Better Network Connectivity Into France

Many, many companies are now global organizations. Even if your business isn’t a true multinational, chances are that you do at least some business beyond the borders of the United States. Connections to Europe are especially important, as the European Union represents an enormous pool of both producers and consumers. Within the EU, one of the most important destinations is France.

Well, there’s good news if you need to connect to French enterprises. One the major worldwide telecommunication carriers, Level 3 Communications, recently announced and expansion of resources, infrastructure and services for enterprise customers in France. A key piece in this initiative is expanded network reach and access from increased deployment of carrier Points of Presence (POPs) in Paris and the surrounding area. They are also extending core network capabilities in and around Lille, Lyon, and Toulouse. This gives businesses in these metro areas more access to the Level 3 network for connection to global markets.

In addition to the expansion of network connectivity, Level 3 is now offering enterprise services that include converged voice, VPN, high performing websites, content distribution networks (CDN), managed DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) mitigation for network security, and collaboration services to the expanded markets in France.

Paris has long been a major on-net fiber optic hub for Level 3, including Metropolitan Area Networks (MAN) and a colocation data center. It is connected across the Atlantic by undersea landing sites on the West coast, at Saint-Brieuc and Lannion. On the other side of the pond, these fiber cables terminate in the New York and New Jersey area. This is important for companies needing low latency connections for very high performance applications like automated financial trading.

In addition to France, Level 3 Communications offers extensive network connectivity in 23 countries of Europe, including Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The service portfolio includes metro and long haul services for transport, data, voice, Internet, content and media delivery.

What kind of international connectivity are you seeking? At the low end, the classic private lines are T1 in the United States running at 1.5 Mbps and E1 in Europe running at 2 Mbps. Other than the speed difference, these are essentially the same technology standard and easily interfaced. Higher bandwidths within the TDM (Time Division Multiplexing) family of standards include DS3 at 45 Mbps and SONET/SDH fiber optic services that range from OC-3 at 155 Mbps on up to OC-192 at 10 Gbps or perhaps OC-768 at 40 Gbps. Newer technology services are provided by Ethernet over Copper (EoC) and Ethernet over Fiber (EoF) based on Carrier Ethernet standards. Ethernet connectivity options are highly scalable and available up to 10 Gbps.

MPLS networks are becoming the international network service of choice for companies needing to link more than two locations. MPLS can support most any desired protocol and provide you with meshed network connectivity to connect your multiple sites in an any-to-any communications arrangement. A specialized service running on MPLS is VPLS or Virtual Private LAN Service. This gives you layer 2 Ethernet connectivity to create an international bridged network that joins your LANs worldwide.

Does your business need to connect to France or other locations in Europe, The Middle Ease, Africa Asia Pacific, Latin America or North America from the United States? If so, get pricing and features for international network connectivity from Level 3 and other high performance service providers.




Note: Map of France courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

UK Domains and Web Hosting

Network Solutions, one of the largest domain registrars and web hosting services companies in the world, now offers a complete array of services especially for users in the United Kingdom. These include not just .co.uk domain names, but web hosting, e-commerce email hosting, SSL security certificates and custom design and marketing services. It’s everything you need to be successful whether you are targeting visitors from the UK or operating a worldwide enterprise.

While .uk is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) assigned to the United Kingdom, you can’t register .uk domains the way you register a .com or .net. Instead, you need to register one of the approved second-level domains. The most popular of these is .co.uk which is intended for commercial use but available for general registration. Of course, you are free to use the more general .com, .net and .org domains.

By the way, you can also register a .eu domain if you would rather be identified with the European Union. Unlike the unrestricted availability of the .co.uk domain, as a registrant you must be located within the EU to register a .eu domain name.

Once you have a domain name, you’ll want hosting to put that name to use. Most users want web hosting, but it is possible to skip the website and just have email hosting for a very low cost. You pay by the number of mailboxes you want. Then you have a choice of whether to pickup your email using the email program on your computer that downloads the messages, or to keep everything in the cloud and access your messages from anywhere using webmail. Spam and virus protection are included.

Network Solutions UK also offers a business email service to host your domain name. It works like the personal email solution, but includes more storage and the ability to sync email, contacts, calendars and tasks so you can work remotely and the ability to share calendars and collaborate on group projects.

Web hosting comes in a range of sizes to accommodate every user from those just starting out to major enterprises. The most popular packages are shared hosting, where you and a number of other clients share the same server. Of course, your files are kept separate in your own account. It’s the sharing of computing resources that keeps this service low cost.

For most hosting needs, shared hosting is the way to go. You get a lot for your money. Most plans are general hosting packages that include buckets of monthly bandwidth and disk storage. There are also specialized hosting options that include Hosting for WordPress that is designed specifically for bloggers and SharePoint hosting that is specifically designed to work with Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) collaboration for small businesses.

You can generally add e-commerce capability to any general hosting package. Network Solutions UK has gone a step further by creating specialized CommerceSpace packages for online stores. You get customizable storefront templates that you can edit online or using web design software such as Dreamweaver or FrontPage. You have the ability to accept PayPal and Google Check payments and can add a merchant account to accept credit cards. The packages are priced by the maximum number of products from 25 to 100,000. A domain name is included with an annual purchase.

A step up from shared hosting is VPS or Virtual Private Server hosting. Intended for more demanding uses, these virtual servers give you root access to install whatever software you want, including different operating systems. You have a guaranteed amount of RAM and ample amounts of storage and bandwidth. VPS has become popular because it offers the flexibility of a dedicated server at a lower cost through virtualization than shared physical computing resources.

One additional type of hosting you should consider is mobile website hosting. More and more traffic and commerce is moving to smartphones. How does your website work on the small screen of a mobile phone? Not so well? You may benefit from a mobile-specific website with a .mobi extension. The advantage of a mobile site is that it is optimized for mobile screens and loads much faster than a full website. The user interface features the familiar icon appearance.

Are you interested in hosting to support your UK business, or are you conducting business internationally and want to focus on UK customers? If so, learn more about UK Domains and Web Hosting from Network Solutions.

Note: Map of the United Kingdom courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.