Advantages of a Wireless Business Continuity Plan

Is it true for your business that all that stands between being up and running and dead in the water is one thin line? That line is your vital bandwidth connection. You may be one equipment failure or backhoe accident away from being unable to conduct business.

In the days of paper order pads and medical records, your telecom connections were important, but not necessarily critical. The telephone lines were probably more valuable than the broadband connection. That’s all flipped upside down now. Yes, telephone service is vital to most businesses, but so is that all-important connection to the cloud. Lose it and you’ve lost most of your office functions. After all, everything is in the cloud now. That includes your vital business data and the cloud-based apps that make your office run.

We know that wireline bandwidth connections are highly reliable... but not perfect. What do you do in those rare instances when your line goes dead? Wait it out? For simple equipment outages and line breaks, that might be the logical approach. Chances are that you’ll only lose half to one business day. How much is that worth to you?

If your losses from being down for 4 to 8 hours are minimal because the Internet or private line connection are more of a tool for your business rather than essential to keeping things running, then perhaps you’re fine. In the new model of cloud services, you’ll have more than the mere inconvenience of not being able to update inventory right away. Your entire operation will be dead in the water. For a high volume retail or distribution operation, the losses can mount up quickly. Hundreds? Thousands? How much per day will you lose?

Now, what if you could have an entire year’s worth of backup protection for less than one day’s losses without such protection? Would that be worth it?

Many businesses have multiple wireline services to protect against just such a disaster scenario. With bonded T1 or EoC (Ethernet over Copper), the loss of a single copper pair reduces the available bandwidth, but the connection keeps running. That offers some protection but doesn’t help if the situation was caused by the entire wire bundle being cut by a backhoe digging too near the cable right of way. It also doesn’t save you if the problem is an equipment failure on either end of the line.

This argues for dissimilar connections. One approach is to get your business up and running with copper wireline solutions while you are waiting for a much larger capacity fiber line to be installed. Once the fiber is provisioned, you keep the less expensive copper connection as a backup. There’s a good chance that the fiber and copper don’t share any common terminal equipment or run in the same conduits, preventing a single point failure of both. That’s not always the case, but it does offer some protection compared to having two of the exact same line services.

Another approach is to have a wireless bandwidth service for business continuity. The proliferation of cellular towers with high speed bandwidth channels now means that virtually every business location is in range of at least one and probably several tower sites.

Bandwidths have also greatly increased. Nearly universal 3G service offers speeds similar to T1 lines at 1 Mbps download. The more advanced 4G service is good for 5 to 12 Mbps download and 1 to 5 Mbps upload. That’s fast enough for most small to medium businesses, especially as a backup solution.

The beauty of commercial cellular-based wireless backup is that it is very affordable, with a cost less than half what you pay for a T1 line and installation measured in days rather than weeks or months. The equipment comes already set up to work with the strongest signal at your location. Most companies can install what looks like a WiFi router themselves and be running the same day the gear arrives. The router includes a port for your existing wireline service, T1 or EoC, and offers automatic failover in the event of a wire outage.

Another use for rapidly installed wireless bandwidth is to support newly opened or temporary business sites. This includes new store openings, temporary holiday store locations and construction sites. You can lease the service by the month without a long term commitment.

Do you have a situation where you need connectivity right now and can’t wait for the usual installation times? Are you feeling a bit insecure that you can lose substantial business if your connection fails for even a day? Are you digging out from a recent disaster and need private line or Internet service immediately? If so, you are an excellent candidate for wireless business continuity service. Get pricing and details to see how well this will work for your situation.

T1 Line With Instant Wireless Backup

You know how it can get you nuts when your business broadband goes down right in the middle of something important. That’s why many companies opt for telecom-grade T1 line service instead of “best effort” information services like DSL and Cable broadband. While highly reliable, T1 lines aren’t immune to outages either. An equipment failure or careless backhoe operator can made your line go dead when you least expect it.

One way that companies build in redundancy against line losses is by ordering diverse T1 service. In other words, they order two lines from two different providers. The only problem with that is the bundle of twisted pair copper leaving their premises is owned by the Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier (ILEC). All those wires travel together right into the same central office. Chances are that when one line is severed in a local mishap, they all are.

Cbeyond, an innovative company in IT and communications services, has a better idea. They offer T1 line service with a wireless backup option. The way it works is that your normal bandwidth is supplied through the T1 at 1.5 Mbps for both upload and download. If that connection is lost for any reason, your broadband service instantly transfers to a wireless broadband connection using a cellular provider aircard. While using that channel, you’ll have typically 600 Kbps to 1.1 Mbps download speed and 400 to 800 Kbps upload speed. That should keep you going for the few hours that it typically takes to repair a T1 connection.

You might rig up something like this yourself using a MiFi or wireless modem aircard that you can get from any of the cellular carriers. The difference with Cbeyond’s line backup service is that it offers an automatic failover. You don’t have to notice there is a problem and then bring on another service. Cbeyond keeps your same IP address for both the wired and wireless connection. They can do that because the switchover is accomplished in their network cloud. You also have unlimited data capability while on the wireless backup. Most wireless carriers won’t even sell you an unlimited plan anymore.

One more advantage of the T1 wireless line backup from Cbeyond is that it will cost you less to add this option than go out and contract for a separate wireless service to make your own backup.

Cbeyond is an Atlanta company that serves Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Houston, Denver, Los Angeles, San Diego, Detroit, San Francisco, Miami, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Seattle and Washington, DC. If you are within their service footprint, you can benefit from their extensive suite of business communications services. Those include local, long distance and international phone service, plus mobile phones. In addition to voice and broadband, Cbeyond offers messaging and collaboration, data backup and security, and virtual and dedicated cloud servers. Their Multinet MPLS service securely connects branch offices, customers, employees and suppliers on one virtual network.

Do you have a special situation that just doesn’t seem to be supported by your current telecom service provider? The advantage of working through a telecom broker, like Telarus, Inc., is that you have access to dozens of top rate providers with services that you may not even be aware of. Get complementary phone consultation along with competitive prices and service options to meet your specific requirements.

New Role for Wireless as Wireline Backup

We tend to think of wireless as the future of all telecommunications. Perhaps it’s all the hoopla over BlackBerry devices and iPhones. So why would anyone consider wireless as a wireline backup instead of the other way around?

The nice thing about wireless communication is the freedom it brings. You simply grab your device and go. Can’t do that with a desktop PC connected to an Ethernet network. But who’d want to. You’d look as silly as those people who carry around full size telephone handsets connected to their cell phones.

For big and heavy PCs, servers and printers, there’s not a lot of incentive to get rid of the network wire. That’s especially true if you need an AC power cable anyway. The one exception might be a printer that sits in an area with no network connection nearby. In that case, WiFi connectivity makes sense.

The other thing to remember is that wireless bandwidth is a scarce resource compared to copper wireline networks and fiber optic connections. Fast Ethernet at 100 Mbps is the norm for desktop equipment. Many network access cards are now 10/100/1000 Mbps. At Gigabit Ethernet speeds, even wireless access points get pricey. WAN bandwidth gets really pricey.

So if most LANs are going to remain primarily wired and WAN connections are usually cheaper per Mbps over copper or fiber, then where does wireless fit?

This cost/benefit analysis breaks down if your application needs to be portable or mobile. It also breaks down if the wireline connection breaks down. What I mean is that if someone with a backhoe cuts through a cable bundle and severs all the copper telephone cable and fiber optic strands on a certain path, wireless may be your only option to connect with the outside world.

Several companies are marketing solutions for the business that wants to be as sure as possible that no disaster will take out its connectivity completely. Vocal IP Networx and Accel Networks, to name two, have wireless Internet solutions available. Cellular broadband networks are well suited to this application because cell signals are so widely available. With HSPA and EVDO Rev A readily available, it is possible to get Mbps connectivity with a single aircard.

Satellite broadband offers another wireless solution that doesn’t depend on landline availability as long as you can run on backup power. All you need is a clear view of the southern sky to point the dish and you can have two-way communications. Latencies on Geosynchronous satellite tend to be prohibitive for real-time applications such as VoIP, but email and most Web browsing runs just fine.

Are you concerned that your operation may be vulnerable to a complete loss of connectivity due to single point failure? If so, you should see how affordable backup wireless solutions can be to give you peace of mind. This is also a good time to check prices on wireline connectivity. WAN prices for T1, DS3, Ethernet and other services are much lower than they were a few years ago. Find the best prices on all bandwidth services now.