How Growing Companies Buy Bandwidth

As business enters the recovery cycle and starts to expand again, it won’t be long until resources start to become stretched. But just how much of a commitment are you willing to make with so much uncertainty still hanging over the economy? Doesn’t it make more sense to step up incrementally? Oh, wait, can you even do that with bandwidth?

You can now. Traditional telecom contracts are sold on a 1 to 3 year basis for a particular level of telecom service. For instance, you buy a T1 line and you have a certain monthly lease price for 1.5 Mbps of bandwidth. You can double that by buying an additional T1 line to get another 1.5 Mbps. You can even have your lines bonded if you get them from the same provider or use an appliance such as the Mushroom Networks “Truffle” to combine the bandwidth yourself.

Bonding or combining bandwidth from multiple network connections is one way to manage your bandwidth needs without over-committing. But there’s another way to accomplish this that makes increasing bandwidth much easier than ordering additional lines and waiting to have them installed. You can have bandwidth virtually on demand with scalable Ethernet services.

Metro Ethernet services differ from traditional telecom services in that they are readily scalable by design. Your original order is for a certain bandwidth, say 10 Mbps. But you want to make sure that you have the ability to upgrade to higher bandwidth levels when business activity justifies it. That’s done by installing a high bandwidth port at your location. This could be a 50 or 100 Mbps port, or something really fast like a Gigabit Ethernet port. You aren’t committed to buy that much bandwidth at first. You may start out with 10 Mbps. In six months or a year you find that you really need 20 Mbps to keep up with expanded business needs. No problem. You pick up the phone and call your provider. They increase your speed to 20 Mbps and adjust your monthly bill accordingly.

Scalable bandwidth changes are fast, because the hardware port is already installed. The service provider only has to adjust the speed of the service at your request. They can do that remotely, without a truck roll to install anything at your building. That gives you the flexibility to adjust to changing business conditions and not have to purchase the bandwidth you need far in advance.

Do you have a growing company or expect your business to be picking up over the next few years? If so, scalable bandwidth could be the best tool you’ll have to control expenses. You’ll also be delighted to learn that Metro Ethernet service prices are not only affordable but can cost considerably less per Mbps than traditional telecom services, such as T1, DS3 or OCx. How much less? Find out by checking Metro Ethernet prices and availability for your business location.