Keeping the net connection up no matter what.

In a future post or two I'll take a look at services in the cloud but that can demand super reliable connectivity, here are four affordable ways to backup your net connection.

1) If you are running a business from a domestic address and live on a cabled street Virgin will install their cable broadband service for a reasonable £17 per month to domestic users. Business addresses must get their cable broadband from NTL:Telewest Buisness. Starting at £30 + VAT it is a relatively expensive option.

2) If you have the coverage 3G can provide effective short term backup. Beware of fair usage limits. Most providers “unlimited” packages range from 500MB to 3GB per month. The potentially high cost of exceeding that means it is terribly important usage is carefully monitored. For the same reason unless you are hosting services that must be on even when the office is closed, avoid 3G/DSL boxes that automatically switch connections. I like the Linksys It’s available from around £80 but only works with Vodaphone. The Netgear MBM621 is a tad temperamental but can be bought SIM free for use on any network from around £220.00.

My final two options are less than ideal, relying as they do on the same telephone system you are backing up. They’ll be of no use if there’s a fire in the telephone exchange or a digger cuts the lines. Nonetheless the vast majority of faults affect a line at time.

3) There is of course not so good old dial-up. It may be painfully slow, but for the cost of around £15 modem per PC its low on capital outlay. Most ISPs offer a pay as you go dial-up as a backup. Set up these connections in advance. When providers suffer a widespread failure getting through to tech support lines entails far to much low-fi Four Seasons to be bearable.
Check the price, it can be as much 4p a minute. Four machines online for eight hours will run up a hefty £76.80 bill. There are alternatives. I wouldn’t recommend Tiscali for anything other than a short term non-contractual emergency stop-gap-of-desperation, but their pay as you go is a mere 1p a minute. Like most standalone pay as you go services I’d expect lack of use to disable the account after a few months. Therefore initially connect using your ISPs backup pay as you go, and sign up online when it is needed.

4) If none of the above are suitable a second ADSL line may be the best option. Obviously avoid using the same company that is providing the primary line, clearly a fault can bring both lines down, but I’ve found almost as common is being cut-off because of billing errors by ISPs or accidental non payment by their customers.
Most ISPs buy wholesale access to BT’s equipment including their Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer (DSLAM). This is the kit in the exchange that talks to your ADSL modem. For maximum Independence choose a provider with their own box in the exchange, my favourite, though not perfect is Be Un limited They offer around 18 Mb/s via ADSL 2 (the typical reality of the headline “up to 24 Mb/s”) for £17.50 a month. So far they have installed their own equipment in more than 50% of BT’s exchanges.

Lastly, bear in mind that switching to a backup connection may halt access to any servers (including remote access) you are running. Rather than pointing your domain name to a fixed IP address use a dynamic IP update service such as no-ip’s enhanced service ($10 a year). Their small free applet runs on your server to regularly inform no-ip of your current IP address. For ten bucks you are limited to your host name with one of their generic domains such as .hopto.org apended (i.e. [NAME].hopto.org)

Of course the entire company could just grab laptops and mobiles, put the phones on divert and decamp to the nearest pub offering free Wi-Fi and well kept beer. It’s certainly my favoured option, come to think of it why wait for the net to go down?