Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Are you pretending to have backup?

I pulled up to the fuel pump and immediately pulled out a credit card. Who goes inside anymore, anyway? After swiping the card a few times and ignoring the incessant beeps, I finally looked at the screen readout. "Please see attendee inside."

Oh great, there's something wrong with my card. I walked inside and found a line of customers waiting to pay. Not knowing the problem, I waited patiently to ask the cashier what seemed to be the matter with my card. After a few minutes, I learned the problem wasn't with my card at all. Their broadband was down and the store was operating on a backup network.

With broadband out and the entire store reliant on a dial-up connection, anything but business-critical applications were triaged, so-to-speak, on the all-but debilitated network. So, credit cards could be processed (and without an imprint, no less) but only at the counter, not the pump, and each transaction was accompanied by the screeching sounds of modem dial-up that I hadn't heard in years. The lottery sales were disabled. The in-store ATM was out of service. And tragedy of tragedies, even the application that tracked my reward points as a frequent customer of this particular c-store was out of order, so that day's $50 in gas didn't tabulate.

If you find yourself nodding as you read this description, realizing it's all-to-familiar for you, then I have an observation: you're just pretending to have backup. When backup doesn't actually back up the standard business functions, it's really a plan C, or D, but not a plan B. Fixed Wireless Broadband backup service from Accel Networks is full broadband throughput when you need it. In fact, it's so hard to notice when it's kicked in that we have enacted a service that alerts you when your backup service has been engaged. That's backup!

Labels: backup network, Convenience Stores, Fixed Wireless Broadband