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Broadband Office backup for 30 users.

Hi,

Posted in tech as well as Internet forum.

Internet is now very important to our office and when we loose broadband it kills our business

Anyone have any ideas if we can use 3G in emergencies to get our office back up and running. We have 30 staff.

I have installed a ADSL and LLU line and can swap people quickly between the two lines. We dont have cable in our area.

Anything else I can do?

Regards

Barry

Comments

  • d900
    d900 Posts: 295 Forumite
    3g will work all the time but its not the fastest..
    if its that important you need to be looking at leased lines.

    or you could try the bonded adsl route or have 2 adsl lines but two different providers (this will more than likely cause issues if you host your own mail)

    of course depending on the fault it may not matter how many lines you have if its something wrong at the exchange or in the street...

    basically adsl is pretty useless and it will cut out once in a while thats life until its all upgraded not alot we can do

    how often do you lose your broadband connected? it shouldnt be a regular thing
    The orginal post in this thread has a very very slim chance of being about money saving. The post is more than likely to ask a question that google could answer better than any of us.
  • nickcardwell
    nickcardwell Posts: 346 Forumite
    you can get adsl routers, that have a 3g connection port on the back, so if it fails, 3g kicks in.

    thats assuming you have 3g in your area?

    3g is fine for a user, but 30 will kill it.
  • d900
    d900 Posts: 295 Forumite
    and of course you will need a 3g contract with someone (o2/vodafone etc)
    but its not perfect
    The orginal post in this thread has a very very slim chance of being about money saving. The post is more than likely to ask a question that google could answer better than any of us.
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 4,466 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    If internet access is critical to the operating of your business then you need to be talking to business providers with service levels and gaurentees and compensation for any down time. 3G access speeds are very much at the mercy of the reception in your area, so it's probable your actual speed could be closer to 2mbps than what is advertised. It's not the most reliable service either.
  • superscaper
    superscaper Posts: 13,369 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    It may be worth having a "discussion" with your current ISP and see what they can offer. Nothing to lose by approaching them first to see if they can offer any services or solutions. Especially if you're a business customer you should be able to ask them what procedures they have in place if the connection goes down for their business customers.
    "She is quite the oddball. Did you notice how she didn't even get excited when she saw this original ZX-81?"
    Moss
  • bazza1603
    bazza1603 Posts: 591 Forumite
    Have tried speaking to existing Broadband company .

    Offered bonding 2 x ISDN together...Pointless for 128K and £800 bill a year.

    A lease line at £4788 plus £1k install, but I see as pointless as exchange issue it will kill it.

    We have total care, but that is 24 hour fix.

    Was really hoping that somone would have had experience of running 15 or more users via a 3G card in an emergency

    regards

    Barry
  • superscaper
    superscaper Posts: 13,369 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    bazza1603 wrote: »
    Have tried speaking to existing Broadband company .

    Offered bonding 2 x ISDN together...Pointless for 128K and £800 bill a year.

    A lease line at £4788 plus £1k install, but I see as pointless as exchange issue it will kill it.

    We have total care, but that is 24 hour fix.

    regards

    Barry

    I don't really have any experience of this area (company I work at is 5 times smaller than yours) but since you've now got that info and details, maybe it's time to shop around. See what other ISPs offer and ask what their "emergency"/backup procedures are and what they can do above and beyond what you've been offered with your current ISP. Not just what they offer as standard but probably now haggling time I think.
    "She is quite the oddball. Did you notice how she didn't even get excited when she saw this original ZX-81?"
    Moss
  • d900
    d900 Posts: 295 Forumite
    bazza1603 wrote: »
    Have tried speaking to existing Broadband company .

    Offered bonding 2 x ISDN together...Pointless for 128K and £800 bill a year.

    A lease line at £4788 plus £1k install, but I see as pointless as exchange issue it will kill it.

    We have total care, but that is 24 hour fix.

    Was really hoping that somone would have had experience of running 15 or more users via a 3G card in an emergency

    regards

    Barry
    i think you have to accept that the internet is not always "on"
    lots of stuff goes wrong all the time i have lots of customers who have DSL connections and im always getting phone calls - before i even get to the status page of the isp its normally back up and running.

    WHo is ur current provider and just how often does it cut out now?

    just why is the web so important to the running of the business perhaps we can solve the issues another way...
    The orginal post in this thread has a very very slim chance of being about money saving. The post is more than likely to ask a question that google could answer better than any of us.
  • superscaper
    superscaper Posts: 13,369 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    d900 wrote: »
    just why is the web so important to the running of the business perhaps we can solve the issues another way...

    Although I can see where in practical terms there's no substantial alternative. For ourselves we sometimes need to be transferring files (hundreds of MiB in size) back and forth to our parent company. If we lost our connection we'd be pretty stuffed but our (informal) procedure is to get on with any work we can that doesn't require at that moment to be sent/received even if that means refining existing files and code as much as possible. Also we've got a set list of internal housekeeping (not just maintenance but setting up internal procedures, intranet etc, we're quite a young company so plenty to do there anyway). That may not end up being very efficient and value adding but you're right in your sentiments that at least you're doing something and not at a total standstill until the connection comes back up. We've had our share of various downages in terms of internal server, PCs breaking etc but there's always something you can do for the benefit of the company even if it isn't actually working on the client/customer product at that time.
    "She is quite the oddball. Did you notice how she didn't even get excited when she saw this original ZX-81?"
    Moss
  • We got 2 3G wireless routers in for testing for remote locations or where our wireless network didnt have coverage ie parks etc. We found that 4 laptops using them pretty lightly(mainly using webmail and abit of surfing) was ok.
    Our contract tho is pretty pricey at £90+ a month and we have only ever just tested it the once and we have two lol

    If you had an outage with your ISP and could get away with running 6- 8 machines then 3G might be an option, but it wouldnt be a cheap
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