How vulnerable is your business if you lose access to the Internet?
 
It may not be that critical for some small businesses if their Internet is down for a short period of time. Irritating and annoying, yes, but their employees can keep going by using mobile phones, or by taking their laptops to a coffee shop and logging on to the cloud.
 
For most businesses, however, Internet downtime can be a nightmare. No access to customers? How long before you’re out of business?
 
We’ve seen many instances of this recently – some of which were so impactful that they made the news. Whole cities have been impacted, and some for weeks at a time. It only takes one misdirection for a construction crew to cut a fiber line, and then you’re disconnected from your business lifeline.
 
Enterprises: If you depend on Internet access, you absolutely, positively need Internet diversity. Internet diversity means your building and your employees are no longer reliant on a single source. Just like many companies have a backup generator “just in case,” Internet-dependent companies need a backup Internet feed.
 
Implementation is possible through a number of different methods. You can have two or three different companies provide Internet to your business, for example. If Time Warner Cable is your primary provider, perhaps you add an AT&T line in case Time Warner is unable to provide access.
 
In addition to alternate providers, many businesses are looking to alternate mediums of service, because many of the providers use the same trenches when they lay their cabling. For this example, maybe you have CloudWyze Fixed Wireless service as a primary provider and Time Warner as a backup.
 
Finding a path to Internet diversity is not difficult, so why don’t more companies do it? Generally, they shy away from diversifying because they are concerned about the financial impact.
 
Instead of focusing on the up-front cost, focus on the efficiencies diversified Internet provides, in addition to the security. Make use of the secondary connection for infrastructure improvement, such as traffic shaping, guest WiFi or offloading backup services. Your secondary Internet does not need to be as fast as the service you rely on daily, so doubling the cost is not necessary to double the security.
 
View Internet redundancy as an insurance policy. Companies tell us that they could keep working for days if their water got turned off, but take away the Internet and they’re out of business. Think of it as a utility, and suddenly the cost of having redundant broadband is simply a cost of doing business.

Shaun Olsen is the CEO and president of CloudWyze. CloudWyze was created to help businesses focus and perform at their optimal level by crafting and executing custom technology plans for businesses of every type and size. To learn more about CloudWyze, visit www.CloudWyze.com. Shaun can be reached at [email protected] or 910-795-1000.