When your internet connection fails, the clock starts ticking. Calls get dropped. Payments freeze. Staff idle. Every second adds up to lost revenue, missed opportunities, and frustrated customers.
When your internet connection fails, the clock starts ticking. Calls get dropped. Payments freeze. Staff idle. Every second adds up to lost revenue, missed opportunities, and frustrated customers.
But most businesses don’t fully understand the cascading impact of even a brief internet outage—until it happens.
This article breaks down exactly what unfolds during an internet disruption and how you can reduce the damage.
0–10 seconds: Services stall. Point-of-sale systems freeze. Browsers time out. Teams pause work.
10–60 seconds: IT staff is alerted. Staff begin troubleshooting. Phones might failovermay default to cellular, but core systems remain offline.
1–5 minutes: Calls to your ISP begin. VPN connections are lost. Office morale slips.Caffeine consumption increases.
5–15 minutes: Productivity halts. Sales stop. Appointments are missed. Customers start to complain.
15+ minutes: You’re losing revenue. Clients question reliability. Staff look for workarounds—and mistakes happen.
According to industry research, the average cost of internet downtime for small-to-midsize businesses ranges from hundreds to thousands of dollars per minute.
And it’s not just about sales:
Even if you’re able to get back online quickly, the productivity and trust lost in those few minutes can take days to repair.
Internet failures aren’t always the ISP’s fault. Common causes include:
The takeaway: You can’t prevent every outage. But you can build a system that keeps you online regardless.
Internet failover is the process of automatically switching to a backup internet connection the moment your primary link goes down.
With Big Network, this switch is immediate, seamless, and automatic. There’s no delay, no scrambling, no intervention needed.
Instead of troubleshooting mid-crisis, your team stays connected—and your business stays open.
