It’s officially June, and since the snow melted, Rochester, NY, and surrounding areas have been hit with a steady stretch of rainy weather. We may not deal with hurricanes or massive tornadoes like other parts of the country, but local storms can still cause a network outage.
When the Internet Goes Down, Everything Stops
A quick thunderstorm can knock out your Internet, interrupt calls, and bring your operations to a standstill.
For businesses, that kind of downtime is just as expensive as it is annoying. Missed sales, dropped video calls, frustrated remote workers… it adds up fast.
So, how do you stay connected when the weather won’t cooperate?
Let’s talk about SD-WAN, backup internet solutions, and why we recommend Bigleaf Networks to keep your business online when a network outage hits.
How Summer Storms Cause Network Outages
When people think about weather-related outages, they usually think about power. But in reality, internet outages are just as common—especially in areas with aging infrastructure or a single point of failure in your network setup.
According to Gartner, the average cost of network downtime is around $5,600 per minute. Yet 38% of small and mid-sized businesses don’t even know what downtime costs them—and many aren’t prepared to respond when it happens.
Even “unusable uptime” (when your connection is technically active but performing poorly) can quietly drain productivity.
The Impact of Downtime
A short disruption can:
- Cut off access to cloud-based apps like Microsoft 365, QuickBooks, or CRMs
- Drop VoIP phone calls mid-conversation
- Disconnect remote workers from their VPN or desktops
- Slow down or stall customer service response times
And during peak summer months, these blips tend to happen more often than you think.
What Is SD-WAN and How Does It Help?
SD-WAN (software-defined wide area networking) helps keep your business connected by using multiple internet connections—cable, fiber, LTE—and intelligently routing traffic between them in real-time. That means:
- If one line goes down, your connection doesn’t
- You get smoother, more reliable performance on video calls, VoIP, and cloud apps
- Your team can keep working without noticing a thing
It’s like having a backup generator for your internet, giving you consistent uptime by automatically switching to the best available connection without disrupting your team. It runs in the background, keeping things stable and productive.
Smart SD-WAN platforms like Bigleaf Networks also optimize your internet performance with real-time circuit monitoring, automated QoS (Quality of Service), and intelligent load balancing. It all happens behind the scenes to keep things smooth for your team.
Why We Use and Recommend Bigleaf Networks
At Just Solutions, we’ve seen a lot of SD-WAN vendors. Bigleaf is the one we trust most for clients who need uninterrupted connectivity, especially for voice, video, and cloud services.
Bigleaf offers:
- Automatic failover with no dropped calls or frozen screens
- Intelligent load balancing to keep things running smoothly
- Seamless integration with your existing network and internet providers
- Cloud-based visibility into your network’s performance
This kind of solution is ideal for businesses that depend on cloud-based apps, voice services, and remote work.
A Backup Internet Solution for Your Business
Summer storms aren’t going away, but your internet problems can. If you’re tired of downtime and ready for a better option, investing in a backup internet solution is worth it.
Whether you’re managing a remote team, handling customer service, or just want to stop crossing your fingers every time the clouds roll in, SD-WAN can help you stay productive.
Let’s talk about whether a backup internet solution like Bigleaf is the right fit for your business. We’ll review your current setup and help you build a network that works—rain or shine.
Learn more about SD-WAN at Just Solutions.