful to lessen downtime during a problem. Before you make a decision here too, do your research. Look closely into Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed circuit providers. The right mix of carriers and services will help keep your business up and running as efficiently as possible.
If you can place yourself in this category, it is essential that you have Metro Ethernet, point-to-point circuits and gigabit Internet circuits. You will want to have the greatest protection of your uptime. To accomplish this you must have redundancy: redundant circuits from multiple providers and redundant hardware for your system. You do not want any slowdowns or interruptions that often occur during spikes in usage. Avoid this by having sufficient bandwidth. Both your hardware and circuits must be capable of supporting a vast number of simultaneous and fast connections.
Do you understand how great the risk of failing circuits and insufficient bandwidth really is? It is imperative that the circuit or circuits you choose meet your needs but also keep you within your allowable budget. Choosing the right combination of hardware and circuits can be complicated and confusing.
Our engineers can help. We are going to analyze your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. We will look at your current usage, demand levels and scope out a design to give you the resources you need while keeping your company up and running at a reasonable cost.
Please click here if you wish to complete the contact form on the side of this page. Alternatively, call our office to schedule an assessment. We do assessments quickly. It can take as little as 48 hours to complete your analysis.