We love our senior citizens; they’re survivors! And with 88%¹ of older adults now using the internet to stay in touch with loved ones, access healthcare services, and engage in social activities, high-speed connectivity in senior living communities is more important than ever. Some, including us, would even go so far as to say that connectivity is now a basic right. 

So, let’s talk about it! Assisted living facilities are evolving, led by increased connectivity, and we at Bigleaf are honored to be playing a part in ensuring this connectivity for residents, staff, and caregivers alike. 

The Rise of Tech-Enabled Senior Living 

There are several technology trends that are becoming particularly influential in driving the demand for robust internet solutions in assisted living facilities, but primarily: 

1. Telehealth and Remote Monitoring: As more healthcare providers offer virtual consultations and remote monitoring, assisted living facilities require seamless internet connections to ensure that residents can access timely medical care without disruptions. 
2. Smart Home Devices: Devices like smart thermostats, lighting systems, and security cameras are becoming common in senior living communities, not to mention individual tracking devices in certain cases. These technologies improve safety and convenience but also depend on consistent connectivity to operate effectively. 
3. Digital Communication Platforms: With many residents relying on video calls and social media to stay connected with loved ones, a reliable internet connection is essential to maintaining these important relationships. 

Additionally, Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) are both gaining traction in assisted living environments, emerging as tools for both cognitive therapy and social interaction. VR and AR applications and immersive experiences require high-bandwidth, low-latency connections to function properly. Have you seen Ready Player One? It won’t be long before we’ll be able to visit our loved ones in assisted living facilities in the real-world equivalent of The Oasis. 

The Importance of Connectivity 

There are so many reasons that reliable internet connectivity now plays a crucial role in assisted living facilities. From fostering a sense of community among residents and keeping them in touch with loved ones through social media, video calls, and online activities, to supporting health and wellness via telehealth services, to ensuring that health monitoring and emergency services are uninterrupted; all of this is contingent upon seamless and uninterrupted network connectivity. 

Looking to the future, while there’s no way to know for certain what may come (except, of course, for The Oasis), connectivity will continue to drive innovation and remain a key component in senior living.  

Our Commitment 

Here at Bigleaf, we’re committed to futureproofing assisted living facilities by providing robust, scalable connectivity solutions that prepare them for the next wave of technological advancements. From network optimization to 5G wireless, our feature-rich solutions ensure uninterrupted and reliable connectivity for your business (and your loved ones). And our newly launched Cloud Connect delivers even more visibility into your network circuits and health. 

If you’re ready to learn more about Bigleaf, request a demo today! 

¹Internet Use Climbs Among Older Adults – Marketing Charts  

4G, 5G and LTE – which is right for your business?

As businesses continue to require faster, more reliable connectivity, understanding the key players in mobile network technology – 4G LTE & 5G – becomes fundamental:  

4G, short for “fourth generation,” marked a revolutionary leap in mobile connectivity. Unprecedented data speeds, faster downloads, smoother streaming, and enhanced overall performance became the rule rather than the exception.   

5G, or the “fifth generation” of mobile networks, emerged with promises of unparalleled speed, reduced latency, and massive device connectivity. Businesses embracing 5G anticipate transformative changes, from enhanced IoT capabilities to innovative applications that redefine industry standards.  

LTE, or Long-Term Evolution, serves as a crucial stepping stone in the mobile network evolution. Often used as an umbrella term encompassing various generations, LTE provides high-speed wireless communication while acting as the foundation for both 4G and, in some cases, 5G. LTE’s role in delivering consistent, high-quality connectivity has been instrumental in shaping the digital landscape.  

Speed, coverage, and reliability

In general, 4G LTE delivers speeds ranging from 5 to 100 Mbps while 5G offers speeds of up to 20 Gbps, noting that Gbps is 1,000 x faster than Mbps.  

In terms of coverage, 4G and 4G LTE are going to still have slightly wider coverage than 5G, but ultimately 5G is expected to become more ubiquitous, reaching even the most remote and rural areas. 

In terms of coverage, as of 2024 4G LTE has slightly wider coverage than 5G, but ultimately 5G is expected to become more ubiquitous, reaching even the most remote and rural areas.  

When it comes to reliability, 4G LTE provides generally reliable connectivity for everyday business operations.  It was first commercially deployed in 2009. The technology has since become widespread, offering faster speeds and improved connectivity compared to previous network technology. Over the years, 4G LTE has evolved with various enhancements, leading to better performance and coverage. As of now, it’s been available for over a decade and continues to be a dominant mobile network technology while the transition to 5G is underway. 

5G boasts enhanced reliability and was designed to handle many connected devices simultaneously via advanced technologies like beamforming and network slicing to ensure a more robust and dependable connection.  

How each technology suits business needs

For businesses operating in urban and suburban areas with moderate data needs, 4G LTE is well suited for applications such as video conferencing, cloud-based services, and routine data transfers.  

Of course, LTE serves as a more versatile option for various industries, including retail, healthcare, and manufacturing, in ensuring consistent connectivity and improving the overall experience.  

For businesses with high data demands, particularly those involved in emerging technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality, or industries requiring real-time data transmission, such as healthcare and autonomous vehicles, 5G is the preferred technology.  

When considering mobile data, we typically look at three main factors: cost, coverage, and complexity. 

The first two of these factors are very straightforward. Cost refers to how affordable the available technology is for your budget, while coverage is about the availability of that technology in your area. 

Complexity is a bit trickier. 4G LTE technology is known for being compatible with almost any existing infrastructure, making it unlikely to run into compatibility issues. It fits well with most standard network architectures, which makes integrating it relatively simple. 

However, integrating 5G technology might be more complex depending on the type of 5G technology being used. For instance, 5G mid-band or C-band technology is easy to deploy and is expected to become as common soon as 4G LTE is today. However, 5G millimeter wave technology might be harder to deploy and could be limited to specific use cases because of its complexity. This means that existing devices and systems might need upgrades to take full advantage of 5G, which adds to the complexity of integrating it. 

Additionally, this almost always includes interfacing with an additional vender or service provider. 

Enter Bigleaf Wireless Connect

Bigleaf Wireless Connect provides 5G cellular connectivity delivered through a dual-SIM router; Wireless Connect can be added to any Bigleaf service plan to work with your primary connection to provide business continuity. Bigleaf makes it easy to help businesses mitigate outages and optimize network connectivity with Wireless Connect.

Both 20 GB and 100 GB plans are available. The 20 GB is designed for failover, allowing you to take advantage of Bigleaf’s often-replicated-but-never-duplicated same-IP address failover, ensuring sensitive session-based calls, like VoIP and video conferences stay online even during internet outages. The 100 GB plan can be set for backup failover, or it can be set to load balance specific traffic classes to increase application reliability and performance.

Bigleaf Wireless Connect ensures single-vendor billing directly with Bigleaf, avoids data plan overage fees, simplifies the complexity of contract and billing management from multiple vendors, and eliminates the hassle of dealing with unconnected support teams. 

Learn more about Bigleaf Wireless Connect and what it can do for your business today! 

Not so very long ago, we all commuted to and from our offices every day for work, there were cars and traffic and freeways involved. Of course, then 2020 happened and suddenly we all worked remotely and began just commuting down the hallway of our own home instead of down the freeway.  As we enter 2024, hybrid work environments have become more and more common. Many of us now commute down the freeway two or three days each week and down our own hallway the rest of the week. 

While hybrid work is great for things like work/life balance, it presents certain challenges when it comes to basic connectivity. After all, your home internet connection isn’t the same as your office internet connection, and with many of us taking meetings via Zoom or Teams or Slack all day, internet connectivity, stability, reliability, and redundancy have become more important than ever. 

SD-WAN: The Backbone of Modern Workplaces 

At the core of this hybrid work frontier is SD-WAN, or Software-Defined Wide Area Network, which has become the most flexible and efficient solution for modern businesses with distributed networks.  

By separating control functions from physical infrastructure and applying software-defined networking principles, SD-WAN offers increased visibility into network traffic, dynamic path selection for optimal performance, and improved reliability by intelligently rerouting traffic. In other words, SD-WAN makes for a more reliable, stable, and adaptable network as compared to traditional WAN. 

Bigleaf’s Approach to SD-WAN 

By elevating what SD-WAN can be, Bigleaf has become an ideal solution for the intricacies of hybrid work models. For example, Dynamic QoS (Quality of Service) allows you to identify and prioritize certain traffic. What this means is that when you’re working from home you can give the traffic for your Zoom call priority over the kids watching Netflix in the other room, meaning that if there’s a network issue then their TV show might buffer but your video conference will remain crystal clear.  

Another huge benefit Bigleaf provides is Same IP Failover. In other words, you can have one network entirely fail and Bigleaf will switch all traffic to your other network without changing your IP address, meaning no dropped video calls or needing to log back in cloud-based applications, you likely won’t even know a network failure took place. 

These features, and more, add not only to the reliability but also the security of your network, particularly for remote work. Bigleaf also peers directly with over 150 cloud, content, and carrier networks private, direct connections to cloud applications.  

The Future of Hybrid Work 

These past few years have taught us that it really is anyone’s guess what’s right around the next corner. One thing is for certain though: as with life, business will continue to find a way. And business will always require reliable network connectivity. Bigleaf was built to scale right along with your business. From single circuit to multiple circuit to our High Availability solution, Bigleaf can improve your network today and grow with you into tomorrow.  

Whether your business operates in-office, remotely, or hybrid, Bigleaf has an SD-WAN solution to improve and optimize your network connectivity. Learn more today.

This content was originally published as part of our Linkedin Newsletter, Bigleaf Bytes, in January 2024. Subscribe now on LinkedIn.

Networking is a distinct territory within IT with equally distinct jargon to match. One term you’ve probably heard of is quality of service (QoS) – technology that controls network traffic to ensure the performance of essential applications. 

Although quality of service is not a new concept, QoS and its latest variations are a hot topic regarding today’s SMB IT infrastructure. But what is Dynamic QoS, and how does it work? Is Dynamic QoS necessary for your business continuity and success? 

Read on as we answer your questions, explain its business implications, and show real-world examples of what makes Bigleaf Dynamic QoS technology an absolute game changer for SMBs. 

Let’s dive in.

What Is [Dynamic] QoS and how does it work?

In a nutshell, quality of service is a set of technologies or tools that manage and prioritize network traffic, ensuring the smooth, consistent performance of high-priority and real-time applications & traffic (even with limited internet capacity). 

These days, business applications aren’t only competing with many types of internet traffic; the applications are competing with one another (whether you work from home or a corporate office). While all apps within a network are subject to the consequences of bandwidth issues and poor connection quality, apps with real-time requirements feel the effects fast – think crappy choppy video conferences and VoIP calls. 

Internet disruptions like those aren’t just annoying for your teams and your customers. When meetings are interrupted or sales calls drop, operations are stalled, costing your business revenue, productivity, recovery & more. In fact, according to the latest data from Gartner, the average cost of network downtime or unusable uptime (when your internet is live but unstable) to your business is upwards of $300K per hour.

QoS mitigates these all-too-common connectivity and performance problems by working to reduce the effects of packet loss, latency, and jitter on a network, prioritizing and routing traffic through circuits in a way to best handle that of your business-critical apps such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom, RingCentral, and other SaaS and cloud-based tools for VoIP, video conferencing, and video-on-demand.  

To put it simply, you can think of your internet connection as a massive, multi-lane freeway. When the flow of traffic starts to get heavy, QoS is like the carpool and bus-only lanes reserved for your high-priority apps, resolving traffic congestion.

Traditionally, QoS works by prioritizing packets based on manual policy and configuring routers that create separate virtual queues for each application. Bandwidth is reserved for the essential applications or websites that are assigned priority access. A network administrator usually allocates the order in which packets are handled and provides the appropriate level of bandwidth to each app or traffic flow. 

If that sounds tedious and limiting, it’s because it is. 

Plus, traditional solutions can only allocate bandwidth to internet traffic leaving the local network. Everything beyond the LAN is outside its control. So, traditional QoS solutions are helpful but, again, limited, especially in today’s work-from-anywhere business landscape.

Enter Dynamic QoS

Rather than using legacy, first-in-first-out (FIFO) methods, Dynamic QoS helps improve business-critical app performance by improving internet traffic management capabilities via bandwidth allocation and traffic prioritization techniques automatically. Instead of IT leaders or network administrators manually configuring QoS rules into your network, Dynamic QoS auto-adjusts traffic rules using intelligent software. 

When your Dynamic QoS tools and other SD-WAN capabilities work cohesively, the way the health of your internet connection and bandwidth is monitored, managed, and prioritized ensures the silky-smooth performance of your much-needed business applications. 

Whether you’re working in a household of hardcore gamers and streaming services junkies, or in a busy corporate office, Dynamic QoS recognizes and protects the services using minimum bandwidth + require low latency. 

Since Dynamic QoS reduces disruptions caused by problems like downtime, latency, and jitter, your network automatically becomes more cost-effective. So, your business, by default, becomes more productive.

Is Dynamic QoS really beneficial for business?

In a word, yes. Without proper QoS, network data can become disorganized to the point of causing performance degradation or worse. As mentioned above, that’s a $300K per hour problem that most SMBs can’t weather. 

And with Dynamic QoS, the identification and prioritization of traffic happen automatically, in real-time. So, you no longer need to spend time, and use staff or other resources to consistently monitor all the applications your business uses. 

In general, QoS, especially Dynamic QoS, empowers businesses and end-users by ensuring the cloud and internet apps they rely on work optimally. Optimizing latency allows employees to be as productive and focused as possible while keeping users happy: no more dropped VoIP calls, video conferences, or VPN sessions. 

Clearly, the benefits of QoS and its advanced, dynamic variant are integral to a thriving business. But are all services created equal? Not according to more than 100,000 users and counting who rely on Bigleaf Networks to provide them with truly reliable connectivity daily.

Why SMBs choose Bigleaf Dynamic QoS to intelligently prioritize internet traffic

“Bigleaf has architected a new kind of networking platform to deliver end-to-end connectivity to and from anywhere your traffic needs to go.” 

Like other SD-WAN solutions, we do three things here at Bigleaf. We monitor connectivity, route your traffic, and prioritize it. However, the way we do it here uses intelligent software instead of manual policy and configuration work. So, our customers can simply plug into the Bigleaf service and reap the benefits of performant connectivity almost immediately. 

Notably, the way we provide QoS prioritization across the public internet is unique even among other players in our industry. We can adapt to circuit conditions and bidirectionally control traffic over the internet to assure prioritization for your key applications. This means VoIP and video are always smooth, and those business-critical apps stay responsive even if other users in your network are downloading giant files. 

Our Dynamic QoS also works on a single Internet connection. So, you can still enjoy all the prioritization, circuit monitoring, and proactive alerting benefits Bigleaf offers while sticking to one circuit. 

Our self-driving AI approach utilizes Bigleaf Same-IP Failover and our patented Intelligent Load Balancing that all work together with our innovative Dynamic QoS technology to ensure your cloud applications are constantly performing. 

The benefits and use cases of QoS, especially Bigleaf’s AI-driven, Dynamic QoS, are numerous and make implementation worth the investment for your growing business.

Dynamic QoS: You don’t need more speed, just better prioritization

Let’s check out a real-world scenario that may look close to a situation you’d find yourself in. It’s a perfect example of QoS prioritization in action.  

Bigleaf Networks co-founder Joel Mulkey, an IT visionary, offers a quintessential example of the “less is more” approach. 

View Graph A below.  

At Joel’s home, the fastest circuit has about 6 Mbps of download speed. Recently, one of his kids purchased a brand-new video game from the digital distribution service Steam. Notice that the game was downloading during the day, saturating that circuit (red). Yet, throughout the day, that same circuit was the healthiest (in addition to being the fastest). So, our Intelligent Load Balancing placed Joel’s Zoom calls onto the path (green). 

Notice how QoS slows down the lower priority bulk data during those periods, which kept Joel’s Zoom calls perfectly clear. Now that’s how you prioritize traffic on your internet connection, especially one with such limited bandwidth! 

That’s the key value of Bigleaf’s AI-powered Dynamic QoS: it automatically identified the game as a type of traffic that shouldn’t have priority over a business-critical app like Zoom. 

So, there was no need to notify IT of a new app running through his circuit, the team didn’t need to create a new policy, and Joel was able to stay focused and productive, completing his business tasks without distractions.

Now, this was at Joel’s home in the Northwest US. But whether you operate out of a home office or run a multi-site, multi-state enterprise, Bigleaf Networks’ site-to-cloud SD-WAN technology delivers consistency and performance you can count on 

Imagine the same situation at a corporate office, where an employee might get invited to a video conference using an app that IT did not anticipate. Bigleaf Dynamic QoS recognizes that traffic and automatically prioritizes it, just as it would treat other VoIP and video call traffic.    

Find more insights in Bigleaf’s customer success stories.

Dynamic QoS: Optimizing the internet for your business

At Bigleaf, we understand that when it comes to getting work done — no matter what internet provider you’re using, no matter your location, and no matter what kind of organization you run — if you rely on cloud and SaaS applications for business, they need to function optimally. So, we set out to create the most effective Dynamic QoS tools to help deliver the performance you need. 

We provide AI-powered Dynamic QoS as a part of our SD-WAN solution to supercharge businesses throughout the USA and Europe, who need truly reliable internet connectivity for every application, every technology, every user, everywhere — over any ISP. 

Learn how Bigleaf can transform your business for the better by requesting a FREE demo. If you have any questions, send us an email at sales@bigleaf.net.  

Unplanned internet downtime can bring your operations to a grinding halt, resulting in lost revenue, productivity, and other costs that are less obvious but longer-lasting. Yet, 19% of B2B SMBs and 27% of B2C organizations say they do not feel their businesses are prepared to deal with unexpected downtime.

Many of those businesses struggle with internet reliability because they simply don’t invest enough in their Internet foundation to support today’s new cloud and SaaS business technologies. IT can’t justify the cost of improving their internet stack because the ROI feels hard to articulate in a way the business can understand. In fact, 38% of SMBs say they don’t know the cost one hour of downtime is for their business.

In this post, we’ll share some of the industry-standard calculations you can use to determine your own cost of downtime. It’s our hope that, by understanding the true cost of downtime, you can make the ROI case for the internet foundation your business needs.

How to calculate your cost of downtime

Gartner provides this helpful equation to calculate the full cost of downtime.

Cost of downtime = Lost revenue + Lost productivity + Recovery costs + Intangible costs

According to a Gartner survey, the average cost of network downtime is about $5600 per minute, which adds up to well over $300K per hour. This is an average calculation. On the low end, Gartner assessed that downtime cost can be $140K per hour to a high estimate of $540K an hour.

These differences can be attributed to several factors, such as your industry, size of your organization, duration of the outage, the time of day of your outage and what’s affected at that time, how much your business relies on the internet, etc. 

The hard costs of downtime

Let’s take a closer look at the first half of this equation, with factors that are based in numbers you probably already know.

Lost revenue

Lost revenue = Revenue/hr * duration of downtime (hrs) * uptime reliance (%)           

Revenue is one of the more straightforward numbers you can identify as it directly relates to what your business generates. However, you should also consider what percentage of your revenue is affected by downtime.

For example, if your business has retail locations using POS equipment to accept payment, it’s likely that more of your revenue will be affected by downtime. In comparison, if you are running a medical clinic where you have a wider variety of activities that contribute to revenue generation, downtime may not affect your revenue as much.

Gartner often looks at data that relates to larger enterprises. So, the numbers above may not seem like they apply to your small to medium sized business. Let’s look at an example that might resonate more.

Example: 
Let’s think about a call center that makes $4M a year in revenue. As a call center, their employees’ reliance on uptime is 100%. This would calculate their lost revenue at $2,083 for the incident.
Lost revenue per hour = Revenue/hour * duration of downtime (hrs) * uptime reliance(%)

Total lost revenue = $2,083 * 1 * 100% = $2,083 

Lost productivity

Lost productivity = Avg. employee salary/hr * number of employees affected * duration of downtime (hrs) * uptime reliance (%)

Lost productivity is related to the cost of your employees’ salaries that must still be paid even when they can’t use the cloud applications that are affected by the downtime. This number can also be affected by uptime reliance. If your employees’ jobs are 100% reliant on your internet being up and running because all the tools they use are cloud or internet-based, then 100% of their salaries will be affected by downtime. Also consider the number of employees that are affected.

Example: 
For this example, we'll keep things simple and just account for the employees who are working the phones. We won't figure in the administrative and other staff, even though their work would likely also be disrupted by downtime. In this call center, we have 75 employees whose salaries average $11/hour.
Lost productivity = Avg. employee salary/hour * number of employees affected * duration of downtime (hrs) * uptime reliance (%)  
Lost productivity = $11 * 75 * 1 * 100% = $825

Adding it up so far

So far in this example, this business is already looking at a cost of $2,908 for this incident, which happened with an hour of downtime ($2,083 + $825 = $2,908).          

Let’s tease this out to see what the annual cost would look like.

As part of Bigleaf’s SD-WAN technology, we monitor tens of thousands of internet circuits for performance and reliability. Based on that customer data, we’ve calculated that their connections are providing them with an average of 93.1% of usable uptime, and the remaining 6.9%  translates to an average of 604 hours per year of effective downtime.

This probably sounds high to you because the numbers most ISPs talk about refers to “hard” downtime. This is when the circuit is completely unavailable. For example, when you can’t send a ping, the internet connection is hard down. Our calculations show that connections experience an average of 31 hours of this absolute downtime a year.

The 604 hours a year number above is accounting for both this hard downtime as well as “unusable uptime.” That’s when your internet connection is officially still up but performing in a way that creates a very unproductive experience. This significantly affects all the modern internet-based tools you’re using, such as Zoom or MS Teams. From your users’ perspective, the internet is working but not well enough for them to do their jobs. So, this needs to be included in your downtime calculations.

Example: 
In our call center example, we’ve calculated the cost of an hour’s worth of downtime to be $2,908. That adds up to be approximately $1,756,432 of downtime cost for the year.
Cost of downtime in a year = Hours of downtime in a year * cost of an hour of downtime 

Cost of downtime = 604 * $2,908 = $1,756,432

The “soft costs” of downtime

By just calculating the hard costs, our SMB example is already facing more than $1.75M in annual downtime costs. This doesn’t even consider the costs that are less easy to estimate but do factor into your total business cost. While those costs are called “soft” here, by no means is their impact subtle.

Recovery costs

Recovery costs = Repair services + Consulting services + Replacement parts + New hardware + Lost data recovery + Other costs related to repair and recovery

These are costs related to the task of fixing the issue, which can include repair and service costs, replacement costs, and lost data recovery costs. These totals need to be added to your running total. Review your previous years’ expenses in these categories to estimate what you might expect for recovery costs.  

Intangible costs

Intangible costs can include a variety of things that have a greater and longer-lasting impact than the hard costs mentioned above. For example, as your IT team focuses on resolving the outage, they lose focus on their strategic initiatives.

Your brand’s reputation and customer satisfaction can also take huge hits, which can ultimately lead to the loss of existing and new customers. In fact, more than 37% of SMBs admitted to having lost customers due to downtime issues.

For some businesses, there can also be fines or penalties associated with any breach of agreement, such as not meeting the terms of an SLA. Others may face fees or payments related to litigation or settlements.

Even without dollar amounts, think about how sensitive your customers and teams are to downtime and the other costs they create for your business.

Use these questions to start evaluating your intangible downtime costs:

Amount of impact damaging your brand and increasing costs to your business

How often are your customers experiencing downtime that significantly impacts how they do business with you?

How easy is it for your customers to go to a competitor for a similar product or service?

How much are your teams having to redirect their focus from business initiatives to fix downtime problems or issues resulting from them?

How frustrated is your staff with their inability to do their work because of downtime?

How much effort do you need to put in to acquiring new customers to make up for the ones you’ve lost due to downtime?

Next steps

Use these calculations and assessments to better understand what downtime is really costing your business. Then you can start to compare your cost of downtime to the costs it would take to mitigate that downtime, such as:

• Installing additional internet connection circuits and simple failover
• Implementing reactive performance monitoring, Netflow, and/or troubleshooting tools
• Investing in proactive tools like Bigleaf, which can provide self-driving systems that use AI to automatically detect and resolve issues

Once you know what downtime is costing your business, it’s time to right-size your digital infrastructure investment. Use the SMB Internet Maturity Model to assess what kind of internet performance your business needs to achieve its operational and strategic goals.

Contact us

Contact us if you need guidance on assessing your cost of downtime or how to right-size the reliability of your connectivity. We can also walk through how hundreds of other SMBs are using Bigleaf to eliminate their downtime costs and getting an SLA-backed 99.99% uptime guarantee.