Our service desk spent an unusual amount of time last month troubleshooting internet connectivity related issues for clients. Typically, we’re looking at speed or downtime issues at an office that workers are trying to connect to over VPN to work remotely. Oftentimes, we’re spending a lot of time dealing with technical support at the various ISP’s around town – which has led us to have opinions on who is good and who is not in the Portland metro area. It is almost always the ISP’s problem, and certain ones have earned a well-deserved spot on our “bad” list for being time-wasters or just plain unreliable. Talk to us before you order internet, please.
What can we do to mitigate these speed or reliability issues? There are two things:
- If you are keeping your office long term and have a second ISP available in your area, we can look at redundant internet connections, combined with a Bigleaf appliance. Bigleaf is a local company in Beaverton that offers affordable appliances that handle redundancy and speed optimization automatically. This is also useful when you are using a phone system that relies on the internet to function, such as VoIP.
- If you are getting rid of your office and going virtual, Colocation is an affordable option to consider. Colocation facilities offer redundant internet and power to host your firewall, servers, and other important equipment. SpireTech offers colocation services at our Portland datacenter. Colocation is useful for anything that needs fast, reliable, always-on internet and power.