Opinion piece by Adam Sankey, Network Consultant, Opus
Do you need 24/7 connectivity?
The modern working world increasingly requires organisations to be seamlessly connected 24/7. Working on the go and the trend for working anywhere at any time is increasing. There’s also the connectivity consideration for organisations who have employees that work from remote sites.
The problem when it comes to 24/7 connectivity, working from anywhere and at any time is that no single network is guaranteed to provide flawless coverage or service all of the time.
“Network downtime last year cost UK businesses 60 million hours and £742m through unplanned outages”.
Source: Pangea
Questions you need to ask
Concerns about mobile bandwidth, network coverage and network outage are three of the top questions we get asked about when choosing the right connectivity solution. There are three key areas that a business needs to assess when evaluating its needs:
- How resilient do I need my network coverage to be, even when there is network congestion?
- How much data am I likely to use? And will this change once we switch to 5G?
- Can I easily manage my estate to ensure business as usual at all times?
Until recently dealing with the issue of lost connectivity has often been resolved by contracting with several different networks so that that if connectivity is lost with one, then switching to another will resolve this. The problem though with this, is that as well as adding complexity, using several different network providers means purchasing more data than you actually need, therefore adding in unnecessary cost.
Maximise your mobile coverage anywhere, anytime
In today’s 24/7 world, there is nothing more frustrating than losing mobile coverage and fortunately there is now a solution in the form of a Multi-Network SIM.
Multi-Network SIMs are designed for applications where it is vital to have an internet connection available 24/7, even in busy locations or in coverage black spots. With 4G now wildly available across all the major networks, Multi-Network SIMs are perfect for keeping mission critical business applications online – no matter the local coverage, bandwidth capacity or risk of outage.
How does a Multi-Network SIM work
Un-steered Multi-Network SIMs find the strongest network, any time and every time. Unlike their steered counterparts, they don’t have a preferred network. The devices they power will search for the strongest signal with the highest capacity, giving employees the best connectivity possible—no matter what the location.
A great example of this is when Liverpool FC had the challenge of keeping retailers online through match days. It became increasingly difficult for payments to be taken over 4G on match days due to the congested network. An un-steered Multi-network SIM was exactly the solution needed. Stadium retailers now enjoy seamless roaming across all networks—if there’s a brief outage or they set up in a network dead-zone, they don’t even notice; the SIMs simply migrate until they find the strongest connection. On top of that, each kiosk is now equipped with a static IP to process card payments, hosted voice handsets, and a private APN to reduce congestion issues.
Deploying a Multi-Network SIM solution with Opus
When it comes to the questions we feel that businesses should ask when it comes to connectivity, Multi-Network SIMs offer exceptional reliability and coverage, are easy to manage and can often be the most cost effective solution.
Naturally resilient
An un-steered Multi-Network SIM has no preferred network and will always connect to the strongest 4G signal whatever the location.
Our customer JC Decaux chose this solution when deploying its new digital phone kiosks that have been equipped with defibrillators that can be used by the public to potentially save lives. They wanted to be sure that wherever the defibrillator was it would be connected to the internet at all times with no risk of a network outage.
Monitor and Control your data usage
Data can be pooled across all SIMs and with a range of usage tiers available you will never pay for out of bundle data.
Manage your estate to ensure business as usual
Managing your estate of SIMs is all done through a single easy to use portal where you can view real-time usage and connection status 24/7
