What is a backup internet Service?
Backup internet is simply a secondary path of communication to the internet so when your primary internet is down, you are still able to connect and transact. Today, nearly all payments are processed over the internet, phone service is delivered over internet (VoIP phone service), Online Ordering Services, Sales Reporting Software, Business Operation Software and more. With this much traffic crossing your internet service, it is extremely important to have a backup internet plan that allows you to operate your essential service.
Different Types of Backup Internet
Not all solutions are created equal so when shopping for a backup internet service, it is important to ensure it will actually work when you need it the most. If you pay for a backup internet service and it does not work when you need it, no matter how cheap or expensive, it is worthless. With that, it is important to understand the different options and plans available in order to make an informed decision.
Fiber and Diverse Route Backup Internet
Most people are familiar with different types of primary internet services, those are dedicated fiber internet service, coax internet service, shared business fiber internet such as FiOS or AT&T business fiber to name a few of them. The same services can be used as a secondary internet or backup internet, so for instance, you can have a dedicated 250/250m fiber internet service and also have a secondary 50/50m dedicated fiber as your backup internet. You can mix and match any of these internet services to serve as primary internet and backup internet. Since we always think a few steps further, we want to minimize the cost and offer 100% up-time guarantee and in order to achieve this, we get very creative through several methods which some people completely ignore. For example, if you have a 250m and a 50m fiber service through Spectrum, when one goes down, of course the second one goes down, so there is no redundancy here. Same goes if you have two coax or shared fiber internet service. It is imperative that your internet service providers are different and are completely independent of each other, i.e. not using the same path to enter your building or business.
LTE or Wireless Internet Service
The other type of internet service is the traditional LTE service that your smart phone uses. This tends to be the most accessible option for majority of backup internet services depending on your physical location. There are very few things to consider when going with a LTE backup internet, Data or Time Limits and Speed.
Data Limit or Time Limits
Some companies offer backup internet that is limited by either data or time which defeats the purpose. For example, if your primary internet is down for 10 hours but your backup internet has a time limit usage of 4 hours, it is not serving the purpose it had intended. The same can be said with data caps, most specifically with LTE based backup internet solutions.
Speed, latency and jitter
As you are well aware, the LTE speed can vary from location to location so where you are, how far from the nearest towers, how many towers are nearby, all play a key role in what type of speed you get, and how low is the latency and jitter. After all, if you get a 1 Mbps and you are 25 people in your office and you are running a VoIP phone system, it is useless. LTE internet services usually do impose a data limit which throttles your internet speed to DSL speeds so it is important to ensure you do not use a company with speed limits.
Hardware Requirements to Manage Primary and Backup Internet
As of now, not all firewall or routers support dual internet connections which means you will have to have the proper hardware required to manage a secondary internet connection. You want to ensure that your backup internet provider uses proper hardware to minimize the risk to your business. The more that the process is automated, the better and seamless it is for your staff in an event of emergency where your primary internet connection has failed. In summary, you want to ensure you have the right primary internet, the right backup internet service and the proper hardware to manage your internet service in order for everything to work seamlessly without any added stress to your staff or loss of profits to your bottom line.
About Vivant Corporation
At Vivant, we have created the perfect set of solutions to meet the need of any type of business. As the need of every industry is different, our SmartCONNECT technology can be adopted to work for a small restaurant operation whose need may be met with a coax primary internet and LTE backup internet service, or to meet the needs of a medical or car dealership where a backup LTE internet is not a viable option. SmartCONNECT works with both LTE, FIber, Coax or DSL internet services in order to provide a 100% up-time guarantee for your business at a competitive cost. SmartCONNECT is a seamless solution that monitors your primary internet connection every 15 sepconds and in an event of an outages, automatically and seamlessly switches to the secondary connection in order to keep your business connected, your payments processed, online orders completed and phone service to continue as normally. When the primary internet service is restored, SmartCONNECT automatically monitors the connection for a period of time, and if it is stable, it will automatically switch back. From today, you will never notice any internet outages anymore, sign up for SmartCONNECT today and say goodbye to internet outages
