These days, companies in Wilkes-Barre rely on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their business. Fast and reliable Internet access is needed for businesses to function properly; large corporations and small companies alike.
We are going to, in the months and years ahead, become more and more dependent on our Internet access.
From email messaging to information sharing, e-commerce to archiving data, and voice over IP to video chat, the web is omnipresent. What can best meet your needs? Will a cable modem be adequate? Metro Ethernet may be what you need. Gigabit Internet may be required. Does your Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania organization need a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The Internet, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The web point?
Before choosing an adequate or appropriate service, you must decide what your organization really needs. Will web surfing and email be your primary use of the internet? Is it used to network with cloud servers? There may be remote places that rely on you and you are hosting the data in Wilkes-Barre.
How would an outage to your high-speed Internet affect your company? How will the downtime affect your company? Does your business require uptime? You must answer questions like these so you can make a purchase that actually meets your needs
Plainly stated, companies require high-speed access to The net. Deciding on the right broadband is not easy. It requires a thorough cost-benefit analysis. While you are likely to hear some providers toss around terms such as:
… 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 Wilkes-Barre, Internet access is needed for at least some employees. Third party applications, company research or development and e-commerce are just some of the ways the net may be needed.
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 50 employees who are using the internet simultaneously, you may need more.
High-speed Internet may become less important if the majority of your employees primarily use an intranet system with limited graphics and video. When employees are often downloading images, videos and documents, however, the need for speed increases significantly.
Do you perform backups at your company? You may need to support simultaneous connections to the web in order to sync your backup data. If you conduct remote backups from every workstation, which is advisable, this will be important.
Are you using Google drive, DropBox or another file sharing service? After a file is saved, it goes to the cloud and then to someone else’s computer. The right amount of capacity or bandwidth is necessary to support this function in conjunction with every other service you have.
Your organization location may cause you to think about high-speed company Internet access such as Metro Ethernet and/or gigabit Internet. These can usually be found in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania in “lit buildings” that have already been wired. Installing high-speed Internet may not be as difficult and expensive as you think.
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 Internet in thirty days or less, depending on availability.
Your business may host its own servers. Do they run websites APIs or data feeds for external offices? Is your main business office with a hosted application accessed by 40 or even 50 branch office sites? Are you a retail chain hosting the POS system for 12, 000 stores? Are you an attorney with offices multiple cities or states? Do you have one office hosting data for several places?
When data and programs are hosted centrally at one main site, people outside that location must gain access. If the net connection is interrupted or fails, those people are unable to accomplish any work. Are you choosing an intranet solution that is sufficiently reliable and stable to support multiple simultaneous connections from varied sites?
A cable modem or fairly cheap 10-megabyte circuit may be enough in certain scenarios. For example, these may meet the needs of a single office surfing the web. For the headquarters, high-speed access to The net including Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed dedicated circuits is advisable. While fast access to The net is and important, they must also have the capability to handle assorted simultaneous connections. The support you need could not be provided by a cable modem.
Bringing in a cable modem, which seems to save money, may actually come at a price. You may have to share bandwidth in order to secure that low monthly rate. 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. Many cable companies only deliver a set amount of bandwidth within a community. 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. What will the consequences be if you expect 30 but only get half that? What if you get even less?
Guaranteed bandwidth and dedicated bandwidth are solutions that some carriers offer. With these, bandwidth belongs to you and your organization only; no sharing. No matter who is in the building or what buildings surround you, you should always run at full speed.
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. You can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit Internet providers.
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.
The truth is that circuits can go down in Wilkes-Barre even though some providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. The question then becomes, “how do I minimize my chance of an outage? ”
Redundant circuits.
Redundancy in this situation comes in two forms.
With the first kind, you receive several circuits but they all come from the same carrier. These redundant circuits help protect from certain failures, for example, router port issues or physical line trouble. It is possible for both circuits to go down. If your carrier has a regional problem like a widespread outage, or there is a broken line outside your building, even your redundant circuits may fail. This offers some protection and assurance but does not eliminate all threats.
The other type of redundancy requires you to utilize circuits from 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. Though they may appear as one, you know that they are each individual circuits and redundant to each other. This is called diversity redundancy and offers more protection that the first. If one carrier has a problem, the other likely will not.
If you want to maximize redundancy in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania 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. The circuits would be established either underground or on telephone poles and would be set up in different directions and lead to different offices. 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.
While Internet access is not free, it pales in comparison with the cost of not having reliable access to The web. Contemplate these situations:
You are on a cable modem with the carrier providing circuits to 14 other tenants in your building. During your working day, those tenants could be conducting massive downloads of information, processing a large amount of calls or streaming endless video. How will less available bandwidth affect your telephone calls? What happens to the quality of that phone call? Will you lose calls? Will the calls be choppy?
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 company. Your primary Internet connection is solely responsible for smoothly granting access and sending data to all of your sites whether you have two or two thousand. Your circuit goes down, now what will happen? Is it just irritating? Is it going to cause tremendous problems? Is work even possible at your other places? Process or take new orders? Share essential information with anyone? It is important that prior to choosing a solution, you understand the true needs and requirements of your particular organization. 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 offer a service that allows other systems use an application program interface (API) to talk to you to collect information and data. What if other systems can’t connect to your office servers? How long will your customers tolerate repeated outages?
Maybe your business depends entirely 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. Your company is basically done with. While many of the most reputable call centers are already aware and using the advantages of redundancy, is it sufficiently meeting their needs? Make sure your carriers are as reliable as possible. Is the quality of your calls consistently and reliably clear?
You clearly have many options. The needs and budget of your company will both affect your choices. To recap:
If you are a small organization, with just one location and not concerned about redundancy, a single five meg, 10 meg or 50 meg access to The web circuit may be adequate. 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 change based on your location and the availability of circuits. Please speak with our engineers about what options best suit your needs.
You will need higher speed Internet access if you have a medium sized business in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and other higher-speed Internet circuits are your options. 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, one 100-megabyte circuit may cost more than two smaller 50-megabyte circuits. Availability and costs vary. Learn your options by speaking with one of our knowledgeable experts. We can help you determine what is available in your specific location.
What companies have the highest risk for failure; those with multiple sites. They require redundant circuits. It is helpful if they use multiple providers. You can decrease risk during downtime by having redundant equipment as well. As always, take a careful look and choose the right Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed Internet access circuit providers. Your organization can benefit from finding the right mix of services and carriers.
Companies such as these require the following: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and point-to-point (PPP) high-speed 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 need enough bandwidth. The bandwidth must be sufficient to handle spikes in usage with no slowdowns or interruptions. 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.
The risk of insufficient bandwidth or failing circuits is tremendous. You must select the single circuit or multiple circuits that can meet your demands and stay within your budget. The pressure involved in selecting the proper mix of hardware and circuits can be overwhelming.
We have engineers that will analyze your needs, look at your organization requirements and develop an action plan for you… for free!We will look at your current usage, demand levels and scope out a design to give you the resources you need while keeping your organization up and running at a reasonable cost.
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. Your assessment may be finished within as little as 48 hours.