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Are You Sharing Your Internet Connection?

Hacker's lines of code on screen with headline: "Sharing Your Internet? Probably So!"

If you think sharing your internet with strangers is a bad idea, you are correct!  However, you may be doing just that without knowing it.

A popular internet service called “Broadband” is actually shared with many users and not just in your neighborhood – but with users miles away. Is there any other type of internet that is not shared? The answer is YES!  But only if you have a business circuit known as dedicated internet.

Carriers have proprietary names for business circuits such as DIA, DDE, and other confusing names. These carriers also hide shared services behind confusing words such as Uverse, Xfinity, and product codes with the designation of BB (Broadband) in the product code.

How can you find out if your internet service is shared? Well…all cable circuits are Broadband, and there are many fiber optic circuits that are low price and these are also all shared. In fact, any service that has a speed rating with two numbers for the speed, such as 100M X 20, are shared! Check your product!

You may have a VPN on your shared service – which does help…But that circuit is still shared and is easily hacked at points beyond your VPN, which ends at the carrier. The best protection begins with a dedicated circuit, but that alone is still not enough.

You may not think you need the additional security of a dedicated service and other safeguards such as custom firewalls designed for your usage, and you may not. But if you are a business that deals with customer information of any type: addresses, dates of birth, ages, or any personal information that could help a hacker steal their identity – then you definitely need to take every precaution to avoid being liable for identity theft of the people you do business with!

There are credible estimates that almost, if not all of the US population have already been hacked!

The best way to avoid being blamed, or even sued for this is to take all reasonable precautions to prevent it.  It is definitely a scary world we live in, so take precautions to carefully secure the information you are trusted with.  

 

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What’s Complicated But Simple at the Same Time? The Future, My Friend!

Complicated Highway OverPass System with text overlay: What's Complicated But Simple at the Same Time? The Future, My Friend!

What does the future hold for Telecom Services?

How can that be?  Well, as usual, there are many new products coming out – many more choices for you to choose from for your business or home – which makes choosing more complicated. Also, the providers are using new product names and company names, which makes our choosing more complicated! So, what’s the simple part you may ask?

Right now, there are many choices for businesses and several for most homes. The technology, performance, and cost can vary a lot! To make matters worse, it is quite difficult to tell what you are actually getting due to the providers intentionally using terms such as fiber, VoIP, secure, firewall in ways that can be very deceptive to the average consumer… For instance, cable providers use the term “fiber optic” to describe services that have little or no actual fiber in them, so you can’t distinguish “fiber service” from “cable service.” In the future, this will not be an issue since the major cable providers are working hard to convert the cable infrastructure to real fiber. So in the near future, say the next 10 years or so – there will be no cable service, so all wired services will be only fiber.

Let’s talk about Fiber service, the many types of fiber, and fiber providers…Which is the most reliable network: Shared or Dedicated? Broadband service, which is shared, is not going away, in fact, it is expanding rapidly. Government regulations are forcing the providers to share networks, which makes a lot more sense than tearing up the public infrastructure – AKA roads, sidewalks, and other utilities, multiple times so each fiber provider can have their own network installed. Providers are forced to share networks – so that makes it simpler. Also the new technology being used right now, these provider companies can use the same fiber trunks to provide different qualities of service at the same time… so much more simple!

Now we have 4G, 4G LTE, plus the many flavors of 5G… and 6G is already in the works. In the near future, these will all be consolidated into a single technology so all cellular devices will work on all cellular networks. Which is simpler, right? But we still have analog, cellular, digital, and VoIP phone traffic – these all require different equipment. We are already moving to an all VoIP or cellular infrastructure, so voice services will be simpler.

Technology has always been a double-edged sword. Out with the old and in with the new, means we have more functionality and more to learn! Reach out to Online Technology Associates to learn more, or just to chat about what’s available now and how to get your ducks in a row for what’s coming down the line.

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What’s the Best Fiber For Business?

Many office workers connected online.

What exactly is the difference in Fiber Connectivity for Business? – There are several Categories and Types, with the cost and quality of services varying greatly! Therefore, no single carrier or product is right for every business.

Dedicated or Broadband?

You may be familiar with the term, “Broadband”, but do you know what it means?  If not, then you aren’t alone…the Carriers and even the Trade use this term for very different products. One thing to know is that each internet circuit is either Broadband or Dedicated. Here are the differences: 

First, Dedicated refers to a custom-built circuit that can be used to access the public internet:

  • These are custom-built circuits – similar to having a private entrance ramp or having your own lane custom-built for just one particular customer.
  • Dedicated Circuits are much higher in quality and price than broadband services because they get their own lane to internet access!
  • Dedicated Circuits are cleaner and MUCH more secure than broadband services.
  • These circuits are also synchronous – meaning that the upload speeds are the same – up and down, day and night regardless of what other users down the street or across town are doing.
  • Since Dedicated Circuits are also cleaner – they are much more efficient, meaning there is less static and trash on the circuit – this is the reason Dedicated Circuits do not need as much speed as you would with a broadband circuit.

Think of it this way; you are trying to move a certain amount of data, the Dedicated Circuit is like an empty truck, everything in it is your data, whereas the broadband circuit is like a truck that is already 60% or more full of trash, so you need a bigger truck, much bigger to move the same amount of data.

On the other hand, there are Broadband Circuits:

  • Broadband Circuits are usually, but not always asynchronous – meaning that the upload and download speeds are different. Your Downloads (data you receive) are much faster than the Uploads, (data you send out). These Broadband Circuits were initially developed for residential use – where most of the activity is at-home users downloading and not doing much uploading.
  • Broadband services are also shared circuits, meaning they are much less secure and the performance you get is highly affected by other users in your neighborhoods and across the network.
  • While Dedicated Circuits have an SLA, or Service Level Agreement, meaning that the carrier guarantees uptime, the industry standard is 99.999 % uptime and guaranteed quality measured in latency and dropped packets – The Broadband products carry a “Best Effort” policy, meaning that the carrier will do its best to maintain service and quality, but no guarantees!
  • Cable circuits are always Broadband Circuits, but FIBER can be either Broadband or Dedicated Circuits!

As you would expect, there is a large difference in pricing between the Dedicated and Broadband services – and neither is best for every business. Unfortunately, there are no requirements that a data circuit be designated as one or the other – which means that catchy product names, such as “Business” or “High Speed” do not tell the full story. It is advisable to purchase from an independent consultant who will tell you exactly what you are purchasing…and that’s exactly who we are.

Confusing? Yep, we get that and are here to help you make sense of what your business does and does not need. Reach out to Online Technology Associates today for a consultation on your business needs!

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