Fixed Wireless: The Role of Diversity and Redundancy in Business Continuity Planning

Fixed Wireless: The Role of Diversity and Redundancy in Business Continuity Planning

By building diverse and redundant Internet connections into your IT infrastructure, you reduce the risk and expense of business interruptions.

When business owners develop business continuity plans, they typically develop strategies and tactics designed to recover from a natural or manmade disaster. While disaster recovery planning is essential, your business continuity strategy also needs to include maintaining an “always on” Internet connection. Companies of all sizes now depend on the web for sales, collaboration, and client communications. According to Crain’s, a review by Information Weekly found Internet disruptions, which lead to IT downtime, cost businesses in the United States more than $25 billion per year. What best practices can your business implement to avoid becoming part of this statistic?

Prevent Disruption with Diverse and Redundant Internet Connections
To ensure your business operations do not fall prey to Internet outages, you need to have diverse and redundant Internet connections. In its outline of best practices, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) defines diversity in Internet communication as routing between two paths that do not share any common points. Redundancy refers to having two independent means of connecting to the Internet.

Some business organizations try to build diversity and redundancy into their by installing two wired lines from different carriers. Unfortunately, this tactic does not usually work because cable based Internet transmissions often share the same infrastructure. The FCC recommends fixed wireless broadband because it completely bypasses your business’s wired Internet infrastructure, thus providing true redundancy and diversity in data transmission routing.

To learn more about how to use fixed wireless Internet into your business continuity plans, check back for our next posts, or contact the experts at Natural Wireless.