It doesnt take a Terrorist Act, Tsunami or Earthquake to put a business heavily dependent on the internet in the dark and effectively out of businessfor hours or even days into weeks. Actually, a misguided backhoe, a lightning bolt, a car accident involving a phone pole or cable box, a flooding rain or an electrical brown out can do it in a flash. And what company in the 2000s isnt dependent on email, e-commerce, advertising and collaboration on the net? You say, We have cable backup for our T1 or T3 (if you are big enough) in the event of a failure.terrific, a terrestrial backup solution for a terrestrial problem WAKE UP! The backhoe can cut cable as efficiently as it did the phone line! The only way to have 99.5% effective backup, regardless of what happens, is a satellite vsat internet solutionperiod! In the past, unless you were Fortune 100 material and had at least 200 sites, the satellite internet offerings were expensive and incredibly slow as in not much better than a ISDN line (which is crawling by todays standards!). The only companies offering ANY satellite solutions would come out, put up a .74 meter dish and tell you your problems were over. Not Exactly as the car folks say. You fire up the dish to test it put 20 users on the router and the whole thing bogs down to below dial up speed. You try to handle a remote printing application and it wont work.on and on with the disappointments. Finally in 2004-05 there are cost effective and very fast bi-directional satellite systems available for companies who dont have 200+ locations ! There are VSAT terminals available today that cost the same as the initial prices of the consumer grade systems of two years agobetween $2,100 to $5,995 which can provide guaranteed speeds of 2000+ kbps download capacity and over 1000 kbps upload capacity! Thats right guaranteed speeds! And the great thing is that when you arent using them (as in nearly all the time), they dont cost an arm and a leg to keep on standby. Another big advantage in the technology of today is the ability to overcome the number one bugaboo of satellite internet latency and rain fade. The new offerings have largely mitigated both issues with the use of Internet Protocol throughout the transmission (rather than trying to convert TV type signals into IP) and variable watt transmitters which ramp up during poor weather conditions. The satellite internet dish is a bit larger 1.2 meters - and costs a bit more to install, but combined with the new indoor modem/router, it runs circles around the DirecWay and Starband offerings. The technology isnt perfect even today - but when you are down.well, your down! An experienced Sales Engineer with a reputable VSAT provider can guide you toward the right backup solutions for your organization. Get on the phone and get the protection your company needssooner or later you will be down! |
