Tuesday, April 7, 2009

A Network Goes Down, Wait Times Go Up

I had a noon appointment yesterday, so I decided to head out about 10 minutes early and stop off at a store to pick up something real quick. I knew exactly what I needed and where to find it, so it should just be a quick in-and-out, right? Wrong.

My first clue should have been when the associate had to call the back room manually and check to see if an item was in stock. Should the computer tell him that? When I approached the registers, lines were longer than usual, but nothing too daunting, and besides, I had time to spare. Ten minutes later, however, I was about to abandon the mission and just come back later when at last a new register opened that I could move to. Finally, just a swipe of the credit card and I'm out the door.

I was wrong. The delays that I was experiencing were due to a network outage. The store's local network was up and running just fine, but they had lost their layer 2 network connection with the central store. Their point-of-sale system was entirely dependent on the central network, as was inventory (even local inventories) and credit card processing. After waiting for a manual imprint of my card and a telephone authorization, I arrived at my meeting 15 minutes late.

Fixed Wireless Broadband backup networks offer more reliability than any wireline network could dream. Since the "grid" relies on no physical connectivity, careless diggers and even natural disasters have far less effect. The store's sales and customer satisfaction could have been significantly higher with a PCI-compliant back-up network from Accel Networks.

Labels: backup network, Broadband, Coverage, Fixed Wireless Broadband