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4G and 5G Backup and Failover for Business Internet

A second path to the internet — usually LTE or 5G — keeps tills, card terminals and cloud apps alive when Openreach or Virgin Media has a bad day. The hard part is not buying a dongle; it is automatic failover, public IP stability and not blowing your data bundle during a Netflix-heavy outage.

Next step: Pair fibre with a business-grade cellular plan. Contact us if VPNs drop on failover.

Cold standby vs hot standby

Cold standby powers the modem only after WAN loss — cheaper, slower cutover. Hot standby keeps a tunnel warm so failover is sub-minute. Voice-heavy sites favour hot paths with QoS re-applied on the cellular leg.

IP addresses change — plan for it

Cellular links are often CGNAT. Site-to-site VPNs may need aggressive DPD/rekey or cloud concentrators. Inbound services pinned to static fibre IPs need DNS TTL cuts or reverse-proxy designs.

Antenna placement

MIMO rooftop or window antennas beat a router stuffed in a comms cupboard — especially on fringe 5G. Survey RSRP/RSRQ before signing; “5G available” on a coverage map is not a guarantee through foil-backed insulation.

Wireless-primary sites

New builds waiting for fibre lead times sometimes run fixed wireless access as primary — budget for unlimited data and an SLA that matches card-payment uptime needs.

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