Redundant Internet?

[prepressdork]

Hi all,

If your business' internet service goes down for any lengthy period of time, what do you do (if anything) to get access while your primary service is fixed?

Thanks,
pd

 

[jotterpinky]

We have both Cable and DSL lines coming in and utilize both in a load-balancing configuration. Our MIS system is web based and our phones are VoIP so we nearly shut down last year when we went without internet. Both lines come in and plug into a load balancing router (peplink 380). Prior to that our best option was wireless cards on a few select computers that we could switch over to a wireless option using internet provided via a cellular phone. I've never had our service be down for more than several hours though and while we have complained it doesn't make much difference when we have internet service at the level we do. (cable and DSL). If you want to pay big money (I was once quoted $600/mo several years ago) then you could get 50 mbps up and down with a service contract that guaranteed uptimes, response times, much better latency etc. We have never thought it was worth the money though since we can get 50 mbps service from our cable provider for about $90/mo and while it does occasionally go down with the DSL backup it's still much better and our internet comes from two sources which I think provides better protection than a single provider.

 

[MailGuru]

Our primamry internet connection is through our local telephone services provider (the phones are VoIP). Our fail-over redundant backup is microwave through a totally unrelated service provider called "Omni spring". It's a good solution, and, not very expensive. We have a microwave "dish-pad" mounted on the side of the building, right outside the server room. The pad is pointing to a microwave transmitter across-town. It works very well. With the phone provider, there have been instances where a construction crew or an individual digging has severed a cable near the main hub and phones as well as internet goes down. When that happens, the fail-over kicks in and we are on microwave transmission. When the phones come back up, we manually switch back.

-Best

-MailGuru

 

[wonderings]

Nothing fancy here, if the internet goes down for an extended amount of time (longest was a day) then I set my iPhone to be a wifi hotspot. I only use one computer for this so we can get our emails coming in. Thats all we really NEED the internet for.

 

[Keith]

When my internet goes down, I go on break. If it's down for longer than that, I take a long lunch.

 

[Fatboysmart]

My feeling is that the Internet has peaked... in a few years we will all go back to burning CD's and mailing them regular mail. Also I predict a comeback of the Fax. So i wouldn't worry too much about it.

 

[mattbeals]

This a great tool that friends of mine have used, look at the wan balancer and wan failover modules. Tons of great features, easy to setup run.

Perform | Untangle

For me though, I can do everything on my cell phone. So as long as there is a cellular connection I'm golden.

 

[unoprint1]

Primary Service - Roadrunner cable internet. Very little downtime. Normally just resetting modem when addresses change.

1st backup - half of the computers can log into wifi dsl that I use on a separate computer for administrative purposes.

2nd backup - Clear wireless - Old system that gives me 2 seperate wifi (one portable and on plug in for $50/mo. Use for streaming music and if employees want to surf at work. (haven't used as a backup since both Roadrunner and DSL have nerver been down.

3rd backup - Cell phone hot spot. (Never used for work)

4th backup - Take laptop to starbucks or mcdonalds in our shopping center. (never used for work but will use Ipad during my break so I know it will work)