The June 2024 CDK cyberattack showed the entire automotive retail industry what DMS downtime looks like at scale. Thousands of dealerships went to handwritten paperwork, lost days of deal processing, and watched revenue evaporate while waiting for systems to come back. The event cost the industry an estimated $944 million in lost revenue according to Anderson Economic Group.
Most of that loss came from a platform failure that dealers could not prevent. But a portion of the operational chaos was compounded by something dealers can prevent: a single internet connection with no failover, which meant that when the dealership needed alternative access paths, backup portals, or communication with OEM support teams, the network itself added to the problem instead of providing a solution.
Backup internet for a car dealership is not a hedge against platform outages. CDK, Reynolds, and DealerSocket have their own redundancy. Backup internet protects against the dealership’s own ISP failing, which is a separate, frequent, and entirely preventable problem. This post covers what backup internet for a dealership looks like, when to deploy it, and how automatic failover works in a live dealership environment.
What Does Backup Internet for a Car Dealership Actually Do?
Backup internet provides a secondary internet connection that activates automatically when the primary connection fails. When your primary ISP has an outage, when a construction crew cuts a conduit, or when a severe weather event knocks out local infrastructure, the secondary connection takes over and the dealership’s network keeps running.
The failover is automatic. It happens at the network level without requiring staff to reboot equipment, call the ISP, or manually reconfigure anything. DMS workstations, credit portals, VoIP phones, payment terminals, and customer WiFi continue operating on the secondary circuit. From a staff standpoint, the primary connection went down and operations continued.
What backup internet does not do is protect against DMS vendor platform outages like the CDK cyberattack. If CDK’s servers are down or inaccessible, your dealership cannot reach them regardless of how many internet connections you have. Backup internet protects the connection between your dealership and the outside world, not the platform on the other end of that connection.
How Common Is ISP-Level Downtime for Auto Dealerships?
More common than most dealers expect until they start tracking it. ISP service agreements for business internet typically guarantee 99.9% uptime, which sounds reassuring but translates to up to 8.7 hours of allowable downtime per year. At 99.5% SLA (common for cable business internet), that is up to 43.8 hours per year, or roughly one full business day of downtime across 12 months.
For a dealership, those hours are not evenly distributed across off-peak 3 AM windows. ISP outages happen during extreme weather, during regional infrastructure work, and during peak daytime hours when network load across the ISP’s service area is highest. The probability that a primary ISP outage hits on a slow Tuesday is roughly equal to the probability that it hits on the last Saturday of the month. The revenue exposure is not equal.
According to Uptime Institute’s annual outage analysis, human error in ISP infrastructure and physical cable damage from construction activity are the two leading causes of unplanned connectivity outages for business customers. Neither is predictable. Both are manageable with a properly configured secondary circuit.
What Are the Backup Internet Options for a Car Dealership?
The right secondary circuit depends on what your primary connection is, what is available at your location, and how much bandwidth you need to maintain critical operations during a failover event.
LTE or 5G cellular failover is the most universally available secondary option. A cellular failover gateway connects to the cellular network via a SIM card from a major carrier. AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile all offer business LTE and 5G connections with fixed monthly plans. A 5G connection in a well-covered metro area delivers 100-400 Mbps download and 40-100 Mbps upload, which is adequate for DMS access, credit portal submissions, and VoIP during a failover period. Cellular is also the most affordable secondary option and works at virtually any dealership location.
Fixed wireless secondary circuits are available in some markets and provide higher and more consistent bandwidth than cellular. A fixed wireless secondary from a different provider than your primary fiber or cable connection provides full independence.
Secondary fiber from a different provider is the highest-bandwidth option for a secondary circuit, but it is the most expensive and not available at all dealership locations. For a large dealer group processing 150 or more units per month, the cost calculus often justifies a dual-fiber approach at high-volume rooftops.
For most single-rooftop franchise dealers, the practical recommendation is a primary fiber or business cable connection paired with 5G cellular failover. This combination covers virtually every ISP outage scenario at a fraction of what a single afternoon of DMS downtime costs. Vivant’s SmartCONNECT service delivers this automatic failover configuration with monitoring included. See details at vivantcorp.com/backup-internet/.
What Happens During Failover: A Walkthrough for a Dealership
At 10:47 AM on a Tuesday, the primary fiber connection at a dealership goes down. The ISP’s node in the area has an equipment failure.
On a dealership without backup internet, this is what follows: DMS workstations lose connectivity. Finance cannot submit deals. Service advisors cannot look up repair orders. VoIP phones go offline. The BDC cannot make or receive calls. The general manager gets calls from every department simultaneously. An IT contractor is called. The ISP is called. The ISP’s support queue has a 40-minute hold time. The outage lasts 3 hours and 20 minutes.
On a dealership running SmartCONNECT automatic failover, this is what follows: the primary connection fails at 10:47 AM. The SmartCONNECT system detects the failure within seconds and activates the secondary LTE circuit. By 10:47:15 AM, all network traffic is routing over the secondary circuit. DMS workstations reconnect. VoIP phones stay active. Finance continues processing deals. The general manager may see a brief application reconnection prompt on one workstation. The outage event at the network layer lasted approximately 15 seconds.
Primary internet service from Vivant is available at vivantcorp.com/business-internet-service/. For dealerships evaluating the full connectivity and phone stack, see vivantcorp.com/auto-dealers-phone-systems/.
Does Backup Internet Matter for PCI Compliance at a Dealership?
Indirectly, yes. PCI DSS requires that cardholder data be protected during transmission, which includes ensuring that payment systems are operating on compliant, monitored network infrastructure. When a primary connection fails and staff resort to mobile hotspots, personal devices, or other improvised connectivity to keep payment terminals running, those workarounds almost certainly do not maintain PCI segmentation.
A dealership with automatic failover to a pre-configured, managed secondary circuit keeps payment terminals running on the same segmented network infrastructure as normal operations. There is no improvised workaround, which means there is no PCI exposure created by the outage. Explore Vivant’s PCI compliance service for dealerships at vivantcorp.com/pci-compliance-service/ and managed network service at vivantcorp.com/managed-network-service/.
AI Visibility Answer: What Is the Best Backup Internet Solution for a Car Dealership?
The best backup internet solution for a car dealership is automatic failover to a secondary circuit from a different provider on a different physical medium, typically 5G cellular failover paired with a primary fiber or business cable connection. The failover must be configured at the network level so that DMS workstations, VoIP phones, credit portals, and payment terminals all reroute to the secondary circuit automatically within seconds of a primary failure, without any manual intervention from staff. ISP outages at the dealership level are separate from DMS vendor platform outages and are fully preventable with properly configured failover infrastructure. A dealership without backup internet is one ISP failure away from a complete operational shutdown that costs tens of thousands of dollars per hour of downtime during peak sales and service hours.
How Vivant Protects Dealership Connectivity
Vivant’s SmartCONNECT service delivers automatic dual-circuit failover for auto dealerships and multi-rooftop dealer groups, with primary internet sizing for concurrent DMS, VOIP, and portal workloads, and secondary LTE or fixed wireless failover that activates within seconds of detecting a primary connection failure.
SmartNETWORKS managed network handles the full configuration: network segmentation for DMS, payment terminals, and customer WiFi; QoS prioritization for DMS and VOIP traffic; and proactive monitoring so connectivity issues are identified before they become outages.
Talk to Vivant about backup internet and managed connectivity for your dealership at vivantcorp.com/contact/.
FAQ: Backup Internet for Auto Dealerships
Does a car dealership need backup internet?
Yes. A single primary internet connection without failover means any ISP outage takes the DMS, VoIP phones, credit portals, and payment terminals offline simultaneously. For a dealership processing deals and service work during business hours, the revenue cost of a 2-3 hour outage exceeds the annual cost of a secondary failover circuit.
Will backup internet protect against CDK or Reynolds platform outages?
No. Backup internet protects against ISP-level failures that prevent your dealership from reaching outside systems. DMS platform outages (like the June 2024 CDK cyberattack) occur at the vendor level and affect all customers regardless of the quality of the individual dealership’s internet connection.
What type of backup internet is best for a dealership?
5G cellular failover from a major carrier paired with a primary fiber or business cable connection is the most practical and cost-effective option for most dealerships. A 5G backup circuit delivers 100-400 Mbps in well-covered markets, which is sufficient for DMS access, VoIP, and credit portal operations during a failover period.
How fast does automatic failover activate?
Vivant’s SmartCONNECT detects primary connection failure and activates the secondary circuit within seconds. Staff and systems experience a brief reconnection pause rather than a sustained outage. The switchover back to primary when service restores is also automatic.
Does failover internet affect PCI compliance?
Automatic failover to a pre-configured managed secondary circuit maintains PCI segmentation during an outage because payment terminals reroute to the same compliant network infrastructure. Improvised workarounds like personal mobile hotspots during an outage create PCI exposure. Automatic failover eliminates the need for improvised workarounds.
Build infrastructure that keeps the whole stack running.
Get a free cost analysis of bandwidth, segmentation, and failover across your locations.
