Resilient business internet and backup connectivity
Backup internet designed around what downtime costs you — primary and backup circuits, automatic failover, and routes that are genuinely independent of each other.
Resilient business internet means having a second, independent way online that takes over automatically when the main connection fails. Asptech designs resilient connectivity for UK businesses — combining leased lines, full fibre, 4G/5G and satellite as the site and budget warrant — and manages the failover so that it works when it is needed.
Start with what downtime costs
Resilience is a commercial decision before it is a technical one. Work out roughly what an hour, a day and a week without internet would cost — idle staff, lost orders, missed despatches, unhappy customers — and design to that. A business that would lose a few hundred pounds a day needs a very different answer from one that would lose tens of thousands.
We will help you do that sum honestly. The answer is sometimes a modest mobile backup and sometimes a second leased line on a fully diverse route. It is rarely “the most expensive option available”.
The building blocks
Primary and backup
A main connection sized for normal work, and a second connection that can carry the essentials — or everything — when the first one fails.
Automatic failover
The router or firewall detects the failure and moves traffic across without anyone touching anything. Calls, VPNs and cloud sessions reconnect on their own.
Leased line with full fibre
A leased line as primary with full fibre broadband as backup is a common, cost-effective pairing — provided the two do not share a route into the building.
4G and 5G
Mobile backup is independent of the cables in the street, which is its great strength. Capacity depends on local signal, so it is tested on site rather than assumed.
Satellite
Low-orbit services such as Starlink are now a practical backup, and sometimes a primary, for rural sites. They are independent of terrestrial routes but need a clear view of the sky.
Dual leased lines
Where downtime is very expensive: two leased lines, from different carriers where possible, on diverse routes into separate entry points.
Two connections are not always two routes
The most common resilience mistake we see is a backup that fails at the same moment as the primary. Two services from two different providers can still run through the same duct in the street, the same exchange or the same cable into the building. One digger, one flood or one cable fault takes both down.
Genuine resilience means understanding the physical path of each connection — which exchange, which route, which entry point — and choosing a backup that does not share it. Sometimes that is a diverse fibre route. Often the cheapest truly independent option is mobile or satellite. Where a carrier will not confirm diversity, we tell you so rather than imply it.
Details that decide whether failover actually works
IP addresses
If your public address changes on failover, VPNs, remote access and anything a supplier has allow-listed can break. We design for this up front.
Phones
Handsets and the phone system have to re-register over the backup quickly, and call quality on the backup has to be good enough to use.
Backup bandwidth
The backup does not always need to match the primary. Decide what must keep working — phones, card payments, the stock system — and size it for that.
Power
A backup connection is no use if the router and switches share the failed power supply. Battery backup on the network core belongs in the design.
Testing
Failover that has never been tested is a theory. We test it at handover, and periodically afterwards on managed connections.
Knowing it happened
A silent failover can run for weeks on backup without anyone noticing the primary is down. Monitoring alerts us the moment it switches.
Common questions
- Is a 4G or 5G backup good enough?
- For many businesses, yes — enough to keep phones, email, card payments and key cloud systems running. It is less suited to heavy uploads or large sites, and depends on local signal, which we check on site.
- Can we use Starlink as a backup?
- Often, yes. Being independent of terrestrial cables makes it a genuinely diverse route. It needs a clear view of the sky and a suitable mounting point, and its performance varies more than a fixed line, so we assess whether it suits your use.
- How do we know our backup is not on the same route?
- Ask your providers which exchange and route each service uses, or ask us to find out. Where a carrier can document path diversity we use it; where it cannot, we assume the paths may be shared and design accordingly.
- Will staff notice when it fails over?
- Most will not. A call in progress may drop and reconnect, and some sessions may need to log in again. We tell you exactly what to expect for your setup.
Find out what your site can actually get
Tell us your address, how you use the connection and what an outage would cost. We will check what carriers can deliver and tell you honestly whether a leased line is worth it.
Related
Dedicated business internet connection
Dedicated internet for businesses that stop when the connection does: uncontended, usually symmetric, SLA-backed, and managed by one team that owns the faults.
Leased line vs business broadband
How leased lines and business broadband differ on cost, contention, upload, SLAs, repair, availability and installation — and when each is the sensible choice.
Business internet for warehouses and distribution centres
Connectivity for warehouses and distribution sites, where a dropped line stops picking, despatch and carrier integrations — designed with resilience from the start.
Emergency power
Temporary and standby power for events, sites and equipment — so a power problem is not an everything problem.
Monitoring as a service
Proactive monitoring of servers, networks, websites and services — so you hear it from us, not from a customer.
Interested? Give us a call.
A question, a project or just support — reach the team on 0845 222 0100, or email sales@asptech.co.uk for new business and support@asptech.co.uk for help.