It is a simple fact that for many enterprises WAN outages are a risk that business need to mitigate against, whether caused by enthusiastic groundworks or the increasing natural disasters befalling local exchanges full of convergent copper. Providing a secondary wired connection as a backup does not mitigate the any of the risks to the problems posed earlier, in fact it is an expensive and partial solution. Increasingly businesses are turning to the effective alternative use of wireless WAN technology using cellular 3G and 4G networks.
There is a perceived inherent weakness in this strategy, in having to manage multiple VPNs across the public internet, and the innate reduction in speed due to encryption. This is no longer an issue with the recent introduction of Node4’s M2M service. The service uses SIMs from the most popular Mobile Service Operators combined with single or dual SIM 3G and 4G routers and provides a totally private network connection. The service aggregates the MNO's into Node4’s private MPLS network infrastructure using a private NNI. When in use, the SIM builds a GRE tunnel from the customer premises into the customer's VRF, so secure private connectivity is maintained end-to-end at all times and the speed of the data transfer is maintained.
Providing such an independent secondary connection delivers a variety of uses to businesses who experience various challenges including short to medium term waiting periods for primary wired connectivity as well as some industries which by definition are geographically disconnected from traditional connectivity. Where high cost satellite or microwave technology might well have provided a solution in the past, this low-cost OPEX service is ideal component in the connectivity arsenal. This type of connection is increasingly being used for retail kiosks, digital signage and in buildings where structural alterations are either costly or forbidden.
Contact us today to find out more about how Node4’s M2M service can help you with your connectivity.