What types of companies can benefit from using fiber?
Most of the Fortune 5000 companies have already transitioned to this technology, and many medium-sized companies are reaching the point where they’re large enough to justify a fiber-based product.
Typically, once a company reaches 20 employees, it makes sense, or if you are a smaller company and use data-intensive applications, fiber is a good choice to increase efficiency.
For example, an engineering firm that moves around large CAD files would benefit from this technology. The government is also a major beneficiary, and the medical world is a big consumer. With a big push to make all medical records electronic, those records continue to consume more bandwidth, and this solution allows medical systems to scale and grow with the same circuit without having to install any more lines or equipment.
Is there a large upfront cost to get started?
Typically, no. The provider will try to absorb the capital expenditure to put the fiber in. There may be a standard installation fee, but you don’t have to buy internal equipment because you can plug it straight into your existing firewall or router. If you don’t already have that, you would have to purchase a firewall or router for security. In addition, monthly costs have come down substantially over the past few years, making it more cost-efficient for businesses to make the move to fiber.
How can a business determine if fiber is the right choice for its needs?
No. 1 is determining what kind of mission-critical data you are using. You have to ask yourself: Can I afford a service interruption? What kind of impact would an outage have on my business? Do I need someone proactively monitoring the connection 24/7/365?
If you decide fiber is right for your business needs, the provider will build fiber into your facility from its network. Because of permit requirements associated with roads, right-of-ways and railroad crossings, etc., the typical time for an install is 90 to 120 days. And once the fiber is installed, the business simply needs to program its routers with the new IP addresses.
Ryan Batey is enterprise sales manager for Atlanta with Comcast. Reach him at (770) 559-2156 or [email protected].
