Even with all the latest advances in technology, reliable Internet service is not a certainty for individuals and businesses around the nation. In the past few weeks alone, in fact, residents across the country lost their Internet connections for a considerable amount of time.
First there was Mediacom, which provides Internet service to customers in Iowa and Indiana. In mid-August, those clients were left without a connection for three hours after a circuit malfunctioned. Next, Optimum customers in Connecticut experienced not only a disruption in their Internet but also their cable TV and phone service due to a commercial power related issue. Then finally, CenturyLink customers in the Kansas City area were the unlucky recipients of an Internet service outage when a fiber got cut. Cleveland and the surrounding areas of Ohio, fortunately, seemed to go unscathed during the month of August.
But even the subscribers of major cloud service providers are not immune to downtime. Indeed, both Google and Microsoft saw total service failure in August. Google went down for 11 minutes, which might not seem like a lot but certainly added up when one considers the millions of individuals who depend on the company. Over at Microsoft, meanwhile, the corporation witnessed an internal error that triggered an outage of its Outlook.com service. That particular instance resulted in most users experiencing “a few hours of downtime, while some users on mobile devices might have been unable to access the service for a few days,” Windows IT Pro reported.
All of these events took place over the short span of less than one month. Imagine then the number of people affected and the many, many hours of online time – and money – that is lost as a result of an unreliable Internet service provider. Sometimes these outages are brief and can’t be helped, but other times they can go on for days and are completely avoidable – or at least overcome-able. It is therefore extremely important for consumers to choose their Internet service provider carefully.
Just how important is that due diligence? According to Information Week, “IT Outages Cost Businesses Billions.” Based on a CA Technologies report, North American businesses lose $26.5 billion in revenue each year from IT system downtime with the biggest impact on small and medium sized businesses. The report further stipulated that “the average company suffers 10 hours of IT downtime a year – which translates to more than 1.6 million hours across North America.”
An Internet service provider should recognize that Internet connectivity and Internet service are the lifeblood of your business, and some firms are fortunate to have just such a provider right in their backyard. The true test of a provider’s reliability is its partnerships with more than one leading Internet connectivity supplier. That way, if one supplier happens to experience an outage, another one can quickly and seamlessly pick up the slack.
Whether it is DSL, Cable, T1, Fiber, DS-3, and MPLS you and/or your greater Cleveland area business rely upon don’t leave the important choice of a provider to chance. Select one with a solid reputation for reliable service.