[Technology] Internet question.

[Beanstalk]

I'm working at home a lot now, and cannot really afford for the internet to go down. In short, and lay terms as I do not know much bout this, I have a regular domestic internet service but want back-up in case this goes down. I can use my phone hotspot for short disuptions, which I have done recently, but it got me thinking what if it went down for a long period.

Thanks for the help everyone.

It's all dependent on where you are and your access to a solid 5G connection. You can get a 5G router through Vodafone for £35 a month with unlimited everything, and then you can take that on the go if you needed/wanted to work away from a lined connection. You'll get faster speeds in a good connection area than you are likely to find on anything non-fibre on 5G (quick test on my iPhone gives me 108mbps down, 22mbps up).

For what you seem to need it for this is probably the most convenient bet. Very unlikely to find two outages at the same time from two completely different sources.

 

[CheeseRolls]

This would just introduce a different SPoF though.

Yes and even if you have automatic fail over, the IP address will change and many services will ask you to reauthenticate anyway. A SIM based mobile hotspot, is a useful backup, you just need to connect to a backup WifI SSID, which is not a major ask and does not require any great technical skills.

 

[ChickenBaltiPie]

Happy to be corrected, hear alternative opinions, but ultimately it’s Virgins (fibre) infrastructure or BT’s (copper) so one option via each would be your best bet because if one goes down you can bet your life all providers on that network will also go down.

Virgin charge SO MUCH more (to existing customers) but I found any provider on BT’s network unreliable, and so previously paid BT’s higher costs for greater/consistent speed and reliability. BT (with the exception of Vodafone at the time, who were smart enough to negotiate a unique deal with BT) would throttle the speeds of all the other providers on their network of which there are dozens, so I never considered any of them.

I work from home, managing enormous amounts of data including video editing and game online so regardless of cost, to an extent, the fastest, consistent, reliable option is the one for me.

 

[Springal]

Happy to be corrected, hear alternative opinions, but ultimately it’s Virgins infrastructure or BT’s, so one option via each would be your best bet because if one goes down you can bet your life all providers on that network will also go down.

Or cityfibre , or the whole host of regional ‘alt-nets’ that now exist

 

[ChickenBaltiPie]

Or cityfibre , or the whole host of regional ‘alt-nets’ that now exist

I will Google them. Thanks. It was a couple of years ago, BT or Virgin in my area, and I’ve not seen anyone else digging up the roads or running cables of any kind so common sense tells me that it’s still only their infrastructure for a wired/high performing connection.

Edit: As suspect…not in my area.

 

[Colonel Mustard]

Not wanting to come over all Ben’s Grandad RIP, but is it possible to get two separate internet providers into a single residential apartment?

The idea is we have a main one, plus a back up.

If you're in Germany much better to ask locally eg post the question on Toytowngermany.com. It's the sort of thing expats will know about.

 

[Iggle Piggle]

Or cityfibre , or the whole host of regional ‘alt-nets’ that now exist

I did some work that involved City Fibre some years ago. They had council approval to dig up the road for a new fibre dig but the contractors were nowhere to be seen. After a brief search, the diggers and micro trenchers were located in a local pub car park where the origin of the mutiny was traced to. After tense negotiations, they remained in the Rose and Crown for an all day sesh.

If you've ever wondered why some of the cabling jobs look like they've been done by people who are half cut, this would give you some idea.

 

[RandyWanger]

Top tier home broadband will usually come with a 5g backup built in now. But if you want true redundancy with auto-failover, you'll need 2 separate circuits going to different exchanges (typically internet outages happen at the exchange). Satellite internet (starlink) is a good option.

 

[Questions]

I love these threads…even though Ibdont know what the f*** anyone’s talking about

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

I have found a home office internet back up solution ……I’m using my iPhone as a hotspot with a Vodafone pay-as-you-go unlimited data SIM card. 79 euros for 4 weeks. I will only buy this when I need to, like now, but it’s a good temp solution for when the internet breaks.

 

[WATFORD zero]

Many, many years since I had involvement in any of this, but it always used to be a stupid scenario that would f*** you over. I suspect that if you take two cables into where you are, there will be somewhere along them that one spotty 17 year old with an out of control Kanga Hammer can both out in one drunken friday afternoon episode. So one physical cable and one wifi solution may be better

And, that's from someone who has had water cooled (honestly) and halon protected computer rooms built at enormous cost and nodded sagely when being shown tank traps at data hosting centres. A spotty 17 year old after a few beers is always the ultimate test