The last two weeks have had some high profile stories covering Internet coverage going down.

First up was a significant outage of Vodafones network that affected both 4G, 5G and home Internet services. The outage lasted for several hours and is reported by Vodafone as being a result of a non malicious software issue from one of their vendors.

The second affected Amazon Web Services (AWS), who host many websites including those of big household names and banks. This is reported as being a result of something equally mundate, a Domain Name System (DNS) error.

What both of these issues show us is that the world is increasingly online and that when the Internet goes down it can impact both you as a business owner and your customers trying to access you.

So what can you do to mitigate this? Lets dive in.

This isn’t always going to be possible but one thing that can help you feel more in control when the Internet goes down is having a back up plan for your team to implement.

What this looks like is having a list of offline tasks that can be done in the even of downtime (obviously don’t hold on to these tasks obviously the off-chance the net goes down). The other approach is to get people to work directly onto their computers and upload that work to the cloud storage once things are working as normal again.

Realistically if an outage is going on for an extended period of time this means putting in place ways for customers and clients to get hold of you in a way other than email.

This can be as simple as making sure that a phone number is available as well as an email address. However, do keen an eye on whether your phones are VOIP as an Internet outage will affect them as well.

So this solution is more appropriate if its your Internet network that has gone and not the sites or online tools that you are trying to access (as was the case with the AWS outage).

Mobile hotspots have become more commonplace in recent years and with most people carry smartphones the solution to your network outage might simply be in your pocket. All you need to do is turn the hotspot feature on on your phone and pair with your computer. The connection might not be as strong as your usual WiFi but it will help in a pinch.

Naturally having the Internet go down an impact your business is far from ideal. However with the right planning and preparation you can mitigate some of the worst challenges.

If you need more help with planning and implementing your IT, WebbyTech is here to help. You can see the full range of services we offer here, or contact us directly for a no obligations conversation.