Take, for example, a sales office. Most product sales offices now rely on the web for lead distribution, order processing, order tracking, etc. For a high-volume product sales office an hour having a dead internet connection could effortlessly set the business back ten thousand dollars. Other industries also deal using the realities of downtime – how a lot cash could a day-trader lose by not covering his short by the closing bell?

The reality from the matter is that time on the web is quite literally cash for some. Having much more of it provides them a competitive benefit and losing some of it outcomes in severe financial losses. As obsessed as most serious business-people are with data redundancy (fact: much more paper is consumed per capita in this digital era than at any time preceding the internet), most do not even think about the potential benefit of getting redundant internet access. For several forward-thinking people who actually have a redundant choice, they do not leverage the power of bandwidth aggregation to take benefit from the elevated bandwidth.

So what is bandwidth aggregation? It is a fairly easy concept, really: merely taking two broadband web connections (T1, cable, DSL, fiber, and so on.) and turning them into one fat connection. You could, for instance, have two DSL lines aggregated. You may also aggregate two various kinds of broadband – for example, you could aggregate one T1 connection with 1 cable connection.

Aggregating two broadband connections provides you more bandwidth, but not necessarily speed. This is where many individuals get confused. Let’s assume that you possess a three Mbps DSL connection and you own a little company. This is a pretty fast connection, but you’ve 10 staff and have noticed that at peak times the web slows down or, in a worst case scenario, won’t work at all for some people. By ordering another 3 Mbps DSL line you will nonetheless hit max speeds of three Mbps (note that this is a theoretical max that you will almost never hit with ADSL) but you will now have twice the bandwidth. In other words, if five simultaneous connections were feasible before, now you will have the ability to have 10 having a load balancing router.

Doubling your bandwidth (also known as your “pipe” or “throughput”) is really a fantastic benefit of broadband aggregation, but it is not the only advantage. When utilizing a broadband aggregator, a router specially designed for load-balancing, you’ll also instantly have a fail-safe in case certainly one of your internet connections goes down. Obviously the speed will probably be slower when certainly one of the connections is out (because your bandwidth will be cut in half), but at least you’ll still be able to perform critical workplace functions.

Let’s assume that you operate a little business with ten staff and also you have a T1 for everyday use. Your T1 is probably pretty dependable, but once or twice a year there is a glitch (like somebody kicking a cable at the ISP) and you shed, on average, two hours a year of web access. By using a broadband aggregating router and adding a DSL line, when the T1 is out you’ll still have the ability to take orders, ship orders out, track orders, check inventory, and so on. And if the outage is longer you will not be running around attempting to find a backup data source. Staff may grumble about the slow speeds on the web, but a minimum of they will be able to get their work carried out. Also, as an added bonus, you will have much more bandwidth for your employees when both internet sources are working.

The advantages of broadband aggregation with a load balancing router greatly exceed the costs of not using it for virtually every established company. Broadband aggregation provides the flexibility and reliability for little companies who cannot afford an expensive, customized IT solution.