How long would you tolerate your business internet being down ?

[VincentVega]

Found out using the online chat thing fairly quickly, though the guy on the other end was dumb as a sack of hammers.

likey the 'guy' was software

I have no room for downtime, cant work w/o a connection

[John Rogers]

Some questions, first do you have a support PROFESSIONAL who can troubleshoot issues for you? Many small businesses use their friend or cousin or ???? and if a problem pops up then they have no idea how to find and fix things. I would suggest getting one or two laptops and connect them to smart phones that use a different service provider as a hot spot so your office can connect to them in an emergency. Before I retired we ran our office for 3 months that way as our soon to provider had to run wire to the building? There are several articles on line that will explain how to do this and you can access them with your phone. It might seem like a waste of $$$$ having a couple laptops and phones just sitting but it is better than what you have now!

[VincentVega]

Always a good idea.

Doesnt help right now but might be a good time to figure out a disaster recovery plan. Doesnt have to be complicated, just prioritize services/functionality critical to your business. Then figure out how to mitigate each potential failure. Might be as simple as lock keys in safe at night, backup the computer or tether laptop to mobile phone for internet access. Complicated process around some of this stuff but for most KISS works.

[fastfredracing]

7 days fellows. Century link said it was an internal problem, that they have never seen before. They just came out , and finished me up back online !! . I spent countless hours on the phone with their tech people over the last week.
I now have about 35 invoices to catch up on .
I am definitely going to figure out a plan B for the next event . Basically paralyzed my shop for 7 days .
I was super hesitant to use internet based invoicing. It has worked really well for a long time, but this was exactly what I was worried about .

[Racerbvd]

Originally Posted by Tobra

It is comcast, isn't it. I feel your pain, phone out all day at office.

Mine too on the east coast

[Jims5543]

Originally Posted by Tobra

It is comcast, isn't it. I feel your pain, phone out all day at office.

Yeah Comcast can be great and suck all at the same time.

Originally Posted by tdw28210

Every business reliant on the internet should have a plan B. All you can eat wireless is usually your best bet. It will likely be slower than a land line, but at least your not completely down.

Just learned that lesson the hard way.

Had a horrible lightning storm come through here. Knocked out power and internet.

Sent everyone home since it was 2PM and FP& L said no power until 7 PM at earliest.

Came in next morning to power and no internet. Seems my router took a hit right through the surge protector.

Thankfully I had a backup in a box on a shelf. Took me about an hour to get it fired up and comcast to activate it remotely.

Since then I have decided to get a cellular wifi hot spot to use in case this happens again, I lean heavy on the internet. If it goes down we are down.

When I lost power and internet last time, I packed up my server (I have my own cloud server) and took it home, so I could finish my work there. I had power and internet there, 2 miles away.

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by fastfredracing

7 days fellows. Century link said it was an internal problem, that they have never seen before. They just came out , and finished me up back online !! . I spent countless hours on the phone with their tech people over the last week.
I now have about 35 invoices to catch up on .
I am definitely going to figure out a plan B for the next event . Basically paralyzed my shop for 7 days .
I was super hesitant to use internet based invoicing. It has worked really well for a long time, but this was exactly what I was worried about .

Solving problems "never seen before" eh? ...I was damn good at it....in a previous life . Problems that the largest vendors had no clue about either....it's not easy....I know. That said, now YOU know....find a solution that "will" work when the shtf, and use it occasionally... knowing full well, that when the shtf for real, it might not . Stuff IS complex behind the scenes. BTW....the only cloud I'm a fan of is the one Mick sang about...

Retired...but "the song remains the same"....whether the largest corps in the US....or Fred's Garage....YMMV.

Best of luck guys....those at the mercy of their service providers !

[911 Rod]

I might as well just go home.

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by 911 Rod

I might as well just go home.

Go ahead....take the rest of the day off!

Tell 'em KC said it was OK

How long will it be before we're back up?

'Bout an hour....he said (not having a damn clue what the problem even was)....btdt

[911 Rod]

Originally Posted by KC911

Go ahead....take the rest of the day off!

Tell 'em KC said it was OK

How long will it be before we're back up?

'Bout an hour....he said (not having a damn clue what the problem even was)....btdt

Thanks!!

Most IT guys either don't show up or tell you what you want to hear.

I love it when they say all fixed and try to run out the door. We don't need no stinking test. lol

[HardDrive]

Originally Posted by fastfredracing

7 days fellows. Century link said it was an internal problem, that they have never seen before. They just came out , and finished me up back online !! . I spent countless hours on the phone with their tech people over the last week.
I now have about 35 invoices to catch up on .
I am definitely going to figure out a plan B for the next event . Basically paralyzed my shop for 7 days .
I was super hesitant to use internet based invoicing. It has worked really well for a long time, but this was exactly what I was worried about .

I'm confused. If you have internet based invoicing, can't you just connect to the system from another computer?

[Jims5543]

Originally Posted by HardDrive

I'm confused. If you have internet based invoicing, can't you just connect to the system from another computer?

That was what I was just thinking. Get all your software onto a nice laptop.

Internet down at office, head to Starbucks, you don't even have to buy anything they have free office space.

[fastfredracing]

Yes, I can invoice from home, we have done what we can over the week, but a total pain in the arse.
Customer drops off in the am, I do the work, they want to pick up at 2:30, I can't just run home invoice , and come back .

[mepstein]

I would have tethered a phone for just the minimum needed connectivity.
And then looked for a different provider.

[fastfredracing]

I was ready to pull the trigger this morning on a different provider. 7 days was my threshold. If it happens again .....

[flipper35]

We have fiber from one provider and the old copper T1 from a second provider and they don't use the same rout out of town. The firewall handles the fail-over automatically. If that fails we use cell based hot spots and if that fails we have electronic copies to get us through a few hours if we had to.

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by flipper35

We have fiber from one provider and the old copper T1 from a second provider and they don't use the same rout out of town. The firewall handles the fail-over automatically. If that fails we use cell based hot spots and if that fails we have electronic copies to get us through a few hours if we had to.

Back when dinosaurs roamed, and fiber was in it's early daze, I worked for a megabank...."on paper", we were good....dual fiber trunks, seperate carriers, planned outages on occasion, the whole nine yards...so we thought, and we were....until we weren't . Unbeknown to "us", somehow both fiber trunks had been routed through a common 6" culvert, even though we were assured differently. Enter a construction backhoe downtown.....fiber wasn't easy to repair in those daze either....fun times !