In Business, Connections are everything.
When it comes to business Internet you need more than an internet connection that’s fast. You need a comprehensive solution that is scalable, reliable and secure. After all, the internet is the foundation for enabling all your applications, business functions and more for your employees and customers.
Choosing an Internet Service Provider (ISP) who can provide all that can be tough. You have to wade through confusing contract details, talk to half a dozen sales guys—and you still might end up making the wrong choice! In fact more often than not customers buy on price believing that all Internet is created equal. But when was the last time you spoke to someone who was happy about their Internet provider? Many companies change ISPs every couple years because they become frustrated with the provider and the service.
Here is what you want to do when selecting High Speed Internet in order to insure performance and peace of mind.
Transport Options
The first thing you need to understand is the different transport options. Copper solutions, wireless and fiber. If you want high speed Internet that is reliable you need a fiber solution, don’t be tricked by marketing to think there is such a thing as air fiber that’s just a fancy name for expensive wireless. Fiber is glass strands in cable used to carry high speed data. This is the bottom or physical layer to your Internet and will carry the traffic so it's critical that you select the right transport if you want it to be reliable, fast and secure.
Price Comparisons
You need to find whats available in your area next and do price comparisons on the carriers available to you. The best way to do that is to work with a consultant who will do all the leg work for you and provide you with all the details and options through a single point of contact. Once you've narrowed it down to a few solutions you want to check reviews on the carriers to see what the service track record is for each carrier.
Bandwidth
Lastly you need to determine how much bandwidth you will need. You can't run the bandwidth demanding software solutions of a modern network on the low bandwidth networks of yesterday. You need to determine how much Internet is right for your business.
Here is a good way to decide that…
- Determine how many people will use your internet at the same time.
- Factor in what they will be doing.
- Calculate the bandwidth needed per task.
- Total up the bandwidth you need for all tasks happening at the same time.
