It is that time of year again: time to plan and budget for 2022.
Much of the planning process will focus on understanding what you and your employees need in order to operate efficiently in the future, taking inventory of what you have now and developing a plan to evolve in 2022 and beyond.
Businesses have changed significantly over the past few years, so it is a good time to take stock and make sure that your telecom infrastructure matches how employees are working, and how customers communicate with you.
While formulating your big-picture plan, you also must do a granular evaluation of each component of your infrastructure, such as your:
- Connectivity Strategy, including business internet service.
- Voice Collaboration Strategy, including business phone service, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and hosted private branch exchange (PBX).
- Network management, including software-defined-wide area network (SD-WAN) and network security.
- Data Colocation and Cloud Connectivity, whether that is on-premises, in the cloud or colocated.
Examining each area can help you develop the roadmap for the new year before creating your budget.
Connectivity Strategy
With today’s always-connected environment and distributed workforce, you need a network connectivity solution that aligns with the way you do business. You need a fiber connection that provides the fastest speeds and lowest latency.
LOGIX Business Internet with symmetrical, scalable speeds of up to 10 Gbps. A state-of-the-art backbone, multiple fiber rings in major Texas markets and diverse Tier-1 internet peering points add up to optimal network uptime, throughput and performance. Monitored by a 24/7 year-round network operations center, LOGIX provides reliable business internet service.
LOGIX Business Ethernet delivers secure, private network connectivity enabling your business locations and data center assets to communicate across a dedicated, low latency fiber networking solution.
LOGIX Business Wavelength is a cost-effective alternative to lighting, managing and leasing dark fiber. Business Wavelength can provide a private fiber connection to transport large volumes of data and increase bandwidth levels up to 100 Gbps.
Voice Collaboration Strategy
You should also evaluate your voice communication and collaboration strategy. If you are still using copper wires or the local phone company for your business phone service, it is time to upgrade your business phone system and lower your costs at the same time.
VoIP provides reliable, secure and cost-efficient phone service by letting you extend your business phone service to remote workers and branch offices. A hosted PBX eliminates your hardware and maintenance costs while adding advanced calling features for every one of your team members.
LOGIX Business Voice powers the high-quality voice experience that your business demands. You can use your existing equipment, add soft clients to computers and connected devices for in-office and remote workers, and upgrade your unified communications strategy.
LOGIX Business Voice Cloud adds enterprise-class voice solutions using a hosted PBX that extends your telephony, including advanced calling features and integration with your CRM and other applications. You can replace your aging communication system without any additional capital expense.
Network Management
Today’s networks are complex. Any infrastructure solution should work with your telecom tools securely and reliably. The key to managing it all efficiently and securely is SD-WAN, which provides control for consistent identity, security and application policies from a central portal.
Adding an integrated next-generation firewall (NGFW) with unified threat management and antivirus protection provides a comprehensive solution to secure your WAN, including edge devices and your distributed workforce.
LOGIX SD-WAN Secure lets you manage your entire network, including mobile and remote workers. Dynamic routing automates traffic by prioritizing real-time and business-critical tasks for optimal workflows while providing a secure solution with integrated NGFW.
Data Colocation and Cloud Connectivity
There are also decisions to make about your data storage. Do you prefer to buy equipment and control access in an on-premises solution, or would you prefer a colocation data center for increased redundancy? Do you want to use cloud service providers to host your applications?
LOGIX has fiber connections to nearly 80+ third-party data centers and operates its own data centers and colocation centers. LOGIX Cloud Connect services provide a private, secure and reliable network connection to leading public cloud service providers, including:
- Amazon Web Services (AWS).
- Microsoft Azure.
- Oracle Cloud.
- Google Cloud.
Planning Your Telecom Budget for 2022
Some of the decisions you make will depend on how you want to develop your budget. Some companies prefer to make capital expenditures and reduce operating costs. Some avoid upfront costs. Others like to amortize their costs over time.
For operating expenses, many companies prefer to know their expenses in advance and prefer fixed monthly fees.
Many companies today are shy about spending money on hardware because it can become obsolete so quickly. For those companies, a better solution is to move to a cloud-hosted PBX for VoIP and software-as-a-service platforms, where there is no capital cost upfront. Instead, you pay a fixed monthly fee, which is easier to plan for and budget.
Your budget also depends on what you consider an acceptable level of risk. A fully redundant infrastructure is ideal, but it is also more expensive.
When planning your budget, it is important to think beyond your hard costs. For example, if you are moving to a hybrid working model where employees are splitting time between in-office and remote work, managing a distributed network, or even if you have all of your employees under one roof, there is one question to consider. What is the cost of inefficient systems that lead to poor productivity?
Need help planning and budgeting for 2022? Contact the telecom experts at LOGIX Fiber Networks today to discuss your needs or request a quote.