These days, companies in Winter Garden, Florida count on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their company. All companies, from Fortune 500 to small companies, have functions that rely on easy, dependable and quick access to The Internet.
In the months and years ahead, people and businesses will become more reliant on internet access.
From email to data sharing, video conferencing to VoIP, and data archiving to Internet commerce, the net is ubiquitous. What can best meet your needs? Can a cable modem suffice? Metro Ethernet? Gigabit Internet? Will your Winter Garden, Florida company needs be met with a 50 Meg circuit, a 5 Meg circuit, 10 Meg access to The net or 100 Meg Internet access point?
Before selecting the appropriate service, your business must assess its needs. Is Internet use limited to website surfing or emailing only? Is it used for real-time data connection with cloud servers? Are you hosting data in Winter Garden, Florida? Do remote locations depend upon you?
What if there is an outage and your high-speed Internet is interrupted? How much downtime can your business withstand? Is the absence of uptime detrimental? You must answer questions like these so you can make a purchase that actually meets your needs
It is no secret that all companies need high-speed access to the net. When picking the correct broadband internet, balancing the costs and benefits to your company is imperative. Don’t be distracted by terminology. While you may hear providers throw out words and phrases like:
… the actual issue is knowing what technology and capability can satisfy your needs.
Workers for most companies in Winter Garden have some need to access the net during the course of their job. The web is required for so many things, whether to order items, look up company information speak with third parties.
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. You may need more if you have more workers and those workers all need to be on the web during the same hours.
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.
Does your company 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.
Do you use a file-sharing service? Perhaps you use Google drive, DropBox or a different service? After a file is saved, it goes to the cloud and then to someone else’s computer. Supporting file sharing, while supporting every other service, requires sufficient bandwidth.
Are you interested in high-speed company Internet? Depending on where you are located, you may want to look into the viability of gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet. Usually, you can find these in “lit buildings” in Winter Garden that have been previously wired by a carrier. Adding this high-speed Internet to your office may be surprisingly affordable and easy.
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. 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.
Your business may host its own servers. Do they run websites APIs or data feeds for external offices? Are your corporate headquarters with a hosted application utilized by 50 branch offices? Does your office host the point of sale (POS) system for every single store in a large retail chain? Do you run a law office that hosts the data for satellite offices in different cities or states?
Access to data and programs by people outside of your main location becomes necessary when you host information centrally. For those people, no Internet connection means no work gets 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.
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. High-speed dedicated circuits, Metro Ethernet or gigabit Ethernet are advisable for company headquarters. 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.
In many cases, installing an inexpensive cable modem comes at a price. 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. Cable companies are known to limit or predetermine the amount of bandwidth available for delivery in any particular community. The bandwidth branches off to the multiple buildings, offices and tenants within them. While you may be capped at a 30 Meg speed, you may never be able to reach that speed during organization hours. 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. In this situation, your bandwidth is not shared but is fully allocated to your company. The presence of numerous buildings and tenants should have no effect on your speed. You should receive full capacity of your circuits no matter what the time of day.
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 internet.
Carriers in these situations deliver enough to cover everyone’s needs. The carriers divide their circuit to various tenants while guaranteeing that everyone gets their contracted speed.
The truth is that circuits can go down in Winter Garden even though some providers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. The question then becomes, “how do I minimize my chance of an outage? ”
Circuits that are redundant may be a good idea.
There are, in essence, two types 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. If that carrier has a wide reaching outage or there is a line broken or damaged outside of your building, both circuits may go down. There is some protection that comes with this but there is risk as well.
Utilizing circuits from two different providers is the second kind of redundancy. 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. You will get more substantial protection from this diversity redundancy. If one carrier has a widespread issue, you have a carrier that will still be alive.
The carriers you choose for your redundant circuits should have different physical pathways in Winter Garden. 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. They would be on outside phone poles or underground conduits in different directions and leading to different places. By doing this, if there is a significant problem such as a fire at a data center, you have redundancy in an alternative physical direction.
Although Internet access comes at a price, the price of unreliable Internet access is tremendous. Please think about the following scenarios:
Is your business on a cable modem? How many other tenants is your carrier servicing in your building? Are 14 other offices getting circuits? During company hours, any of those tenants could be streaming video, performing massive file downloads, processing large volumes of phone calls and more. How will your telephone calls be affected as the amount of available bandwidth decreases? How will the quality of that phone call be affected? Will calls be cut-off? Will the calls be choppy?
Whether you are a law firm doing file sharing, an accounting practice sharing databases or a retailer operating a distributed point-of-sale system, your office is the hub for your enterprise. Every single one of your offices, stores and sites rely on you and your primary Internet connection to retrieve data. Your circuit goes down, now what will happen? Is it just irritating? Is it going to cause tremendous problems? Can meaningful work be conducted at your remote offices? Can they process transactions or new orders? Circulate essential files and data? Do you know what your business needs? Be sure to fully understand your requirements. It will help you choose the correct solution. You might have hundreds and hundreds of loyal customers. Perhaps you are a software company running a hosted solution they all rely on. You operate a service that utilizes API in order to grant access to other systems. They may use this to collect whatever data you are offering such as commodity prices, weather data or freight calculations. What happens when there is a problem connecting to your servers? How long will your customers tolerate repeated outages?
Does your business completely rely on the net? Your employees or representatives will not be able to make outgoing phone calls if your circuits go down. Calls coming in would be unanswerable. You might not even know people are trying to reach your office. Basically, you are done. 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? Is the quality of service sufficient? Are your calls clear and reliable?
Obviously, there are a variety of choices. Your choices will largely depend on your budget, in addition to the other requirements of your company. To summarize:
If you are a small company, with one location and you do not worry about redundancy, one five meg, ten meg, or fifty meg Internet access circuit may very well be enough to meet your needs. If you are in a “lit” building, Metro Ethernet or gigabit service may be reasonably priced options. Because prices can vary based on the location of your organization and the availability of circuits, speak with our engineers to learn your options.
Mid sized companies with a single office in Winter Garden, need higher speed access to The Internet. Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet and other higher speed Internet circuits are options to consider. Optimally, multiple carriers and multiple circuits will give you the most redundancy. This may be attainable without doubling your costs. Two 50-megabyte circuits may be more cost effective than a single 100 circuit. As a reminder; availability and costs may vary. You need to speak with one of our experts to determine your options in your specific location.
What companies have the highest risk for failure; those with multiple sites. Redundant circuits are a necessity. It is helpful if they use multiple providers. In addition, consider redundant equipment. Redundant routers and switches can minimize risk also. Have you looked at Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed Internet access circuit providers? You should do so before making a decision. Finding the best combination of services, providers and equipment can go a long way toward helping your company run 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 carriers and redundant hardware for your system. You must have the bandwidth to withstand sharp increases in usage. Doing so will help protect you from slowdowns or interruptions. Your circuits and hardware must be able to support a large number of fast and simultaneous connections.
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. It is crucial to choose the correct mix of hardware and circuits. Figuring out exactly what to put in the mix, can be a daunting task.
Our expert engineers will review your requirements and needs and create a free action plan for you. We will examine your demand levels and current usage. We are going to then design a plan that keeps your costs reasonable while meeting your demand for a smoothly run business.
Please click here to complete the contact form on the right side of this page or call our office to schedule an appointment for an assessment. Assessments are done in as few as two days or within 48 hours.