Bulletproof Internet

For most of us, the Internet is not a luxury; it's a mandatory business tool. Some of the daily tasks such as receiving e-mails and researching information on the Internet have become commonplace. For others, even more of their business functions have become completely dependent on the Internet. Organizations are starting to rely on other functions such as fax over e-mail, Internet telephony (VoIP) and online business applications.

The solution for some of our clients is to have two different Internet connections. This way if one connection goes down the other one takes over. For example, they may have cable as their primary Internet connection and a DSL line as their backup. Traditionally, this technique has been expensive and reserved for larger companies, but this is no longer true. There are now devices that small businesses can use that automatically fail between the two different connections without any manual intervention.

A recent client we had installed such a setup for was utilizing Internet Phone technology and had several online based applications to run their business. Their primary Internet connection was out for over 4 hours, but they were not out of business. Their device instantly switched Internet connections and they were running business as usual. When the primary connection was available again the device automatically switched back without any interruption to end users.

Another option is to use your phone as an Internet connection. Large mobile carriers offer services you can add to your phone to have it also act as a backup Internet connection for your portable laptop or PC.