Fibre to the home (FTTH) lines usually come with a ‘best effort’ SLA from the fibre network, and it can sometimes take 3 business days to restore a fibre line.
If you work from home or have critical services like alarm systems, we recommend adding a backup internet connection.
🥈 Backup connectivity options #
- 2nd fibre line – 1st prize, but more expensive, check coverage in your area
- GSM / LTE router – cost-effective, wide coverage, but needs monitoring
- Fixed LTE – fixed monthly cost, check coverage in your area
- WISP / FWA – fixed monthly cost, check coverage in your area
⚙️ Hardware required #
You’ll need to get a router that has more than one WAN port and can detect a failure on the primary WAN port. The router will then switch over to the backup link and also switch back to the primary link once that’s available again. Please email our support team if you need advice on a router which supports a backup link.
💸 Cost #
Expect to pay about R2000 for the hardware and about R700/m for the backup link. There are less expensive options. Keep in mind that if you choose a service which is billed per MB – you could run up a big bill or quickly run out of data on a SIM card.
⏱️ Monitoring and Notifications #
If you use a service that does not have a fixed monthly fee (cost per MB), we suggest enabling monitoring and notifications. Routers can often warn you when they are running on the backup link. Have a look at:
SIM Control: https://simcontrol.co.za/pricing
