The word disaster, especially when talking about Internet and telecom outages evokes images of the worst weather you’ve ever seen. Tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, and wildfires all come to mind. But in reality, a disaster is anything that takes your business operations to its knees. Including the dreaded construction backhoe interrupt, loss of power, vault fires, mold, gophers, HVAC malfunctions and many other equally dastardly circumstances.

Surviving disaster is not cheap

Companies average a loss of about $6000 per minute during times of service outages. That’s a huge spend for any sized business and the old adage is true; the bigger you are, the harder you fall, as we learned from Seattle-based Amazon Web Services (AWS) in early 2017. Their three-hour outrage, which impacted many cloud companies such as Slack, Trello, and Apple was estimated to carry a $150 million price tag. (Quick math that’s about $833 thousand per minute!)

The Simple solution – is not so simple

According to studies, when a disaster recovery plan is absent less than 10% of companies survive. That means the other 90% are completely wiped  out which is why most internet-dependent and also larger enterprise companies implement full disaster recovery plans with regularly scheduled practice sessions. These plans tend to be quite detailed and include specific protocols that network admins, business unit managers, and other team members adhere to in order to protect the company’s bottom line. At an average disaster related loss of $6000 per minute, it’s easy to see why the small cost of network redundancy is a good investment.

Fixed wireless for disaster recovery planning

Fixed Wireless is completely separate from any other provider and at no point traverses the same route into the point of demarcation making it the best option for mission critical business operations. This is true regardless of whether you’re facing a disaster or not but is especially true when one occurs because at that point, if true redundancy hasn’t been achieved – it’s too late.

Are your transport lines redundant?

When multiple carriers provide Internet access to a location, it’s easy to assume redundancy has been achieved. However, even when one pipe is from the local cable company and the other pipe comes from the Telco, when they enter the building through the same conduit, they’re likely travelling the same routes underground and are both vulnerable to the same mishaps. This is also true for ISPs that simply resell existing carriers’ services; different company names but same lines and routes into your location. If you’re not sure how your carriers’ networks are configured, the time to ask is - before disaster strikes!

The alternative that works is fixed wireless

Cellular and satellite Internet solutions are redundant from fiber or cable. However, they are typically not reliable enough for the ebbs and flow of daily business demands let alone disaster recovery. Especially during weather related situations. Due to the fact that prior to fiber, all telephone calls in the U.S. was carried by highly reliable licensed microwave routes that we now use to deliver highly reliable fixed wireless Internet access.  Microwaves traverse the air without being impacted by weather, fixed wireless Internet is the most reliable alternative to cellular and satellite. It’s why we guarantee 99.999% uptime and can turn up service within days instead of weeks or months.

For more information about how your organization will benefit from fixed wireless Internet access, contact us – we’re happy to help!

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