There is a poll at LinkedIn that begs the question, “What happens to your business if the Internet connection goes down?”
At the time of this publication, 25% of those polled, including my business, said “My business shuts down completely.”
Only 11% said there would be no impact. Or put another way nearly 9 out of 10 businesses will be impacted by an internet outage.
Is your business ready for an internet outage?
“…nearly 9 out of 10 businesses will be impacted by an internet outage…”
Most internet outages occur in the wee hours of the night in the form of planned maintenance. However there are unplanned times when routers and other infrastructure devices need to be restarted to clear a conflict. Those outages often only last a few minutes. However sometimes when the ISP is having problems it could take hours.
Every outage costs nearly 90% of business surveyed. While a 10 minute outage is difficult to gauge, when it gets into an hour, internet outages could cost thousands of dollars per hour for SMBs. Outages lasting days could bankrupt any SMB.
Common types of internet outages:
1. Electric Power Failure
2. ISP failure
3. Company network hardware failure
4. Company network administrator error
5. Computer Viruses blocking internet connection
Some solutions to internet outages:
1. Have backup electric generator or relocate temporarily
2. Utilize multiple ISP service providers or relocate temporarily
3. Have backup equipment programmed and ready to swap out
4. Utilize only properly trained and certified network administrators, provide for 24 hr service
5. Keep all connected devices running the latest virus and spam filters
While no company can be completely prepared for an internet outage, every company can be better prepared.