When does your business need backup internet?

The simple test

Ask yourself one question: if your internet went down right now and stayed down for four hours, what would it cost you? If the answer's "nothing meaningful", you probably don't need backup. If it's "we'd lose hundreds in card transactions" or "we'd miss bookings worth thousands", backup pays for itself fast.

Who benefits most

• Retail with card-only payments. Lose internet and you can't take payment. Backup pays for itself the first time it kicks in on a busy weekend.
• Hospitality. Booking systems, POS, card terminals, the WiFi guests expect. Outage in season is a real cost.
• Professional services that take calls all day. A VoIP outage means missed calls means lost work.
• Multi-site businesses with central infrastructure. If one site can't reach head-office systems, the whole site stops functioning.

Three levels of backup

4G failover SIM

The standard option, a SIM in the router that takes over automatically when the main line drops. Cheapest backup, fastest install, fine for most small businesses. The catch is that if your 4G signal at the property is unreliable, the failover is too.

Second supplier line

For sites where 4G isn't reliable, a second broadband line from a different supplier on a different network. More expensive, harder to set up, but true diversity — an outage on one network doesn't take down the other.

Starlink as third-layer redundancy

For genuinely critical sites, hospitality with packed seasons, retail with high-value transactions. Starlink as a third-layer backup behind the main line and 4G failover. Different infrastructure entirely, so a regional cable outage doesn't affect it.

How we design it

For most business broadband installs we offer 4G failover as an optional add-on, useful for any business where downtime costs real money. For higher-availability requirements we'll design a second-supplier setup or add Starlink for diversity. We size the backup to the actual operational impact of downtime, not just one template.

The forgotten part, call diverts

If your primary line drops and your phones run on hosted VoIP, the phones go too. Most of our business VoIP setups include automatic call diverts to a mobile when the office is unreachable, calls still come through, customers still get answered. Don't overlook this; for many small businesses it matters more than the broadband itself. See our business VoIP page.