Importance of Internet Redundancy for Businesses
by Mark Carpenter, CEO, Centricity Communications

Irvine, CA, USA, April 30, 2007 — Ten to fifteen years ago, the importance of the Internet and the fundamental changes it would bring to business processes were beginning to unfold. The business world moved quickly from bricks-and-mortar to online pure plays, and then finally settled somewhere in-between. Today, every business must have Internet connectivity at some level to be successful, whether it is for basic email communication, a company web site, or more advanced online collaborative tools.

Likewise, business users evolved over time from a dial-up mentality where the user would intermittently log in to check email, to broadband access mode where the user was always connected at the office and could respond much quicker to customers and vendors, and ultimately to ubiquitous connectivity where the user can use a smartphone to access mobile email and databases from office servers in real time.

The Internet has become so pervasive in daily business relationships and connectivity that when it goes down, even for a few minutes, time and money impacts are felt immediately. In addition, it can reflect negatively on the professional image of a company when a customer or vendor is unable to reach its email or web servers at any given time.

As networks and Internet utilization grow, so too does the complexity of the IT infrastructure to support businesses. Most companies install redundant routers and switches to prevent allowing a single point of failure anywhere in the core network. Internet service providers build redundancy into their own Internet backhaul access that is delivered to their customers.

However, for mid to large size businesses even this level of redundancy is not sufficient. It may not be the Internet backhaul itself that fails but a node somewhere along the service provider connection path. Therefore, companies often install secondary dial-up or DSL service in the event of a temporary outage with the primary service provider. But now, as commercial high-speed Internet technologies evolve, companies can actually afford cost-effective T1 class redundancy services to minimize any impact to primary service outages.

In 2001, the IEEE and ETSI technology standards groups began working on commercial wireless broadband standards that could provide the last mile more cost-effectively than wired T1/T3 solutions, bypassing fixed line installations and access fees, while still providing the same level of commercial service. These groups drafted what became the 802.16 WiMAX™ standard, which builds upon technology from the well-known 802.11 WiFi standard used today at offices and hotspots throughout the world, but at a commercial class level with much further range (5-30 miles) at high bandwidth (1.5Mbps to 80Mbps).

Though the standard was only recently ratified, commercial fixed wireless products based on this technology have been available for the past couple years and built into the infrastructure provided by leading service providers in Orange County. The first target market for this new technology were businesses that could not get cost-effective wired T1 class solutions to their area and required an alternative last-mile solution. However, due to its commercial level of service, it quickly became a redundancy solution for businesses looking to backup existing T1/T3 class services.

Today, a number of businesses are starting to use commercial fixed wireless as their primary Internet access service, bypassing traditional wired local access fees and saving up to 50% in cost. These Internet services install quickly, are scalable from 1.5 Mbps to 80 Mbps, and start at $299 per month. Companies will then use a wired DSL or T1 solution as the secondary redundancy service.

Next generation commercial fixed wireless technologies are becoming available in Orange County. Companies can install these solutions for primary Internet access or for secondary redundancy to cost-effectively protect and scale their growing business.

About the Author
Mark Carpenter is founder and CEO of Centricity Communications LLC, a provider of fixed wireless Internet and Point-to-Point services for small to mid-sized businesses in Orange County, delivering commercial bandwidth from 1.5Mbps to 80Mbps. For more information about Centricity please visit www.centricitycomm.com or you can contact Mark directly at mark.carpenter@centricitycomm.com.