Backup internet: the $50 insurance policy your store needs

Ask yourself one question: what does an hour of downtime cost your business? For a restaurant at lunch it's real money — declined cards, a line out the door, and orders you can't take. For an office it's payroll burning with nothing getting done.

Backup internet (failover) is a second connection on a completely different medium — usually 5G or LTE — that takes over automatically when your primary link drops. The router detects the outage and switches in seconds. Your card readers and phones never know it happened.

The key phrase is 'different medium.' A second cable line shares the same pole, the same conduit, and the same backhoe risk. Cellular fails over because it fails independently.

The day your primary connection goes down and nobody in the store notices, failover pays for itself for the year. And unlike most insurance, you can watch it work: your provider can tell you exactly when it kicked in.

If you're not sure whether you have it, you probably don't — it's almost never included by default. Ask your advisor to add it to your next install, or check your book if you're already a customer.