What technologies can help make a business more efficient?
Again, bandwidth is king, so the popular technologies are ones that enhance bandwidth, such as firewalls and content filters.
These technologies limit what your users are capable of doing on the Internet and over your local area network, so the bandwidth remains available for business necessities.
There are also bandwidth optimizers and compressors that increase speeds; however, the more you compress/decompress a file, the more its quality suffers.
What type of return on investment does bandwidth offer?
The real ROI of bandwidth comes from seeing what you’re losing if you don’t have enough. If you can’t efficiently and effectively conduct business, you’ll lose sales, opportunities and repeat customers. How much can your business stand to lose? In this economic climate, having enough bandwidth is vital.
It’s hard to put a true value on increased efficiencies and improved productivity, but it’s pretty safe to say that properly increasing your bandwidth will more than pay for itself.
What bandwidth options are available?
There are two different bandwidth solutions: a shared network, or a dedicated private network. A shared network is like a cable modem — you’re sharing bandwidth with other traffic in your area. A dedicated network is dedicated to your business traffic.
But remember, you’re only as fast as the slowest link in your chain. So, if you’re on a shared network, upstream users could be slowing it down if utilization isn’t managed correctly.
If a business isn’t properly managing its bandwidth, what consequences could it face?
If your bandwidth is compromised, you’re in danger of losing customers and productivity.
Not managing bandwidth can result in longer wait times for customers and incoming/outgoing data. This can lead to lost sales and lost time. What can you afford to lose? How long do you want to stay in business? In this day and age, if you don’t have bandwidth, you don’t have business.
Dan Barlow is a sales engineer for the Cincinnati office of Time Warner Cable Business Class. Reach him at (513) 386-5642 or [email protected].
