Background
A stable internet connection is essential for maintaining a productive and efficient business. With the cost of internet downtime costing an estimated $2,000 - $100,000 per hour to a business, and only increasing as business become more cloud dependent, having a failover to ensure connectivity can be maintained is a worthwhile investment.
With the increased availability of 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) services, there are now services available with the throughput and latency to support most day-to-day business operations with limited perceived reduction in service quality. This allows a business to ensure they can stay online and avoid loss of income due to internet connectivity downtime, all for a fraction of the cost of lost they would incur should they lose internet connectivity.
The Challenge
An Australian manufacturer and distributor with multiple business locations, had been challenged by continual internet dropouts. The continued downtime was causing issues with sales and customer support, causing delays in manufacturing, and generally interrupting business as internet outages meant that work could not be updated or completed.
To avoid continued loss of productivity a solution was required to ensure that there was a backup or failover link available when the primary link went down. With six different locations solutions tailored to the needs of each individual site would need to be considered to ensure optimal, but also cost-effective solutions could be achieved.
As the two largest sites with the most personnel the Sydney and Melbourne offices required a higher speed, 5G optimised solution. Therefore, externally mounted antennas were likely needed. The smaller sites with less complex buildings, could be serviced by simpler internal devices.
Part of the challenge of selecting a device was the narrow selection of enterprise 5G devices that can be easily integrated into an existing SD-WAN system without additional subscriptions or licencing.
The Solution
It was scoped that each site would require the installation of a 5G FWA solution to be set up as an automatic backup link in the event of the primary connection going down.
After assessing options, it was decided that the Inseego Wireless product range offered the best selection of products that could meet the requirements of the solution.
The Inseego Wavemaker™ Pro FW2000e 5G Outdoor CPE was selected as the ideal device for the Sydney, and Melbourne locations. With the higher personnel numbers, and greater demand for data throughput, they required an outdoor CPE which could be mounted on the roof of the building, ensuring the device is optimised for the best 5G signal attainable. With high gain antennas, industrial design, and a simple integration to an existing routing solution it was deemed as the only viable option available on the Australian market.
To ensure a professional installation, RFI’s Services Team installed and commissioned the FW2000e devices on the Sydney and Melbourne locations. Viatek and consultant Drew Auld from TechElevate worked to integrate the device into the existing routing systems so fail over would be easy and seamless.
For the smaller sites where it was deemed that an external CPE was not required, therefore, the Inseego Wavemaker™ Pro 5G Industrial Gateway S2000e was selected. As a small unit it could easily be fitted into a comms room and plugged into the existing systems.
Running is IP passthrough mode both units could be directly integrated into the existing Wi-Fi routing system allowing for easy integration into the existing SD-WAN system, and a seamless failover experience for users.
The Results
Upon testing of the failover system at the site in Sydney it was found to exceed expectations, with only a few seconds of downtime before the backup link came online and provided a consistent connection. With speeds found to reach up to and exceed 500mbps it would more than support the needs of the business to avoid lost revenue from an extended period of lost connectivity. With high throughput and low latency the experience on the backup link was not perceivably different to the primary link when it was up and running.
To enhance the user experience and make the monitoring and management of the system easier for Viatek and TechElevate it was opted to utilise the Inseego Connect™ Advanced platform on each of the assets. While this was not needed to operate the system, the advantages of being able to remotely monitor and manage the system and receive status alerts was seen as a significant advantage to the long-term management of the project.
While the connection was initially only intended to be a failover device, due to the exemplary performance of the system it was decided that the system should be trialled as a concurrent link to supplement the hard-line connection. In this way the FWA link could be used to share loads when the system was overburdened and performing at a substandard rate. It therefore could be used to ensure better overall performance and user experience at the site.
Key Equipment and Services
The partnerships were key to the smooth processing of the project.
As the long-term consultancy partner Drew Auld from TechElevate sourced and plan the project ensuring the successful installation of failover links at each of the sites. As the ongoing Technology Services Partner for the company, Viatek was engaged to ensure that the modems were integrated into the existing Wi-Fi routing systems, and rolling over to the system would be as flawlessly as possible.
The RFI Technology Solutions Service Installation Team provided professional and expert installation of the roof mounted assets.
The Inseego Wireless products were utilised due to the high-quality product and the flexible nature of the product.
Resources
Interested in viewing the full product range and download specification sheets?
Visit: https://products.rfi.com.au/inseego-5g-fw2000e