As opposed to phone lines, a wireless cellular connection can provide organizations with reliable and scalable link diversity for failover and new site set-ups that can be performed remotely. As part of a failover solution, cellular connections can provide enough bandwidth to allow critical functions to continue to operate as the network is restored.

When configuring a backup cell network, companies can also benefit from automatic failover capabilities as well as security protocols that can gate traffic and increase device visibility. These security features can ensure the back-up solution is not used by hackers to access the business system.  

It is important to note here that initial 5G rollouts could depend on costly supporting infrastructure, so its implementation may be restricted to higher-bandwidth use cases. For network management, LTE networks could remain more feasible for several more years. This is because network management does not need to handle large quantities of user data. Therefore, LTE may work as a cost-effective backup line for the management plane as 5G adoption gains ground.

Ensure data-rich applications are supported at the edge

IDC predicts that almost 30 percent of the data used in our personal and business lives will be processed in real-time, while New Vantage Partners’ data indicates 97.2 percent of executives are investing in Big Data and AI initiatives. When you combine these findings with trends towards increased edge computing to support IoT and other data rich processes, it places a plethora of sophisticated devices at various remote sites. 

Much more than carrying out simple tasks like reading temperatures in a data center, the new breed of edge devices will likely need to respond in real-time for mission critical objectives like managing self-driving vehicles or using AI to sort through massive amounts of information to find the right data to be taken back to the core infrastructure for further analysis.

The edge computing infrastructure required to support data-intensive processes locally will likely need to feature streamlined, always-on methods of monitoring, provisioning, and remediation to provide resilience. This means, more than ever before, technicians and management tools will need to operate in sync and have a remote connection to every and all devices. And though networks may experience issues, the less the user feels these problems, the better it will be.

There’s no time like the present to future-proof

As consumers depend more on their virtual worlds and digital devices, and our everyday tools become increasingly connected, network complexity will undoubtedly grow at the core and edge. Enterprises and Internet service providers alike will need to ensure their network infrastructures are robust enough to deliver the seamless quality of services that users demand.

For a seamless user experience, network resilience could be the most important component to consider, and an end-to-end approach to this is all about ensuring all devices in geographically dispersed areas are backed by solutions to monitor all networking equipment, prevent system disruptions and rapidly recover from outages. In this regard, it may benefit many to start preparing for the massive connectivity of tomorrow today, before problems necessitate change.