Today’s environment demands that companies in Yakima, Washington have reliable Internet service in order to run their company. Fortune 500 companies to small businesses and everything in between, depend on reliable and fast Internet access.
In the coming months and years, we’ll become increasingly 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 internet is omnipresent. What is the best solution for you? Is a cable modem sufficient? It could be that you need Metro Ethernet. Your needs may be met with Gigabit Internet. Does your Yakima, Washington company need a 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The Internet, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The net point?
Prior to selecting a service, your organization must figure out 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 the data in Yakima, Washington and distant locations or offices rely on you?
What will happen to your business if your high-speed Internet experiences an outage? Will your business suffer from the lull? Is uptime essential to the success of your organization? Prior to making any purchases, you must determine the answers to these questions.
High-speed access to the web is something all companies need. An analysis of the costs and benefits should be done prior to choosing the broadband internet that is correct for your organization. Many service providers toss out 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 Yakima, Washington, Internet access is needed for at least some employees. Third party applications, company research or development and e-commerce are just a few of the ways the web may be needed.
Perhaps the size of your work force may determine the solution that best fits your needs. A five or ten megabyte Internet circuit may be all you need if employ a small workforce. If you have many employees who need to use the web at the same time, you may do better with more.
Your need for high-speed Internet may be lessened if your workers are just accessing an intranet systemWhen employees are often downloading images, videos and documents, however, the need for speed increases significantly.
Do you routinely backup? 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.
Do you use a file sharing service like Google drive or DropBox? The saved files go to the cloud and are then synchronized or “shared” with other people’s computers. You need to have sufficient bandwidth to support this function while also supporting every other service.
Depending on where you are, you may want to look into high-speed business Internet access such as Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet. Usually, you can find these in “lit buildings” in Yakima that have been previously wired by a carrier. The ease and affordability of adding high-speed Internet to your office may surprise you.
Absent the need to introduce Metro Ethernet into a new building, it is not particularly costly to connect Metro Ethernet to a suite or office within that building. 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.
Ask yourself this: Does we host our own servers to run APIs, websites and data feeds to external offices or company premises? Are your company headquarters with a hosted application accessed by 50 branch offices? 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 sites?
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 business. If the web connection is interrupted, those people cannot get their work done. Is the intranet solution you are choosing sufficiently reliable? Is it stable enough to support simultaneous connections from different places?
If you have one office using the web, you may get by with a cable modem or a low- cost 10-megabyte circuit. For headquarters, Metro Ethernet, gigabit Ethernet or other high-speed Internet dedicated circuits is advisable. 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.
There is a price that comes along with choosing a cable modem or other lower cost circuit. There may be a lower monthly rate, but bandwidth is usually shared with many tenants. 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 amount of bandwidth must be shared with different buildings and with the tenants housed within. Will you achieve 30-meg 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?
You can sign up for dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth from some providers. With these, bandwidth belongs to you and your company only; no sharing. You should receive full capacity of your circuits during all hours. This is true even though you may have many buildings, businesses and tenants nearby.
For example, Metro Ethernet guarantees bandwidth in 5 met circuits, 10 Meg circuits, 50 and 100 Meg circuits. Gigabit speeds from your office to the internet can be reached if you use a gigabit Internet provider.
In these situations, each tenant receives their contracted high-speed. The carrier delivers enough so they can split their circuit and provide enough to each tenant.
While certain carriers offer superior Internet bandwidth products in Yakima, the reality is that it is possible for a circuit to go down. How can you decrease the chance of an outage?
The answer is redundant circuits.
Redundancy basically comes in two forms.
The first type is when one single carrier provides you with multiple circuits. Redundant circuits can help protect against certain problems. They can mitigate the inconveniences when there is a failure of a physical line or a problem with the port into your router. 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. This offers some protection and assurance but does not eliminate all threats.
Circuit redundancy can also be achieved in the following way: Import circuits using two different and distinct carriers. If you think it is beneficial, you can bind the connections together in a manner that makes your circuits act and look like a single source. But, you know that they are actually separate and redundant. Diversity redundancy offers far greater protection. In the event that one carrier goes down, the other will still be alive.
You should look for redundant circuits from providers in Yakima that do not have the same physical geographic pathways, in order to get the most redundancy. Basically this means that you want your circuits to enter your building on different sides or paths. 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 locations. If you can accomplish this, you are protected from a major catastrophe. For example, if a there is a fire or some other accident that negatively affects circuits in a region, you have redundancy in a physically different direction.
It is true that Internet access costs you money. However, the cost does not come close to what you will pay if the access that is not reliable. Contemplate these situations:
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 they use more bandwidth, there is less for available to meet your requirements. What will happen to your phone calls? What about the quality of your calls? Are the calls going to be dropped? Perhaps you will sound choppy or will be inaudible.
Your office is the hub of your enterprise: You might be a law practice that shares files, a retail operation that utilizes POS systems or a large accounting firm that needs to share databases. All of your sites, you may have 2, you may have 500, you may have 4, 000, rely on your main Internet connection to access and receive data. If your circuit goes done, what happens next? Would it annoy you or destroy you? How much work, if any, can be done by your remote places? Process or take new orders? Disseminate needed information and data? Before choosing a solution, be sure to assess and really understand what your company requires. 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. Do you operate a service where other systems speak with yours by using an application program interface (API)? For example do other systems gain access to yours in order to calculate prices, prices, or to collect information that you serve up? You may find that they are unable to reach or connect with your organization servers. How long will your customers tolerate repeated outages?
Is the internet integral to the proper function of your company? Do you count on it entirely? What if your representatives can make no outgoing telephone calls because your circuits go down? Your representatives would also be unable to answer 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? Are your carriers sufficiently reliable? You should be getting high quality service that ensures your calls are consistently clear and reliable.
You have no shortage of options. The needs and budget of your company will both affect your choices. Essentially:
You are probably not thinking about redundancy if you have a small organization with a single location. In this case, you can probably get by with a single access to The net 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. The availability of circuits and your location determine prices; speak with one of our engineers to learn what your best options are.
Mid-sized businesses in Yakima, Washington should be equipped with higher-speed Internet. Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and other higher-speed Internet circuits are your options. Ideally, you want to have the greatest redundancy. You can achieve this by using multiple circuits from different carriers. This may be attainable without doubling your costs. Using one 100-megabyte circuit instead of two 50-megabyte circuits, is one example. Availability and costs vary. In order to find out the options available for you, in your location, you need to speak with one of our seasoned experts.
Businesses with many places face the greatest risk for failure. Redundant circuits are essential. Different carriers are desirable. You can decrease risk during downtime by having redundant equipment as well. 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 providers and services for your organization, you will benefit.
If you can place yourself in this category, it is essential that you have Metro Ethernet, point-to-point circuits and gigabit Internet circuits. In order to maximize and protect your uptime, you must have redundancy. You should have redundant circuits from multiple carriers in addition to redundant hardware. You need to provide sufficient bandwidth to handle usage spikes without slowdowns or interruptions. Your circuits and hardware must be able to support a large number of fast and simultaneous connections.
Do not risk having failing circuits or not enough bandwidth. Your demand and budget constraints should both be considered when you decide what circuit or combination of circuits you must have. Choosing the right combination of hardware and circuits can be complicated and confusing.
Our engineers will take the pressure off and develop a free action plan for you by analyzing your needs. 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.
An appointment for an assessment can be made by calling our office or clicking here to complete the contact form on the side of this page. Assessments are done in as few as two days or within 48 hours.