Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) Xfinity customers around the country experienced widespread outages Monday.
November 2017 Comcast Xfinity Internet Outages
The issue, which Comcast called an external network issue, caused more than 40,000 customers to report issues between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. EST Monday. An outage map from Down Detector showed that the outages were spread across the country, with major issues along the West Coast, in the Northeast, Midwest, Southeast and more.
The issues only lasted a couple of hours, with Comcast reporting that most issues had been cleared up by about 4 p.m. EST. But small businesses that rely on that internet access to run various aspects of their business must be prepared to deal with the negative impacts of such problems.
The vast majority of businesses these days rely on the internet to perform essential business functions. Whether you run an ecommerce shop that’s completely online or have a local business that uses the internet to process mobile payments, a problem accessing the internet can leave your business reeling.
Preparing Your Small Business for an Internet Outage
For that reason, small businesses would do well to consider backup options. Mobile hotspots provide a great option for accessing the internet even if your main provider is down. You can use a smartphone from another carrier that isn’t experiencing outages or even purchase a dedicated hotspot router.
Overall, these outages demonstrate the importance for businesses to be prepared and able to adapt to different situations. The specific issues with Comcast may not have lasted long. But such problems can certainly have s serious impact on the small businesses that find themselves without access to the internet even if it’s only for a few hours. So focus on having a Plan B in place. This can potentially help you avoid seeing your business disconnected from the major tools you use to run your operations on a daily basis.
Image: DownDetector.com