I spend most of my time telling anyone who will listen that if they need reliable connectivity they can’t buy that from a single provider.
Often I’ll get a raised ‘you’re a bit of a zealot’ eyebrow as they point out that they have a 4G dongle and can tether to their phones so even if their main line has gone down for a few hours it will be OK.
Disasters Happen
Look at this:
It is a picture of a pile drilling machine that clipped a duct containing hundreds of pairs of fibres, The drill was so powerful that it pulled the fibres out of the ducts all the way back to the exchange.
Virginmedia services were affected worst, it took out connectivity to hospitals, schools businesses and homes. If affected customers in New Maldon, Surbiton, Wimbledon and Kingston.
Outages Last Longer Than You Want – Always
The drill clipped the fibres on Thursday 19th Dec 2019 it was reported as fixed on the 24th – 5 days later. It happened over a weekend just before the christmas break, that would have been a blessing for some and a nightmare for others.
Connection Diversity Requires Technology and Operator Independance
Use SD-WAN to combine cellular and DSL and Fibre internet connections, and so you can add more cellular connections immediately and seamlessly if you suffer from a multi-day outage.
