You’ve been there before. You’ve seen it with your own eyes. The mass hysteria and panic. Why? Because Facebook or WhatsApp is down. Everyone complains as if they are cut off from the world. Powerless to do anything or talk to anyone. It seems dramatic, but we can learn a lot from these outages. Look at how everyone reacts when they can’t connect to each other.
Now, imagine it was your internet connection that went down instead. It’s your primary method for communicating with your audience and getting work done. Whether you’re sending and receiving files and emails or video calling the senior partners for a monthly budget forecast, if you don’t have an internet connection, you don’t get work done. We explore the cost of internet downtime and how to avoid it in this article.
Factors that can lead to internet downtime:
Poor weather
Britain’s notoriously poor weather is just one factor that could have an impact on your internet connection. A heavy storm, torrential rain or gale-force winds can wreak havoc on traditional wired internet infrastructures. In fact, some problems can be so big that they require complicated maintenance work. Digging up the road and laying new cable isn’t a one-hour job though, it can take days to complete. Days where you’ll have no Internet connection. Luckily, there are new technologies available such as Last Mile Wireless which don’t rely on traditional cables. As a result, the likelihood of downtime can be significantly reduced.
Competition
However, it’s not just the weather that can take out a bad connection. If you share a line with other businesses on your premises, for instance, too much action at one time (such as multiple downloads and even a few Spotify connections) could throttle a connection or bring it to a screeching halt. You can find yourself competing for strong internet access.
However, thankfully things could be improved if you look for a better service. You could even have a dedicated fibre line put directly into your office, so you’re the one in the driving seat. Just be careful, it’s fast.
Hardware
It’s also good to know that not all internet connection problems are so drastic. Sometimes they can be fixed rather quickly. It could be a simple hardware failure, like a failing router, or Max (the office dog) chewing through a cable. You might laugh, but we’ve seen it happen.
How will internet downtime impact your business?
Without an internet connection, your staff can’t complete most of the tasks they do on a regular basis. You can’t send files to clients or emails of funny cat videos to co-workers. But how much does this downtime actually cost you?
Well, research by the Chartered Management Institute recently revealed that for SMEs, the average cost of downtime is £27,000 per hour. That’s a large sum. In fact, this cost can be even higher for businesses that rely on e-commerce, reaching an eye-watering six figures. But how can you minimise the risk and costs associated with internet downtime? Simple. Fix the problem as soon as you can!
The quicker we fix it, the quicker you can get back to work. Unfortunately, not everyone sees it this way. Not everyone provides an industry-leading 4 hour SLA like we do. Some don’t provide one at all and we think this is just mind-boggling. How can someone provide a service that’s so essential to your company, and not promise to get it back up as soon as they can, if it ever goes down?
Minimising downtime
There are other ways you can minimise downtime as well. Desktop virtualisation allows you to access your desktop from the cloud and on any device. And, by taking your servers to the cloud as well, you can access your important files and documents from anywhere in the world. Easily and securely. So, if your connection goes down, you can just pop down to your favourite Wi-Fi-enabled coffee shop and pick up right where you left off, while we’re busy getting your Internet connection back online. Just, please grab us a mocha on your way back. Pretty please.
So, if you’re unsatisfied with your internet and feel like you’re constantly battling internet downtime, contact us to see how we can help.
