In this modern world, your business heavily relies on its internet connection, so as you become more dependent, solving internet downtime is essential. Even the smallest outage can have a serious impact on your business continuity.
When your internet goes down, you’re left with no email, no incoming orders, no web browsing, no news, or market feeds. Every business is different, but if you rely on the internet, hoping for the best is probably not the best plan to have.
What is the price of business continuity?
Internet service providers (ISP) won’t give you minimum connection promises on internet uptime. But even if yours does, it won’t guarantee that your line is fault proof.
Faults outside of your control, for example a power failure at your ISP, will also add to your losses even if it’s just one day that it’s failing. And, if an outage occurs for a very brief amount of time, imagine the impact this will have on your productivity and your business.
What are your options?
totality services recommend DrayTek routers – they provide connectivity features that have secondary connections available for a backup internet connection.
In the event of a failure, an advanced DrayTek router will automatically switch over to any of the following:
- A second ADSL or fibre line, using a separate DSL modem and different ISP
- 3G cellular data using a USB 3G dongle modem (eg O2, EE, Vodafone)
- Analogue dial-up using a USB modem is much slower than DSL, but usable if your Internet connection is essential
- A cable-modem service (eg BT)
- ISDN dialup (single or dual channel) (‘S’ models only)
- Any other Internet connection via an Ethernet cable
Once fixed what happens?
Once your main connection is restored, the router will automatically switch back to the primary source. When both connections are available, the router will use both connections so that maximum bandwidth is used. Examples of this include:
Load balancing
Load balancing increases your total internet bandwidth. It can either automatically spread your internet traffic through both connections, or direct specific traffic through different connections.
Contended ADSL
Most people choose this as a backup connection. You will notice though that your connection speed is reduced using this method.
Using a 3G data modem
Not the best choice, but it’s cheap. If you need to get online immediately, at least you can with this method whilst you wait for your primary connection to be fixed.
Broadband does fail! So, how will you reduce your internet downtime? If you need any further guidance or are seeking IT support for your small business, get in touch with us or request a quote.