Your business internet has to be more than just fast – reliability can easily be more important than total bandwidth. If you’ve ever had an internet outage at your office, you know how quickly it can bring your operations to a standstill, and with the rise in cloud applications and SaaS services, network connectivity is the lifeblood of daily business. If your internet isn’t always reliable, the loss in productivity and earnings could be astronomical.
Choosing a network provider isn’t just about going with the fastest internet at the cheapest cost you can find. In today’s business environment, selecting your internet service provider (ISP) is really about entrusting them with your entire business.
Studies have found that downtime can cost companies an average of $5600 per minute
We’ve already covered 6 must-ask questions when choosing an internet service provider, but to take it one step further, you want to make sure you’re getting the most secure and reliable network. Your business’s productivity depends on it. By doing your due diligence and asking your provider these important questions, you could save your company thousands of dollars – and prevent a lot of headaches!
10 questions to ask your provider about their internet reliability:
- What network redundancy features do you have in place?
- Do you have an SLA? What is it? How is it supported?
- How many times have your services been down?
- What is the average wait time on your support line?
- How do you protect against malware?
- What kind of backup will I have if something fails?
- Can you offer additional resources?
- Is there only one switch/router vendor?
- What intrusion protection/detection products do you deploy?
- What network components are used to replicate SAN data from one data centre to another?
Bottom Line
Switching service providers can feel overwhelming, but a little bit of research and analysis will ensure you can make an informed decision. Ensuring your internet reliability is high can give you the competitive edge you need to feel confident in today’s market.
Want to put your newly acquired reliability wisdom to work?
Start the conversation with iTel. We stand by our industry-leading SLA and commitment to reliability. We’ll get your business online – and make sure it stays there.
