Disaster Recovery: Creative Solutions to Keep a Network Up During an Outage

By: Carson Coffman

What would you do if the phones at your business stopped ringing?
 
More importantly, what would your telecom provider do?
 
We’ve all become so dependent on our voice and data networks that we cringe even thinking about a disaster. But the fact is that they happen.
 
Some other providers may not want to admit this. But no network can be 100% perfect 100% of the time.  At Socket, we do everything we can to avoid network events that cause problems for our customers, but equally important is how we react to them.
 
So when problems do occur, it’s important to act quickly. And creatively.
 
Let me give you an example. In early 2011, a blizzard struck our main office in Columbia, MO. Many of our employees were  stranded at home. So were many of our customers.
 
With remote call forwarding, we were able to reroute calls to employees’ homes or cell phones. Many of our customers never knew any different, so we were able to keep things running somewhat smoothly until the roads were cleared.
 
We have had similar things happen when customers have had disasters at their own locations, like fire, flood or severe weather. Or sometimes it's something as simple as a power outage that can leave you scrambling.
 
You can come up with plans for your business, and we can help you. Of course, it’s best to develop them in advance, and that’s getting easier to do. Our new Hosted PBX phone systems allow you to manage your own services in the cloud, giving you more flexibility in case of a disaster.
 
Not due for a new phone system at this time?  See how we can help you build a hybrid system using your old PBX along with the features you want from ours, like a redundant back up system that can reroute calls on the fly.
 
Some emergencies you just can’t prepare for. And while we can’t promise that you will never have an outage, we can promise that we’ll help you find a way to keep the phones ringing if you do.
 
It’s vital for your business. And ours.