Those of us who have just experienced Hurricane Irene were made painfully aware of the disruption to our business that can occur when there are significant infrastructure outages.

Extended loss of electricity, telephone and Internet make it difficult or impossible to conduct business and provide services to our customers.

Generators can provide temporary power, but computers may be severely handicapped if they cannot connect to the Internet.  Those companies that have switched to “hosted” or “cloud” computing may be completely out of service.

With these realities in mind, some companies are looking to alternative paths to the Internet, either as their primary means or for backup.  One option is satellite.  In the past the cost for satellite Internet has been a barrier, however, the cost has come down.  Another benefit is availability.  Satellite is available anywhere there is a clear path to the geostationary satellite in the sky, whether that be on land or sea.

I am not necessarily recommending satellite as the primary path to the Internet, but as companies are looking to put together redundancy plans for continuous operation, satellite could be part of the solution.