Albeit NBN Internet connections are very reliable, they are nonetheless subject to outages, which for most businesses will have a major impact. As a result, NBN Internet service providers such as Smartcom offer a 4G wireless back-up option to promote business continuity.
Critically, not all NBN Internet service providers that offer back-up services with sufficient speeds to effectively manage such an event – offering only low-speed internet when the NBN is down – being typically 8-10Mbps – which is insuffiecient by any measure. (Click Here for NBN Internet Plans)
By contrast, Smartcom offers unlimited speed with its 4G back-up connections. (Click Here for NBN Internet Plans)
NBN Internet for BC & DR Planning
As part of any company’s business continuity and disaster recovery plan, there is a need for backup internet connections. A 4G back-up solution is an ‘always-on’ connection which allows your router to have two internet connections 1) the primary internet services (ie NBN, fibre), and 2) a secondary internet service which utilises the cellular (mobile phone) network.
In the event of your primary internet connection going down, your router will immediately and seamlessly fail-over to the 4G connection – maintaining your internet connectivity. (Click Here for NBN Internet Plans)
Not all 4G Back-Ups are ‘Fit for Purpose’
Using a regular mobile internet service is not an ideal back-up solution for many business – because mobile providers only supply dynamic IP addresses as describe above. However, this becomes a business liability for most businesses, as each time a device connects to the Internet it will be assigned a different IP address – hence the neccesity for a static IP address that remians unchanged. (Click Here for NBN Internet Plans)
The above is business critical in relation to supporting business services that have been configured to utilise the assigned static IP address. Examples include;
- Online Banking: Banks may run security checks on IP addresses to verify they are the same each time a customer/device conducts a transaction.
- Email functionality: Email providers may run security checks on an email senders IP address, to verify that it is the same IP address that this sender has been assigned. Sending email from a different IP address to the one you have been assigned may lead to your emails being tagged as spam and discarded. These checks are one way to detect spam, as such IP address ‘spoofing’ is a tactic which spammers use (an email says it is from @example.com, but the IP address it was used to send from is not the one assigned to @example.com).
- Website: The company’s web server needs to have an unchanging IP address, so your customers can find your website on the internet.
- Cloud Hosted PBX: A cloud pbx business phone system will drop-out in the event of a changed IP address – resulting in no calls in or out until the IP address has been added to the cloud pbx firewall.
While existing solutions like VPNs can provide the function of transferring existing static IP addresses, this technology is mainly optimised to provide geo-blocking services (a system used to limit access to content on the internet based on your location), or to provide a mechanism through which data can be sent, securely encrypted. They are therefore not a complete, reliable internet connection back=up technology. (Click Here for NBN Internet Plans)
As a result, your back-up solution should automatically transfer from the primary link to the back-up link when the primary connection fails – and then automatically restore your connectivity to the primary link when it comes back online. This should happen immediately and transparently without the need to re-boot the router, or contact your service provider. (Click Here for NBN Internet Plans)
Back-up Considerations:
- Reliability of fault detection and clearance: whether the system will reliably detect that the primary link is compromised, and initiate immediate switchover to the back-up and vice versa.
- Timeliness of the swap in both directions: if the system is able to conduct the switch-over within desired timeframes.
- Integrity: is the backup solutions performance adequate when compared to the primary? A single 4G connection might not satisfy your business requirements if you require a very fast internet connection. Or perhaps poor 4G reception in the routers location may negatively impact its performance, and render it unfit for purpose?
- Networking Metrics:for instance, packet loss (how reliably is the sent data received by the recipients system), or latency (how long it takes the data to traverse to the recipient). Some content is very sensitive to packet loss or high latency, and its impact on the content being transferred, as well as the reliability in detection of any packet loss or high latency needs to be carefully considered.
- Bandwidth management: how will the solution deal with a VPN solutions’ overhead, when managing the bandwidth it needs to serve the various applications that need to run off the connection?
- Flapping: how tolerant is the system to a repeated cycle of failing and recovering?
- Compatibility with a wide range of protocols and devices: will the back-up solution be able to perform and meet the same metrics across a range of identified protocols and devices over its connection?
Talk to Smartcom for more information on how we can implement a back-up solution tailored to your business requirements. Specifically, ask about our innovative ‘static IP 4G backup solution’ – as it will maintain your static IP address, withh an immediate fail-over between your primary and back-up – connections without any user intervention, and can be installed with the 4G antenna up to 100m away from the router. In short, the solution is designed to keep your business online when your internet is off-line. (Click Here for NBN Internet Plans)
CX Directory
Industry directories are often a good place to compare technology services. For instance, industry body CX Central, has Smartcom listed in the CX Directory.
