Mobile broadband is 'the only redundancy'
This morning I went to a roundtable hosted by Easynet Connect, the SME-oriented ISP that is part of BSkyB. The topic of conversation was "Achieving Quality Internet Today", and the chat was at times quite useful.
One particular point struck me - it was made by Tim Francis, head of IT at online trading company Blue Index. According to him, wireless connectivity is "the only feasible redundancy". As in, it's all very well having a second cable entering your premises, just in case, but roadworks severing the first will probably take the second down too.
Not that Francis is particularly keen on mobile broadband right now - he thinks its quality of service is rubbish for serious business use, which is fair enough at this time. So there you go. Mobile broadband: not very good, but better than nothing.
Rupert G subsequently pointed out to me that mobile phones have had much the same effect on redundancy - before them, any business losing their fixed line voice connectivity was in serious trouble. All true.
The only other point of interest from this morning's roundtable regarded a certain early WiMax operator here in the UK. Apparently they need 400 customers in a one-kilometre radius to break even. And there's your fun fact for the day.