RV Dealerships have become increasing more reliant on the Internet in recent years.  Dealerships rely on Internet leads to fuel up to 60% of their unit sales, RV Parts and Service departments almost exclusively use the Internet to place online parts orders or submit warranty claims, and there's a growing trend is to use hosted or web-based DMS servers to reduce overall IT costs.

As dealers make decisions as to the services they wish to incorporate into their website, internal processes, or DMS software, software companies often hear the complaint that their Internet service is unreliable, slow, or down right non-existent.  I have yet to see a case where these issues are not easily resolved; in fact the hardest part is just trying figure out what the dealership is paying for.   Like understanding the restrictions on your frequent flyer miles, your bandwidth may only be available when that first class customer isn't using it.

Don't fly coach. Business-class Internet connections come with many features that average Internet connections do not.  The first and most obvious benefit of this connection is the increased upload and download speeds.  Upload is when you take data, such as pictures, and copy them from your computer to your website or some other computer.  Download is when you copy data from another computer to your local machine or server.   Be aware that you may have purchased slower upload speeds than download.   Upload speeds are more important in a dealership since you are trying to move those all-important pictures onto the Internet as quickly as possible.  

Most ISPs (Internet Service Providers) will guarantee a QOS (Quality of Service) with a business class Internet connection.  This means that your dealership will be guaranteed a set bandwidth speed as opposed to a standard Internet, which could fluctuate depending on the usage of other Internet customers in the area.

If you are unsure what your current connection speed is, your ISP can provide "speed test" results, which can be used to help gauge your available bandwidth.

Your network is only as strong as its weakest link.  Some dealerships make the jump to a business level Internet connection such as a T1 but never properly upgrade their network to handle the increased bandwidth.  Your Internet may not be going down, it could just be the router or other equipment that links your in-house network to the Internet.  If your dealership has a low quality firewall, router, or switch it could severely limit your Internet speed internally.  If you have a business-class Internet service, you should always have a business-class firewall, router, and switch as well.  Systems 2000 typically recommends to our dealers Cisco, SonicWALL, Netgear, Netopia, and Watchguard brands because they all offer high quality business-class networking solutions. 

In next week's article, we will continue the discussion with VoIP (voice over IP), diagnosing problems, static IP addresses, and how to squeeze all the performance out of your bandwidth.

If you are currently having Internet related problems, feel free to email me a copy of your services and I will have our engineers take a quick look and offer some suggestions.   Email cs@sys2.com, Subject: Internet Connectivity.

Until then, remember, your Internet is as important as your phone system -  don't fly coach!