How important is technology diversity really?
Sander Barens
Chief Product Officer
When we talk about “technology diversity”, we’re talking about the different ways to connect a business using wired and/or wireless access services. Not to be confused with “network diversity”, which is when you have a mix of ISP and last-mile diversity to ensure that your business remains connected at all times.
Both work to achieve the same goal: keeping your business online, connected to its applications, sites and services, and generally operating.
Network diversity is a great way to protect infrastructure connectivity and many businesses opt to work with one or more carriers to ensure they maintain vital business uptime. However, as carriers commonly deliver services using the same shared backbone infrastructure, this strategy can be risky. If a wire is cut, your ISP and last-mile option will both be unable to provide the required connectivity to keep your business up and running.
This is why we would recommend implementing a technology diversity strategy first, and implementing network diversity on top of that – and even throwing in full path diversity for multiple WAN entry points into any site.
What is technology diversity within your networks? Why is it important?
There are many causes of network connection outages that can impact a business, particularly a multinational business. These may range from hardware failures and cables being cut, to issues with software updates or network congestion. The main ways of preventing downtime are ensuring the network has some level of technology diversity.
One option is full-path diversity where one or more carriers physically secure service continuity. Another option is to integrate wireless technologies alongside your physical infrastructure to deliver enhanced technical network diversity.
Wireless options offer more flexibility and are often more cost-effective. Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) is fast emerging as a flexible addition to traditional wired connectivity because it introduces technology diversity into the network infrastructure.
What makes Fixed Wireless Access a good failover option?
Affordability, high speeds, IoT integration, flexible communications and network security are key reasons why FWA is emerging as such an attractive alternative for delivering connectivity resilience and securing uninterrupted digital engagement for customers, employees, and partners.
The share of enterprise sites using 5G as a primary or backup network is set to grow from 1% in 2022 to 10% in 2025. What started as a way for smaller businesses such as shops, restaurants, and cafes to secure competitively priced backup connectivity was rapidly seized upon by enterprises as a workable alternative for connectivity failover in multiple offices. Instead of having an always-on second line, Fixed Wireless Access only kicks in when needed.
Qualities such as flexibility, agility and cost efficiency make Fixed Wireless Access a compelling technology diversity option that brings added resilience to businesses needing reliable failover with global coverage to mitigate outages. FWA has the further advantage of giving companies the ability to quickly spin up services and locations to help them capitalize on new growth opportunities.
Interested in making your network more resilient with technology diversity? Let’s connect today
For technology leaders looking to drive business continuity, FWA should be a core part of your technology diversity strategy as it offers redundancy and an always-on solution that kicks in when needed. Ensuring everything from cloud storage and applications, Slack, Teams, VoIP phone systems, intranets, external communications, sites and services all remain up and running, allowing you to continue to do business.
Read our brochure to learn more about how Fixed Wireless Access could be embedded into your network as a part of your business continuity strategy.
Alternatively, you can talk to our expert team about your needs and we will help you identify, design, build, and manage the right combination of solutions to solve them.