4G Failover and Business Continuity: Why Your Business Needs 4G FaaST Failover

Nothing is certain but death and taxes, unless you’re are a business with internet access. Then, the likelihood of your network going down happens more often than you may care to admit. In some instances it’s only a momentary lapse in service and might not cause any significant disruption in your day-to-day operations. In many cases though, it wreaks havoc on your business operations, ability to communicate with customers, and ultimately your bottom line.

Industry experts like Gartner, Ponemon Institute, and Infonetics cite the cost of downtime ranging from $100k/hour to over $500k/hour. While the numbers vary slightly depending on the report, the overarching conclusion is that downtime, no matter how slight, can have a significant financial impact on your business’s bottom line.

From service provider network outages to physical cable cuts and natural disasters, wired service simply cannot guarantee 100% network uptime. With that, companies are now looking at wireless failover options to provide business continuity in the event of an outage or downtime.

4G LTE wireless offers high speed connectivity almost everywhere. Leveraging a wireless option for failover and redundancy gives businesses the piece of mind they need when it comes to managing their network communications. It is a cost-effective insurance policy for your network that keeps your business running smoothly and protects your business as soon as there is an issue.

Challenges with Traditional Failover

Traditional failover circuit designs require a second wired circuit from another network provider and an on-site switch that recognizes when the primary internet path has failed. That on-site switch can then switch traffic to the secondary path for failover. The problem with this setup is that the secondary wired path is located in the same physical space as the primary circuit, so the physical event that cuts the primary path, in turn, cuts the secondary path. Additionally, businesses with traditional wired failover solutions are unable to switch traffic back to the primary path due to a lack of onsite switch capability.

Broad Sky’s FaaST (Failover-as-a-Solution) Failover Solution

With Broad Sky’s FaaST Failover solution, we eliminate the challenges associated with traditional wired failover solutions. Since wireless circuits can’t be cut, the physical network disruption is protected by route diversity with a wireless network. FaaST Failover detects loss of upstream internet service and automatically fails over to the wireless network. Once the primary connection is re-established and considered stable, the network is then automatically switched back to the primary network.

Unlike other failover solutions, Broad Sky’s FaaST Failover solution doesn’t require the manual switch from primary to backup. Administrators are notified in real time of network events and also receive reports that include:

  • Time of outage
  • Duration
  • Resolution
  • Amount of data traffic passed

How FaaST Failover Works

By connecting the Ethernet cable from your primary carrier modem to Broad Sky’s FaaST router, you are able to “pass through” all internet traffic while retaining the carrier’s static IP. Then, simply connect your LAN switch to the Broad Sky Ethernet handoff, and FaaST Failover is ready to go. It’s that simple.

Conclusion

With the impending threat of network downtime, your business cannot afford to lose valuable productivity and communications due to network failure. Broad Sky Networks’ FaaST Failover solution is a cost-effective, easy-to-implement solution that can save you time, money, and headaches when a network event occurs. Give us a call and let us help you keep your network connected and running smoothly.