Business can be crippled by internet downtime or loss of in building cellular, so what can you do to protect your connection? Nick Dutfield from Fusion discusses an alternative that will prevent you from having to send your employees home.
Fusion suffered an internet outage last month on one of London’s major carrier networks which affected many of our customers. This internet outage happened during lunchtime, and although some of our customers were able to go to a different location or use their mobile connections, not everyone had those options. In the most serious situation, one customer was forced to send all of its employees home for the rest of the day at great cost to the company. No internet means no business.
Research conducted by OnePoll shows that internet downtime costs businesses in the UK s £11 billion each year. That number will continue to increase daily as our reliance on the internet for business continues to grow. Unfortunately, the compensation offered for internet downtime is seriously inadequate. Providers, at best, will credit you for the time that their service was unavailable. For a majority of businesses that pay only a few hundred pounds every month for connectivity, that will not make a dent in lost trading time or productivity.
Also, there is no sure way of guaranteeing fibre availability. The main problem is that businesses are relying on a single connection from a single provider. That means that if your provider experiences a network-wide problem, it will cause your internet to go down. Also, your internet will go down if there are any problems with the fibre either outside or inside the building.
There is a simple alternative: you need to get a second connection
Having a second fibre line installed is the traditional method for creating backup internet connectivity. That might sound simple but it is not. Having new fibre installed is a very time-consuming process where a new line must be physically installed and new wayleave agreements are involved. Even in a simple case, this process will take two months at least. In more extreme cases, this process could take as long as one year. You will also need to budget the cost of paying for two fibre lines, with one of them being mainly a backup.
Our wireless network
A great alternative is internet connectivity that uses microwave technology to deliver it wirelessly. Wireless internet uses dishes that are installed on rooftops and line-of-site over to one of our base stations. There are several advantages to our “network in the sky.” First of all, you only need to have permission from your landlord to have a dish installed on the roof instead of having to obtain a wayleave legal agreement. That means installation is much faster than fibre lines. Second, a physical fibre that runs through the building which can be vulnerable to street works is not needed.
There are even more advantages. Compared to fibre, wireless internet costs less – for about £150 you can have a 50mg connectin, which for most businesses is more than sufficient for a backup line. Finally, this is a very reliable service. In our experience, in fact, wireless internet is frequently more reliable compared to fibre.
Over the past several years, we have added hundreds of central London customers. Some of them are using wireless internet as their main connection, and other customers are using it as their backup to provide 100% SLA. The bandwidth can be split with extra capacity, where wireless can perhaps be used as a staff or guest network, or for running certain applications so that less stress is put on the core network. Also, if your fibre network fails, you can immediately switch over to a fast and reliable wireless network so you can continue to work.
Wireless is ideal as a backup internet option. It solves the issue of internet downtime and also provides more bandwidth and flexibility. For most businesses, connectivity is a mission-critical type of service, and wireless offers the perfect solution.
Are you interested in getting wireless internet service for your business? We have installed it on hundreds of central London sites so talk to us today to get the best advice.