Our main internet connection is a 12/12 fiber connection provided by the local cable company. Verizon is offering a 4G wireless option that they claim can bring 5-12MB/s download and 2-5MB/s upload. When setup as a backup solution it costs $10 per month for the first 25MB. If it's ever used billing jumps to $10 per GB. Hardware is in the $600 range plus a possible antenna if I can't get 4G from inside the building.
No QOS so it would be risky (foolish?) to use for office voice traffic.
Our current backup connection is a DSL circuit with less upload, higher download and no usage based billing - but a higher flat monthly rate. I'm thinking Verizon doesn't make sense but the $10 a month for an extra circuit caught my attention. Any thoughts?
Trying to look at something similar from AT&T but have not gotten very far yet. Our new SonicWall has a port for a USB aircard, but I don't think that will make as much sense because of the fixed monthly charges.
It doesn't sound like a bad idea as an "extra layer" type of solution that uses a different medium than phone, fiber or cable, but I'm not sure how useful it might be in a real outage, since my feeling is that a wireless connection would be easily overcome by high traffic in that kind of situation. But for $10 a month, having it save your bacon just once would be worth it.
In our particular situation, we have ONE, yes 1, available wired ISP in the building. And the landlord does not push for more.
So, I am looking for any decent redundancy I can get. In the event we actually have to use it, I anticipate a blanket request that everyone limit their usage to necessary/critical items, and if necessary throttling them down via the Sonicwall.