Brief Guide to Point-to-Point Ethernet Connectivity

Point-to-point Ethernet connectivity is an enterprise-quality network solution designed to give businesses unrivalled data speeds between two or more locations.

A variety of businesses can benefit from point-to-point Ethernet services, since this type of digital solution can handle a variety of applications. Here is a brief overview of what this type of service involves and what advantages it can give to your company.

Most business workstations will be connected to the office network via Ethernet cable, since this is widely compatible and offers high-speed data transfer in both directions.

If a company operates out of a single site, then it will probably rely on a standard landline connection in order to gain web access. However, if your company has two or more sites and you want to connect these at speeds that could not be achieved via a standard line, point-to-point Ethernet could be a worthy investment.

You can essentially lease a line from a provider that gives you direct, unfettered connectivity between sites, allowing you to transfer data and carry out other tasks without being limited by the bandwidth that is available to you.

Current point-to-point Ethernet services can allow you to enjoy data rates of up to 1Gbps (1000Mbps), although bandwidth can be purchased on demand so that you can start at a level which suits your requirements and budget, then upgrade later when capacity increases.

Aside from the speed, there are a number of other features of a point-to-point Ethernet connection that might convince you to adopt.

First, this type of service is able to offer enhanced security when compared with transferring sensitive data over a public network. Because the line is used only by your business, it will not be as easy to compromise.

Second, an Ethernet connection is incredibly versatile when it comes to the types of features that it can enable. While you can just transfer data from one site to another, you could also use it to support voice and video conferencing. This might be a benefit for businesses that need employees to collaborate and communicate with one another even if they do not operate out of the same location.

In turn, you might find that such a service is more cost-effective than the alternatives, because as well as reducing the expenses associated with internal communication, you will also be able to make gains as a result of improved productivity.

Third, with point-to-point Ethernet you can experience a far more resilient form of connectivity that delivers the maximum levels of uptime with less chance of outages. Downtime can be costly for modern businesses, particularly if they rely upon communication across multiple sites, so with an Ethernet link you will be able to sidestep such issues.

Finally, with this type of service you can expect to be in the driving seat, rather than ending up at the mercy of a third party provider when it comes to things like IP, configuration and network visibility. All this comes together to make point-to-point Ethernet connectivity a boon for just about any business that is willing to adopt it.

Obviously such services are not universally relevant, particularly for small companies. However, there are many major public and private sector organisations that have found this type of connectivity to be a necessary part of modern multi-site networking.

A combination of convenience, security, speed and value for money helps to enhance the profile of point-to-point Ethernet. So whether you are linking two sites or twenty, it might be worth considering whether such a solution would work for your business, particularly when looking at long-term growth.

This article was supplied by Jamie Garner who works for Daisy Group, a leading independent provider of business telecoms and connectivity solutions.