Internet connectivity is a critical part of doing business. Whether it’s facilitating point-of-sale purchasing, providing access to cloud services, or sourcing vendors and partners, connectivity has become the backbone of business today.

That means when the internet goes down, businesses can struggle with costs associated with lost productivity. Gartner estimates that unplanned downtime costs organizations $5,600 per minute, or more than $300,000 per hour.

What causes internet outages?

Connectivity outages can be caused by a wide variety of things, including:

1. Bad weather – Uncommon weather like ice storms, hurricanes, and more can disrupt connectivity.
2. Security updates – Security updates can potentially create connectivity issues for websites and cloud services.
3. Construction – Street construction in which underground internet lines can cause unexpected outages.
4. Hacking or vandalism – Bad actors can cause connectivity outages with cyber attacks or vandalism of physical infrastructure.

The impact of internet outages on businesses

According to an Infrascale survey, almost a quarter of businesses experienced connectivity downtime that took them offline, disrupting business and halting productivity. This, in turn, led to lost customers and lost revenue. Considering it costs five times more to attract a new customer than to retain existing customers, this is a particularly heavy loss for businesses.

In addition, almost 20% of small businesses say they’re unprepared to deal with unexpected outages in part because they don’t know how to prevent it.

How to keep critical systems online during an outage

The good news is there’s a way to keep business-critical systems functioning while connectivity is down. A business internet backup solution provides supplementary connectivity (such as wireless cellular connectivity) when your primary internet connection drops.

When internet service connectivity is lost, the internet backup solution automatically engages to provide critical devices with internet access. Once your provider’s connectivity has been restored, the internet backup solution automatically reverts back to stand-by mode. This ensures you can maintain business continuity and productivity and avoid costly downtime issues like lost customers, lost sales or lost revenue.

Because the internet is so critical to business today, organizations of every size need to ensure they have access to uninterrupted connectivity. An internet backup solution can be a simple and cost-effective way to stay productive and profitable.

Learn more about Frontier’s Internet Backup Solution to help your business stay online around the clock.