A reliable internet connection is essential to business operations. It keeps employees connected, supports cloud applications and enables communication with customers. But even a high-performance connection has its limitations.
What happens when that connection fails? How does the business know when performance starts to deteriorate? Who manages the network, addresses security concerns and coordinates support when something goes wrong?
These questions highlight why businesses need to look beyond basic connectivity. The circuit is the foundation, not the finished solution. By building the right technologies, visibility and management around that connection, organizations can create a communications environment designed to deliver greater resilience, stronger performance and better business outcomes.
The Circuit Is Just the Beginning
Businesses invest in connectivity to support specific operational needs. They want employees to access applications reliably, customers to reach them without disruption and critical systems to remain available throughout the workday.
A circuit provides the connection that makes those activities possible. However, the quality of the overall experience also depends on how that connection is protected, monitored and managed.
For example, a business may have sufficient bandwidth but lack a backup connection in the event of an outage. Another may operate across several locations without centralized visibility into network performance. Others may struggle to coordinate support among different carriers and technology providers.
Addressing those challenges requires additional capabilities working alongside the underlying access.
6 Ways to Build Beyond the Circuit
The right combination of technologies and services depends on the business. Here are six ways organizations can build on their existing connectivity to improve performance, resilience and day-to-day operations.
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Backup Connectivity: Keep Business Moving
Even reliable internet circuits can experience outages caused by equipment failures, construction damage, severe weather or carrier disruptions.
Network-related disruptions are a persistent concern. According to Uptime Institute, 30% of surveyed organizations identified networking and connectivity issues as the most common cause of IT service outages they’d experienced over the previous three years.
Backup connectivity provides an alternate path for network traffic when the primary connection becomes unavailable. Depending on the location and business requirements, that might involve a secondary fiber or broadband circuit, a different carrier or LTE/5G wireless backup.
When paired with properly configured failover capabilities, redundant connectivity helps maintain access to critical applications and services during an outage. For businesses that depend on continuous access, an alternate connection can help protect productivity, customer experience and business continuity when the primary connection goes down.
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STACKguard™: Move From Reactive to Proactive
A connectivity problem can affect operations long before someone contacts IT to report it.
NHC’s STACKguard™ helps customers move from reactive troubleshooting to proactive network monitoring. Eligible NHC-provided access circuits are monitored for disruptions, and when a qualifying issue is detected, NHC can automatically open a trouble ticket and notify the customer.
Through MAP, customers also gain visibility into service health and support activity across their monitored connections. The result is less time spent identifying and reporting problems—and an NHC team already working the issue when qualifying disruptions occur.
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SD-WAN: Manage Traffic Intelligently
Different business applications have different network performance requirements.
Video conferencing and cloud-based voice services, for example, are particularly sensitive to latency, jitter and packet loss. Other applications may tolerate occasional delays without significantly affecting users.
Software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) helps organizations manage traffic across available connections according to application priorities and network conditions. When properly configured, SD-WAN can direct critical traffic over healthier network paths and support automatic failover when connectivity deteriorates.
The result is more intelligent use of available connectivity, greater resilience and more consistent performance for the applications the business depends on.
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Security: Protect the Connected Environment
As businesses expand their use of cloud applications, remote access and connected devices, network security becomes an increasingly important consideration.
Firewalls and other security services help protect business networks by controlling traffic, enforcing access policies and reducing exposure to potential threats. These capabilities are particularly important for distributed organizations that need consistent protection across multiple locations.
By incorporating security into the connectivity strategy, businesses can create more consistent protection across users, locations and applications—helping reduce complexity while strengthening the connected environment.
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MAP: Bring the Environment Into View
Network visibility becomes more challenging as businesses add locations, carriers and technologies.
NHC’s Management & Assurance Portal (MAP) brings critical information about the communications environment into one centralized view. Customers can access billing, track orders and repairs, view inventory across locations, submit support requests and monitor network performance without navigating multiple systems.
Combined with capabilities like STACKguard, MAP gives customers greater visibility into what they have, how it is performing and what is happening when an issue occurs—helping simplify management across the communications environment.
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Managed Services: Simplify Ongoing Operations
Every additional technology brings responsibilities related to deployment, monitoring, maintenance and support.
For organizations with limited internal IT resources, coordinating those activities across multiple providers can become a significant operational burden. Managed services help simplify that responsibility through ongoing oversight, troubleshooting, vendor coordination and support.
With NHC managing the communications environment, customers have one accountable team helping ensure that the various technologies and providers work together effectively. That means less time coordinating providers and troubleshooting connectivity—and more time focused on the business.
Build Around Your Business Outcomes
Not every organization needs the same combination of services.
A business where downtime directly affects revenue may prioritize redundant connectivity and intelligent failover. A multi-location organization might benefit most from centralized visibility and consistent security controls. Another may need proactive monitoring and managed support to reduce the workload on its internal IT team.
The key is to identify the outcomes that matter most, then select the capabilities that support them.
That approach also gives businesses room to evolve. As operations expand and requirements change, organizations can add or adjust services without rebuilding their entire communications strategy.
Build Beyond Connectivity With the NHC STACK™
A reliable circuit is the foundation. What surrounds it determines how resilient, visible and manageable the communications environment becomes.
Through the NHC STACK™, NHC brings connectivity, supporting technologies and ongoing management together through one team. From backup connectivity and SD-WAN to security, proactive monitoring, MAP and Managed Services, customers can build around the outcomes that matter most to their business without adding more complexity to manage.
With dedicated project management and 100% U.S.-based, 24/7/365 support, NHC helps coordinate the moving parts across the communications environment—from implementation through ongoing support.
The circuit is just the beginning. Build around it with one team focused on your outcomes.
One Team. One STACK. For You.™
Contact NHC today to discover how the NHC STACK™ can help you build beyond connectivity and create a communications environment designed around your business outcomes.